Royal Mysteries by Timothy Venning

Author:Timothy Venning
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: TRUE CRIME / Murder / General
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2021-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

Richard III – was his usurpation legal and did it make him kill his predecessor?

The usual murderer is cited as Richard, who had physical custody of the boys in the Tower of London and had been at pains to depose Edward in June 1483 rather than just taking over the regency. As the new king’s nearest male relative he had a just claim to the latter, whether or not Edward IV’s will had appointed him ‘Protector’ – Henry VI’s paternal uncles had taken over his regency in 1422. It is not clear if Edward’s will had appointed Richard as the new king’s full ‘Protector’, with the same legal powers to carry out political business as the king, or just as his personal guardian; Richard claimed the former. The fact that the will was not published must be suspicious, though the political chaos of May-June 1483 could explain the fact; Richard was not to be trusted on other matters and may have sought to imply that Edward had given him more powers than he had in fact done. The creation of a full legal Protectorate for a boy already aged twelve was surely such a large step that if Edward had clearly done so in a specific, retrievable document Richard and his allies of May 1483 (including Hastings) would have felt obliged to publicise it, if only to leading citizens. They did not – so was the real will suppressed as useless to Richard’s propaganda?

The notion of a full ‘Protectorate’, giving control of the government to the incumbent, on behalf of a boy already aged twelve in April 1483 is unproveable and had no precedent. (It had not been mentioned in Edward’s previous will, drawn up before his expedition to France in 1475 when the Prince was only four.) Edward III had not needed a ‘Protector’ at fourteen in January 1327, with the government only unofficially controlled by his mother Isabella (who had possession of the royal seal to validate orders) and her lover and the king having a legal ‘guardian’ – his closest male kin, the Earl of Lancaster – not a Protector. On this occasion, Isabella and Mortimer clearly did not want their foe Lancaster – later dismissed at their behest after trying to gain physical possession of Edward – possessing any political power. Even in August 1422 the accession of a baby of eight months had not led to such drastic action on behalf of either of his father’s adult and competent brothers. The Council had rejected the terminology of a ‘Protectorate’ for the regency of Henry VI’s younger uncle Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, who was to rule within England while his older brother Bedford did so in France, in order to give equal powers to all the regency council jointly. The term ‘Protector’ for Richard’s regency was apparently given in a letter to him by Lord Hastings once Edward IV was dead, informing him of the terms of the royal will and the ‘Woodville plot’ to set

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