The Killer of the Princes in the Tower by M J Trow

Author:M J Trow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: TRUE CRIME / Murder / General
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2021-06-29T00:00:00+00:00

‘For him was made a new pair of gallows upon which, after he had hanged a short season, he was cut down, being alive and his bowels ripped out of his belly and cast into the fire there by him and lived til the butcher put his hand into the bulk of his body; insomuch that he said in the same instant “O Lord Jesus, yet more trouble” and so died.’

What incensed Collingbourne was the fact that these nobodies, especially the untitled Catesby and Ratcliffe, had sprung from nowhere to be the king’s closest advisers. The Tudor monarchs did exactly the same thing, elevating humble men who could be trusted rather than relying on the ambitious, fickle aristocracy who could not; for Catesby and Ratcliffe, read Dudley, Empson, Wolsey, Cromwell and Cranmer. Not for nothing has the word ‘cabal’ crept into the English language – the original was made up of Clifford, Arlington, Buckingham, Ashley and Lauderdale, a coterie of cronies who advised Charles II; they too were despised by men not of their circle.

The most extraordinary influence is imputed to Catesby and Ratcliffe over the alleged relationship between Richard and Elizabeth of York, which we will consider in more detail later. When the queen, Anne Neville, died in March 1484, Richard was said to be paying too close attention to his niece. Both Catesby and Ratcliffe counselled him against this on the rather flimsy grounds that Anne had been popular in the North and Richard’s Northerners would not approve of the relationship. In that Catesby was not a Northerner, this makes little sense, but various commentators contend that the counsellors’ real worry was a resurgence of the Woodvilles if Elizabeth became queen and that both of them had been involved in the removal of the Woodville lords Rivers and Grey. What is absolute nonsense is the Croyland Continuator’s contention that Richard was overawed by Catesby and Ratcliffe ‘whose opinion the king hardly ever dared offer any opposition’.

The memorial brass of William Catesby and his wife Margaret Zouche can still be found in the church of Ashby St Leger in Northamptonshire, under ogee arches and family heraldry. Catesby wears a wide-sleeved heraldic tabard over his armour, but his footwear is wrong. The armour he would have worn at Bosworth would have had hinged iron shoes called solerets, with pointed toes. The tomb shows the blunt, broad toes of sabatons. Why? Because the Catesby family took years to win back any kind of favour from the Tudors and the tomb dates from 1509, when Henry VIII was king; the style of footwear reflects this. There is a split in the brass of Catesby himself, which Peter Hancock attributes to official humiliation, reminding worshippers at the church that Catesby died as a traitor to Henry VII, by execution. In fact, the crack is across the shoulders, well below the neckline and almost certainly the result of natural damage over the years.

So can we link William Catesby with the murder of the princes? Not at all.

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