The Princes in the Tower, page 45
74 Early Historians, pp. 120, 123 (trans. Rous’ Historia). In earlier works – two Rous Rolls, written in English and Latin during Richard’s reign – he had lauded King Richard as a legitimate and benevolent king, but when Henry ascended the throne, Rous (who held the Latin version) acted quickly to edit it and denigrate Richard. His Historia, later still, was considerably more venomous. For the English and Latin versions of the Roll see Maligned King, pp. 332–33, 335. Also, Chapter 18.
75 Early Historians, p. 120.
76 Wroe, pp. 402, 525.
77 Molinet, Chapter 100, pp. 402–03. Trans. thanks to Isabelle Lloyd (5.9.2019).
78 Ibid., p. 404.
79 Thanks to Isabelle Lloyd, TMPP (20.9.2019), who writes, ‘Suppediter’ is an old French [ancienne langue française] verb meaning ‘vaincre’ or ‘fouler aux pieds’. ‘Suppedité’ translates into English as either ‘vanquished’ or ‘trampled underfoot’. Molinet might have intended either. Given the descriptive accounts of Richard’s demise, ‘trampled on’ has been preferred.
80 Molinet, Chapter 101, p. 409.
81 See Chapter 4. Five weeks from when Richard of York left sanctuary on 16 June was 21 July 1483.
82 Describing the Battle of Bosworth, Molinet names the Captain of the Tower as ‘Lord of Bracqueben’ (Brackenbury): Chapter 101, pp. 407–08.
83 Medieval St Paul’s was destroyed in the Great Fire of London, 1666.
84 Prince Arthur was invested Prince of Wales on 29 November 1489, aged 3.
85 André, p. 20.
86 Early Historians, p. 109. Ricart’s marginal note ‘put to silence’ in his Kalendar, 1502–03, may have derived from this published work. See note 62.
87 S.J. Gunn, ‘Early Tudor Dates for the Death of Edward V’, Northern History (1992), p. 214. Further editions of Pynson were printed in 1514, 1519 and 1527; the same information is recorded by Robert Redman’s edition of 1525.
88 M.T.W. Payne, ‘Robert Fabyan’s Civic Identity’, The Yorkist Age, Harlaxton Medieval Studies XXIII (Donington, 2013), pp. 275–86; GC, pp. 236–37; London Metropolitan Archives MS.
89 GC, p. 231.
90 Ibid., p. 232.
91 Ibid., p. 234. Fabyan misreports the rumoured death of Queen Anne ‘by poisoning’ at Easter 1484 (her death recte 1485).
92 GC, pp. 236–37.
93 For dating of the copy, see Historical Notes, p. 587.
94 Historical Notes, p. 588.
95 Henry Ellis (ed.), The New Chronicles of England and France by Robert Fabyan (repr. from Pynson’s 1516 edition, 1811), pp. 668–69. Thanks to Marie Barnfield. For the New Chronicles making use of French source, see Robert Gauguin’s Compendium (Paris, 1497); C.S.L Davies, ‘Information, disinformation and political knowledge under Henry VII and early Henry VIII’, Historical Research, Vol. 85, No. 228, 2012, pp. 228–53 (p. 238).
96 Hammond, ‘Research Notes and Queries’, Ricardian, Vol. 3, No. 46, September 1474, pp. 12–13 (p. 13).
97 Maligned King, pp. 336–37. Also published in 1548 and used by Edward Hall in compiling his Union of the Two Noble Families (1548, 1550).
98 Michael Jones (ed.), Philippe de Commynes Memoirs, 1461–1483 (1972), pp. 354–55.
99 Ibid., pp. 396–97.
100 Thomas Frognall Dibdin (ed.), The Pastime of People, Or, The Chronicles of Divers Realms, and Most Especially of the Realm of England (1529) by John Rastell (d. 1536), (1811), pp. 293–94, 297, www.revealingrichardiii.com/tyrells-confession.html
101 Philip Morgan, ‘The Death of Edward V and the Rebellion of 1483’, Historical Research, Vol. 68, No. 166, 1995, pp. 229–32 (p. 229). Trans. thanks to Annette Carson.
102 J.A.F. Thomson, ‘Death of Edward V’, Northern History (1990), p. 207. By this calculation, Edward IV died on 14 April, but the cartulary records it as 9 April 1484 (C.F. Richmond, ‘Death of Edward V’, Northern History (1989), p. 278).
103 This may have been copied from Wynkyn de Wordes Chronicle of Kings (1530) as it includes the same information (Gunn, Early Tudor Dates, pp. 213–14).
104 Richmond, op. cit., p. 278.
105 Ibid., see p. 278 for Latin text.
106 Hammond, ‘Research Notes and Queries’, Ricardian, No. 43, Dec. 1973, pp. 15–16. From Armourers and Braziers Company, Court Book 1 (p. 10 modern transcript), largely written by William Gonn in 1532, probably from old records: source Claude Blair, V&A Museum. Thanks to Dr Tobias Capwell (24.2.2019).
107 W.J. Connell, ODNB.
108 Vergil-1, p. 18.
109 More, pp. lxxxv–vi. For More’s account as a dramatic narrative, see ‘Sir Thomas More’s Satirical Drama’, Early Historians, pp. 152–90. See also Josephine Wilkinson, The Princes in the Tower (2013), pp. 122–28. More’s friend Erasmus noted that as a young man More would write plays and act in them, pp. 121–22 n. 35 (Erasmus, Opus Epistolarum, 4.16). As a dramatic account and literary work, see C.S.L. Davies, op. cit. pp. 241–42; W.H. Sewell, ‘Memoirs of Sir James Tyrell’, Proceedings of the Suffolk Natural History and Archaeological Society, Vol. 5, Part Two, 1878, pp. 157–59. See also S.B. House, ODNB, p. 2 for More as a young actor; p. 5 for irony in Richard III; p. 7 for satire in Utopia; p. 12 for More’s writing of worldly events compared to a stage play; and p. 24 for ‘theatrical metaphors’ in his Richard III.
110 For John Morton, see Chapters 8, 17 and 18.
111 From 1472–73 Tyrell was a Councillor for Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Horrox, ODNB). In 1479, he became the duke’s Chamberlain (memorandum/letters patent, 28 April, TNA, SP 46/139 f.167).
112 Recte knighted 1471 by Edward IV after the Battle of Tewkesbury; in 1482, he was made Knight Banneret during the Scottish campaign by Richard, Duke of Gloucester (ODNB).
113 More, pp. 84, 88–89.
114 Translation Halsted, op. cit., Vol. II, pp. 180–81, n. 3, which notes Francis Bacon recorded the same reports. Thanks to Annette Carson for sources.
115 Jan Reygersbergh’s ‘Dye Cronijck van Zeelandt’, 1551 (The Chronicle of Zeeland), p. 121r: objects.library.uu.nl/reader/index.php?obj=1874-214708&lan=en&lan=en#page//91/43/30/91433052808069834501754765627324050519.jpg/mode/1up.
116 Raphael Holinshed, The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (1577), Vol. 2, p. 1405 (thanks to Michael Alan Marshall for source, 6.7.2015). Following Holinshed’s death in 1580, an extended edition of his Chronicles was published 1587, augmented to before 1586 (ed. Ellis, 1808), Vol. 3, p. 422. See also Philippa Langley, ‘The Fate of the Sons of King Edward IV: Robert Willoughby’s Urgent Mission, Part One’, Bulletin, March 2020, p. 45.
117 In 1623, Shakespeare’s First Folio moved the play from tragedies to histories, with the title changed to The Life and Death of Richard III. Shakespeare’s Richard III is still known as a history. Similarly, King Lear underwent a change – from history to tragedy. Shakespeare in 1608 called it ‘The True Chronicle History’, clearly as part of its draw for his audience (King Lear, of course, did not exist). Lear, having a character arc, does not conform to a tragedy.
118 Bertram Fields, Royal Blood, p. 20; Speed, Historie of Great Britaine (1611, 1623, 1632), p. 731.
119 Fields, op. cit., p. 20.
120 Maligned King, p. 346.
121 A.N. Kincaid, Sir William Cornwallis the Younger, The Encomium of Richard III (1977).
122 See Buc, pp. 120–22, for Morton as ‘the chief instigator and prime submover of all these treasonous detractions and the ringleader of these detractors and vitilitigators of King Richard’; pp. cxxii–iii, cxli–ii for the known existence among antiquarians of Morton’s Latin pamphlet (Sir Edward Hoby said Sir William Roper had the original) and their belief that More took his account from it. The Ropers were heirs of both Morton and More. See S.B. House, ODNB, p. 2, for More being educated in Morton’s household, which he entered in c. 1489, aged 11. Markham, op. cit., pp. 169–71, records that Sir John Harington, poet, in his Metamorphosis of Ajax (1596), had heard that More’s work was written by Morton. Markham believed More’s English version was ‘dictated or inspired by’ Morton, citing that the author speaks of the deathbed of Edward IV as an eyewitness (when More was aged 5). Markham adds that More’s account ends abruptly at the exact point when Morton left England.
123 Buc, pp. 138–39.
124 Francis Bacon, The History of the Reign of Henry the Seventh, Roger Lockyer (ed.) (1971), p. 40. Elizabeth of York was crowned on 25 November 1487, over two years after Henry.
125 ‘To Lord Edward, son of late King Edward the Fourth, for his apparel and array, that is to say …’ (long list of clothing follows). Page title: ‘The delivery of diverse stuff delivered for the use of Lord Edward and of his henchmen.’: Coronation, p. 171 (for dates Friday 27 June–Thursday 3 July: pp. 25–26). Also see: Mythology, pp. 86–89.
126 Horace Walpole, Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of Richard The Third (1768, repr. 1974), pp. 70–71. In 1793, following the barbarity of the French Revolution, Walpole added a postscript concerning the atrocities of the Terror. Fields, op. cit., p. 21: ‘He made it clear, however, that while I can believe … [that Richard might now have behaved so abominably] … I do not say I do.’ Walpole’s postscript has since been subverted by some writers as meaning he did change his view.
127 Walpole, Historic Doubts, p. 71.
128 For more on early Tudor accounts see C.S.L. Davies, op. cit.
129 Buc, pp. 140, 142. Buc thought Edward V was sickly and died young and could find no mention of him in Flanders (unlike his brother, York).
130 For the importance/implication of French support for Henry Tudor, see Mike Ingram, Richard III and the Battle of Bosworth (2019).
6. The Suspects: Means, Motive, Opportunity, Proclivity to Kill
1 P.M. Jones, ODNB. This may be supported by his disappearance from academic life at this time, and survival of his astrological charts for Edward IV and Edward V; Carey, Courting Disaster, pp. 256–57; Gloucester Cathedral, MS 21, f.9v. Only an approved person would be allowed to compile such charts. Thanks to Marie Barnfield for source (11.2.2022).
2 For Argentine as Edward V’s physician, see Rhodes, John Argentine Provost of King’s, Appendix A, p. 25; MS Rawlinson B.274, Bodleian Library, Oxford (seventeenth century).
3 M.J. Trow, The Killer of the Princes in the Tower: A New Suspect Revealed (2021). For the accusation of poisoning of Isabel, Duchess of Clarence, see Scofield, Edward the Fourth, Vol. 2, p. 187. For the suspected poisoning of Edward IV, see R.E. Collins, ‘The Death of Edward IV’, in J. Dening, Secret History (1996), pp. 138–92.
4 S.J. Gunn, ODNB, ‘Henry VII’; Michael K. Jones and Malcolm G. Underwood, The King’s Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby (1992, 1995), pp. 23–26, from 7 Henry IV cap. 2; Stat. Realm, ii, 151; Mortimer Levine, Tudor Dynastic Problems 1460–1571 (1973), p. 126.
5 In 1483, Henry Tudor stood about thirtieth in the succession, akin today to Arthur Chatto (who descends from a legitimate line). For the French proclamation of Tudor (incorrectly) as the son of Henry VI, see note 41.
6 Her husband, Thomas, Lord Stanley (d. 1504), accompanied King Richard on progress (his son, Lord Strange, is named at York). See note 24.
7 In 1483, John de la Pole was 23, Edward 18, Edmund 12, Humphrey 9, William (and Geoffrey?) 5 and Richard 3 (estimated ages).
8 Harley 433, Vol. 2, p. 7.
9 Jones & Underwood, The King’s Mother.
10 Wroe, pp. 79–80, writes that Warwick is ‘naive, querulous and childlike’ from reported conversations in 1499. Wroe, p. 542, cites Vergil-2, p. 115n: ‘And Earl Edward, who had been imprisoned since childhood, so far removed from the sight of man and beast that he could not easily tell a chicken from a goose, although he had deserved no punishment by his own wrongdoing and had been brought to this by another man’s fault’, www.philological.bham.ac.uk/polverg/. This may offer a (literal) meaning that Warwick was merely unaware which types of poultry arrived on his plate during his long confinement. It might also have been useful to question his mental faculties should he recognise the pretender as his cousin of York. For apparent lucid conversations, see Wroe, pp. 473–74, 477–78. Vergil-2, p. 19, when exhibited in 1487 at St Paul’s, he spoke to ‘many important people’; p. 117 for Warwick involved in Tower plot ‘quite innocently’; see Vergil-2, p. 119 for his description as a ‘worthy youth’.
11 Jones & Underwood, The King’s Mother, pp. 86–88. With thanks to Mike Jones.
12 Buc, pp. 163, 322.
13 For the murder of Edmund, Earl of Rutland (brother of Edward IV and Richard III), following his capture after the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, see Matthew Lewis, Richard, Duke of York (2016), p. 308. Their father, Richard, Duke of York, fell at the battle (p. 307). At the Battle of Tewkesbury, Edward of Lancaster was killed in the field or rout (Lewis, Loyalty Binds Me, p. 139).
14 Anne Crawford, ‘John Howard, Duke of Norfolk: A Possible Murderer of the Princes?’, Ricardian, Vol. 5, No. 70, Sept 1980, pp. 230–34; Yorkist Lord, pp. 111–14; Howard Books, Vol. 2, p. 394.
15 For Henry’s character, interrogation of prisoners and torture during his reign, see Thomas Penn, Winter King: The Dawn of Tudor England (2011), pp. 78, 82–83.
16 GC, p. 250. In London, in October 1494, Henry VII pardoned several convicted rioters.
17 Philippa Langley and Michael Jones, The Lost King: The Search for Richard III (2013), pp. 195, 202–03. For Henry not being present at Stoke Field, see Bennett, p. 98.
18 Those known to be executed were John Bracher and his son (after the battle); John Buck at Leicester on 24 August; William Catesby and ‘a few others’ at Leicester on 25 August. For Leicester, see Vergil-1, p. 56.
19 John Throsby, The History and Antiquities of the Ancient Town of Leicester (1792), p. 63.
20 Wroe, pp. 488–91; Markham, p. 275. For the trap at the Tower, see Wroe, pp. 473–86. The pretender ‘Perkin Warbeck’ was executed for treason. As a supposed French citizen of Tournai, treason directly against the English Crown was not legally feasible, which explains the engineered treasonable offence of attempted escape. For Warbeck under the obedience of the Archduke of Austria and Burgundy, see Wroe, p. 189.
21 For the apparent disappearance of the children of Richard of England (Perkin Warbeck) and Lady Katherine Gordon, see Wroe, pp. 298, 327, 374, 422, 453, 482, 506; and for their possible survival in Wales, see p. 506.
22 Imprisonment, especially without charge, was rare in the fifteenth century. Henry VIII incarcerated Henry Pole, the 14-year-old Plantagenet heir, and, withdrawn into the recesses of the Tower with his tutor and servants removed, he was never seen again. It was rumoured he starved to death in 1542 (as an adult): see Langley and Jones, The Lost King, pp. 230–31.
23 Buc, pp. 170, 323. For John Gloucestre, merchant in Calais in 1505, and others of that name, see Hammond, The Children of Richard III, p. 47.
24 Prior to leaving London on royal progress on 19 July, Earl Marshal John Howard visited Buckingham’s London home on three to six occasions (Howard Books, Vol. 2, p. 410). In light of the Gelderland document (see Chapter 14), which speaks of Buckingham and Howard acting in concert to secure the safety of the princes while the king was on progress, these meetings may suggest discussions between the two dukes to agree a modus operandi if action became necessary. Buckingham would need to be consulted in advance because his immediate commission from Richard was to oversee the incarceration of Bishop Morton at Brecon Castle. For Buckingham not being at Oxford (24–26 July), see W.D. Macray, A Register of the Members of St. Mary Magdalen College, Oxford, New Series, Vol. 1 (‘Fellows to the Year 1520’) (1894), pp. 11–12. See also Robert C. Hairsine, ‘Oxford University and the Life and Legend of Richard III’, Crown and People, pp. 307–32, (p. 309).
25 More, p. 92. More says King Richard aimed to murder Buckingham at Gloucester. For reports of an argument, see p. 90.
26 For reasons of space, we are addressing motives attributed to Buckingham by Tudor accounts. Other motives that were attributed later include: (a) to rid Richard of the threat they posed; (b) doing so to disguise his real motive of revenge on Edward IV, his Woodville queen and their line (for Buckingham’s anti-Woodville hostility, see Mancini, p. 53, p. 94 n. 75); (c) fear of reprisals if Tudor overthrew Richard, instilled by Bishop Morton who was in his custody (Ross, Richard III, p. 115).
27 For Buckingham’s proclamation at the time of the October uprising, see Crowland, p. 163. Searches for its existence are ongoing.
28 Road to Bosworth, p. 145 for King Richard’s handwritten postscript naming Buckingham ‘the most untrue creature living’.
29 Ross, Edward IV, p. 166.
30 W.J. White, ‘The Death and Burial of Henry VI: A Review of the Facts and Theories, Part I’, Ricardian, Vol. 6, No. 78, Sept 1982, pp. 70–80 (p. 71).
31 Ibid., p. 71.
32 For this work no longer being considered a chronicle or by John Warkworth (c. 1425–1500), see Wikipedia.
33 White, ‘Death and Burial of Henry VI, Part II’, Ricardian, December 1982, p. 117.
34 White, ‘Death and Burial of Henry VI, Part I’, pp. 70–71; for John Rous on 23 May, see p. 73.
35 Ibid., p. 74.
36 Ibid., p. 75.
37 Ibid., p. 71.
38 Ross, Edward IV, p. 166.
39 Hanham found that if Henry VI was murdered as per Crowland, the culprit was thought to be alive at time of writing [recte November 1485 since the redating of the second continuation], because the chronicler prayed for the murderer to be granted time to repent. Hanham, pp. 95–96, mentioned Radclyf as a possible murderer.
40 Andrew Breeze, ‘Welsh Poem’, Ricardian, 2008, pp. 46–53 (pp. 47, 49).
41 Michael Jones, Bosworth 1485, pp. 123–25, letter from Charles VIII to the town of Toulon, where Tudor is described as ‘fils du feu roi Henry d’Angleterre [spelling modernised]’; Alfred Spont, ‘La marine française sous le règne de Charles VIII’, Revue des Questions Historiques, new series, 11, 1894, p. 393. See also PROME, ‘Henry VII: November 1485, Presentation of the Speaker [3]’: ‘Afterwards, the same lord king [Henry VII], addressing the aforesaid commons in person and demonstrating that his coming to the right and crown of England was as much by lawful inheritance as by the true judgement of God in giving him victory over his enemy in battle’. Thanks to David Johnson. For Henry VI described as Henry VII’s ‘uncle’, see CFR 1485–1509, p. 28, 11 December 1485.
