This business with wills is driving me nuts, mainly because I have no idea where to look for information. I have googled like mad since the early hours , but have come up with nothing of any real value.

So if the Church (pre-Reformation), acted as a kind of Swiss bank vaults facility for the safe-keeping of the wills of really important Englaish people, where were they actually put away until needed? In England - or in Rome? What might be stored away in the archives of the Vatican to this day? Are (ordinary) historians allowed in there to ferret around? Or is that a daft question?

Did Richard III's will go missing too? Or was his will a legal irrelevance - all his lands, goods etc. presumably being forfeit to the new Crown? Wasn't Richard simply stripped of everything - attainted - acquiring the legal status of a non-person? I know Edward IV's will did indeed go missing, but I had no idea that Richard's also disappeared. Here's Charles Ross about Edward's will. Not even Catigern can knock me back for quoting him, surely?

"Edward IV's last will, and the codicils which he added to it on his deathbed, have not survived, but it seems reasonably certain that he intended to place these responsibilities upon Duke Richard until Edward came of age. Not to have appointed him, given his power and proximity of blood, would have been a recipe for trouble, since neither he nor many others wished for a Woodville-dominated minority. Equally, the Woodvilles could be expected to resist all attempts to deprive them of their control of the princes..."

Did the Woodvilles have a hand in the "disappearance" of Edward's will?

Tampering with wills, or destroying them. Surely the Church authorities would never collude with such actions - or is that an utterly naïve thing to say?

And women's wills - am I right that women such as the York girls - all married -  were not allowed to  make wills? Margaret Beaufort - Ms. Stanley - was an exception, as she was granted - unusually - the rights of a "femme sole" by her son. Bridget of York became a nun, so obviously she really was a "femme sole". But did nuns, even aristocratic or royal ones, have any property to bequeath? Were all rights to property relinquished when vows were taken?

A muddled message, but all this is fascinating me. Must keep looking for more info about how wills were drawn up, stored away until needed, and then proved. Who "proved" royal wills? A pretty important task, surely.

PS Only from Wiki - about "probate":

Historically during many centuries a paragraph in Latin of standard format was written by scribes of the particular probate court below the transcription of the will, commencing with the words (for example): Probatum Londini fuit huismodi testamentum coram venerabili viro (name of approver) legum doctore curiae prerogativae Cantuariensis... ("A testament of such a kind was proved at London in the presence of the venerable man ..... doctor of law at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury..."). The earliest usage of the English word was in 1463, defined as "the official proving of a will".

If you think about it a monarch's will must of necessity be a rather unique variation of the concept. It must not be seen as a simple document with an agreed executor subject to probate. What, for example, would happen if after a king's death his will revealed that he had left everything to his pet cat? On the one hand, as monarch, who could gainsay his dying wishes? But on the other hand what system could survive if vulnerable to such erraticism in its monarchic wills? And besides extreme examples such as the pet cat one can readily think of a thousand ways in which a departing monarch can really screw up the machinery of state, not to mention the transfer of power to a new regent, should monarchical wills be drawn up in the same manner as everyone else's.

Richard, as monarch, was himself executor to many wills and supervised many more. And where a king is roped into things the probate is more or less irrelevant, or at least becomes a mere formality. In his own case he would have well understood therefore why probate would have been very important, at least for the dispersal of his personal property, and the logical solution would have been to make two wills, one subject to probate and one deferred to his successor but held by an executor regarded as an "honest broker" dealing with matters impacting on the state. It is suspected that this was his brother's solution too - another will that has gone "missing".

If you want to trace the contents and nature of Richard's will(s) I suggest you begin with property deed transfers after his demise. Henry would have acquired and probably even destroyed the one to which he had legitimate access as monarch but how much he interfered with the one subject to probate is almost impossible to gauge, given the secrecy involved. However had he ridden roughshod over the probate court and seized this will - a matter that would have immediately set him at loggerheads with both the civil and ecclesiastical courts at an early and vulnerable stage of his new reign - there would be a record of this and there is none. Evidence for such an action would be impossible to hide.

Anyway, given that he had circumvented the need for any such drastic and dangerous manouevre by dint of his marriage, why would he ever have bothered? Which brings us back to the Swiss bank (probably Franciscan in this case) who were allowed get on with it on the strict understanding that they just keep quiet about it.

Not relavant to Richard, but didn't Jane Grey's claim to the throne centre on the fact that Edward VI stated in his will that the crown should go to her, thereby over-riding Henry VIII's ruling that the succession was Mary and then Elizabeth in the event of Edward dying with no legitimate offspring? This line of succession had been laid down by an act of Parliament, and so this became the legal reason to deprive Jane Grey of the throne (and her head). Hence just because a king expresses a desire for something to happen by writing it in his will ... it ain't necessarily going to come about.

Yes it comes down to whether an ex-probate royal will (letter patent in authority) or Act of Parliament - both of which carry a decree with royal imprimatur - is of most relevance should they be in contradiction. In terms of  legality both had claims to be binding. In Edward VI's case the cheeky bit was when the executors attempted to put the will's contents into the public domain and swiftly act on them - a blatant political shenanigan on their part and a departure from normal practise, even in earlier cases where a succession had been seen as up for grabs.

Of course Eddie's dad had done away with the Swiss banks. So you can sort of see why Northumberland reckoned public was best. After all, Henry VIII himself had chosen that option too, and for the same reason. There must have been many occasions in his later years when Henry VIII realised just what he'd done by dissolving the monasteries and eliminating the honest broker. The sound of a Tudor Homer Simpson "DOH!" must have resonated often in his chambers.

No, just too silly, so I've deleted it.

The cat was a facetious example on my part, but no less relevant for that. The point is that a document written by a monarch and signed by him carries the authority of letter patent, in theory a decree that overrides parliament's acts. Remember, acts of parliament meant diddleysquat in those days if the king or queen came up with a decree more to their liking. Parliament's job was to rubberstamp royal decrees. That was why Henry basically reproduced his own Third Succession Act as a letter patent enactable as his will upon death.

And in that respect Northumberland's tactic when placing Jane on the throne was actually not so dumb, and not even that daring either. In this post-honest broker society Henry had shown that the dying decree held most authority constitutionally and Edward, after all, had produced this:



It looks like something scribbled hastily on a napkin in crayon but it was, in theory, the final word on the matter. The incident in fact proved that the "new society" ushered in by Henry was in reality a huge backward step in terms of defining power constitutionally. In the old days Northumberland would merely have had to get the honest broker (a church led by strategically placed aristocrats from all the rival factions) to sanction it in order to outmanouevre his opponents. Now he was just a powerful but heavily outflanked faction with no recourse to mediation or recruiting effective support once the rival gangs ganged up on him.

In 1931 the five New York mafia outfits, along with Buffalo, New Jersey and the Chicago gangs realised that this was an inherent weakness in the power system to which they subscribed. Setting up The Commission in that year solved the issue. It was Henry's dissolution in reverse, and it worked amazingly well. The Sicilian mafia on the other hand still play by Henry's rules, hence the frequent bloodbaths.

MM, re point you make about Jane Grey - Professor Eric Ives in his biography of Jane, devotes a whole chapter - The Will of a King - to this very issue.

There were doubts about the legality of Henry VIII's will - much disquiet that he had ruled that, were Edward to die without heirs, the realm could be inherited by his two daughters, both of whom were legally bastards. The argument was that his legal, legitimate heirs, after Edward, were the Grey girls (Mary in Scotland was put aside, as she had not been born in England). It was a nice legal point.

There could well have been a few tweakings done to the royal will (Henry's) using the dry stamp signature. Murky business.

But this is off-topic.

EDI: No, it was I who was being facetious - that's why I've deleted the silly message and picture. I do get your point.

Erik Ives should also have mentioned that just about everything coming out of Whitehall Palace was legally questionable at the time. Prior to Elizabeth's attempts to impose a new structure on the legal system Henry's emasculation of the chancery courts, his abolition of the independent ecclesiastical court so that it became a private court owned by him as leader of the church, and his reliance on a badly formed and rather impotent high court system had effectively removed any gauge for judging, let alone testing, the legality of anything. Stalin found himself with a very similar problem.

Good luck to anyone who finds researching wills   to be interesting, but I *do* hope that nobody's going to try and vilify   or exonerate   any Historickal Personages on grounds of their having either adhered to or ignored the provisions of any particular will.

As Andrew Spencer pointed out some time ago, government is for the living, not the dead  . Our present rule that no UK Parliament can bind its successors reflects this, and derives from universal necessity, not any particular argument or inherited tradition.

On the other hand 'Where there is a will there's a way.' This is an interesting topic because  wills yield information which in this case might throw useful light on  issues that are central to  many of the relevant arguments here - and possibly even settle some.

Except they're not there. And it's what their absence means that is really relevant here. Is it proof of skullduggery or, as I would suggest, merely indicative of how things were done?

I know the' re not there!!!, she snapped back. But if they were found it would be helpful, as for skull doggery -  there's been a lot of doggery and digging about in this thread.

... and duggery, even.  O and U are rather close on this tiny keyboard - a good thing that D an d B are further apart

'G' and 'T' are right next to each other on my keyboard...

Yes they're not there. But were they ever?

Nordmann - I've just been talking to someone this afternoon whose PhD thesis involved the close study of 16th century merchants' wills and how they changed as the Reformation progressed. Although not an expert on wills and chantry requests etc. from the previous century, he confirmed that what you say is "probably correct".

I feel very deflated, because I was quite excited about the Leanda de Lisle comments. But never mind. I have learnt something new.

"Probably" will do me from a PhD. Leanda's question is a valid one as a starting point of enquiry, though not in isolation as it is based on an implied assumption that is incorrect.

Just as when people assume that disappearing princes when Plantagenets are in charge is somehow a one-off event. Anyone remember King Alphonso of England, once Earl of Chester? No (though he was first in line when he died). Anyone know what he died of? No. Anyone know where he's buried? No (though "somewhere in Westminster Abbey" has for some reason been traditionally deemed an acceptable and exact enough response for a crowned prince of the realm). His death opened the door for Edward II and all that mayhem. Trace the mayhem's authors back a bit and one suddenly feels the cold hunch-backed hand of evil relatives on one's shoulder (the lower one maybe).

Has anyone done geophys recently around Westminster Abbey's car park by any chance?

I  have no knowledge of geophys in the environs of Westminster Abbey, but there was a programme quite recently on the Beeb about Anglo-Saxons.  Michael Hicks (who I know people on this Board have reservations about) explained that following the death of Aethelfleide (sp?), Lady of Mercia, her daughter who had been chosen as her successor, somehow disappeared from history.  The inference seemed to be that in the best case scenario her uncle, the king let her retire to a nunnery; in the worst case scenario .... well something worse happened to her.  Also King John was suspected of having had his nephew Arthur "bumped off", though I don't know if the suspicion was correct - and isn't something particularly nasty supposed to have happened to Edward II....

A possible English king named Alphonso? I thought it was one of Our Leader's little jokes at first, but no, Alph existed all right.

And he had a brother - Prince John -  who, according to Wiki, "died at Wallingford, while in the custody of his granduncle, Richard, Earl of Cornwall."

Honestly, these Plantagenet uncles or granduncles - you dursn't turn your back on any of them for a minute.

John is somewhere at Westminster Abbey too. Goodness knows what - or who - is stashed under the gift-shop there. Has anyone had the shivers whilst buying a Kate 'n' William mug?

I see that Futurelearn where one can get free access to university courses has a course run by Leicester University about England in the time of King Richard III. The instructor is Diedre O'Sullivan.
Here are the details if anyone is interested.
https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/england-of-richard-third

They've found a bit of Henry Tudor's flag:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2430008/Richard-III-Fragment-500-year-flag-flew-King-killed-Battle-Bosworth.html

But I am confused, as usual. I thought Sir William Brandon, father of Charles Brandon, Henry VIII's great chum, was the Tydder's standard-bearer?

amongst all other Knights, remember
which were hardy, & therto wight;
Sir william Brandon was one of those,
King Heneryes Standard he kept on height,

& vanted itt with manhood & might
vntill with dints hee was dr(i)uen downe,
& dyed like an ancyent Knight,
with HENERY of England that ware the crowne.

—Bosworth Ffeilde, anonymous author

I liked the way the DM helpfully points out that the said piece of fabric, measuring just, "six-and-a-half inches by five-and-a-half-inches", would have been, "part of a far larger flag".

Well who'd have guessed it?

Temperance wrote:

But I am confused, as usual. I thought Sir William Brandon, father of Charles Brandon, Henry VIII's great chum, was the Tydder's standard-bearer?

It seems the article was just sloppily written. The 1847 dedication being used as part of the fragment's "provenance" clearly states that Harcourt was Richard's standard bearer, not Henry's, and that the standard was Richard's.

nordmann wrote:

Temperance wrote:

But I am confused, as usual. I thought Sir William Brandon, father of Charles Brandon, Henry VIII's great chum, was the Tydder's standard-bearer?

It seems the article was just sloppily written. The 1847 dedication being used as part of the fragment's "provenance" clearly states that Harcourt was Richard's standard bearer, not Henry's, and that the standard was Richard's.

I didn't get down that far...

Makes you wonder if the Mail gets other things wrong, too. Surely not...

Wonder if it's genuine and how much it will fetch at auction? Let's hope it stays in the UK. If I had a spare £3,000 - £5,000 I'd bid myself and then donate the little scrap of fabric to York Minister, preferably to be displayed near Richard's tomb.

Temperance wrote:

Makes you wonder if the Mail gets other things wrong, too. Surely not...

I'd bid myself and then donate the little scrap of fabric to York Minister, preferably to be displayed near Richard's tomb.

Well, the Mail did take Phlippa Langley's word for it that Dickon Kiddiethrottle was 'a warrior king', which we all know is utterly spurious...  

And it would be difficult for the Chapter of York Minster to display the fragment near the Hunchback's tomb (about eighty miles away, in Leicester   )...

And, Temp, we do indeed get Vicky Pollard types coming to Oxford, but only grim, pokey little Jesus College (chavvy paintings and chicken nuggets) is desperate enough to admit them...

Just lost another post. Another pound sterling to you Catigern, Sod the pennies.
Island Dawn, was I unpleasant to Arwhe...I hope not but at a time when people are calling their children after fruits, knitting patterns and soft furnishings to say nothing of where they were conceived, "Lift"? "Breeze Block Wall"? Obviously I can't tell "her" gender by "her" chosen name, I'm guessing, but it wasn't Welsh! "She" was extremely rude to me, that doesn't count. Forgot, apologies.
There's a gap and I keep loosing it! So nonsense!I went to school in Towcester, Northants and Richard III crops up because many of my friends came from important villages like Stony Stratford AND Silverstone. I know I'll loose this, so when we escaped to Towcester, Lord Hesketh owned all the land around and started a racing team and all the mechanics wore red over-alls with a teddy on the back.We saw them all the time.
Knowing little about racing, we all saw pictures of James Hunt, the Shunt and hoped he's turn up eventually. After our final A'Level exams we went for pub grub at the Olde Oak in Towcester and the mechanics turned up but so did Lord Hesketh and....James Hunt! We must have been making a noise of some sort and suddenly this Adonis approached us in a splendid sort of way. "May I borrow your tomato sauce girls"? We offered it up to him. Only June was brave enough to ask for his autograph, more followed but even I was struck dumb. He sauntered back to the teddy bear crew and all laughed but in a nice way. James Hunt was truly gorgeous, for the record!
Afterwards friends and I would sit by the river bordering on the Hesketh estate and speak poetry, I can still "do" "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" and most of "The Lady of Shallot".
I hate motor racing but James Hunt was a glorious hero!
It's worried me that he seems to have been forgotten, he died so young but now the film! Hurrah!
This should have been about the bloody Beauforts so will I lose this too? Obviously!

Oops! The Bloody Beauforts. To be done properly later!

SST,
Don't despair. Bishop Rowan will help.

Ladyinretirement -I apologize that no one has addressed you, interesting points.I hope that you make more. Minette Minor

Minette Minor wrote:

was I unpleasant to Arwhe...I hope not but at a time when people are calling their children after fruits, knitting patterns and soft furnishings to say nothing of where they were conceived, "Lift"? "Breeze Block Wall"? Obviously I can't tell "her" gender by "her" chosen name, I'm guessing, but it wasn't Welsh! "She" was extremely rude to me, that doesn't count.

No, Minette, AR has only ever treated you with exemplary patience, while you've become hysterical   and pronounced that he has no knowledge of History  , which is something someone as poorly qualified as yourself ought really to be wary of doing. AR has also explained that his name is not intended to be 'Welsh' in the modern sense, but from a much older branch of the Brythonic linguistic tree. Your attempts to strike a pose as authority on things Welsh are extremely silly   , and I do wish you'd cease them. You may have been born in Wales (like Henry V!), but you never learned to speak Welsh, and have clearly never made a serious study of any aspect of Welsh history, and most of what passed for an education during your yoof took place after your family escaped to England. So, please, let's not have any more silly   pronouncements   about things like who ought or ought not to use a red dragon as an emblem.

Ladyinretirement... You shouldn't hesitate to invoke Michael Hicks where his work is relevant - the vast majority of posters respect him as an objective and scholarly Historian  , to be taken far more seriously than muppet hobbyists like Paul Murray Kendal.

But enough of housetraining and hospitality... I'm pleased to note that the so-called 'Plantagenet Alliance' has failed in its attempts to secure a Parliamentary debate about the sensible decision to entomb the Hunchbacked Usurper   in Leicester Cathedral. For a group of so-called adults to demand that we respect the supposed wishes of a tyrant and child-killer risks glamourising that sort of criminal in the eyes of the impressionable and naive...

Well, the occasional note of hysteria does creep into your posts, Catigern.

Here is a particularly vitriolic piece published in the Spectator last February - made me wonder if you publish in that organ under the name of Nigel Jones, Catty. Jones is a very rude man - calls us Richard III groupies and says many other very unkind things. It's very upsetting.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/books/2013/02/richard-iii-should-be-reburied-under-leicester-councils-car-park/

I note that Alison Weir is now, according to Jones,  "the respected historian Alison Weir". How the world turns: one day a feather duster, next rebirth as cock - or hen rather - of the walk. Nice bit of peripety (perfectly cromulent word) there for our Alison! (Can you do peripeteia in reverse - from being reviled to being exalted - I'm not sure?)

But, please, do people like Nigel Jones actually read the sources they quote? He churns out the usual stuff from Thomas More's History of Richard III about the Princes being buried where the Urn Skellingtons were found etc. etc. but has obviously not noted that Thomas More (as the hysterical - but factually accurate - Minette, backed up by my own naïve little self, has pointed out over and over and over again) then describes how a "priest of Sir Robert Brackenbury took up the bodies again" and had them buried somewhere else. It's on page 101 in my book - TM at his Blackadder scriptwriting best. TM had a brilliant sense of humour, especially when he was taking the p*ss out of the Tudor regime.

Catty hissy? Now there's a turn-up for the books!

Though to be fair our Factious Feline really only gets absolutely hysterical when discussing Minnie, and though I am loath to quote Minnie's favourite play in her presence (you know, the one that I think might be subtitled "The Hunchback of Notton, Damn it!"), it strikes me that the bard's "in deadly hate the one against the other" seems very much to apply here.

By the way - Nigel Jones calls himself an historian now. 'Nuff said.

This Jones fellow may or may not be an 'historian', but he certainly seems to be an astute observer of his contemporaries  , to judge by his neat and convincing assessment of the Richard III Society  . And calling Alison Weir a 'respected historian' requires less imagination than characterising Minette as 'factually accurate', Temperance (What is the relevance of her having wittered on and on about Moore saying the PITT were reburied, when nobody I recall has ever said here or on the Beeb board that the bones in the urn constituted evidence? one of the first things we tell undergrads   is that just because a question has a 'keyword' in the title, it *isn't* an invitation to 'write down everything you know about [keyword]...).

Perhaps, being called 'Jones', he is Welsh. I think we should invite him to join this board - it would be interesting to get a *genuinely* Welsh perspective on various subjects, for once...

Catigern wrote:

What is the relevance of her having wittered on and on about Moore saying the PITT were reburied, when nobody I recall has ever said here or on the Beeb board that the bones in the urn constituted evidence?

That is very slippery of you, Catigern. You seem - deliberately, I fear - to evade the point I am trying to make.

People everywhere nod knowingly and say, "Ah, they found young bones just where Thomas More said the PITT were buried..."



                                               



The point is that very few people - even your average proper historian - actually read the whole of Thomas More's History. They therefore are not aware of what he says next. I wish I could take you through TM's History, Catigern, and explain all the funny bits to you.

You are terribly unfair to Mins. She is very emotional, it is true, but she knows her stuff. Being emotional/passionate/enthusiastic does not mean one is stupid, you know.

But perhaps you don't. But then why bother talking to/about her so much...?

PS It's More, not Moore.  

The Jones article contains several errors. Here's hoping Minette will summon up the energy and enthusiasm to point out and refute them all.

This was a fair comment, I thought, although I'm sure no one else will. I'm not sure anyone cares much anymore. Sadly, it seems we've done our favourite topic to death...

Someone called Ann wrote:

Sorry, not buying this. The author sounds every bit as nutty and biased as Richard's groupies. I'm sure Nigel's tour of Ricardian sites this August will be SUPER fun.

But if anyone is still interested, a new book by proper historian Josephine Wilkinson is coming out at the end of October. Wilkinson's previous books about Richard have been balanced, sane and fair:

Temperance wrote:

People everywhere nod knowingly and say, "Ah, they found young bones just where Thomas More said the PITT were buried..."

Not in my hearing, they don't, and neither here nor on the old beeb board...  

Quote :

You are terribly unfair to Mins. She is very emotional, it is true, but she knows her stuff.

You may think so, but that's not the impression I've formed, and I don't see what on earth makes you think you're more qualified to judge, Temperance.  

Quote :

But then why bother talking to/about her so much...?

As somebody once observed, all that is required for EVIL   to flourish is that the good do nothing...

Quote :

The Jones article contains several errors. Here's hoping Minette will summon up the energy and enthusiasm to point out and refute them all.

Why don't you do so yourself? That way, readers wouldn't have to wade through so much pointless waffle about well-connected ancestors, declining academic standards etc, in order to get to the point...

Catigern wrote:

 

Temperance wrote:

You are terribly unfair to Mins. She is very emotional, it is true, but she knows her stuff.

You may think so, but that's not the impression I've formed, and I don't see what on earth makes you think you're more qualified to judge, Temperance.  

More qualified than whom, Catigern? In what? Surely we all have to take people as we find them these days, especially on message boards?

But perhaps you believe that one cannot form and express a judgement on anything to do with history unless one is properly qualified - presumably to at least graduate level? Some - if not most - of us here had better shut up then.

For some reason - and I'm sure it's quite irrelevant - I'm reminded of John Knox's superb reply to Mary, Queen of Scots:

Mary:  ...what are ye within this commonwealth?

Knox:  A subject born within the same, Madam. And albeit I neither be Earl, Lord nor Baron within it, yet has God made me (however abject that ever I be in your eyes) a profitable member within the same.

As for pointing out Nigel Jones's errors - well yes, I suppose I should have a go, but I'm too fed up. Like Kenneth Williams, I'm tempted to ask, "Oh, what's the bloody point?"

Temperance wrote:

But perhaps you believe that one cannot form and express a judgement on anything to do with history unless one is properly qualified - presumably to at least graduate level? Some - if not most - of us here had better shut up then.

Not at all, Temperance, My objection is not to your offering any opinion on Historical   matters, but to the judgements you pass on other posters, especially the ridiculous   claim that Minette 'knows more about Richard III than anyone else on this board' that you once made, and which your more recent attempts to puff her up echo...

But let us return to the matter at hand. I read the online blurb about Josephine Wilkinson's book  , and note that she claims to have identified the belief that the HUnchbacked Usurper bumped off   the PITT to his own period of dominance (one can hardly say 'reign' when referring to a usurper like the Yorkists were). Another one in the eye for the muppets who scream 'Tudor Propaganda' at every opportunity...

Thanks to those who have been so generous to me, SST and Nordmann, must check I'm logged in!  I am! Well! Just been watching a debate between Bishop Rowan and Richard Dawkins and am at a loss, why? All I can say is I'm with Puddleglum and I don't understand you Catigern, the emotinal tirades, I mean. What have I said? Quite a lot probably about all the wrong things but I rather think I confuse you. I don't tow your line. Too simplistic possibly but I do possess my own copies of Thomas More's,  "Richard the Third", Mancini and Phillipe de Commynes' "memoirs ". And I am Welsh. Totally and thoroughly Welsh! I didn't realize that Arwhe(n) was male, simply dim and rude.
You are constantly rude to me Catigern, why should I simply accept it?

I was born in Wales when dad was teaching at a theological college here, brought up in a valley Parish, friends of my parents knew Tom Jones and yes, as a clergy daughter, they are itinerant, Episcopal Obedience and all that, dad went to a Northamptonshire Parish. After the deaths, etc., mum returned to Wales and the place where dad taught. Her father, dad's father, his contemporaries and students were all Welsh clergymen. Collars and ties were exotic. Bishop Rowan is a really kind and venerable man. How can I explain what the clergy in Wales are like when St. Augustine didn't understand?
As far as I'm concerned I adore history, you do too, but wish to score points. You, Weiry and Gregoty annoy me but you will not win. Just learned today that A.F. Pollard and grandpa were at Jesus College, Oxford, reading Modern History at the same time. What a hoot! You don't get it do you? Ever read Jonathen Swift? probably not. I'm at last believing my friends that I am tough and slightly intelligent. I lost four immediate members of my family before I was twenty seven, yet at the time managed to get a degree from Warwick, trained as a journalist and was one. I've brought up two daughters alone, who have both gone to university and their father, now a millionaire with no friends and a balding yet "tidy" Welsh speaking wife and two "disruptive" boys, wants "sanctuary". As if!
I love History... and the truth which is why Richard III is so important to me and to history, so stop it Catigern your shoulders must be burdened by those chips they bare.
God this is boring. Has anyone read the BBC History Magazine this month about, "The Cult of the Princes"? Wouldn't it be nice if someone emerged with new research, new ideas or even an amusing way of delivering the same old things? I was scared to read it in case my ideas had been rumbled, I ended up marking it!Thanks SST and Nordmann, you actually care about History!   

Catigern,

Please state, describe and give evidence for your statement. 

I feel quite sure that Josephine Wilkinson will saunter on her own merry and blindingly dull way, however, I should personally like to add that my "echo" needs no, "puffing" how macabre! This question is about History not egocentric concerns. Or don't you agree?

May we continue with the subject? The Princes in the Tower....

A good start would be to eliminate those bones they've been hanging on to since your other hero - Charles Stuart - declared it politically advantageous to call them the princes. At least then the rest of the evidence one way or the other could be examined a bit more forensically and not with so much bias.

Since I appear to be in and out of your good books with all the oscillatory qualities of a Leicester nun's knickers (that poor woman, now they say she had worms) I should risk a further dip by emphatically asserting that Arwe Rheged is neither dim nor rude. His contributions, especially those pulling you up when your, eh, enthusiasm outstripped your logic (admit it, go on), were always welcome - and if you haven't been so absolutely beastly rude to him that he'll never be back, still are most welcome.

I welcome all points of view concerning this topic. The story, including the story of the story, contains within it all the clues concerning the actual run of events, should one know how to separate the dross from the factual. More's account, for example, was factually dross but look at what it led to in terms of subsequent factual claim. Shakespeare's play too. But yet both these examples of dross, when examined in light of the motives each had to write them, reveal at least part of the evolution of the political fallout from the boys' disappearance. I have often felt we have simply been asking the wrong questions based on some very ancient assumptions ("disappear" being probably a good example). The more who can contribute to the discussion without fear of being ridiculed or unfairly dismissed, as you too are capable of, the better chance those questions might one day be asked.

A deafening silence ensued.

Minette Minor wrote:

Catigern... I rather think I confuse you.

No. You are very simple and easy to see through.  

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And I am Welsh. Totally and thoroughly Welsh!

Except for having lived most of your life in England!   And not speaking Welsh   (which wouldn't really matter if you hadn't attempted to bluff some other posters into believing you *did* understand that language, which was just a pathetic lie.  

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Arwhe(n) was ... simply dim and rude.

No: AR offered a perfectly valid and sober critique of some suggestions of yours, and you flew off the handle.  

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Her father, dad's father, his contemporaries and students were all Welsh clergymen... How can I explain what the clergy in Wales are like when St. Augustine didn't understand?

You don't have to explain; everyone knows that the Church has long been a refuge for those sons of professionals who lacked both the brains for the law and the courage for soldiering...

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Wouldn't it be nice if someone emerged with new research, new ideas or even an amusing way of delivering the same old things? I was scared to read it in case my ideas had been rumbled, I ended up marking it!

If you're really confident of your ideas, why don't you put them into article form and send them to a peer-reviewed journal  ? What have you got to lose? You wouldn't have to tell anyone that you'd sent them off, so when your work got rejected you'd have a choice between saying nothing, and thus glossing over this latest academic failure (further to Warwick, leicester, Bristol, etc...), and throwing a big strop about how you was robbed of the acclaim you deserve by a conspiracy of male, traditionalist, Shakespeare-dependent Englishmen...

A deafening silence is an improvement if the alternative is a tit-for-tat slagging match with others. Though an even better alternative would be to stick to the subject while avoiding such deviations into personal allegations of interest to no one.

Goes for you too, Catigern.

nordmann wrote:

The more who can contribute to the discussion without fear of being ridiculed or unfairly dismissed, as you too are capable of, the better chance those questions might one day be asked.

Amen to that.

I have heard that Richard Buckley's giving one of the departmental seminars in November, I trust that the medievalists will give him a good going over. It will be interesting to hear what he says in an academic setting and perhaps in the pub afterwards. I shall report back.

Just to give you all something to get really exercised about - http://nfs.sparknotes.com/richardiii/page_2.html

Nordmann!
You are of course absolutely right about several things! Incidentally, I've always thought that you didn't like me back to the BBC History pages but be that as it may. Think about it. ALL Monarchs since 1485 have been Monarchs due to their relationship to Henry Tudor/ VII. The Tudors, the Stuarts, the Hanovarians, the Saxe Coburg Gothas to the the Windsors - all are descended from Henry Tudor. His marriage to Elizabeth of York (illegitimate) was a courtesy gesture to unite the white rose with the red. Prove that Henry Tudor was the Usurper not Richard III, and the royal line of succession is  disturbed. 

Charles II errected Wren's Urn theoretically containing the bones of the Princes found in 1674 at the foot of a stairwell with no provenance, so the country could mourn...Then in 1933 along came Tanner and Wright, with  all the pre-conceived ideas of the age and its technology to "prove" these were the bones of the Princes in the Tower. They could not even give the sex or age of the bones BUT used their teeth and they were convinced, these were the bones of the said princes. But More had said that they had been moved from the place where they had been buried at the foot of a stairwell. The Dean and Chapter of Westminster have stoutly refused to allow these bones to be tested again although with today's DNA and carbon dating, let alone recent archaeology at the Tower, it seems extremely likely the Bones would be those of Roman settlers. Facts don't matter on the Richard III trail! Shame upon you Westminster Abbey!
I agree with you totally that the more people who contribute the better. However, Arwhe was extremely rude to me many times. I really don't mind being shouted at etc., I'm used to it, but pretending to being Welsh and so short on the historical facts was not on. If I was teaching a show off like that I don't believe my response would have been different.   
I'm too tired to discuss the rest but just one thought.
If an Act of Parliament had disinherited the bastard/illegitimate princes in 1483 then if you wished to begin a new start, how often would you bring out the princes to show they were still alive? Once a month? Once every three months? Once a year on, "the Princes' Day"? Or perhaps you may ship them quietly overseas, to the place you were sent, when you were young, until the fuss died down and your reign was established?
In July 1483 at 30, King Richard III must have felt he had years to worry about the future. Five other princes of Plantagenet blood were still living, so why didn't he kill them all? The Tudors killed four of them! One died at the battle of Pavia. When Henry VII be-headed the Earl of Warwick, Catherine of Aragon said that a curse would come upon the Tudors, no more male heirs would last.

Ferval,
People like you and SST give me hope! So having been told I'm in a "tit for tat, slagging match" by the Dictator himself and that I don't have the brains for the law or courage for soldiering by Catigern,(are we still in the c19th? And as a female I don't count.) I'm off! 
What makes me laugh, quietly, is that having been close up to academia for so long, I don't want to write an article or even a thesis for a doctorate (the pain, anguish and stupid competition)  I've nearly finished writing a commissioned book. It takes little to write better than Gregoty and Weiry needs to understand the meaning of facts.
Did you really believe I was that thick? So, Goodbye and thanks for all the fish!

Minette wrote:

Charles II errected Wren's Urn theoretically containing the bones of the Princes found in 1674 at the foot of a stairwell with no provenance, so the country could mourn

Mourn what? What evidence is there that "the country" demanded to "mourn" over a set of bones found four years earlier? (The "interment" occurred in 1678) And what evidence is there that there was consensus even concerning the identity of the bones? Bones of children had been found earlier - on one occasion bricked up in the tower - that had also excited the same speculation. The bones in 1674, found in a midden mixed with other animal remains under a later stairs, were identified as the princes' by some on the basis of More's account, and dismissed by others as More's account had continued by saying they had been moved later anyway. This in any case was idle speculation in the main. It held no significance whatsoever for the great majority, let alone give them cause to grieve. Far more serious issues were taxing the minds of the population in 1678, and the anti-Catholic revival which constituted a large part of that which was relevant to most was also that which taxed the king's mind, perceiving it as he did to be a threat, not just to political stability but to his own reign.

It was not a country that needed to mourn in 1678. It was a king whose increasingly tenuous control over parliament and faced with rising antagonism to his theocratic policies and suspicion of his religious motives now required public reaffirmation of his position both politically and traditionally, or at least in so far as he defined both. The bones became a political tool to that end, one of many employed at the time for much the same purpose. A "stunt", as we would say now, whatever their provenance.

Your unwillingness to acknowledge this plain fact suggests that you do not wish to examine in full the propagandistic value of the princes in the tower and their elimination from the succession issue, not only at the time but in the years to come. The issue of succession alone was one that would reappear repeatedly as a thorn in the monarcho-political history of the state so it is not surprising that the romance of the "disappeared" heir and his brother would also prove useful to subsequent generations in various ways. Powerful anecdotes lend themselves to powerful propaganda. An examination of the facts with a view to determining the actual fate of the princes has to take into account this subsequent manipulation of events or else it is doomed to make erroneous conclusions based on a lack of understanding as to why some "facts" can be dismissed as falsehoods, some regarded as enhancements and some, though very few in this case, can be seen to have a provenance that defies centuries of attempted corruption in terms of authenticity.

You might see this criticism of your approach as an intolerable insult justifying your complete withdrawal from the debate. However I see such unilateral withdrawal from the debate as simple confirmation of your unwillingness to actually engage in it. A debate is either an exchange of views or it is not a debate. Your tendency to dismiss as "dim" those who question your allegiance to a single interpolation of the facts even when some of those facts are themselves rather flimsy suggests the same.

It is a pity. As said before by me, we are replete with facts and quasi-facts surrounding this case and it is my own feeling that should we care to re-examine and rephrase the questions we might even have enough to progress towards a resolution of what exactly happened, or at least one that makes sense.

No "puffing up" or putting down of anyone here: just thanks - and I hope not goodbye - to the person who, with Andrew Spencer, first got me interested in all this. I'll always be grateful to Minettte - sorry, Catigern and others, but there it is.

But yes, let's move on from the beastly-horrid. Or rather let us return to the beastly-horrid - the disappearance, possible murder, of those boys.

So what were Thomas More's motives as he penned his History (which was never published in his lifetime), and what were Shakespeare's? Giving your cultured friends a good laugh (especially at the stuff toadying historians could churn out on demand)?  A warning against tyranny? Clever satire? Getting bums on seats? Trying to outdo Marlowe when it came to creating an ace villain?

And what does what has been made of these "sources" say about the history of history?