The Rest Is History - 139. The Princes in the Tower Part 2

Episode Date: January 18, 2022

Who killed the Princes in the Tower? The inspiration behind Shakespeare's Richard III, their murder remains one of the greatest mysteries in English history.  In the second of two episodes, all eyes turn to Richard III, prime suspect in the disappearance of Edward IV's sons.  Tom and Dominic discuss whether Richard likely did kill his nephews, potential other suspects, and whether it was a matter of survival for him to do so. Plus, the greatest question of our time: was Richard III more Raul Castro, Robert Kennedy, or James Callaghan? Producer: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor *The Rest Is History Live Tour 2023*: Tom and Dominic are back on tour this autumn! See them live in London, New Zealand, and Australia! Buy your tickets here: restishistorypod.com Twitter:  @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to ther face a moment longer. A judge? A soldier? A prince? Someone used to great responsibility and responsible in his authority. Someone too conscientious. A worrier. Perhaps a perfectionist. Someone too who suffered ill health as a child.

He had that incommunicable, that indescribable look that childhood suffering leaves behind it. He turned the portrait over to look for a caption. On the back was printed, Richard III. Now that is Josephine Tay's novel The Daughter of Time, published in 1951. It's often described as one of the greatest whodunits ever written. It's the book that effectively kick-started the kind of Ricardian romance with Richard III, and it is by far the most celebrated attempt

to solve the mystery of the princes in the Tower. Tom Holland until now now because now the rest is history we'll tread in josephine tay's footsteps and we will solve the mystery won't we well yes i i'm sure we'll come to this when we we look at um how people have understood the mystery of the princes in the tower but that that thing in josephine's that Richard looks a kind of kind man. He's very kind. So the head of the, the lady who discovered Richard III

in that car park in Leicester, Philippa Langley, she famously said, didn't she, when she saw a portrait of Richard III, I think she says it in the documentary, is that the face of a tyrant? Such a kind face. Yes.

I have to say when you look, because it's reconstruction isn't it based on the that's right the body the skull that was found i think when you look at him it was terrifying looks actually rather like lawrence olivier in there yes he does actually well that's because they've given him olivier's wig though haven't they anyway we'll come on to all that um but uh welcome back to the second half of um our episode on the princes in the tower and dominic in the first half um basically he's only just become king edward the fifth yeah so we should pick up on the 9th of april uh 1483 shouldn't we so edward the fourth has died and he's left two sons, Edward 12, Richard 9. Richard, he's with

his mother, isn't he, in London? Yeah, in London. But Edward is in Ludlow with his uncle, Anthony Woodville Lord Rivers. And then he has another uncle, Richard of Gloucester, who is basically the boss of the North, who's up in the North. So the moment

Edward IV dies, there is a degree of boss of the north yeah who's up in the north so the moment middle of castle edward the fourth dies there is a degree of well there isn't necessarily uncertainty straight away what happens is a council meets doesn't it and they agree fine edward the fourth has died we'll have the coronation of edward the fifth on the fourth of may but the issue is he's too young to rule in his own right at the age of 12. So obviously there's some uncertainty about who's actually going to basically... So basically it's four years, isn't there? Yeah.

So not long, but long enough, I suppose, to entrench your networks and to use the power of patronage. Who's going to control the machine between now and then? That's the question. Well, there are two things on there. Who's going to control the machine between now and then that's the question well there are two things on there who's going to control the machine and who is going to have control access to the young king because those are two slightly different issues okay so we we have two questions which i think go together very well one from joe johnson was there any scenario in which the woodvilles or

the council could have outmaneuvered richard to protect the prince's succession or was richard just too powerful and the prince's fate was sealed as soon as edward the fourth died and robert elliott did richard have his eye on the crown from the moment edward the fourth died or was it only when he realized edward the fifth would never forgive him so um you know massive spoiler alert there yeah of course everyone listening to this episode will know that um richard ends up taking the crown. Yeah. So those two. The fifth vanishes into the tower.

But was it inevitable that was going to happen? Was Richard always planning to be to usurp the crown? That's that's basically the plot of Richard the third. Yeah. The plot of Richard the third. Richard is trying to get rid of everyone who stands in the way of him you know he he murders everybody uh and that clearly seems to i mean that's clearly not not the case but when edward iv dies does rich does the news that does richard think okay this

is my chance to become king i would say no tom i would say absolutely no yeah i uh i think there's no evidence to suggest that richard is thinking of becoming king before his brother dies and i would now the interesting thing is that the common portrait of richard iii is the sort of the shakespeare portrait he's incredibly cunning and conniving and he's planning everything long in advance he's playing a very long game i don't think there's any evidence for that i think he is he's planning everything long in advance. He's playing a very long game. I don't think there's any evidence for that. I think he is... He's as caught short as everybody else. From the moment his brother dies,

he is scrambling as they all are to find their place in the new world. And he's constantly improvising. I think some of his biographers have pointed this out, that actually he doesn't seem to have a long-term strategy. He is constantly grasping for kind of short-term solutions, which often cause then problems of their own further down the line. So he'll make and break alliances, pick people up and drop them,

all of these kinds of things. However, there is kind of a warning from history, from the reign of Henry VI, who of course was even younger than Edward V. So he had to have a kind of protector. And that role was taken on by Humphrey, the Duke of Gloucester, who was the youngest brother of Henry V. And it doesn't end well for him. His wife gets accused of witchcraft. He gets kind of dragged down in scandal. He's chiefly remembered now for setting up a library in Oxford. So Richard knows that the role of protector is a treacherous one.

And it's all the more treacherous if there are kind of rival factions who hate you. So the question, isn't it? The Joe Johnson's question about could the woodvilles have outmaneuvered richard now maybe you'll disagree with me about this tom i don't know i would say yes there clearly is a scenario in which the woodvilles win the day and i would say that by not by looking backwards but by looking forwards as we did a little bit in the last episode so this is not massively dissimilar from the position when Henry VIII dies. He also has a very young heir in Edward VI who has a parvenu family around him, the Seymours.

Now, what happens with Henry VIII and that succession? He takes longer to die. So the Seymours have lots of time to get all their forces lined up. They also have a little bit of a coup before Henry VIII dies to get rid of their factional rival, the Duke of Norfolk and stuff. So as soon as Henry VIII dies, they move into position, their troops seal off roads, they take possession of the young king, they sort it all out, and basically, you know, it's fine. They win the day.

Now, the Woodvilles don't do that i think partly because they don't have time but also arguably because they are less ruthless they are insufficiently ruthless i would say i think they don't identify richard's as a they don't identify two people one is richard and the other is a man called Hastings. Yes. So I think a further reason why they can't coordinate is that the two key Woodvilles, so Elizabeth, the Queen, and Antony, her brother, are separate. The Queen is in London and Antony Lord Rivers is in Ludlow. Yeah. It's a big problem that he's in Ludlow.

So you mentioned Hastings um yeah he'd been a chamberlain sorry i didn't finish my sentence hastings is is so that the the big we've talked about the rivalries with between the woodvilles and and richard um which obviously the kind of titanic ones but there are there are other factions within the yorkist court as well and hastings is a key player he's been a kind of loyal supporter of Edward IV right the way through. In fact, he kind of takes a bribe from Elizabeth Woodville and Hastings do kind of try and arrive at an accommodation. Obviously, they can't do it with reference to Richard because he's up in the north. But they kind of arrive at an agreement that all the people who come into London should have small retinues. So that you're not getting large armies kind of

congregating because they don't want another outbreak of the wars of the roses kind of scenario where people pitch up with little armies exactly and so that that shows that um that Hastings and and uh the Woodvilles are kind of trying to arrive at an accommodation um there's kind of famous scene in Shakespeare's's play where edward's on his deathbed and he um he he obliges all the various factions to kind of kiss and make up i think that's true actually tom isn't that i think it is true there's chronic chronicle evidence yeah yeah and just to go back to the factions with the question we had last episode is this edward the fourth's great sort of downfall is that his failing as a I mean, my answer to that would be,

remember the factions are always going to be there. There's always going to be all this competition for lands, for estates, for offices, that they're kind of often starting at a very, very local level. You see it in the past and letters and things, this famous kind of medieval source. So it's inevitable there's going to be a degree of rivalry. The question is, I suppose, what they all have to calculate is,

are we all going, is there anybody with an ulterior motive? When people talk about compromise, do they mean it? If they don't mean it, should I strike first or should I do nothing? Well, you could absolutely say, did you ever play the game Kingmaker? Oh, no, I know the game you mean. It's a sensational board game, which kind of revolves around all these kinds of tensions. You know, who do you make alliances with? Who do you kill?

All this kind of stuff. And you can see why, you know, this such dramatic material for Shakespeare and then the influence that those plays have had on mafia dramas or whatever. I mean, it is a very tense scenario. But so essentially what's agreed is that Elizabeth Woodville and Hastings in London are trying to arrive at accommodation. There's the council as well in London, and they're also part of it.

The question is what's going to happen to the young king's two uncles. And they agree that they will rendezvous at Northampton. That's right. So Richard and Anthony Woodville. Anthony Woodville is bringing Edward with him, and Richard is coming south, and they will meet in Northampton. Now, Richard is also going to meet another person who we haven't mentioned at all, who is the Duke of Buckingham.

And Buckingham had been Edward IV's ward. He's a landowner in the sort of in the Welsh marches he's got a big place at Brecon called Brecknock um he's a slightly disaffected figure yeah slightly on the fringes of the regime isn't he well he like the house of York and like the house of Lancaster is descended from Edward the third. Yeah. So here's a very, very tenuous, very tenuous claim. And he's married to Catherine Woodville, who is one of the queen sisters.

Yeah. So he's kind of part of the world, but he's slightly on the outside, but he's ambitious, isn't he? And he was brought up with Richard, wasn't he? Yeah.

So they know each other well. But he's never been a player particularly till now going back just got a quick question um to a quick moment to robert elliott's thing about richard is richard as he comes south is he thinking right i need to plan this to get my hands on the crown i would say no i would say i need to i need to get my hands on the king what he's thinking is he's been running the north he has all his people that he knows in the north and people who owe him loyalty and he he owes them his protection you know that's the way this works that's the way the system works so his guiding principle i think is how can i protect my own

position and make sure that i don't end up being killed and my people stripped of all their estates and my family thrown out in the cold. I think that's what's driving him. They're all driven as much, I think, by fear as they are by greed or ambition or any of those things. And I think there's no question as to what his answer to that question is, which to begin with is not to take the crown himself, but to take control of the young king. And we know that because of what happens, which is that on the 29th of April,

they all meet up at Stoney Stratford, which is just outside. Well, the Woodvilles are in Stoney Stratford, but this is British actually. And he's in Northampton, isn't he? And Richard is, and Buckingham arrives late. That's right. And Richard and Buckingham kind of plot.

Well, so Richard's already met. So the Woodvilles, they've left Edward at Stoney Stratford with his retinue. They go into Northampton for a meeting with Richard. And apparently at that meeting, he has a very cheerful and merry face. So that all seems to go well. Buckingham arrives late. And then we know that Richard and Buckingham sit up late into the night talking.

And then the next morning, everything changes, doesn't it? So Anthony Woodville wakes up to find that his bed and breakfast, his Airbnb is surrounded. So too does Edward V's half-brother, Sir Richard Grey, the youngest son of Elizabeth Woodville before she married Edward IV. And they're arrested. And Richard and Buckingham go to see Edward V. And they say that Rivers was not just a traitor, but morally disreputable. And this is something that Richard is very, very keen on. He's very hostile to displays of vice and very, very keen on kind of playing the defender of morality.

Well, clearly by the standards of the day, although he has illegitimate children, he's quite a prurient kind of person. Sure. That really comes out from his piety but i think i think but i think it's it's clear that anthony woodville was an effective guardian and this actually is precisely the problem because when richard goes and tells edward the edward v your your guardian was is a disgrace he's a traitor we've got to get rid of him but it's fine you're now i'm going to look after you um edward the fifth says i i know um yeah he was great uh i you know i think he's wonderful i love it there's a point here isn't there tom i think this is the key moment isn't there a point here though where it occurred to me if edward the fifth had been younger this wouldn't have been so much of a problem exactly so if he'd been five he would have sort of said oh okay fine okay and and off they'd have gone to london but 12 is quite old absolutely and

clearly he just listens to what his uncle who he hasn't probably seen that much of not at all yeah well he's listened to his other uncle river he likes the the problem is that he sides with rivers yeah clearly and and this is this is a problem that's a definite problem and i think that everything everything follows from that because the fact that richard is confronted with the nightmare prospect that you know the lessons of history teach him which is is that once a king comes of age, it's very, very bad news for the protector. And especially if there are rival factions.

Of course. Now, Tom, I'll tell you a quick fact, by the way, about this coup in Northamptonshire. So the key family around Northamptonshire at that time is a family called the Wake family. If you've read Tom Penn's book, The Brothers York, which describes... It's a wonderful book. He, is a family called the Wake family. If you've read Tom Penn's book, The Brothers York, which describes... It's a wonderful book.

He talks quite a lot about the Wake family. They are still in Northamptonshire and the heir to the dynasty is a listener to this podcast. Oh, goodness. Johnny Wake. How do you know that? Because his children are at school with my son.

That's brilliant. So this is living history i i was very excited when i discovered that and hopefully he will be too uh although they since his family took part in a coup that ended up with some infanticide whether maybe he won't appreciate me mentioning it anyway so yes so richard has taken possession of Edward. Now, Tom, we didn't mention that what Elizabeth Woodville is doing with Richard of York, because obviously when word of this... Oh, she's straight off to sanctuary again. She reads the runes. I mean, you're a big fan of hers, I know.

Her brother has been taken off to Pontefract, which, as anyone familiar with the reign of Richard II will know, terrible if you get taken to Pontefract. You're almost bound to die. Because that's where Richard II gets murdered. So, yes, Elizabeth is straight off to Westminster again. And in a way, she recognises straight away what's going on. And she can see that once Richard of Gloucester has taken taken that first step which i think he's taken for completely understandable reasons he wants to protect himself from the woodfield so once he's taken that first step of the of securing the king yeah he's trapped

he's on the kind of yeah he's he's on the escalator i mean he's been on the escalator from day one though couldn't you but what then happens, because again, he comes to London, he goes to the council and he tells the council to condemn Rivers as a traitor. And the council basically turn around and say, well, where's your evidence? And it's exactly as when Richard has confronted Edward V and Edward V says, well, I like Rivers. But despite that, the council kind of go along with Richard. He's clearly the grand fromage now in the Yorkist court. Yeah, because it's about a month,

isn't there? Fourth of May till the 13th of June, where he's the boss. Everything seems like it might calm down. Do you not think in that period? Except that two crucial steps are taken, presumably, you know, absolutely led by Richard, one of which is to postpone um edward v's coronation to the 22nd of june that's right so that's postponed and the other notoriously is it should be lodged in the

tower but that's not inherently sinister that's not that ominous because at that point there's no record of killing people in the tower particularly i mean some people have died henry the sixth okay it's but the tower it is a prison as well as a royal residence it is but i think when people hear that about the tower they think about henry the eighth and his wives they think oh it means the chopping block it doesn't it's right it's the main royal complex in london i think the scary thing for edward the fifth and for people his sort of pals is that he is surrounded by richard's men richard has total control of him at this stage. So he's cut off from the Woodvilles.

His uncles are, you know, his uncle is in captivity and he is utterly at the mercy of Richard's guards. That's the sort of scary thing. But at that point, does he think he's in danger of his life? Surely not. Well, Richard wants, so on the 10th of June, he summons basically a massive army from the north. So the entire agreement

that people wouldn't bring in large armies, Richard parks that. And we talked about Blackadder. Yeah. It's taken by Sir Richard Ratcliffe, who is played in the Ian McKellen film of Richard III by Tim McEnany, who's Darling. Oh, right.

Percy. Yeah, Percy. Yeah. Yeah. So a little connection there. Three days later, isn't it, that you start to get, you have this incredible scene which Shakespeare famously, brilliantly recreates.

Because the other key figure has been Hastings who was basically the ultimate Edward IV loyalist and is loyal to the house I think clearly stands for compromise so I think reading between the lines what's happened is that in the days just

reading up to this council meeting on the 13th of June Richard has probably sounded out Hastings and said you know where do we go from here i could be king you know i don't have to be but i could be and maybe that would sort of allow you know we could we could kind of knock out the woodvilles completely just take them out the equation if i'm king and you can be number two or something. And Hastings probably said, no, I think Edward V has to be king. Because he's loyal to Edward. He's loyal to Edward IV and therefore to the line. And ultimately, his loyalty to Edward IV is greater than his hostility to Elizabeth Woodville.

And so therefore, he is an Edward V loyalist. And I think at that point, Richard thinks it's that classic thing that we saw with Vitellius. Yeah. Richard thinks, oh God, well, if he's not going to be on my side, what am I going to do? I've got to kill him. I've got to kill him now.

And I think that's absolutely what happens. It's interesting. So in Shakespeare's play, Richard says, look, you know, I've been bewitched and shows his withered arm. Yeah. But actually, what he's doing is he's accusing Elizabeth Woodville of using witchcraft against him.

And that's obviously calculated to get Hastings on board because Hastings hates the Woodvilles. But Hastings hesitates and says no, and so Richard has him executed. Yes, he does. And one of Hastings' man, it's interesting, this sort of Game of Thrones type dimension, because Hastings' great deputy was a man called Sir William Catesby.

And he ditches Hastings at this point. Clearly, Richard has suborned him in some way. He turns on Hastings. And Hastings is effectively, he's basically dragged out of the council, isn't he? Taken off to the chopping block. Yeah, yeah.

And then three days later, again, kind of in the Olivier film, brilliant scene when the young Richard of Shrewsbury is released by Elizabeth Woodville. So he's the nine-year-old brother. Yeah. And there's a kind of a terrifying exchange between them where he the little boy jokes with Richard and Richard kind of fixes him with his stare. Very, very sinister moment, whether it seems sinister to people.

But I mean, it must people must be starting to. Well, presumably at this point. Soabeth woodville hands her son over out of sanctuary to join his older brother in the tower and presumably she does this because she thinks okay coronation is going ahead at this point well she thinks richard is clearly determined he's going to be a protector he's going to be the big man the thing to do now is appease him yeah you know give him my younger son the coronation is still on the coronation is still supposedly going to happen on the 22nd of june but once as soon as richard senior has got hold of the little boy he says actually no the coronation is not going to happen until november

now yeah and at that point you're like is it ever going to happen yes um and then and then there's a sermon preached on the 22nd of june isn't there yeah ralph shaw and he he says i mean they have two arguments don't they not even just one which is clearly a sign that you know your arguments are a bad one yeah so first of all this guy says edward the fourth was completely illegitimate anyway he was a bastard so richard basically accuses his own mother of sleeping around yeah yeah um cecily cecily neville he says you know she she wasn't faithful to my father anyway i mean edward the fourth wasn't even my brother and look at clarence as well because he says he says um edward and edward and clarence didn't look anything like their father

yeah but i do but then he then the other argument is um he wasn't any and he wasn't married to elizabeth woodville anyway because he had there'd been a pre-contract with another woman eleanor talbot later conveniently dead yeah so so not only is he a bastard was he a bastard my brother but my nephews are bastards too um now think even the most devoted Ricardian has some, you know, it's a guy who's prepared to kind of say that about his mother simply so that he can displace his nephew. But he's desperate though at this point, don't you think? Yes, but it's poor form, Dominic.

I suppose it is poor form. Don't you think? I mean, I don't think that's... That's not filial behaviour. No, no, it's not filial. I mean, it's definitely not very filial behaviour. And I think pretty much straight afterwards, the Duke of Buckingham, who's this sort of Weasley figure we mentioned earlier,

who's basically attached himself to Richard as chief ally, he goes to the guild hall, doesn't he? And orchestrates these calls. He says, oh, we should give Richard the... Again, brilliant in the play. The guards all sort of all right yeah what a great idea basically being you know given a groat each or something to to shout this and then it's all very swift incredibly swift so the 25th of june um the princes are declared illegitimate and the thing you know the further thing that i think marks this out is deeply treacherous is that all these rumours about the illegitimacy of the princes and the illegitimacy of Edward's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville.

It all originated in the swirl of kind of calumnies and propaganda that had accompanied the coup against Edward back in 1470. Yeah, the Warwick coup. Exactly. They're resuscitating old rulers. So they're resuscitating all that. But is it, Tom, I'm very hesitant to, more hesitant than you are to say, oh, this is terrible villainy.

This is, I think, all it would have taken would be for Richard to have won one battle and we would be telling this story differently, I think. We would be telling it as ruthless i don't think so and and very hard-nosed but i think we would say frankly this is medieval politics this is what henry the fourth did to it it's not second it's not though it's not it's because it's got kids but that's bad luck that is richard's bad luck it's nephews and you think about the other king who murdered his nephew.

And I've given away there, the fact that I think that Richard is responsible for the murder of the prince in the tower is John. And the two Kings who have had the worst reputations in English history are John and Richard the third. And I think it's no coincidence that they were both at least believed to be guilty of the same crime. And you can argue whether they really were, but that was their reputation.

They're totally different characters, though, Tom. Of course. I mean, John is famously weak. But Dominic, the thing is that this is not normal behaviour at all. Yeah, but it's not a normal position. Of course it's not. Richard is in. I agree.

And incredibly. Yeah, he's firefighting. yeah but it's not a normal position of course it's richard is in i i agree and incredibly yeah he's he's he's firefighting he basically he doesn't do any of the steps that he does he probably thinks he will die i entirely accept that but i i still think that um you know accusing your your mother of sleeping around um It's like the plot of EastEnders. It is very. While all the while, you know, plotting to get rid of your nephews, resuscitating rumours spread about

by your own family's enemies. You've lost Philippa Langley as a listener. I'll tell you that now. Yeah, probably. Probably. But I think it's... and then when you throw into that the kind of, the tone of sanctimony, which I thought, you know, is the expression

of an authentic Christian sensibility, but it does slightly, it makes him seem an unpleasant figure, I think. I think we've been, since we've been talking for almost half an hour and you're getting more and more judgmental. Well, hold on. Hold on. Let's have him crowned. So let's get him crowned. So so the princes are declared illegitimate.

Yeah. Rivers and Richard Gray are executed. Yeah. Pontefract Rivers has written a rather stylish poem. And, you know, he's very cool even on the shopping block and on the 6th of July Richard is crowned and lots of people turn up but lots of people don't Elizabeth Woodville is not there and who else is not there

Well Edward V is not there really interestingly there had been plans for him to attain the coronation they had ordered him clothes and shoes and spurs and horses so weirdly although he'd been declared illegitimate he was going to attend his uncle's coronation which i suppose would have been the ultimate kind of affirmation of the new regime that even the kids themselves yeah except accept it but. Except it. But he's not there. And at this point, there are,

there's a trace reference which we'll come to perhaps after the break of him in captivity. But at this point, the princes themselves effectively leave the story. So this is the point I think

at which we should take a break and we can return after the break and we will be solving the mystery of the princess and their tower i'm marina hyde and i'm richard osmond and together we host the rest is entertainment it's your weekly fix of entertainment news reviews splash of showbiz gossip and on our q a we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works we have just launched our members club if you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes

and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Welcome back to The Rest Is History. We are poised to solve the mystery of the princes and the tower. So Richard III has been crowned on the 6th of July. His two nephews did not turn up at the coronation.

We know that that summer they are seen playing in the gardens at the Tower of London complex. A prison is part of it, but it's not just a prison. It's a kind of royal complex. They are seen practicing archery. There is talk of it, but it's not just a prison. It's a kind of royal complex. They are seen practicing archery. There is talk of faces at windows. But at some point that summer, their household servants are dismissed. And then they are never seen again.

So, Tom, I mean, this is the key question. What happens to them? So we've got the question from Megan Young. Do you think the princes were murdered and if so when and by whom um i would have thought the overwhelming probabilities that they were murdered and that it was done on richard's orders and absolute certainty on this obviously is impossible because otherwise people wouldn't be debating it to this day. So we're not going to solve it because no definitive solution is ultimately possible.

But I would I think the overwhelming probability is that they were murdered and Richard did it. So let's look at the other candidate. Go on then. Yeah. The other major. There's really only one candidate i would say other than richard didn't he wouldn't you which would be buckingham yeah agreed so buckingham is constable of england he has been rewarded so he might conceivably have access to the tower though it's very hard

that's the very hard to see how he has access without richard's knowledge because Richard is the king he his men control everything so to me it's hard to see how Buckingham and also the the so Buckingham is the we open this episode with the quotation from the daughter of time by Josephine Tay in the Josephine Tay's book her detective Alan Grant is laid up in hospital with a broken leg and he's and he and he falls to solving the mystery of the princes in their town. He reads all the evidence and he decides that Buckingham did it. And Richard's enthusiasts have often thought that Buckingham did it. So there's a really brilliant book, which I loved when I was about 12, a great biography of Richard III, probably the definitive

one for a lot of Ricardians by an American academic called Paul Murray Kendall. And he has this big appendix in which he also thinks that Buckingham did it. And he sort of says Buckingham was playing a long game. He had his eye on the throne. He probably acted without Richard knowing. He had access to the tower. I ultimately find that a bit implausible. I think Richard is so clearly the man in charge.

And he's the obvious person with most gain. And again, I mean, it would be like if Buckingham were responsible, it would be in the way that Richard would have been responsible for the murder of Henry VI, i.e. not ultimately, because it was Edward IV. The buck stops with the king. Yeah. And, you know. The counter-argument is, Tom, that Richard is weakened

by the deaths of the two boys because people hold it against him. And he doesn't immediately gain anything by it. But I would say, in answer to that, there is the first revolt, isn't there, in late July. So within a month of his coronation, there is an attempt by some conspirators to rescue the two boys and to stage a sort of pro-woodville countercoup yeah and i mean all everything you know about thousands of years of history is that when that kind of thing happens the person in charge decides usually will get rid of the focus of of of resistance you know get rid of the alternative candidates. That's what dictators, kings, emperors have done throughout all history.

So it would make complete sense for Richard at that point to say, oh, my God, they've got to go. I can't keep having these revolts. And I don't think that's because he's evil and malignant. I just think that's because he's hard-headed. It's a calculus of power. Yeah. And I think the other thing that militates against the idea that Buckingham did it is that Richard actually had the...

I mean, the problem for Richard is that people are starting to say they've been murdered. So the obvious way to counter that is to produce them. So if you can't produce them, that is very, very suspicious, I think. If they're dead, you can't produce them, then obviously the idea would be to try and blame someone for it. And the ideal opportunity takes place when Buckingham, who has not been rewarded as he feels fit, joins in a rebellion that aims to bring Henry Tudor, the only conceivable Lancastrian claimant, to the throne. And this revolt is defeated. Buckingham is captured. He is taken to Salisbury. He is taken to a courtyard between the Blue

Boar Inn and the Saracens' Head Inn. Off with his head, so much for Buckingham in the famous cry of Richard III in Shakespeare's play. And Buckingham's head is severed in, I think I've already mentioned this, what becomes the laundry department of Debenhams in Salisbury, which has sadly since closed. A lovely detail. But for a long time, you know, you go in to buy a bra and, whoa, Dick Buckingham would pop up carrying his head well you know what richard said about buckingham's rebels he said they were horrible adulterers and boards so in

a way they're kind of ladies underwear departments of a mid-market department store makes complete yeah so buckingham's buckingham's died a traitor so it's the perfect opportunity for richard to say oh well buckingham did it yeah but he doesn't no he doesn't I mean the other candidate that sometimes people so I've been to the Richard the third experience or whatever it's called in Leicester and you can vote there's a sort of interactive element where you can vote about who you think did it Richard Buckingham or Henry Tudor and some people say Henry Tudor killed them. Very, very ardent Ricardians sometimes say this.

But again, I think that's very, very implausible. Because I think... Well, Margaret Beaufort, his mother, is another candidate, isn't it? What have they been doing in the... What have the kids been doing in the interim? Well, I'll tell you the other thing about Margaret Beaufort, who's Henry Tudor's mother, is that she reaches an accommodation with Elizabeth Woodville, who's still in sanctuary. And the only conceivable reason for that

is that they would both, you know, that they would have for that is that Elizabeth Woodville assumes that her children are dead. Although, Tom, there is an interesting problem with the Richard III, the explanation that places Richard III

as the murderer. And that is that Elizabeth Woodville also reaches an accommodation with Richard herself. So March 1484, she leaves sanctuary and then reappears at court, which is a kind of slightly weird thing to do. If she thinks her sons have...

Well, I suppose your argument would be she feels she has no choice. Well, she's also thinking about her daughter. She doesn't want to be... you know she's assuming i guess that it's likely that richard will will carry on i mean she's trying to play both you know she's reaching accommodation with margaret beaufort to try and reach out to henry the seventh as he will become that he will marry her daughter elizabeth which in due course is of course exactly what happens um but he's she's also kind of talking, you know, what's my fate going to be? What's the fate of my other children going to be under Richard?

Well, it's quite clear that a lot of people think that. I think it's quite clear that by that point, most people think that the princes are dead because the anti-Ricardian forces have moved their focus to Henry Tudor, which they wouldn't have done otherwise. And you're starting, so the rumours that Thomas More picks up on and which then ultimately feed into Shakespeare's play, which are, you know, they're originating in this period.

And they are that Brackenbury, who's the Constable of the Tower of London, has refused to kill the princes. That it's been done by a guy called Sir James Tyrrell, who is played in the Ian McKellen film by Adrian Dunbar. All right, very good. So Ted Hastings. Head of AC12.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Bent copper goes in and does it. And they're smothered by pillows, so that's the story that Thomas More will pick up. Or they're poisoned. Or, interestingly, they're drowned in a butter marmsy. Again?

I'm original. Yeah, they're not going to do that again. I'm original, doesn't it? So I guess what all those rumours suggest is that people don't actually know what's happened, which is, of course, what you'd expect. What is strange, though, and interesting, Tom, is that Henry VII, when he finally defeats Richard at the Battle of Bosworth, he doesn't really make a huge deal about the princes, does he?

Well, he doesn't want to, does he? Because he's... He's worried about his claim. Yeah, he's worried about his claim. So, you know, he's going to marry their sister and that's going to be... You know, by that point, he... So initially he's kind of adopted as the Yorkist candidate,

but he doesn't want to rule as a Yorkist candidate. Yeah. He wants to park the whole issue. So everything is focused on saying Richard III was evil. He was a dog, all that kind of stuff. Stick a knife in his bare buttock when he's dead, all that kind of thing. But everybody has an interest in letting dead princes lie.

And I think that that's the issue. And I think the conc apps you know the the pretty the conclusive proof that henry vii didn't you know the henry vii didn't murder them is that in due course when you start to get pretenders right well this is the thing they don't lie he's in a genuine panic i mean he you know he i thought they were dead yeah well so what's really interesting about this is they don't disappear. Now, you have a parallel, actually. So people who know about Russian history will know that after Ivan the Terrible, there was something called the Time of Troubles.

And there were all these people called false Dimitris. Dimitri was the youngest son of Ivan the Terrible who had died. And one of the false Dimitris, one of these pretenders, actually ends up ruling Russia for a couple of years or a year or so. So imposter pretenders are very common in history, especially at times of uncertainty and instability. And Henry Tudor is very unstable. I mean, no one knows that Henry Tudor is going to last a long time, do they?

And actually, the Wars of the Roses don't really end in 1485. No, they carry on. I mean, first of all, just two years after he's taken power, you get Lambert Simnel. Now, Lambert Simnel, bizarrely, is not impersonating one of the princes in the tower. He's impersonating the son of Clarence, who is, what is he, the Earl of Warwick, the young Earl of Warwick. And there's a battle at Stoke Field with Lambert Simnel's forces.

I mean, he's only 10, but the force is representing him, which is actually bigger than the Battle of Bosworth. Yeah. But it's completely unknown because the result is not. So there's him and then there's Perkin Warbeck. And what's kind of interesting is that originally Lambert Simnel claimed to be Richard of Shrewsbury and then changed his mind and became the Earl of Warwick. Yes. And with Perkin Warbeck, it was the other way round. He claimed to be the Earl of Warwick

and then claimed to be Richard. And he was basically sponsored by Margaret of Burgundy, so Edward IV's sister. And he's a Belgian, isn't he, Perkin Warbeck? He's one of the world's famous Belgians. Yes. Or was he? Or was he? Well, no one really knows.

Some people think he came from a place called Tournay. And, um, but it's so unclear. But Horace Walpole and Philippa Gregory, they think he is. They both thought he really was Richard of Shrewsbury, which if he was, it was you know, sad fate. Well, I mean, sad fate for Perkin Warbeck as well.

He wasn't very successful uh he he tried to land at deal couldn't manage that got beaten off went to ireland went to scotland uh gave up tried again landed in cornwall ran away got captured yeah got looked after about two years and then got hanged but then he he is executed with the little Earl of Warwick, the younger Earl of Warwick, Edward Earl of Warwick, isn't he? So they're either impersonating him or they're being executed alongside him. It's all very confusing.

So that's all great. I mean, lots of great novels and dramas and whodunits around that theme. But then in 1674, there seems to be an answer to the mystery, doesn't there? So we've got a question from Dr. Sushma Jansari, a very distinguished curator at the British Museum,

who I hope will be coming on the show, who asks, what's with the bodies of children found in the tower? Have I preempted you? No, that's exactly it. 1674, some bodies are found, some bones are found, and they're identified as the two boys, and Charles IIi orders them buried in westminster abbey doesn't he and he says that yeah he says he'll either relics of edward v king of england and richard duke of york but i think is the general consensus now that they're probably not um well they got they got

looked they got re-examined in 1933 and they're incomplete skeletons and there's quite a lot of animal bones yeah so so again this goes back to that thing about the tower the tower is this big sprawling complex at the time yeah there's lots of different buildings there's probably a lot of different people buried in the grounds um there's no reason to believe that these are necessarily the princes and i think the queen has refused permission for them to be. Well, more tantalizingly, did you know about the discovery at St. George's Chapel in Windsor? Oh, I did see something about this. Which is really intriguing.

So there were workmen working there. And that's where Edward IV and then in due course Elizabeth Woodville have been buried together. And they kind of, they accidentally knocked through into the threw into the crypt and they find that there's another adjacent crypt. And there are the bodies of two children in it. And the names on the coffins are two of Edward the fourth's children who had pre-deceased him, but they had,

they'd been buried elsewhere. Yes. I would see that. Thatased him. But they'd been buried elsewhere. Yes, I see that. That's mysterious. But Thomas, they're not an even more exciting possibility, as recently featured in Her Majesty's Daily Telegraph. Indeed. I don't know whether people saw this. This is, again, part of Philippa Langley's lifelong project

to prove that Richard III was innocent. So to be fair to her, she did find the body of Richard III under the car park. So she has form. She does have form. And she is a keen supporter of something called,

according to Telegraph, the Missing Princes Project, which is led by someone called John Dyke uh and telegraph reports him as saying the idea of a missing prince lying low in devon might appear fanciful at first with all the secret symbols and clues it sounds somewhat like the da vinci code but the discoveries inside this church in the middle of nowhere that's in the middle of dartmoor end of a lane are extraordinary the evidence suggests that edward was so that's edward the fifth so the elder of nowhere, so that's in the middle of Dartmoor, end of a lane, are extraordinary. The evidence suggests that Edward was, so that's Edward V, so the elder of the princes.

And it's interesting, I think, Dominic, that all the pretenders, none of them are Edward V. They're all kind of Richard. Well, probably because he was too well known at the age of 12. So you can't impersonate him. So the evidence suggests that Edward was actually sent to live out his days on his half-brother's land as long as he kept quiet as part of a deal reached between his mother and Richard III and later with Henry Tudor. Once you take all the clues together, it does appear that the story of the princes in the tower may need to be rewritten. Well, you know what he called himself, according to this?

John Evans. And there's... He built his own chantry, didn't he? At the age of 41. And he put lots of clues to himself. Well, among which, on his tomb, of course, if you look at Evans, what are the first two letters of Evans? E-V.

E-V. Oh, extraordinary. Well, well. Do you believe this, Tom? I'm not entirely convinced. I'm not entirely convinced i i'm not i mean when uh when when um when john dyke says that it sounds somewhat like the da vinci code i think that's i think that's not inaccurate i mean basically let me just address the uh the central implausibility

is it plausible that richard who we know is so hard-nosed and henry the seventh and so two incredibly ruthless men who have a track record of executing their enemies which is why Richard, who we know is so hard-nosed. And Henry VII is equally a bastard. Two incredibly ruthless men who have a track record of executing their enemies, which is why they're able to become king in the first place, that they would agree a deal to allow their biggest rival to go and live under an assumed name on Dartmoor.

And that he then, in his turn... Which would leave lots of clues. Yeah, would never surface and try and recapture the crown, but would build a load of clues into the church. I think that's, you know, I mean, stranger things have happened, but not many. That's all I'll say.

But, you know, I mean, Philippa Langley, she was right with the car park. She was. She'll be laughing at us one day, Tom, in that channel four documentary proving that edward the fifth they'll play bits of this podcast they were going to montage of our shamed countenances oh dear um anyway uh ping pong on the discord asked why are we still interested in this mystery murder over so many others. That's a very good question. And I think actually it is because there are just,

a final solution I think isn't, I shouldn't use the word final solution, should I? The kind of conclusive solution is not possible. Yeah, agreed. There's not enough evidence. But there's enough evidence to construct all kinds of various possibilities. Plus, of course, it involves kings and princes.

But also, clearly, there's a romantic element, isn't there, to the last Plantagenet, to Richard III, which encourages Ricardians to find him innocent. So there's this sort of notion, isn't there, that the medieval period comes to a kind of crashing end at the Battle of Bosworth. Plus Henry is kind of a accountant, a grim accountant. Yeah, the age of knights and stuff is gone

and it's replaced by, exactly, this sort of miserable penny pincher and then his wail of a son. And that people romanticise the age that went before the Plantagelus. They romanticise Richard, of course, because he's the guy from the north. He's very religious, all of this sort of stuff.

And I think then there becomes this urge to find him innocent and also to think, I would say, to think that you have discovered the key to history and something that the academics haven't spotted and all this sort of stuff. I think, just wondering about this, just thinking it out here, I wonder also if a part of it isn't sublimated hostility to shakespeare i kind of that is i didn't see that

coming no well there is actually kind of rather similar stuff around the identity of shakespeare you know was he the earl of oxford or yeah that's whatever that's true so there's a question here um ollie oko again on the um on the discord was shakespeare's reputation slipping circa 1593 and he needed a sycophantic pro tutor play to keep the queen happy and boost his there's a man there's somebody who doesn't like shakespeare yeah so i think i think that this idea that shakespeare is a kind of um he's either uh you know he's a fraud who is taking the credit which probably belongs to an aristocrat or that he's a kind of uh sinister conniving sycophant um it kind of i'm maybe if you had a bad time studying him at school or something it's a way to to kind of elbow him aside i mean i just a hostility to the received wisdom

in general and sort of the idea i think it's a part of that and i think shakespeare is kind of you know as as the greatest writer yeah there's There's a kind of pleasure in kicking him. I think there's definitely a lot of people who get a lot of pleasure. So in The Daughter of Time, Thomas More is absolutely the villain. You know, you get that in, you know. Hilary Mantel. Yes. She thinks Thomas More is the villain.

So Thomas More and Shakespeare are both, you know, people who've been so eulogised that there's a kind of seditious pleasure in giving them a kicking. But I do also think that Richard's obviously been unlucky in Shakespeare because it's a brilliant play. The Ian McKellen, have you

seen the... Yeah, fantastic. Set in sort of World War II type sort of iconography. Yes, it's kind of 1930s. A bit like the production of Beckett that I did at Edinburgh Festival, Tom. Yes, it all becomes fascist. I think there's a kind of way in which you could cast Richard

as a kind of Raul Castro or, you know, the brother of, you know, an autocrat or, you know, one of thoseat one of the Al-Assads someone who after the charismatic founder of the regime has gone has to be ruthless to keep his regime in power

to keep himself in power Jim Callaghan to Edward IV's Harold Wilson is that the comparison you were looking for? that's the comparison that I was I'm glad that you've provided it well he's Robert Kennedy to JFK, I think. I think he's more serious.

He's the dutiful younger brother who finds himself pushed suddenly into the limelight. But Robert Kennedy didn't. Didn't murder any children. Didn't murder his nephews. No, I mean, that's true. But then we can't conclusively say that Richard did. No, no. You see, I think, Tom, I'm very sympathetic to Richard. But even though

i think he probably did kill the princess in the tower i think he's in a really really difficult position and he's trying to make the best of it and of course killing your nephews is not normally the the most admirable way out but i think i think to be brutal about it in that world he had no choice his choice is probably keep taking these kind of blood stained acts but he basically to lose the game but he did lose the game and and he lost the game not just for himself but for him but for his entire family yeah the yorkists should have you know there was a plenitude of sons and daughters they should you know, the 16th century should have been the Yorkist age. And the fact that it wasn't,

Richard could have taken very, very different decisions. The interesting thing is that had it been the Yorkist age, I mean, this is indulging in a colossal counterfactual, which I know we've poured scorn on in earlier podcasts, the idea of counterfactuals, but a secure Yorkist regime, a Plantagenet regime in the mid-16th century i would say is much less likely to break with rome and to encourage the growth of protestantism although

it's partly henry viii's insecurity although it's obvious that um you know having unsuitable marriages is is something that edward the fourth is capable of passing on to his descendants yeah so who knows that's true i mean maybe maybe so maybe his grandson or some successor would have been at every the eighth and different guys so i do i do think richard richard is is a tragic figure and and not for the reasons that shakespeare makes him a tragic figure he's not a kind of out and out villain i think he he perhaps for reasons reasons that ultimately he's unable to control, he destroys himself and his family and his regime. And he's a massive loser. Harsh.

He's a murderer and a loser. Yeah, very harsh. I shall leave you to field the correspondence with the Ricardians when the podcast is over. Please address your complaints to Tom and not to me. So who do you think murdered the Prince and the Tartar on it before we go? Well, I think Richard did it, but I think he was right to do it. That's the difference. But he wasn't right.

He immolated his regime. Well, if he'd won at Bosworth, though, Tom, if he'd won at Bosworth, it would have been right. He didn't, did he? He didn't because nobody backed him. Well, he was pretty close at Bosworth. I mean, it was very much a, you know, it was a bit like Aston Villa's exit from the FA Cup last night, Tom.

It could have gone either way. Sorry, I know that's a sore point. Right. Thank you very much. We will see. What will we see them for next? Railways. History of the Railways.

Beginnings of the Railways. Very exciting. In which Dan Jackson, I believe, may be wearing a hat. He does, but of course you won't be able to see that.

No, but you'll know that it was there. All right, so we'll see you then. Thanks very much for listening. And don't forget that Dominic also thinks that Richard murdered

the princess of the tower. So address all correspondence to both of us. Goodbye. Bye-bye. that Richard murdered the princess of the tower. So address all correspondence to both of us. Thanks. Goodbye. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to The Rest Is History. For bonus episodes, early access,

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