So Richard III Didn’t Kill His Nephews After All?

I have no doubt he was despite those two little brats being so vile.

But he IS guilty of being the Nephew Troll!

No one has thought he killed them in decades at least.

Back in 1951, Josephine Tey had a bestseller with The Daughter of Time, in which a detective looks at the historical record and concludes Richard III was innocent.

Olivier's film of Richard lll was made in '55 so people still then believed he killed them.

Buckingham did it. Richard was maligned by people like Thomas More to currry favour with the Tudors, who knew the Yorks had the better claim. Shakespeare knew it was as much as his life was worth to portray Richard any other way.

The Tudor claim to the throne were through their female branch IIRC. It foreshadowed Henry VIIII’s obsession with having male heir.

It never ceases to amaze me how Richard III’s remains were discovered. And that he was finally given a proper burial hundreds of years later.

Two skeletons of what would have been the ages of the prince were found in that area: In 1674, workmen at the tower dug up, from under the staircase, a wooden box containing two small human skeletons. The bones were widely accepted at the time as those of the princes, but this has not been proven and is far from certain. King Charles II had the bones buried in Westminster Abbey, where they remain.

Nonsense.

The Woodvilles, the family of Edward IV’s widow, were greedy and ambitious. They had the chance to control England through the young Edward V and they were not going to give that up.

Richard III was an intelligent man and had a good reputation by Wars of the Roses standards, but that is a low bar, and he was the one person who had both motive and opportunity to kill the princes.

Starz network had a good mini series on them.

Except he did kill them and karma was a bitch.

Hmmmm...

Richard III’s congenital scoliosis was also considered to be a physical manifestation of internal evil by Tudor sympathizers and supporters. He was thus described as a hunchback lurking in the shadows waiting his time to do evil deeds, not the least including murdering his nephews.

What I don’t understand is why Queen Elizabeth II has refused to grant permission for scientists to examine the 2 skeletal remains some thought to be those of the missing princes. It would prove or disprove a lot of things in this historical puzzle.

It's obvious. SHE killed them

Henry the VII had them killed.

R15 Please his mother was behind everything that pathetic mama’s boy did.

R13 the Queen won't grant permission for the bones in Westminster Abbey to be tested because if it turns out they aren't the bones of the princes, then that begs the question what happened to them? If they did live, as rumours suggest they may have done, either smuggled over to Ireland or to a village in Devon to live out their lives, theymay have had children and potentially there's a whole line of people who are the true kings/queens of England out there somewhere. That would actually be pretty damn cool.

R17 I think bbc did a series where theY figured out the true king lives somewhere in Australia. Edward IV was illegitimate.

Of course Richard killed his nephews. They disappeared from public view after a few months of his reign and rumours were rife about their fate, earning him much hostility at home and internationally. It would have been easy to dispel this - just let the boys start exercising in the Tower grounds again, an easy win. He was going to kill them from the moment he took custody of Edward and had their maternal uncle Lord Rivers and their half-brother John Grey dragged off and then killed. Edward V wasn't going to forget that. If he had been allowed to survive and attain his majority a couple of years later, that's Uncle Richard and cousin Buckingham on the block as soon as.

He killed them

Can I demand my 1978 English term paper be regraded?

Elizabeth Woodville and her remaining children emerged from sanctuary at Westminster just after the two princes vanished. Soon after, a mysterious John Evans (young Edward V, newly illegitimate) surfaced in Devon. As the linked article says, this may have been a secret agreement between her and Richard III. The princes had been declared illegitimate because Woodville and Edward IV’s marriage had been deemed officially illegitimate by parliament. Woodville and her family were never popular at court nor with the public. What was there to gain for Richard III to murder his illegitimate nephews?

Margaret Beaufort had it done. Henry’s claim was tenuous at best. She and her son were obsessed with snuffing out the remaining Plantagenets who all had a better claim than he did.

Richard destroyed the settlement and reconciliation between Yorkists and Lancastrians that his brother Edward IV had painstakingly created after 1471: he was even negotiating Henry Tudor's return as earl of Richmond. Instead, Richard shattered the Yorkist party into warring fragments and gave surviving Lancastrians new hope. He took power over a sea of bodies from Edward IV's supporters and his own initial allies like Buckingham. Almost no-one turned out for him when Henry Tudor invaded, by which time his own son had died (God's judgement, as contemporaries would believe). His attempt to bastardise his brother's children collapsed as soon as his regime did and Edward IV's grandson would become king as Henry VIII. He had bad intentions, bad judgement and, worst of all, bad luck.

Horseshit and bullshit on a dung heap.

After Richard's death, the first thing Henry VII would have had done was the killing of the two sons of Edward IV, the primary impediments to Henry's pretended legitimacy. Henry VII married Elizabeth Woodville's daughter, the sister of the boys.

But there is no reason to think that Richard would have risked permitting them to survive his ascendancy. He literally usurped the throne from under his brother Edward's son's bum and had complete control over the boys in the Tower, with all mention of them ending before he took power.

Also, remember that Richard's work to have the boys declared illegitimate was obviously a gloss.

[quote]Two skeletons of what would have been the ages of the prince were found in that area: In 1674, workmen at the tower dug up, from under the staircase, a wooden box containing two small human skeletons. The bones were widely accepted at the time as those of the princes, but this has not been proven and is far from certain. King Charles II had the bones buried in Westminster Abbey, where they remain.

[quote]What I don’t understand is why Queen Elizabeth II has refused to grant permission for scientists to examine the 2 skeletal remains some thought to be those of the missing princes. It would prove or disprove a lot of things in this historical puzzle.

That’s interesting, I didn’t know that R8 & R13.

[quote]R13 the Queen won't grant permission for the bones in Westminster Abbey to be tested because if it turns out they aren't the bones of the princes, then that begs the question what happened to them? If they did live, as rumours suggest they may have done, either smuggled over to Ireland or to a village in Devon to live out their lives, theymay have had children and potentially there's a whole line of people who are the true kings/queens of England out there somewhere. That would actually be pretty damn cool.

That would be pretty incredible, R17.

R4, ummm, you do know that Olivier's film is based on a script written a few hundred years earlier?

I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned Jospehine Tey's "The Daughter of Time," which was a bestseller in 1950 and argues Richard III did not kill the Princes in the Tower.

Oops, sorry r3. I didn't see your post.

[quote]Olivier's film of Richard lll was made in '55 so people still then believed he killed them.

By that logic, "The Wizard of Oz" would prove that in 1939 people believed women flew around in pink bubbles.

The main reason the Queen doesn't want these bones tested is because she doesn't want the precedent set that royals be dug up. She doesn't want her or her kids bodies dug up five hundred years from now.

R31 Lilibet or her loser sons won’t be interesting enough to get dug up ever.

R3 did, R28. I love that book. I didn't realize that people throughout history have taken the same second look at Richard III.

[quote] Back in 1951, Josephine Tey had a bestseller with The Daughter of Time, in which a detective looks at the historical record and concludes Richard III was innocent.

This is a fun, short read for anyone looking for something at the end of the holidays.

Only a fool would've let those boys live. Richard had the means, the motive and the opportunity. Occam's Razor

They mysteriously vanished while Casey Anthony was babysitting

They spent the holidays in Boulder Colorado

They attended a pool party at Bryan Singer's.