#princes in the tower

[bunniesandbeheadings]

My take on what happened to the Princes in the Tower? They were the only true Christians and therefore were the only people taken in the Biblical Rapture.

#Richard iii #edward v #princes in the tower

[oldshrewsburyian]

I hate-watched the latest crank documentary on the Princes in the Tower last night and I am mad about it for so many reasons. I will say, I was very entertained by the actually-respectable Dr. Henrike Lähnemann saying on camera that the only thing that could be definitely affirmed about a document issued by the chancellery of the Holy Roman Empire was that it was definitely written in the 15th century and authentically sealed. ...and then they ignored her. Also, the barrister who is supposedly this Professional Skeptic™ who will Dispassionately Evaluate Claims appears not to recognize the 15th-century equivalent of a scam email.

The fact that the documentary's conclusions are spurious and its methodology vacuous/absent has already been covered at some length here. But I'm still mad for other reasons, viz:

This documentary that supposedly is trying to convince its audience (?) just straight-up ignores the central question of identity

There is a lot of hand-waving and sleight-of-hand around the representation of people's qualifications. Ann Wroe, for instance, does have a DPhil from Oxford (1975). She has worked at The Economist since 1976. And if you haven't engaged with the field in 50 years...! The president of the Ricardian Society is represented as a "medieval historian." The Society's page has him as an "author and historian." Does he have any qualifications? who knows!!

This gets me to another thing I've been mad about before. The barrister says at the conclusion of the documentary that "History is for everyone" (true!) and that this means that anyone can just go off to archives and discover things and make field-changing discoveries. This is so laughably untrue that we have seen how wrong it is in the documentary! because Langley appears incapable of any sort of paleography at all! Seriously?? Seriously??? You're going to show us 15th-century documents in multiple languages and then the neatly typed-up translations that some poor graduate student probably did for you and then say that "anyone can do history"? HAHAHAHAHA but also this is no laughing matter as departments and degree programs and positions are being cut everywhere. I am livid. I'm also livid because professionally-trained historians everywhere (including self) are begging for funds to do the most basic functions of our work--attend conferences, go to archives--and applying for endless grants and self-funding what our institutions, if we have institutions, won't cover. And Philippa Langley gets £££ to swan about Europe with her barrister accomplice (paramour??) drinking good coffee and going misty-eyed over her own personal Richard III fantasies? I hate everything.

#history side of tumblr #princes in the tower #philippa langley #adventures in academia #flames--flames on the side of my face

[anne-the-quene]

You know what’s funny about debates when it comes to Richard III and Elizabeth Woodville and the Princes and people wonder if Elizabeth believed Richard killed Edward and Prince Richard and no one ever brings up the fact that Richard definitely killed one of her sons (Richard Grey)

#and also her brother obvs #but like whether or not he killed them (he did) #he for sure had already killed two of ew’s relatives #and no one ever thinks that ew maybe would’ve had some thoughts on that??? #elizabeth woodville #richard iii #richard grey #princes in the tower

[wonder-worker]

Here’s the thing I need people to understand:

Even if we believe that the (entirely unproven and far too politically convenient) pre-contract story between Edward IV and Eleanor Talbot was true, it doesn’t actually matter. Even if it was hypothetically true, there was still no reason why Edward V – who was already King at that point and was referred to as such – couldn’t have been able to succeed his father regardless.

David Horspool (Richard's own historian) summarizes it better than I could, so I’m just quoting him here:

"[Richard also made] no allowance for any potential solution to the problem that might have re-legitimized Edward V and his siblings. These included securing a retrospective canonical or papal judgement of the invalidity of the pre-contract; an Act of Parliament legitimizing the children of Edward and Elizabeth Woodville’s marriage, as happened to Henry VIII’s variously tainted offspring; or even ignoring the issue and proceeding to the coronation of Edward V, which would legitimize him by making him the Lord’s anointed, and render allegations of his bastardy as newer versions of the old tittle-tattle about his father."

In short, even if Edward IV truly had a pre-contract with Eleanor Talbot, and even if all of his children with Elizabeth Woodville were supposedly illegitimate, it should by no means prevent Edward V from succeeding his father to the throne. If Richard truly wanted to support his nephew, he had a variety of useful and entirely workeable options to choose from. Instead, he officially declared his nieces and nephews (including a literal 3-year-old) illegitimate, kept Edward V and his even younger brother confined in the Tower of London, and declared himself King.

Why didn't Richard take these actions, all of which he would have been well aware of? As Horspool says simply: "that Richard took none of these courses was because he had no interest in doing so."

The ONLY conclusion we can come to based on Richard's actions is summarized most succinctly by A.J Pollard:

"The truth of the matter is that Richard III did not want Edward V to be legitimate because he did not want him to be king."

#r*chard iii #richard iii #my post #edward iv #princes in the tower #imo this is the main crux of the argument #it DOESN'T MATTER if the pre-contract story was actually true #even if it was true there was no actual reason why Edward V couldn't have been crowned regardless if Richard had truly wanted to support hi #sorry I saw something annoying on Twitter and wanted to rant #(I wasn't even searching for it lol it just popped up; it's very annoying) #I saw a bunch of people quoting John Ashdown-Hill (yeah that guy) on the fact that Eleanor chose to deed some of her property to her sister #Elizabeth Talbot during her lifetime rather than leave it to her in her will #and using this to argue that Eleanor considered herself married to Edward and as a married woman unfortunately could not bequeath real #property by will without her husband's consent #which is absolutely ridiculous considering the fact that #A MARRIED WOMAN ALSO COULD NOT DEED PROPERTY WITHOUT THE PERMISSION OF HER HUSBAND #Eleanor choosing to deed property to her sister during her life proves that *she did not consider herself married to anyone at the time* #Which ... should be extremely significant and indicative! #and should in fact settle the argument once and for all #I don't know how Ricardians have somehow twisted it and claim the opposite #anyway im done ranting. bye

[historicconfessions]

#princes in the tower #medieval history #english history #15th century #medieval confessions

[petermorwood]

Hi Peter, you've got your York Queens a bit muddled in the Princes in the Tower post. You said Edward V was raised by his Neville relatives who hated Richard. But it was Richard who was married to Anne Neville. Edward's mum's family were the Rivers family.

Oops, quite right.

Woodville, not Neville. (Anthony Woodville the Queen's brother was Earl Rivers.)

Corrected!

Though now I have cause to recall that post a couple of days back about not catching typos - or in this case errors - until long after reblogs have let the typo / error loose on the world!

#medieval history #getting names wrong #princes in the tower

[rambleonwithrosie]

I know I've been hard on Richard III lately but that's only cause he's so loathsome in Shakespeare. I'm fully aware that Shakespeare was about as fair to Richard in his plays as Robert Graves was to Livia in I, Claudius

#shakespeare #billy the bard #Richard III #robert graves #i claudius #livia drusilla #livia #henriad #Shakespeare histories #history plays #henry vi #English history #princes in the tower #the tower of london #the tower #benedict cumberbatch #Beanstalk Cumberbundtcake #hollow crown #the hollow crown #bbc #sian phillips

[edwardslovelyelizabeth]

When did Elizabeth Woodville discuss marriage with Margaret beaufort? I mean, when will she be sure that her son is really dead (otherwise she won't agree)?

Mancini reports that the princes have been seen playing on the Tower grounds sometime in summer 1483 but nobody has seen them since late summer 1483. Alison Weir suggested that they were dead by 3d Septmber 1483 though she gives no sources for that. Henry Tudor swore an oath at the cathedral of Rennes that he would marry Elizabeth of York on Christmas Day 1483 (so December 1483) and already in January 1484 there were rumors in Europe that the princes were dead (Lord chancellor of France. Commines, Caspar Weinreich and Jan Allertz all reported that the princes were killed). It looks like Elizabeth and Margaret might have come to arrangement for Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York's marriage sometime between September and December 1483.

#elizabeth of york #henry tudor #15th century #elizabeth woodville #margaret beaufort #princes in the tower

[racefortheironthrone]

Just to clarify you think Sir James Tyrrell was innocent or his guilt is in serious doubt?

So as I alluded to before, Sir James Tyrrell confessed to murdering the Princes in the Tower on Richard's orders under torture, and confessions given under torture are notoriously unreliable. That doesn't mean that he didn't do it, or that he didn't do it under Richard's orders, only that any or all of the elements of his confession could be false, because that's what he thought Henry Tudor wanted to hear and thus would make the torture stop.

Moreover, there are some weirdnesses about the acocunt that have given various historians pause over the years:

Tyrrell could not give information about where the princes had been buried, and claimed the bodies had been moved later, which seems unlikely.

Tyrrell's confession has not survived - and the only contemporary account that mentions it is Thomas More's, which is a bit odd when you consider that we have quite a few contemporary sources who mentioned the princes' disappearances and the rumors of their murders at Richard's hand.

Moreover, Tyrrell's confession came about significantly after the fact - while he was a Yorkist and in Richard's service, he was in France at the time of Bosworth and was pardoned by Henry Tudor repeatedly. He was only questioned almost twenty years later, after his arrest for supporting Edmund de la Pole, the "White Rose," in 1502.

These and some other issues have led some historians to question the reliability of Thomas More's account. Ricardians point to these factors to argue that Richard was innocent, and that the Princes might have been killed on Buckingham's orders, or even on Henry Tudor's orders if they had still been alive in the Tower after Bosworth, given how unclear the timeline of their deaths is.

I'm a bit skeptical of the "strong" Ricardian case: it was certainly contemporaneously rumored that Richard had killed the Princes in the Tower, and if he had wanted to scotch those rumors, he could have done so by presenting them alive in front of witnesses, but didn't do so - which suggests an earlier date for their deaths. As to the "weaker" case, it is true that Tyrrell's confession is rather a thin reed - which is why most historians say that Richard is the most likely suspect, rather than conclusively stating it.

#history #english history #wars of the roses #richard iii #princes in the tower #henry tudor #thomas more #medieval history

[heartofstanding]

So, Helen Maurer thinks Margaret Beaufort killed the Princes? But... Maurer is a respected historian in the WOTR field, isn't she? She had a book on Marguerite of Anjou, right? Have you read her article, her reasons to think it was Margaret Beaufort? I'm baffled, I thought this theory was just admitted ok the "Gregoryverse", and that serious historians had more likely candidates (like Uncle Richard)

Hi, sorry for the delay in responding to this ask, I wanted to read the article before doing so. Yes, Helen Maurer is a respected historian and was one of the first to re-evaluate Margaret of Anjou's reputation and her research directly challenges a lot of pre-conceived notions of Margaret as the evil she-wolf - her book on Margaret is pretty much the standard and it's really good. Maurer is also, afaik, the first person to name Margaret Beaufort as a "main suspect" in the deaths of the Princes.

Does Maurer actually think Margaret Beaufort killed the Princes? Well, yes and no. Firstly, she says in the preface to the 2000 republication (the article was first published in 1983; the 2000 republication can be read here (pdf)) that her intention was to have "some fun" and construct a story "consistent with the arguments laid out, which would also compete on the level of 'story' with Shakespeare's marvelous concoction". In other words, her theory isn't an academic argument for What Really Happened (she's evasive about whether she really agrees with the conclusions of her article), but an attempt to offer up an alternative story that's just as compelling as Shakespeare's version.

Secondly, her conclusions are significantly different from the usual "Margaret Beaufort killed the Princes" story. For Maurer, Margaret may or may not have influenced the Duke of Buckingham into realising the Princes had to be killed but it was Buckingham who convinced Richard III that it had to be done. Then, "the order [was] given, by the only man" (that is, Richard III) "who had the power to give it".

I'm not very familiar with this stage of the Wars of the Roses to be able to properly assess Maurer's arguments and judgements. Keeping that in mind, I think it hangs reasonably well together as a story of one possible version of their deaths. We don't know what happened to the Princes, we probably never will - even if their remains are found and conclusively identified as them, it won't tell us who killed them or the exact details of their death.* As it is, this reconstruction fits with the evidence and arguments Maurer presents and it does make some sense - it's the least idiotic version of "Margaret Beaufort killed the Princes" that I've read.

That's probably because, in Maurer's reconstruction, Margaret's guilt is limited. She realises the "need" for their death and might have nudged Buckingham in that direction, if he needed nudging, but it is Buckingham who convinces Richard and Richard who orders their murders. Maurer's version of Margaret's intriguing also casts doubt on the idea that Buckingham needed much convincing, if any, to kill the Princes:

Once Richard's replacement had been contemplated, within the perceived instability of a situation where rivals to his throne (the Princes) already existed, it was but a short step to recognizing that the Princes would have to go. If they threatened Richard, they would be an even greater threat to anyone who supplanted him. I believe that Margaret understood this. She would have had more reason to think about this aspect of the situation than Buckingham. It was her son who, at this early point, toward the beginning of Richard's reign, was directly threatened by the sense of instability. Buckingham was not. But it may be that Buckingham had already, on his own, considered murdering the Princes, either to further secure Richard's title and his own ascendancy, or for other, more far-reaching reasons. Whether Buckingham had already thought about it or whether it was just now suggested to him by Margaret, I believe it most likely that their communication on the matter was circuitous and cautious, neither one willing to openly commit to such a course in the other's presence. One of them may have observed that if Richard were to order the Princes' deaths, the suspicions already being cast upon him might be expected to multiply and turn to active opposition. And there I believe they left it, without a definite conclusion.

It's worth noting that the original article is 40 years old and very little was changed for its republication. There appears to have been minimal scholarship on Margaret Beaufort when the article was written and it shows its datedness in other ways, such as the summation of Elizabeth Woodville's character. There have been a lot of new theories about the Princes since then, including the now-popular multitude tof theories that one or both survived (which Maurer, writing in 1983, felt these theories were unconvincing). Maurer also acknowledges, in her 2000 preface, that should she write the article from scratch again, it would be a very different piece.

* This is assuming that the Princes were killed (which I think they were) and that the skeletal remains said to be Princes in the urn at Westminster Abbey aren't actually the Princes, which seems likely. At any rate, the skeletal remains would need to be DNA tested to properly identify them and we still wouldn't know who killed them.

#asks #anon #margaret beaufort #princes in the tower #long post #text posts

[medieval-enquirer]

#medieval #history #plantagenet #richard iii #princes in the tower #edward v #richard duke of york

[bunniesandbeheadings]

Once again chosen mostly at top of my head. You might think the ones who were literally murdered have an advantage, but some, I think, were murdered detachedly, in a mafioso “business is business” way, while others lived surrounded by someone who was focusing a full grown adult’s preoccupying hate into them.

So use whatever metric you want!

Paul I was suggested so often in my last poll and forgive me for forgetting the beef.

*beefed with the hardest

#Louis xvii #lady Jane grey #princes in the tower #Mary I #otma #napoleon ii #Ivan vi #Paul I

[hal-1500]

Wrote a huge screed about the recent bullshit Princes in the Tower "documentary", but realised my feelings could actually be summed up by this meme:

#princes in the tower #richard iii #english history #english history memes #because a quality history documentary involves wishful thinking and a poundshop judge judy #wars of the roses #edward iv #henry vii of england

[silly-cherries]

If I had a nickel for every English king whose nephew and rival for the throne died under mysterious circumstances, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't very much but it's funny that it happened twice

#is missing nephews just a theme in English history? #john of england #richard iii #king richard iii #history #princes in the tower #history shitposting

[wonder-worker]

Edward V being praised for his “gentle wit” and Elizabeth of York being hailed as the "gracious queen" and Arthur Plantagenet being called “the gentlest heart living” … siblings, siblings, etc

#elizabeth of york #princes in the tower #arthur plantagenet #my post

[historicconfessions]

#richard iii #princes in the tower