Posted on 12/29/2012 12:47:51 AM PST by nickcarraway
Thank god he wasn’t shot. What would the Brits have to say about that?
Exactly.
Shakespeare was the Goebbels of his time.
How can they be sure it’s NOT Jimmy Hoffa?
(can’t believe I’m first with a Hoffa joke)
;^)
How can they be sure it’s NOT Jimmy Hoffa?
(can’t believe I’m first with a Hoffa joke)
;^)
That would be a royal pain in the ass to tear up the parking lot to find out.
Paging Jimmy Hoffa.....
Now is the winter of our disinterment.
Now is the winter of our disinterment.
Never heard the bit about why treason never prospers, have you?
The last truly legitimate King was Henry VI, who was much too kind and decent a man to hold onto his crown.
The Crown had been fought over for several decades when Henry VII landed, changing hands from York to Lancaster several times. Parliaments did not deliberate and express the will of the people, they merely rubber-stamped the results of the various wars and intrigues.
The Wars of the Roses, BTW, featured the greatest battle ever fought in the British Isles. Probably 80k fought, and around 20k died. Towton.
To my mind the notion that RIII kept the little princes locked up till they were found by the victorious HVII and murdered by him, makes little or no sense.
RIII had been ruling with some success till the rumor got around that he had not only displaced the little princes but had murdered them. This rumor was a, possibly the, major factor in his progressive loss of support.
To squelch this rumor and regain the lost support, all he had to do was display the live princes. Since he never did, it seems likely to me that he was unable to, they being already dead.
HVII continued to himself face rebellions and invasions of the type that brought him to power throughout his reign, often headed by an impostor pretending to be one of the lost princes.
However, the notion that this was some sort of burning political issue by Shakespeare's time is just silly. AFAIK there were no Yorkist rebellions during HVIII's reign or those of any of his children. Nobody cared any more.
Great uncle, I believe. But, yes...I immediately thought of Black Adder!
Sunstitute Sir Thomas More (who wrote the book Shakspear adapted for the stage) for Shakspear.
IN the opening sentence of More's Richard III, he gives precise age of death for Edward IV (a near-contempory and hardly obscure individual) which is totally wrong - the opening sentence! (trust nothing herein).
Oh, come on! You don’t believe that Richard the Third was in his mother’s womb for two years and when finally born had a full set of teeth and hair to his shoulders?? Oh, you Doubting Thomas, you!
Actually, the rumors (and there were really very few) simply suggested that young Edward may have died - not that he was murdered. There were some notions floating around that he was not in good health. Just as a point of fact, Richard was no where near the Tower during the time it is said that they disappeared. He was on a progression throughout England.
Happily, several pretenders showed up claiming to be the two brothers, making stingy, nasty, cowardly Henry VII’s life a misery!
The current queen will not allow the bones of the children to be disinterred so that modern dating methods can be used. I have seen the dental records made in 1933 and they are very interesting. Some say the young (unanointed) king died from a disease of the jaw and the records do show signs of serious illness.
Most Ricardians tend to think that the Duke of Buckingham (who had charge of the kiddies, I believe) killed them - without Richard’s knowledge. I, myself, don’t know. All I know is that at this point in history, we have no proof Richard did away with them.
Last British monarch to die in battle iirc.
If Edward died, then his brother Richard would have inherited his claims to be the “legitimate” Yorkist King.
I think the history is very clear that RIII’s main problem was his own supporters deserting him or switching sides, some of them on the field of battle itself. And a prime reason for that was the rumors that he had killed the Princes.
On a practical note, none of these kings of the period had any greater or lesser “right” to the throne than any of the others. It was a clearcut power struggle, that was all.
Of course, a king who came to power by these means soon found that his throne was insecure and that he could be overthrown by exactly the same methods. A good example of poetic justice.
Henry VII was actually a reasonably good king, as compared with other kings, admittedly not a particularly high standard to beat. He mostly kept England out of foreign wars. He was “oppressive” to the high nobility that threatened his throne, though to be fair the high nobility needed to be taken down several pegs. They had, after all, put England through several decades of horrible civil war pursuing their own interests.
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