Princes in the Tower - new evidence

[RaelImperialAerosolKid]

Did anyone catch this. I love Phillipa Langley - she is a true eccentric and has taken her love of Richard III and seems to have found evidence that the princes survived.
She is named as historian here - whereas previously historians were a bit snobbish about her.
Got to I admire her - she may have pulled it off again.

Yes, I've just watched it. Very interesting…… the first three documents seemed genuine, but not convinced about the 'life story' one. The paper and style seems right, according to the experts, but anyone could have written it. I'd like to read the transcript.
and if Richard really was Perkin Warbeck, did Elizabeth recognise her brother? She would have known about the three physical blemishes. And how would she feel about her husband murdering her brother?
if only they could DNA the bones………

I forgot this was on - hopefully it’s on catch up. Why won’t they DNA the bones, did they say?

Which channel please?

They mentioned that Queen Elizabeth wanted them to rest in peace - whoever they were.
The Dresden document with the seals was very compelling.

Lizzie II wouldn't give permission, said they should be left in peace.

it was on last night on C4

I think it is a bit optimistic that both boys survived and were both the pretenders. I think it was quite likely that Perkin Warbeck was actually one of the princes, but that is because he was executed.

It's interesting that neither of the Pretenders were executed by Henry. That's quite significant in an age when commoners lives were cheap. I wonder if the Percy family archives, which must be extensive, have anything to say about the 2 young princes. Even if it's just a mention in an accounts book.

The new evidence was interesting, but not proof of anything. Margaret of Burgundy may have wanted to support the Yorkist cause, but she wouldn't have seen her nephews for many, many years so could have easily have been taken in by a young man of the right age. I do veer towrds being a Ricardian, and equally there is no proof that the princes were murdered, but of course they could have died in the Tower from natural causes - not uncommon in the 15th century.
Philippa Langley was spectacularly right about Richard III, but she was fortunate enough to have evidence from the DNA of living descendants. If the King could be persuaded to allow DNA tests on the bones in the Abbey, it might at least narrow down the number of possibilities. But I don't think we'll ever get a definitive answer on what happened to the princes.
Rob Rinder was convinced the documents weren't fake, but he noticeably DIDN'T say that they proved that the princes survived past childhood - his words were carefully chosen.

If KIng Richard killed his nephews then he is evil.

Some people think it was Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII's mother, who ordered their deaths. She certainly had the motive. If indeed they were murdered.

I don't know why Henry VII would have legitimised Edward IVs children if he knew the princes had escaped to Europe. He could have united the houses of York and Lancaster by marrying Margaret Pole, daughter of George Duke of Clarence and neice of Edward IV and Richard III.

There's a full transcription of it in the book (which is very interesting so far).

If the King could be persuaded to allow DNA tests on the bones in the Abbey, it might at least narrow down the number of possibilities.

But the bones have been handled so much over the centuries, most recently in the 1930s, I think, any DNA evidence, even if it could be recovered, would be worth very little. It's not like Richard, who hadn't been disturbed since he was buried, and then was excavated with care taken to minimise the possibility of contamination.

Ah, I wondered if there was a book.

What is really strange is that this story has been told before, many decades ago.

So not clear why it is being trumpeted as something new. ie that Richard was not the evil character that the Tudors wanted everyone to accept as having murdered his nephews (and charicatured by Shakespeare to ingratiate himself with Elizabeth I)

Although do accept that the documents uncovered in various European cities gives the story extra depth.

But I suppose its about selling a book.

re the comment that the late Queen wouldn't give permission for DNA testing on the bones. Did she not have any qualms when Richard was dug up from under that car park and was matched to some really remote descendent living in Canada?

re the comment that the late Queen wouldn't give permission for DNA testing on the bones. Did she not have any qualms when Richard was dug up from under that car park and was matched to some really remote descendent living in Canada?

She may not have liked it but she had no control over it. The Tower of London bones would be different because it's the ToL.

it was pretty persuasive stuff. I’d say it looks like history was in fact just rewritten by the Tudors. Perkin Warbeck was actually the younger prince (forced to sign a confession and change his name when captured by Henry Tudor)

Elizabeth Woodville and Elizabeth (the Queen) would have been in a difficult position since they would have wanted to protect Elizabeth’s children.

The narrative was proven to be genuine in terms of its age but not in terms of who wrote it. On its own perhaps questionable but when taken with the other documents..

It’s not new evidence. I read about at least fifteen years ago? Richard III’s son died young and he’d made his nephews his heirs as he took the crown only because they were minors. The kingdom was in constant civil war, so they were in the Tower for safety, and it was thought too dangerous to have a child on the throne. The theory goes that after killing Richard III at Bosworth, Henry VII had them murdered as he married their elder sister Elizabeth to fully secure his claim to the throne. If he’d left them alive, there would have been more rebellions/civil war using them as figure heads to oust him and put either of them on the throne as King over him, or after his death put either of them over any son he might have with Elizabeth on the throne. Henry VII had already put around the rumour that they were dead as part of his campaign to generate treachery against Richard III, so it was easy to turn fiction into fact and pin the blame on a dead man. Richard III was also not trusted or popular as he actually was a hunchback and medieval people back then literally thought hunchbacks were imps of Satan. Forensic analysis on his remains found his physical deformity to be surprisingly true as most people thought Shakespeare made that bit up for dramatic flair.

The Perkin Warbeck pretender was temptingly convincing, but I think it unlikely Perkin was one of the princes. The fact he was allowed to live for years before being executed indicates he wasn’t one of the princes. Typically you’d execute all pretenders eventually because they are a threat to your throne based on the fact that enough people believe they are a prince/rightful king regardless of whether they actually are. Henry VII didn’t hesitate to hunt down and kill every known legitimate claimant to the throne sharpish, but he let Perkin live for years in the palace. So I think he knew he was just a kid that had been forced to play a role and pitied him, but eventually realised he had to execute him as he was still a threat even though he wasn’t one of the princes. And he would really know that if he had ordered their murder years ago in the tower.

“re the comment that the late Queen wouldn't give permission for DNA testing on the bones. Did she not have any qualms when Richard was dug up from under that car park and was matched to some really remote descendent living in Canada?”

They didn’t know who it was under the car park. Remember the car park was by where a church used to be. It could have been anyone. I remember alot of people laughed at the suggestion it was Richard III. It wasn’t until after the testing that the identity was confirmed.

Nah, the DNA would be fine. They don’t swab bones like a crime scene. They take a small scraping of actual bone cells. DNA testing is so good now that they can sequence the human DNA off prehistoric jewelry that has been worn next to the skin of someone who died 30,000 years ago and then lost it in a rubbish pit.

I suspect the king will allow the dna testing given the publicity the new evidence is getting

I found this programme really irritating. The Daughter of Time was the book that first opened my eyes to the fact that history was not just a settled narrative and I became a fervent Riccardian - forcing my history teacher to let me write a defence of Richard when I was about 12. I joined the Richard III Society and talked about it at my university interview to read history. So the material was very familiar.

But this wasn’t proper history. It was made to fit a theory and didn’t feature any of the facts that those who think the princes died before 1485 would advance. I’ve seen mention on social media that all the documents in question were already known about and aren’t considered to prove anything; I want to know why. I’m interested to know more and I’m left hanging. The Rob Rinder device was ludicrous, nice though he is. It just wasn’t a serious history documentary.

On the plus side maybe it will be the ‘Daughter of Time’ moment for some viewers and get them really interested in the constant changes in our understanding of history.

She really didn't, and there's no way in a million years she would have had access to them. The conspiracy theory that she killed them is just pushed by hardcore RIII fangirls who basically are "in love" with Richard and hate women, and there's a lot of really nasty misogyny in the way they talk about both Margaret and Elizabeth. For example, Phillipa Gregory wrote an absolutely unhinged book about Margaret Beaufort that comes across as really personally spiteful towards Margaret, to the point of harming her own writing just to get jabs in.

Margaret was a very tough woman (she needed to be, considering the horrific child rapes, forced childbirth at 13 rendering her infertile, loss of her son for so much of his life, and all the other oppressions she suffered) and she clearly was an astute and manipulative political operator. I think she likely was capable of being hard and maybe even cruel sometimes, though most contemporary accounts by people who knew her painted her as very gentle and kind. By all accounts she was deeply religious, and her actions later in life showed a woman with genuine commitment to helping people. I just can't see her committing cold blooded murder of two children, just based on what at that time was the most remote and unlikely chance of her son one day becoming king (Henry Tudor's claim on the throne was pretty nebulous and indirect, and he really only became King by force, and also because he was kind of the last man standing).

Richard kidnapped the children pretty much by force, they mysteriously vanished while in his care, and they were his only barriers to being King. Occam's razor that he killed them, with no need for elaborate conspiracy theories.

Honestly if this strange erotic cult of Richard III didn't exist, I really don't think anyone would even seriously be questioning that he killed them.

And he would really know that if he had ordered their murder years ago in the tower.

Except the princes vanished more than two years before Henry even came back to England, while he was still in exile in France.

Richard suffered substantial bad PR over the princes' disappearance and lost significant support over the rumours that he had killed them. If they were actually alive and well during the two years between their disappearance and the Battle of Bosworth, then why wouldn't Richard just bring them out and prove they were still alive? Would you really let people openly accuse you of child murder - placing both your life and position in jeopardy - if you had the children you were being accused of murdering safe and well in your custody the entire time? And if they didn't die until after August 85, where they heck were they during those 'missing' two years?

It's just not a theory any historians take seriously, afaik. Henry Tudor was brutal and ruthless after he became king but not only are there no facts to support this theory, the facts actively work against it.

So not clear why it is being trumpeted as something new. ie that Richard was not the evil character that the Tudors wanted everyone to accept as having murdered his nephews (and charicatured by Shakespeare to ingratiate himself with Elizabeth I)

Shakespeare's play was unquestionably Tudor propaganda, but Ricadians were utterly convinced that Richard didn't have anything wrong with his spine and that all that was anti-Richard propaganda and lies too, and then the discovery of the skeleton proved that Shakespeare was right and it wasn't something he'd made up. At the very least, Richard had the Queen's brother killed and stole his lands, drove the Queen into religious sanctuary because he gave her reason to fear for her life and the lives of her children, and kidnapped his nephews and had them declared illegitimate so he could steal his nephew's throne. He wasn't exactly a great guy and he was clearly willing to do bad things in order to become King. That doesn't prove he murdered them, but he's a much more likely candidate that a very religious woman widely described as kind and gentle, or a bloke in exile in another country for two years.

I thought it made for entertaining TV but it missed out sooooo much of the story. I don’t see how anyone could conclude anything very much from the evidence we were shown. It’s all still very much ‘this might have happened’. But we just don’t know!

I do think it would be interesting if permission were granted for DNA testing on the bones that were found under the Tower steps. That at least might serve to close off some avenues of conjecture!