The
De-Legitimatization of Edward IV's Children
Before his marriage, Edward
was a great womanizer, and this behavior did not cease after his
marriage. Those who objected to his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville
(aka Lady Grey)--the widow of Lancastrian supporter Sir
John Grey--accused her of seducing him by refusing to yield her
virtue without a wedding ring, a scene depicted in Shakespeare's
Henry VI, Part 3 with Edward as the would-be seducer. Ironically,
the grounds for declaring Edward and Elizabeth's marriage invalid--and
their children illegitimate--was based on a similar exchange between
Edward and the Lady Eleanor Butler (aka Lady Eleanor Talbot).
Eleanor was also a widow
of a Lancastrian supporter who sought the new king's support after
Edward IV's conquest of England. Taken with the beautiful young
widow, Edward allegedly agreed to marry her in order to sleep with
her. Although today a broken engagement would be no bar to a religious
marriage in the Catholic Church, that was not the case in 1464 (when
Edward IV married Elizabeth Woodville). Instead, a pledge to marry
(a “pre-contract”) was considered as binding as a ceremony.
Any future marriage by either party (while the fiancée was
still alive) would be illegal and any offspring of those marriages
illegitimate.
The question, however, is whether
Edward and Lady Eleanor agreed to marry. Edward’s many affairs,
both before and after his marriage, point both ways: he might well
have agreed to a marriage in order to seduce an attractive woman
but, if he was willing to do this, why were there not more fiancées?
The
Princes in the Tower
 |
|
The
Two Princes Edward and Richard in the Tower, 1483 --Sir
John Everett Millais |
The fate of the “Princes
in the Tower”—Edward V and his brother, Richard—is
one of the great historical
mysteries. After Edward V was deposed by Richard III, he and his
brother (who was released from sanctuary by their mother) were confined
to the Tower of London. The Tower was not only a prison for important
people, but also a royal treasury and residence. Thus, moving the
princes to this location, in and of itself, was not particularly
suspicious. The boys, however, disappeared from public view by the
summer of 1483 (a few months after Richard’s ascension), and
rumors began to circulate that they had been killed. In 1674, during
renovations to the White Tower, the bones of two children were discovered
under a staircase. It was commonly believed that the skeletons were
the princes; during an exhumation in 1933, however, it was impossible
to determine the age or sex.
There is no direct evidence
of what happened to the princes, although it is commonly assumed
that they died or were assassinated while in the Tower. Although
Shakespeare’s play concludes that Richard is the true murderer
(even if he did not strangle them), over the centuries there has
been lively debate as to how the boys died and who is responsible.
The chief suspects are Richard III, Henry VII, Henry Stafford, the
2d Duke of Buckingham, and Margaret Beaufort (Henry’s mother).
There is insufficient space here to analyze the arguments for and
against each suspect; suffice it to say that Richard III is still
the most likely suspect, but each of the remaining contenders had
motive and opportunity (directly or indirectly) to remove the children
permanently.
For more about the Princes in
the Tower, read Alison Weir’s The Princes in the Tower
(1992)
For a comprehensive
examination of the suspects, take a look at http://www.r3.org/bookcase/whodunit2.html
If you want to
argue that not only did Richard III not kill his nephews but that
they did not die in the Tower, see: http://www.r3.org/bookcase/misc/wigram01.html
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