Episode 3, The Prime Suspect | Princes in the Tower Podcast - HistoryExtra
"‘I have had conversations with people during my time working at the Tower of London, where I will ask them what they think about Princes in the tower, what they think happened. And they're very, you know, lively and happy to talk about it. And then I say, Oh, and I think Richard probably did it, and you see a veil descend across their face. They are outraged.’...
‘Why is it that some people in the 21st century are so keen to clear Richard’s name and feel such an affinity with a man that lived more than 500 years ago?’...
‘I think part of the reason that people hold on to this idea that it couldn't have been Richard The Third is, I mean, it's complex. But I think one of the things is, again, that ideal that a conspiracy theory is really interesting, that it's more interesting to say no, history has lied to us. And here is the truth. That is a more interesting narrative than just saying, oh, for 500 years, we've thought this and it's probably true’…
‘We certainly live in the age of the antihero, which also appeals to a lot of people. But also this idea that the Tudors themselves, we know that the biggest industry in, in the study of history, you know, everybody loves, in inverted commas, the Tudors, but a lot of people also despise what the Tudors did and what they became. And of course, if you despise something, you need the opposite to that. And who better than the first man the Tudors killed and got out of the way?… A lot of people are attracted to the concept of a victim who was wronged’...
‘Speaking about crimes, people often discuss priors. So what does Richard’s backstory tell us? If we go back to before 1483, the year when suddenly everything was thrown up in the air, we find Richard not as Richard the Third, but Richard, Duke of Gloucester, serving his brother Edward the Fourth in the north of England. Does anything in his behavior for these years leading up to his brother's death, indicate a man who would stop at nothing to seize the throne? Chris Skidmore’
‘When we sort of look at every aspect of Richard's character, right down to his piety, his establishment of various religious foundations, his sort of prudishness, in quite contrast to his brother Edward the Fourth, everything about Richard you know, strikes a historian as a successful nobleman who is desperate to build up his own dynasty and his own following in the north, and he's been highly successful in doing that. There is no indication whatsoever that Richard as Richard Duke of Gloucester, would have intended to have become king’
‘Matt Lewis agrees that there was little indication of murderous tendencies in Richard’s earlier career.’
‘I don't think, if you look at Richard the Third, he's a 30 year old man in 1483, when he comes to the throne. He’s spent just over the last decade, controlling the north of England for his brother, so he's an experienced governor. And the year before in 1482, he's led a campaign into Scotland to subdue the threat of Scottish incursions across the border. So he's an experienced governor, he has some military experience, too. But during that period, if we look at what his interests and his focus are, he has a strong interest in justice and fairness. And we can demonstrate that throughout the 1470s. And that really doesn't play against a man who marches into London in 1483, and thinks that's it, I'm going to make myself King and kill two children. That man just doesn't seem to exist before 1483. So either there's some seismic change in Richard, or there's something else going on… during his time as Duke of Gloucester, there are several instances of legal cases, for example. We have one where a lady called Catherine Williamson brings a case against three brothers for murdering her husband, and their father has sheltered them and harbored them. But he has also got himself into the service of Richard as Duke of Gloucester, and then tried to get his three sons into service as well. Now, the reason for doing this is because the system of livery and maintenance that's in operation in the late medieval period, would usually mean that if you enter the service of a Lord, you can expect that Lord’s protection from legal consequences of your actions. And what Richard does, is, he has the father sent immediately to jail in York as soon as he finds out about this case. And he has the matter brought before Parliament in 1472, demanding that the three brothers either submit to trial, or are found guilty in their absence, and lots of Lords might want kind of three murderous brothers and their dad who's happy to go along with it in their service, because these are the kind of men who get what you want. But Richard kind of ignores that and overturns that system, to have these people sent to jail and ultimately tried by Parliament. And you won't find any example during the 1470s or the early 1480s, of Richard kind of executing anyone, killing anyone... He's loyal to Edward, even when he seems to disagree with him’...
‘Unlike anyone Richard seized land from or executed, while he was serving the House of York, the two princes were different. They were his family. That's something else that makes this whole thing confusing. Because something that's often brought up in defence of Richard, is that he was known for his loyalty to his family and the Yorkist dynasty’
Episode 4, Examining The Evidence | Princes in the Tower Podcast - HistoryExtra
"‘The Great Chronicle simply states that before November 1483, so when Richard was still on the throne, it was certain they were departed from this world. To me that instantly reads they were killed. Somebody could say departed from this world could simply mean England. Hence they were perhaps shifted abroad and where they survived. You know, Dominic Mancini, who was writing in 1483, during the reign of Richard, he said that he had come across the reactions of Londoners and that many men burst forth into tears and lamentations, when mentioned was made of Edward V, the eldest of the Princes in the Tower and how there was a suspicion that he had been done away with. So he did add that by what manner of death so far, I have not discovered. So all of the quoted are along these lines. People are saying, we think they are dead, we don't know who did it. And that's all we can say about that.’...
'Not all of the experts I spoke to would agree with Matt Lewis on this.'
Episode 6, The Other Suspects | Princes in the Tower Podcast - HistoryExtra
"'The sad fact is, every single person in the kingdom at that time, with the key exception of the Woodville family, would have benefited from the boys being dead. You know, whether the Tudors, whether the Duke of Buckingham, whether the Howards, everybody stood to prosper with their death, that's a sad fact. Everybody had motive.'
‘If we're talking about murders in 1483, and the princes in the tower are dead, then I think Richard has to be your prime suspect. And murder investigations will always look for motive means and opportunity and Richard definitely has all three of those. In a way would Agatha Christie have ever got if it was always the obvious person in a whodunnit?’
‘If we widen the lens beyond Richard, and start to take in the bigger picture in 1483 this does indeed start to look ever more like the cast of characters from one of Agatha Christie's detective novels. Alongside the plotting uncle, we have the scheming noblewoman, the brutish sidekick, the spurned landowner, all armed with a motive to commit murder'...
'One interesting aspect to you know the topic of who killed the princes of a tower that's never really explored, is that it could have simply been somebody we've never heard about. Everybody's looking for this criminal mastermind. And we know that he's not something that's just restricted to the Princes in the Tower. We can look at the Jack the Ripper case, for example, people want the killer to be a royal doctor or a royal himself, you know somebody of influence, somebody of style... What if it was somebody whose name is simply not known to us today? And what I mean by that is the princes in the tower in 1483, everybody stood to profit from their death. Apart from their own maternal relations, the Woodvilles. If I am in the household of the Duke of Buckingham, if I kill the princes in the tower, then my master the Duke of Buckingham, you know what? He might be able to make a move for the crown himself. And if my master becomes King, that I am no longer the servant of a Duke. I'm a servant of a king. More power, more influence, more wealth for myself. I think the sad fact for the boys in the tower in 1483 is there wasn't just three or four people looking to kill them. There could have been hundreds of people looking to kill them. We only have to think back to Thomas Beckett to know that, you know, the king himself necessary did not command that deaths, but somebody decided to do it for him anyway'
Episode 7, Survival theories | Princes in the Tower Podcast - HistoryExtra - "‘I don't think there's any way at all given the history of the Wars of the Roses that if someone was more useful to you dead than alive, you wouldn't kill them. Like I really don't believe that Richard the Third would have let survive that measure of threat against him. We see with Edward IV who is considered to be generally a sort of fairly liberal, well meaning, kind hearted, generous individual, he is still, at a certain point in the 1470s, he becomes just an annihilator of the Lancastrian dynasty. Person after person is, you know, thrown overboard on the way back from France or pursued in the case of Henry Tudor, you know desperate attempts to try and get him back into his clutches. People are executed, people are rounded up after the Battle of Tewkesbury. People are trouped out of sanctuary to be beheaded en-masse. If Edward IV does that, in the complete understanding that it is more useful to him to kill these people than to keep them alive, I fundamentally believe that Richard III would do the same thing.’...
‘They had to be taken out. You can't leave two boys who are threat to your position for evermore. They may not be a threat at that specific point in time, but in 15, 20 years time, when they’re grown men, even if they’re reluctant grown man, there will still be supporters of them, who will never give up until they die themselves to revive the boys’ rightful claim. And if they weren't a threat, what if they lived their life out in some small country retreat, but then had a couple of kids, a couple of grandkids. At some point, somewhere down the line, somebody is saying, you know what, I'm going for the crown here. After all, that's how the Wars of the Roses happened. It was a fight between descendants. So I just think that nobody could take the chance of that blood coming back one day to trouble them.’"
The theory that one of the "pretenders" Perkin Warbeck was actually the real thing (e.g. his fluency in English) was quite intriguing
Episode 8, A Conclusion (Of Sorts) | Princes in the Tower Podcast - HistoryExtra - "‘I think it's quite clear that the resounding opinion among these experts, is that the most obvious explanation for events is the right one. There are logical reasons why Richard was blamed at the time. The boys were in his care when they vanished. And he was the person that benefited most directly from their deaths. But what's intriguing is that even though these historians come to the same verdict about what they think happened, they actually have very different explanations of why and how it happened. And I think this is where things get really interesting. While they have the same man fingered for the crime, the question of who that man really was, and what motivated him, remains as divisive as ever’...
‘It was possible for Richard to be both a loyal Yorkist with a track record for decency, and still feel that he had no other alternative than dispatching his nephews.’
‘I seem to have this quite unique viewpoint in that I believe Richard III killed the princes in the tower. Yet, I don't believe that makes him a monster. I don't believe that makes him an evil, you know, demon of a man, I actually believe oddly, he did the right thing for his circumstances at the time… Richard in 1483, is a man with a son. Edward of Middleham. After his brother's death, Richard’s entire mindset had changed. So we already knew that Richard could not kill the princes in the tower, because he was such a loyal and devoted brother. And that's completely true. Richard was, you know, as devout, a brother, as anyone could have. But, again, if we're putting ourselves in somebody's shoes, we have to put ourselves in the shoes of Richard in May and June of 1483, not the shoes of Richard was wearing, even a couple of months earlier, before his brother's death. Everything had changed. So Richard’s, Richard’s, loyalty’s now shifted from his brother and his brother's sons to himself, and his own son. What's key for me here is that if Richard had not killed the princes in the tower, then perhaps 10 years down the line, 15 years down the line, those claims of the princes in the tower would have been revived. Richard would have known that he could not possibly control things further down the line. Let's say he had died, his son had become king. And then in 20 years time, a new Wars of the Roses erupted with the descendants of Richard and the descendants of his brother IV now fighting for the crown. I think to say Richard III didn't kill the princes in the tower, is oddly demeaning to him himself. He wasn't a fool. You know, he was. He was, he was a hardened soldier. He was a great legislator. He was a powerful Baron. People are so fixated on Richard being Richard couldn't have been this bad uncle to his nephews. Those people forget his primary objective, once he became king was to be a good father. Now we, with hindsight, know that his son died a year later. He didn't know that in 1483.’"
