Richard III and the Fall of the Brandon Men – Guest Post by Sarah Bryson

The Brandon men, father Sir William Brandon and his three sons, William, Robert and Thomas, had been loyal servants to King Edward IV. The king died on 9^th April 1483 and his successor was his twelve-year-old son, Edward. However, the new king’s Uncle, Richard of Gloucester had the boy and his younger brother, Richard of York, declared illegitimate due to a precontract his brother had with Lady Eleanor Butler. As the late king’s only legitimate heir, Richard was asked by Parliament to take the throne and he was crowned King on 26^th June 1483.  

With a new King on the throne, the loyalties of the Brandon men lasted less than a year.

King Richard III

During the summer of 1483 a rebellion was planned against Richard III. Henry Stafford, 2^nd Duke of Buckingham had been convinced by Dr John Morton, Bishop of Ely, to switch his allegiance from Richard III to Henry Tudor, the Lancastrian claimant in exile. It should be noted that Dr Morton was an associate of Sir William Brandon and it is highly probable, with the following events, that Morton and Brandon spoke about Brandon’s participation and support in the rebellion. The Brandon men decided that the oldest son William, and his youngest brother Thomas, would join the Duke of Buckingham’s rebellion.

The rebellion was set to begin on the 18^th of October however rebels in Kent rose early and began to march to London. In response Richard III sent John Howard, Duke of Norfolk to crush the rebels. It was planned that Buckingham and his men would meet up with supporters in the West. The weather was horrid and continual rain caused the rivers Severn and Wye to break their banks, flooding the surrounding lands making it near impossible for Buckingham to progress. With his soldiers beginning to retreat Buckingham knew the cause was lost and he fled. He was betrayed and quickly arrested, beheaded in the market place at Salisbury on the 2^nd of November.  

At the end of 1483 or early 1484 William and Thomas Brandon left England and headed to Brittany to join Henry Tudor. The actions of the Brandon sons clearly showed that they believed themselves to be in danger. However, on the 28^thMarch 1484, a general pardon was granted to William Brandon II.  

It is unknown if the pardon was issued before or after William Brandon left England to join Henry Tudor. If it was before and William knew of it, it may be that he did not trust Richard III. Or perhaps it was simply too late and Brandons had no knowledge of the pardon. Either way William Brandon II and his younger brother Thomas had thrown their lot in with Henry Tudor.    

Less than a month later, on the 11^th April William Brandon II was being referred to as a rebel in government documents. Three months later on the 7^th July an act of Attainder was passed on William Brandon II. The act stripped Brandon of all his land, manors, property and wealth, which reverted to the Crown. In addition to this, the act charged Brandon with high treason. If caught his sentence would be death.

While this was happening William’s father, Sir William Brandon fled into sanctuary at Gloucester. Unfortunately, it is unknown what Robert Brandon, the middle son, was doing during this time. Perhaps he was simply laying low, trying to keep out of Richard III’s gaze. 

On the 1^st of August, after fourteen years of exile, Henry Tudor set sail from France to lay claim to the English throne. He set sail from the port of Harfleur accompanied by approximately 2,000 soldiers, one of those being William Brandon II.  It is unknown if Thomas Brandon accompanied Henry, there are no records of him over the next few months. If he did not travel with his brother, it may be that he remained in France with William’s wife and newborn son, the future Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. 

The fleet landed on the 7^th of August at Mill Bay six miles west of Milford Haven located along the Pembrokeshire coastline. Over the next two weeks Henry Tudor and his men marched across England gathering support and soldiers as they went. On the 21^st August Henry chose to knight several men who had shown great loyalty to him throughout his time in exile, one of these men was William Brandon II. 

The Battle of Bosworth Field took place on the 22^nd of August 1485. It is estimated that Henry had an army of between 5 – 8,000 soldiers and Richard III had 12 – 20,000 men. Thomas and William Stanley had a combined force of approximately 6,000 men but they had not yet committed to either side. Sir William Brandon had been chosen to be Henry’s standard-bearer. 

The battle was fierce and as the battle continued Richard III, despite being told to flee, saw an opportunity to charge at Henry Tudor. As he and his men surged forward, his aim to bring down Henry, his lance pierced Sir William Brandon II and broke in half. History records that William Brandon ‘hevyd on high’ [the Tudor standard] ‘and vamisyd it, tyll with deathe’s dent he was tryken downe.’ 

The Banners of Richard III and Henry Tudor at Bosworth

Sir William Brandon II had given up everything to join Henry Tudor’s cause. Richard III had passed an Act of Attainder upon him, his land, his property and wealth forfeited and his life worthless. He had bid goodbye to his wife and baby son, sailed to England and ultimately given his life fighting for Henry Tudor’s cause. 

Richard III and his men continued fighting and it was at this point that William Stanley and his men charged down in support of Henry Tudor and the rival armies clashed. At some point, Richard III was killed. 

After Henry was declared victorious, he ordered that all those who had died to be buried, many of those being at the nearby church of St James the Greater, Dadlington.  Sir William Brandon II was the only member of nobility on Henry Tudor’s side killed at Bosworth. Unfortunately, the exact location of Brandon’s grave remains unknown. 

While the fortunes of the Brandon men had suffered under the reign of Richard III, with William Brandon II losing his life, when Henry VII claimed the throne fortune’s wheel turned upwards for the surviving Brandon men.    

Henry VII reappointed Sir William Brandon I to the position of Marshall of the King’s Bench, of which he had been dismissed by Richard III. In addition to this he knighted Robert Brandon in 1487 and Thomas Brandon in 1497. He also trusted all three surviving Brandon men with overseeing various judicial matters across the country.

In 1499 Thomas Brandon was appointed as Master of the Horse, a position he was reappointed to under the rule of Henry VIII.  In January 1503 Sir Thomas was part of a select group of ambassadors sent to meet with Maximillian I, Holy Roman Emperor in order to discuss the Emperor becoming a member of the elite Order of the Garter. He was also tasked with trying to persuade the Holy Roman Emperor not to support the staunch Yorkist, Edmund de la Pole, 3rd Duke of Suffolk. 

In addition to all of this, in April 1507 Sir Thomas Brandon was elected into the Order of the Garter and also appointed as Marshal of the Court of Common Pleas. 

The fortunes of the Brandon men suffered greatly under the rule of Richard III. For whatever reason the family became dissatisfied with Richard III. Perhaps they believed he did not deserve to be King, thinking instead the throne should have passed to Edward IV’s son. Or maybe they were simply unhappy with how Richard III sought to rule the country. For whatever reason the Brandon men threw their lot in with Henry Tudor. They had lost their freedom, their land and property and William Brandon II lost his life, but in 1485 their gamble paid off when Henry VII proved victorious at Bosworth. The first Tudor king proved to be a loyal King and lifted the Brandon men back to prominence.

Biography:

Sarah Bryson is a researcher, writer and educator who has a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education with Honours. She currently works with children with disabilities. She is passionate about Tudor history and has a deep interest in the Brandon family who lived in England during the 14^th and 15^th centuries.  She has previously written a book on the life of Mary Tudor, sister of Henry VIII and wife of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. She runs a website and facebook page dedicated to Tudor history. Sarah lives in Australia, enjoys reading, writing and Tudor costume enactment.

Links:

Website: https://sarah-bryson.com/

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SarahBryson44

Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brandon-Men-Shadow-Kings/dp/1445686279

Enjoy the rest of Sarah’s Blog Tour

Sources: 

Brady, Maziere, The episcopal succession in England, Scotland and Ireland, A.D. 1400 to 1875: with appointments to monasteries and extracts from consistorial acts taken from mss. in public and private libraries in Rome, Florence, Bologna, Ravenna and Paris (Rome: Tipografia della Pace, 1876).

Bradley, John, John Morton: Adversary to Richard III, Power Behind the Tudors (Gloucestershire: Amberley Publishing, 2019).

Burke, John, A genealogical and heraldic History of the Commoners of Great Britain and Ireland, enjoying territorial possessions or high official rank, but uninvested with heritable honours, Volume 1, (London: R Bently, 1834).

Calendar of the patent rolls preserved in the Public Record Office, 1476–1485 Edward IV Edward V Richard III. Great Britain.

Calendar of the patent rolls preserved in the Public Record Office, 1485–1494 Henry VII v. 1. Great Britain

Calendar of the patent rolls preserved in the Public Record Office, 1494–1509 Henry VII v. 2. Great Britain.

Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1871).

Campbell, William, Materials for a history of the reign of Henry VII: from original documents preserved in the Public Record Office (London: Longman & Co, 1873).

Clowes, William, Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, Volume 9 (London: Clowes and Sons, 1848).

Ellis, Sir Henry, Three books of Polydore Vergil’s English History: Comprising the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard III (London: Camden Society, 1884).

Gairdner, James, History of the Life and Reign of Richard the Third (Cambridge: University Press, 1898).

Gairdner, James, Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII (London: London, 1861).

Harris Nicolas, Sir Nicholas, History of the Orders of Knighthood of the British Empire; of the Order of the Guelphs of Hanover; and of the Medals, Clasps, and Crosses, Conferred for Naval and Military Services, Volume 2 (London: John Hunter, 1842).

Hutton, William, The Battle of Bosworth Field, Between Richard the Third and Henry Earl of Richmond, August 22, 1485 (Fleet Street: Nichols, Son, and Bentley, 1813).

Meyer, G.J., The Tudors The Complete Story of England’s Most Notorious Dynasty (New York: Delacorte Press, 2010).

Royle, Trevor, The Wars of the Roses, England’s First Civil War (United Kingdom: Abacus, 2009).

Skidmore, Chris, The Rise of the Tudors The Family That Changed English History (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2013).

Tudor Chamber Books, Kingship, Court ad Society: The Chamber Books of Henry VII and Henry VIII, 1485–1521 (The University of Winchester) <https://www.tudorchamberbooks.org/&gt;.

Margaret Beaufort and the Princes in the Tower

Historical opinion often moves in circles on certain topics. Sometimes it’s a slow process and sometimes it happens quickly. The White Queen series stirred up the latent and under-examined but long-standing theory linking Margaret Beaufort to the disappearance and murder of the Princes in the Tower. In short order, the increased attention drew an onslaught of opinion denouncing the theory as impossible, implausible nonsense. The memes below offer a sample of the abuse drawn by the idea. So is this theory really devoid of merit?

Criminal investigations will frequently look for three elements when trying to establish if someone is a suspect; motive, means and opportunity. Richard III is quite rightly attributed with all three, though his precise motive is open to debate. There are other suspects, but if we concentrate on Margaret Beaufort, can any component be reasonably established for her, accepting that beyond a reasonable doubt is outside the realms of current knowledge?

Motive is often denied, since removing the Princes left too many other obstacles in her way to be a realistic attempt at getting her son onto the throne. The facts would tend to give the lie to this view though since her son ended up on the throne and as figurehead for a failed invasion in October 1483. At some point between Edward IV’s death in April 1483 and the rebellion of October 1483 the idea of Henry Tudor as a viable alternative to Richard III was birthed and grew. It cannot be considered beyond the bounds of possibility that the thought occurred to his mother early in the tumultuous events of that summer. It is known that Lady Stanley, as she was then, was in the process of negotiating her son’s return to England with Edward IV in talks that included the possibility of marrying him to one of Edward’s daughters (though probably not Elizabeth). A minority government, with all of its inherent insecurity, was unlikely to see those plans followed through for some time and when Richard became king in his nephew’s place there was also no sign of further talks on this matter. Margaret had come so close to securing her son’s return only to have the hope she nurtured snatched away at the last moment. Would she accept that circumstance willingly? It is true that she had endured the separation for years to that point, but having come so close must have made her more desperate for a reunion with Henry.

It might have become clear to Margaret that her son was not going to be allowed to return peacefully at any time soon and that an invasion was the only chance of getting him back. The aftermath of Richard III’s assumption of power presented an opportunity that the last ten years of Yorkist security had not for the pursuit of Margaret’s desire to have her son back by reigniting dormant Lancastrian sympathy and marrying it to the portion of Yorkist supporters unwilling to follow Richard III. It perhaps bears consideration that if Richard killed the princes with the motive of securing his position, he failed. If Margaret had it done to further her son’s prospects of a return, she succeeded. That fact proves nothing, of course, but it is food for thought.

Lady Margaret Beaufort

As to means, this is every bit as contentious as the motive aspect. I have seen it argued that Margaret was a disgraced and punished nobody, married to an unimportant minor nobleman. This is rubbish. Margaret’s property was seized and given to her husband, but only after the October rebellion that aimed to put her son on the throne. A part of the reason that Margaret had been able to make three (if we ignore the first to John de la Pole as she did) good matches was that she was an immensely wealthy woman who controlled, or offered her husband control of, vast estates and income. The reason that she was deprived of her property after the rebellion was precisely that she had funded much of it, sending cash to her son in Brittany and then France. She had the means to orchestrate an invasion from within England, so why would access to the princes be beyond her? Far from being a woman restrained by sanctions, in the summer of 1483 Margaret could hardly have been closer to the centre of power. Perhaps Richard III felt the need to court or pacify the Stanleys, because at the joint coronation on 6th July, Margaret carried Queen Anne’s train, walking ahead of Richard’s own sister, the Duchess of Suffolk. Her husband, Thomas, Lord Stanley walked only a couple of places behind the king, bearing the mace of the Lord High Constable, a great office of state previously held by Richard himself and placed in the hands of the Duke of Buckingham, but which Thomas Stanley would acquire after the October rebellion.

Thomas, Lord Stanley

Does all of this power and influence translate into the means to secure access to the princes for someone tasked with killing them? The denial of this relies on two more long-standing fallacies. The first is that the princes were thrown into a deep dark dungeon and treated as prisoners. There is simply no evidence of this. They were moved from the royal apartments where Edward V had been preparing for his coronation, as tradition dictated, because those apartments were in turn required for Richard and Anne to prepare for theirs. There is talk in contemporary accounts of them being withdrawn into the castle and seen less and less, but they were seen, exercising, shooting their bows and playing after Richard’s coronation – not languishing in a dank dungeon somewhere. Their servants were removed and replaced, most likely not because those servants were loyal to Edward V but to the Woodvilles, particularly Anthony, who Richard had arrested for treason and whose sister, the dowager queen, had fled into sanctuary and was refusing to talk to the government, even before Richard was asked to take the throne. None of this would necessarily prevent access to them being secured by a woman so close to the court that she had just carried the queen’s train at the coronation and not associated with the Woodvilles.

The other great misconception is that the Tower of London was a locked and bolted prison, a dark place with a sinister character. That was not true until the Tudor era, when palaces further along the Thames were preferred and the Tower earned its brutal reputation. The Tower was a functioning royal palace, a busy and bustling place where the Royal Treasury was frequently housed, Council meetings held and military provisions stockpiled. There must have been a steady stream of deliveries of food and goods as well as a standing staff to run the Treasury and the other more permanent functions of the Tower so that even when the royal household wasn’t in residence to swell the numbers further, it would hardly have been a deserted place impossible to access, even without the influence then wielded by Lord and Lady Stanley.

Opportunity is closely linked to the conditions above. If we accept that the princes were not closely guarded prisoners hidden deep within the bowels of the Tower, that in the summer of 1483 Lord and Lady Stanley were riding high in royal favour and were yet to attract suspicion and that access to the Tower, whilst perhaps not wide open to every resident of London, was not impossible in a working palace with regular comings and goings for people of such influence as Lady Stanley, then opportunity becomes easy to establish.

The Princes in the Tower

There is a clear indicator that Margaret Beaufort’s work on her son’s behalf in the late summer of 1483 was advanced, ran deep, was secret and relied on the death of the Princes in the Tower. It was Margaret who opened up a clandestine line of communication to Elizabeth Woodville in sanctuary at Westminster Abbey. Margaret used her physician Lewis Caerleon, who posed as Elizabeth’s physician, to pass messages between the two women. That is how Margaret secured Elizabeth’s agreement that their children should marry and together they should promote Henry Tudor’s prospects of taking the throne. For Elizabeth to agree to this, she must have believed her sons were dead and their cause lost, so that marrying her daughter to Henry Tudor represented the only course open to her out of sanctuary and back to power. Given that no one, contemporary or otherwise, knows for certain the fate of the Princes in the Tower, how could Elizabeth, from the isolated seclusion of sanctuary, have got news so definite that she gave up on her sons? The obvious answer is from Margaret Beaufort, via Dr Caerleon. If it was part of her plan to pass this story to Elizabeth to improve her son’s cause, then their murder was part of her thinking and she just might have planned to organise it too.

I don’t know that Margaret Beaufort was involved in the fate of the Princes in the Tower, but it is clear that she exploited the idea of their murder to further her son’s cause. Buckingham is as strong a suspect and Richard III must remain prime suspect (if we believe there was a murder at all, which is another matter). My point here is that all of those who sneer at the notion that Margaret Beaufort could have been involved are, in my opinion, wrong. Margaret had motive, means and opportunity, and that makes her a suspect.

The Richard III Podcast – Episode 4 – The Princes in the Tower Part 1

The fate of Richard III’s nephews, the Princes in the Tower, is one of the most enduring and passionately debated unsolved mysteries of English history. This episode looks at the development of the story of Richard’s guilt and wonders whether Shakespeare’s play is a major red herring.

Why Would Richard III Do It?

Having considered in a previous post what it might mean if King Richard III had killed his nephews, it is worth considering what he actually stood to gain from committing the deed. Many will insist that clearing a path to the throne was motive enough, but I don’t think it’s quite that simple.

The document by which Richard’s title was presented, later to be accepted by Parliament, was Titulus Regius. The Parliament Rolls of January 1484 recall that the document was presented to Richard “on behalf and in the name of the three estates of this realm of England, that is, the lords spiritual and temporal and the commons”. However, the Rolls note that as Parliament was not officially in session at the time “various doubts, questions and ambiguities are said to have been prompted and engendered in the minds of various people” as to the legitimacy of the document. To correct this, the document was read before Parliament and enrolled as an Act of Parliament to remove this confusion. In spite of the best efforts of Henry VII to have all copies of the documents destroyed, it has remained for us to examine.

The petition refers to the misrule of England of late, particularly since “the ungracious feigned marriage, as all England has reason to say”, between Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, “lately and for many years previously calling herself queen of England”. The bill details Edward IV’s supposed pre-contract of marriage to Eleanor Butler, a daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, stating “If all that is true, as in very truth it is, it clearly appears and follows that during his life the said King Edward and the said Elizabeth lived together sinfully and damnably in adultery, contrary to the law of God and of his church”, adding also that “it clearly appears and follows that all the issue and children of the said King Edward are bastards, and unable to inherit or claim anything by inheritance, by the law and custom of England”. The first important matter of note here is the reference to “all the issue and children”. This was not aimed specifically at the title of Edward V or his brother, but included his sisters as well as any other known bastards of Edward IV.

King Edward IV

The issue of the young Edward, Earl of Warwick, son of George, Duke of Clarence, and his sister Margaret was dealt with by the recollection that “by the three estates of this realm assembled in a parliament held at Westminster in the seventeenth year of the reign of the said King Edward IV [1478], he then being in possession of the crown and royal estate, by an act made in the same parliament, George, duke of Clarence, brother to the said King Edward, now dead, was convicted and attainted of high treason”. The effect of George’s attainder was that “all the issue of the said George was and is disabled and barred from all right and claim to the crown and royal dignity of this realm”.

The effect of all this, some will maintain to Richard’s delight, was that “there is no other person living, except you, who by right may claim the said crown and royal dignity by way of inheritance”. The Parliament Rolls then record that “This bill was conveyed to the commons of the realm of England being in the said parliament; to which bill the same commons gave their assent in these words: A cest bille les comenz sount assentuz. (To this bill the commons are agreed.)”

Richard was king and his title was indisputable. Or was it? This is the real crux of the issue regarding the Princes in the Tower. If Richard’s title was beyond challenge, the boys posed little threat. Yes, a few may risk the treachery of treason, but the threat of the fate that awaited failure should put off most. When Henry Tudor won the crown at Bosworth, he dated his rule from the day before the battle to allow those who fought for Richard to be convicted of treason. A travesty of justice, but an effective way of dealing with their threat. Henry knew what Richard must have also known; that which had been won could be lost; that which had been handed to them could as easily be snatched away and given to another. Henry’s title was far from incontrovertible and so was Richard’s. As Parliament had granted him his title, so it could be granted to another, or back to Edward V. The last twenty years had demonstrated as much clearly.

So, in spite of being declared illegitimate, it is entirely conceivable that the Princes in the Tower were viewed as a potential threat to Richard’s rule. There were several possible solutions to this problem, only one of which, the most extreme, was to have them murdered. What would Richard actually gain from doing away with a 12 year old boy and his 9 year old brother? The usual answer is the easy one. Removing the boys would eliminate the threat of a revival of the cause of Edward V. But that is not the whole picture.

Edward had never been crowned, though he still holds the title King Edward V. He was not a king anointed by God as Henry VI had been when he was displaced. There was familial loyalty, but by recognising him as a bastard in Parliament, the lord spiritual and temporal and the commons renounced that loyalty. Officially at least. There is also another consideration.

Salic Law was the system in France that prevented inheritance by the female line of any family. It was a clear and established legal principle. No such law existed in England. It is true that primogeniture traditionally meant that the oldest male inherited, but there was nothing to prevent female inheritance. Plenty of titles were held at this time by well known lords jure uxoris – by right of his wife. The famous Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker, only held that earldom by right of his wife Anne de Beauchamp. Anne’s brother Henry died with only one daughter, another Anne. When she died childless, the title passed to his sister Anne as 16th Countess. Warwick’s title was not truly his.

Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (jure uxoris)

It can also be acknowledged that there was a history in England of shying away from female rule. Matilda had suffered from the perception that women should not rule men and more recently Margaret of Anjou’s attempts to secure power for herself during her husband’s incapacity had pushed men into the arms of Richard, Duke of York. In contrast to this, Henry Tudor was to claim the throne and have himself crowned King Henry VII before he married Elizabeth of York precisely because he knew her title to the throne was better than his and he did not want to restore the House of York to act as a consort to the Queen. He wanted the crown for himself.

So, the real question is this; were the other royal children really any less of a threat than Edward V and Richard, Duke of York? The answer is plain. How did Henry VII recruit disaffected Edwardian Yorkist support? By promising to marry Elizabeth of York, the oldest daughter of King Edward IV. It was the promise of a union with the House of York that bought Henry his throne because men clearly identified Elizabeth as the rightful heir in her brothers’ absence. That was precisely the reason Henry was careful to have himself crowned in his own right, not that of his intended wife. Parliament eventually petitioned Henry to honour his pledge and he was forced to accept that there was no way to maintain his position without doing so. Whether he liked it or not, because he would not claim the crown by right of conquest, he was effectively king jure uxoris.

This situation did not suddenly surface just before Bosworth, either. On Christmas Day 1483, Henry Tudor swore an oath at Rennes Cathedral to marry Elizabeth in return for the support of those men gathered around him in seeking the throne. Elizabeth was now a very real threat in the way that her brother might have been. If Richard had ordered the murders of the two boys just a few months earlier, the natural course of action now was to finish the job and do away with Edward IV’s daughters too, robbing Tudor of the allegiance of those who had made oaths to him by removing the possibility of a union. If Richard did not care about two boys, why care about five girls languishing in sanctuary?

Yet this did not happen. In March 1484, less than three months after Henry Tudor’s oath, Elizabeth Woodville and her daughters emerged from sanctuary and came to Richard’s court as part of his family. He had sworn a public oath to protect them and to find them suitable marriages. This episode is a crucial part of the story but remains as elusive as so many others. It is often asked how Elizabeth Woodville could possibly have handed her daughters into the care of a man who had murdered her sons. Would his promise really be enough if she believed he had done away with her sons? Of course, it is also argued that Richard may well have shown her proof either that he was not responsible for the boys’ death or even that they weren’t dead at all. There is a Tyrell family story that Sir James Tyrell hosted Elizabeth and her daughters at his family home at Gipping Hall when she met her sons on frequent visits arranged by Richard. It has been argued that Elizabeth had little option but to come out of an indefinite sanctuary, but I would have thought remaining there was preferable to risking the lives of her remaining children, particularly if Henry Tudor was intending to rescue them.

Perhaps we should also be asking the opposite question. If Richard had murdered his nephews, the greatest, most immediate threat to his rule was now Henry Tudor, who had attempted one invasion already and would surely try again soon. He was drawing support to him based upon his promise to marry Elizabeth, a woman who was now in Richard’s hands. If he had murdered her brothers, surely he would have no qualms about killing her and her sisters now. He had promised not to, but if he was a murdering monster, what would that promise really be worth, especially against the opportunity to secure his position further? Killing Elizabeth would not be enough – Tudor could simply transfer his oath to Cecily. The others were too young, but in time they would become the same threat. Why not simply dispose of the whole lot right away? That would be the natural response if Richard were an evil schemer.

But the girls lived. Richard fulfilled his promise, at least until his death the following year. Perhaps he would have survived longer had he been the brutal murderer many cannot see past. Mind you, that would still not be enough.

George, Duke of Clarence had a son, Edward, Earl of Warwick and a daughter, Margaret. In the absence of other Yorkist possibilities, they may have become a threat. The Edwardians who were drifting away from Richard may have focussed on Edward as the heir of York in spite of his father’s treason. Margaret might even have become a focus for Tudor if Edward IV’s daughters were all gone. No. They would have to go too. Yet it was Henry VII who was to judicially murder Edward, Earl of Warwick and it was Henry VIII who finally succumbed to paranoia and executed Margaret when she was an elderly lady of 67.

The early Tudors would also feel the threat from Richard’s other nephews, the de la Pole sons of his sister Elizabeth. They carried the cause of the White Rose into the reign of Henry VIII, so were legitimate threats, but John was killed at the Battle of Stoke in 1486, Edmund was imprisoned by Henry VII, handed over on the promise that he would not be executed, and was beheaded in 1513 by Henry VIII, who did not feel his father’s promise bound him. Richard was killed at the Battle of Pavia in Italy, news that Henry VIII enthusiastically celebrated, having been unable to catch him, and William was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1501 and remained there until his death 37 years later. He remains the longest serving prisoner in the history of the Tower.

So, Richard did not kill any of these people. We know this for a fact, in spite of the often potential and even very real threat that they posed to him. Why, then, is it so easy to believe that he murdered the Princes in the Tower? Two out of at least nine, if not more, threats? Why do far less than half a job if securing the throne is your only concern?

The other suspects? Well, these tend to all orbit the cause of Henry Tudor. If they were murdered in 1483, it is possible that it was part of a plot to subvert Richard’s rule by casting the shadow of guilt over him.

Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham was a cousin to Richard and had helped to propel him to the throne. In spite of this, and the rewards that followed, Buckingham apparently wrote to Henry Tudor in exile imploring him to invade to free the sons of Edward IV, quickly altering the purpose of the invasion to seeing Tudor crowned king because there were rumours that the boys were dead. Did Buckingham start these rumours in spite of knowing them to be false? Did Buckingham, with all of his power and influence, arrange the boy’s death and invite an invasion to allow Richard and Tudor to destroy each other, clearing his own path to the throne? His blood was royal and he possessed a claim stronger than Tudor’s. The Stafford line was descended from the daughter of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, son of Edward III. Buckingham’s mother was Margaret Beaufort, daughter of Edmund, Duke of Somerset, and so a cousin of Henry Tudor’s mother. The rebellion’s failure cost him his life and cast a long shadow over his son, who was to fall foul of Henry VIII’s early suspicious nature.

Margaret Beaufort, Tudor’s mother, was married to Thomas, Lord Stanley who was Richard’s Lord High Constable after Buckingham’s fall. This role effectively gave Stanley the keys to the Tower. Was the prospect of seeing a grateful step son on the throne enough to drive the murder of two young boys? It was certainly enough to betray his king on the field of battle at Bosworth, though this seems a risky move for a man famed for walking the fine line of self serving loyalty. Perhaps his wife was more driven and convinced him, or had the deed done herself. She was a staunch Lancastrian who had seen Henry VI killed, his son lost in battle to the Yorkists, her own family, particularly anyone brave enough to bear the title Duke of Somerset, decimated by the bitter Wars of the Roses. Was this revenge, then? She had opportunity and motive, as did Stanley and Buckingham. And, lest we forget, Richard himself.

Lady Margaret Beaufort

Unless, as I continually return to, they did not die at all. Elizabeth Woodville may have emerged from sanctuary on the promise of contact with her sons, safely secreted in Richard’s old stomping grounds in the north among men he knew he could trust. Away from court, brought up as his illegitimate nephews. Or perhaps they were quietly installed at the Burgundian court of their aunt, Richard’s sister Margaret, travelling to Gipping Hall to visit their mother under the trusted supervision of Sir James Tyrell.

The frustrating thing is that we may never know the truth, but the possibilities beyond Richard killing two young boys, members of his own family, must bear thinking about, if only so that we consider the whole realm of potential fates. If your final assessment is still that Richard was still the most likely suspect to have had the boys murdered, then I am happy for you to reach that conclusion. He probably is the most reasonable suspect, but too much still does not make sense.

He doesn’t seem the type of man to do half a job.

Matthew Lewis is the author of a brief biography of Richard III, A Glimpse of King Richard III along with a brief overview of the Wars of the Roses, A Glimpse of the Wars of the Roses.

 

Matt’s has two novels available too; Loyalty, the story of King Richard III’s life, and Honour, which follows Francis, Lord Lovell in the aftermath of Bosworth.

 

The Richard III Podcast can be subscribed to via iTunes or on YouTube

 

Matt can also be found on Twitter @mattlewisauthor.