Richard III's remains: Leicester car park dug up

mscelina said:

Heh. And you call yourself English.

But all the same, it doesn't make sense for anyone other than Richard III to have murdered the Princes in the Tower. No one else had the same opportunity or the power to commit the crime and cover it up. Margaret Beaufort and her son Henry VII were exiled on the continent.

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Henry was exiled to France when he was approx 14 years old. To the best of my knowledge Margaret was never exiled to France - she was far too busy marrying wealthy noblemen. In June 1472 she married for the fourth and last time. Her fourth husband was Thomas Stanley, Lord High Constable.

mscelina said:

#Who else could have not only ordered the crime, but covered it up to such an extent that the boys just faded out of historical record? To my way of thinking, that requires proximity, enough political power to pay off/frighten the men guarding the young princes from spilling the beans, and, quite frankly, the political clout to force the younger boy out of sanctuary with the Queen and her daughters and into the same place as his older brother. And let's not forget--Richard III was personally responsible for deposing his nephew and barring them from the succession.

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All the records of Richards' reign were destroyed or perverted by the Tudors - nothing is certain. As for proximity, the Tower of London was a royal palace and would have had an army of servants, people delivering food, some guards - but NOT the Yeoman Warders (they were not founded until 1509) but not the sort of security that we would think suitable. Two young boys were vulnerable, not just to political opponents but to illness.

Richard was not ' personally responsible for deposing his nephew and barring them from the succession". He could not have done that without the consent of the Council and the people. There was no revolt when Richard was crowned. If there had have been one the Tudors would have had a field day!

mscelina said:

At the very least, his inability to either disprove the rumors of the murders by producing the children in public and the lack of any sort of royal inquiry on his part to determine the boys' fate strongly implicates him as--if not the actual murderer--the beneficiary of their deaths as well as the driving force behind the concealment of the crime.

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As the vast majority of the rumours concerning Edward and Richard started AFTER Bosworth it is not surprising or suspicious that the princes were not produced - Richard III had no need to prove himself innocent of a crime he did not even know, in all probability, that he was supposed to have committed.

mscelina said:

Don't get me wrong--Henry Tudor was no great prize. But, the princes disappeared at the height of Richard's power, and obviously their deaths were known by the time Henry Tudor promised to make Elizabeth, daughter of Edward VI and Elizabeth Woodville, his Queen if he defeated Richard.

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Henry took an oath to marry Elizabeth in December 1483 in Rouen Cathedral. Given the time it would have taken for letters to go there and back between England and France that was pretty quick. And a motive for Mesdames Beaufort and Woodville to plot. And for Elizabeth of York to plot as well . . .

mscelina said:

Thomas More is the source for James Tyrell's confession about the deaths of the little princes. More was a Tudor man through and through, but I find it difficult to believe that he was less conscious of his conscience when he wrote the History of Richard III then when he went to the block for his refusal to take the Oath and denounce the Spanish Queen Katharine.

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Oh dear! Thomas More! There is a very strong possibility that John Morton supplied More with much of the information that was used in the book. Morton was rabidly anti Richard III. Perhaps the bias in the information caused More not to have the book published and also why he left it, iirc, unfinished.

mscelina said:

The majority of contemporary sources (not Shakespeare, who shouldn't be considered a historical source for anything) agree that Richard III--or one of his loyal men acting on behalf of the King--was responsible for their deaths. There's a lot more than Tudor propaganda out there to support that claim.

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What contemporary sources are you referring to?
Polydor Vergil? He arrived in London in 1502 - 17 years after Bosworth. Hardly contemporary.
Dominic Mancini? Arrived in 1482 and left after about six months - before the events he wrote about had occurred. There are other accounts, but none to my knowledge that were written at the time the events took place. A useful list of 'sources' can be found here: http://www.r3.org/bookcase/misc/potter.html#mancini

We can debate the fate of the Princes (if indeed they were) but in the end there is no proof or evidence to support the guilt or innocence of the main players. I have to admit that there is one thing that I am puzzled by - Henry VII banished Elizabeth Wydeville to Bermondsey Abbey, which was directly across the Thames from the Tower. I cannot help but wonder what he found out that made him send her to the place opposite the site of her son's death. Or did he send her to the place where her sons died?

Just found this
http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/clips/p00hf64l
Shame about the costume! So Henry VIII!

And this, which I thought I had already posted a link to.
http://www2.le.ac.uk/news/blog/2012/august/searching-for-richard-iii

The dig may be extended, I hope it is. Seems wrong to give up after two weeks. Well, it does to me.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-19516669

veinglory said:

I think there is also room for realizing the remains monarch are a serious topic for many people who live in monarchies.

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Yes, you are right Veinglory,for many people who live in the UK it is. For some it means nothing at all. I would hate the dig to end without every opportunity being explored. I'd be wondering what if . . . I suppose I would like the archaeologists to find the remains or be told that there are none on the site.

The dissolution of monasteries and other places of worship by Henry VIII caused an awful lot of anguish to an awful lot of people. One of the causes was the destruction of shrines and burial places that the people considered worthy of veneration. This was very obvious in Canterbury when Thomas Becket's tomb was destroyed and his bones supposedly burnt. It is more than likely that the church authorities knew what was going to happen and moved his remains - in fact there have been bones found in odd places in Canterbury Cathedral.* Following this train of thought it is also likely that other people who were respected/revered by locals would have had their remains moved from the original burial site and re-interred elsewhere and used bones from a charnel house to replace them.

I think the experts know what they are about. This http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-19474848 is an interesting article. Worth reading as it has quite a few interesting bits of information about how the dig came about. The last paragraph is a cliff hanger. . .

While the final results of the excavation are a still a closely guarded secret . . .

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And I didn't know that Henry VII had put aside money to pay for a tomb for Richard.

* see The Quest for Becket's Bones by John Butler.

More news: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/s...hed-in-leicester-richard-iii-dig-8117515.html