Did Richard III really kill his nephews?

>>2575467
Wouldn't you?

No one knows. There's no evidence either way or that they were murdered at all. They simply vanish from the records. There were rumours circulating at the time, buy the guy reporting on then (Mancini) was looking for any dirt he could get.

The bodies found in the Tower don't actually match in with Thomas Mores description (he says they were dug back up and buried elsewhere) and they're thought to be a random burial from the Saxon period.

>>2575470
Well I guess at that point yeah he'd already crowned himself, dunno why he betrayed his nephews when he was very close and loyal to their father

The person who I think is key to the whole thing but is rarely mentioned is Edward, Earl of Warwick, his other nephew.

Anything you can say about the Princes you can say about him. Son of an older brother so hence a better claim. Can be used as a figurehead for rebellion. Can decide to claim the throne for himself once he reaches adulthood.

But Richard leaves him alive. Not only that but takes him into his wife's household, so basically pays his way.

Sure you can argue he wanted to keep a close eye on him and there's the suggestion he was trying to screw the kid out of his lands, but if he's such a brutal ruthless tyrant who's already killed 2 boys, why not just kill him and save time and money?

>>2575498
>Edward, Earl of Warwick
wasn't he retarded or something and unfit to be king?

>>2575506

That's how he was described at his execution, after being locked up in isolation most of his life (except when he was under Richards care).

Didn't stop people fighting to put the equally unfit Hebry VI on the throne as a puppet

>>2575513
true enough desu

>>2575467
Yes and rightfully so

>>2575467
>>2575476
>Did Richard III really kill his nephews?
Of course he did. There seems little doubt that they were dead by the end of 1483 - they weren't in the tower anymore, and they weren't anywhere else. If you want to give Richard the absolute benefit of the doubt one could say that they might have fallen ill and died, but for me it stretches credibility way beyond breaking point to claim that two previously healthy boys could fall ill and die within a few months of each other at exactly the time that Richard III needed them dead. Really, the only plausible explanation is that Richard killed them.

>>2575498
Two key points on this:
1: Edward Earl of Warwick was just a claimant, and one with a worse claim than Richard III because his father had been convicted of treason. Edward V on the other hand was the actual king. Edward Earl of Warwick, was also useful to Richard; after Richard's own son died he was in desperate need of a plausible heir to shore up his rather shaky position.

2: Most importantly, Richard III NEVER INTENDED TO MAKE HIMSELF KING. He originally seized Edward V with the intention of making himself regent, much as his father had done with Henry VI. His main quarrel was with the family of Edward V's mother, the Woodvilles, not with the young king himself.

>>2576514

However, Edward V proved to be unusually precocious for a 12 year old - it was clear that he was too self-possessed to make a useful puppet, and furthermore he was incensed by Richard's attack on his entourage and the arrest and execution of his maternal uncles (who had largely been responsible for raising him). Richard had backed himself into a corner, and his only way out was to make himself king. It's clear to see that in the first weeks after he seized the princes he was panicking a little; he staged an extremely hasty and clumsy assassination ('execution for treason') of Lord Hastings, who had been his longtime friend and among his strongest supporters (because he knew that Hastings would only support him as regent, not as king). Then he refused to go through with the treason prosecution in order not to disinherit Hasting's family, and even took his widow under his personal protection.

The truth is that Richard III wasn't a ruthless tyrant. He was loyal to his brother Edward IV all throughout his reign - even when their other brother rebelled against him. He was widely regarded as a solid military commander and capable administrator, and had shown no sign of being overly ambitious. He was simply an arrogant idiot (much like his father). When he seized Edward V, he thought that he was simply taking the position that was due to him: to be his nephew's regent. He was the Plantagenet, after all - he could hardly leave his brother's son (and the governance of the country) in the grasping hands of that family of upstart social climbers, the Woodvilles. However, he had catastrophically misjudged how the situation would play out, and out of simple self-preservation was forced to commit ever more horrific acts - against his family, and against his friends - that he had never originally planned on.

>>2576517
>However, he had catastrophically misjudged how the situation would play out, and out of simple self-preservation was forced to commit ever more horrific acts - against his family, and against his friends

That's called being ruthless anon.

>>2576529
I don't know. Ruthlessness implies a certain degree of planning. Richard III was just a coward who panicked when things started going badly for him

>>2576687
If there was any way of describing Richard I probably wouldn't use cowardly, nephew murdering wasn't exactly unheard of in pretty much all of history when it comes to gaining immense power.

Also he went out in a pretty intense situation, even exchanged blows personally with Henry at Bosworth.

>>2576728
There are different types of bravery.

>nephew murdering wasn't exactly unheard of in pretty much all of history
yeah, but we're not talking about all of history. This isn't the Ottoman court we're talking about, where bumping off one's male relatives was literally mandatory. This is 15th century England.

Edward IV kept Henry VI alive for years after he made himself king, because Henry was clearly an innocent and Edward wasn't inclined to murder a man who's only crime was that he was too naive to be king. The brutality of the nobility in the middle ages is often over-exaggerated. Most of England's ruling class made a concerted effort throughout the years after Henry V's death to play nice and not step on anyone's toes. It was only the utter dysfunction of the government caused by having a child (and then a man with the mind of a child) as king that led to things spiralling gradually out of control.

Edward the IV had Henry murdered, finally, after the Lancastrians came very close to seizing back the throne. But the point is that his hand was forced - Edward could have murdered Henry as soon as he took the crown - and indeed that would have been the sensible and safe thing to do - but instead he waited until he basically had no other choice. And Henry was an old man, and not particularly closely related to Edward. Just think how shocking it must have been to 15th century society for Richard to murder two rivals who were not only children but the sons of his own brother. Even in an period, after the Wars of the Roses had been waged for decades, where brutality was more commonplace than it had been a generation or two before, Richard's actions still outraged public opinion enough that many committed Yorkists sided with the Lancastrian Henry VII.

>>2576517
>>2576514
this, essentially when his brother died Richard III panicked and assumed the Woodvilles would seize power and have him killed (he was likely correct) so he struck first to take the king into his custody and become his regent but he soon realised he pissed off too many people and Edward V would have him executed as soon as he came of age. Richard III quickly had his nephews executed along with other people who were threats to him then crowned himself.

Judging from the evidence it was more the actions of a nervous and desperate man rather than an evil Machiavellian schemer.

>>2577304
>have him killed (he was likely correct)
I don't know. I doubt that they were planning to have him killed - he was the king's uncle, after all. He was probably right that they would like to to sideline him, but unlike Richard the Woodvilles, having raised the young prince, would have known that Edward wasn't a just a child who would let them take over the running of the country.

I think the basic mistake Richard made was misunderstanding the nature of Edward V. He saw the boy as just a pawn in the hands of whoever held him. If he'd understood that Edward was fully capable of ruling in his own right then not only would he have known that his plan to make himself regent was doomed to failure, he'd have known that it was unnecessary in the first place given that there would be a limited amount the Woodvilles could do to him if Edward was ruling directly.

>>2577265
You can try and back out of it all you like but all the evidence we have flies in the face of him being a coward.

>>2577876
It's not backtracking to say that holding one's nerve in battle and holding one's nerve in politics are two very different things (just watch back the Democratic primary debates and look at Jim Webb sweating)