What If The Princes in the Tower Had Not Disappeared...
Croeso (or Welcome), to another edition of ‘A Chronicle of Dragons & Cats’, and thank you for reading! If you have already subscribed, diolch yn fawr for coming along on this journey and I hope you’re enjoying. Any likes, comments and shares are always appreciated. It’s not easy getting history out to the masses at the moment!
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On to today’s post…
We do not know what happened to the Princes in the Tower, those sons of Edward IV who, under the care of their uncle Richard III, disappeared in the summer of 1483. Some, including me, believe they were likely murdered on the orders of Richard, who had overseen their delegitimizing and disinheritance during his unexpected rise to the throne. Others insist someone else had the pair slain, whilst there is growing support that the boys survived the reign of their uncle and returned years later to trouble Henry VII – that is, there was no murder after all.
Let me be clear – nobody knows what happened to Edward V and his brother Richard of Shrewsbury once they vanished from the Tower. There are many plausible theories that involved murder or survival, but none are definitive, nor can they be after five hundred years. There is no single or collective piece of evidence that points to a conclusive answer.
Nonetheless, like many mysteries, the Princes in the Tower is an interesting one to debate, and so when All About History magazine approached me with a set of questions as part of their monthly ‘What If…’ series, I was happy as always to step up to the oche and throw my darts accordingly. Of course, the interview that followed has to, by nature, rest upon how one interprets what happened in 1483 and is, of course, highly speculative. But since they asked ME…
Could Richard III have merely been the power behind the throne, rather than king himself? What would be the implications for Margaret Beaufort and Henry Tudor? Would the dynastic wars have ended? The full interview can be found in issue 155 of All About History Magazine, which you can buy in all good newsagents or HERE
Great one! Thanks! Poor Richard, he's got a whole ton of lies and misconceptions on his shoulders. I wish people would stop making him a villain.
Nathen, are you familiar with the work of Jack Leslau who analysing the portraits of Sir Thomas More and his family by Hans Holbein speculated that Edward has become Sir Edward Guildford and Richard Dr John Clement?