Thanks
The case of the Princes in the Tower has long fascinated me. There are several possible suspects. Most point the blame at Richard III, but other at the Duke of Gloucester, and others at Henry VII. We’ll probably never know.
There is also an active society dedicating to defending Richard III:
Dan Cooper.
We know one thing- no significant portion of the ransom $ was ever spent in the USA.
But yeah, the guy was not prepared.
The story was that it was moved to a Castle, which was destroyed by fire. The ceramic bits of the Room were found in the ashes. Amber burns nicely. That doesn’t mean some parts may not have wandered off before the fire.
Yeah in The Last Plantagenets, Costain makes a excellent case it wasn’t R3. The motive was weak, and Tudor didn’t mention it in his list of offenses committed by R3. Tudor was well known for bumping off claimants, and his motive was better.
Heard the same thing yesterday when Eric Clapton was asked the same thing except he said “I don’t know, you need to ask Prince.”
Killing them meant the Woodvilles (his major threat to the throne) could not depose him. That’s a very strong motive.
I’d like to see what actually happened, but I don’t think we’d learn it won’t show anyone else involved.
I’ll have to read Costain’s book, but it seems to me that Richard III had ample motive to kill the Princes. As the only surviving sons of the former king, they arguably had a better claim to the throne than Richard, and were likely to be the focal point of opposition to his rule. Opposition that was quite strong, as evidenced by Richard’s death in battle a few years later.