Richard III & the Car Park

[RivkahChaya]

OK, apes, which live only in Africa and SE Asia, and then, very deep in the woods, and in populations that were pretty small even 600 years ago, were unknown to Europeans. There are monkeys in Europe, and probably in the menageries, going back to Roman times. Old world monkeys are fairly trainable. They are primates, but they are not apes. Now, I suppose a non-zoologist could confuse an incomplete adult monkey skeleton, missing the tail and skull, for a juvenile ape, because juvenile apes are startlingly human looking, and adult Old world monkeys are not. There are New world monkeys that are rather human/juvenile ape-looking, but I doubt there were many New World monkeys around.

When were the bones identified as an ape? It would have to be after the late 17th century for there to be genuine ape bones in England, and for someone to use that term.

The only exception I can think of is that a tailless monkey (yes, there are, in spite of the song) called a Macaque-- they have stubby tails that aren't visible-- have been around for a long time, are native to the Mediterranean area, well-known to medieval Europe, and sometimes called apes, so maybe they were Macaque bones.

I think Elizabeth Woodville was a bit like Ted Kennedy.

Please tell me you mean Ted, jr. He gets a lot of sympathy, because of the leg, but he's really kind of a jerk, and a conspiracy-monger, who is right now promoting the idea that vaccines cause autism, and because he's styling himself as a handicapped guy, just trying to help handicapped children, his opinion carries weight, even though he has no medical or professional training.

But here's a thing. Eleanor Butler died in 1468. Assuming he married Elizabeth Woodville again at the time of Eleanor's death, both the boys would still have been legitimate, as would their older sister Cecily, and all who came after Cecily, but not Mary, and not the Elizabeth who married Henry VII. Which certainly could have blown Titulus Regis out of the water, but still puts Henry VII in more of a bind than Richard III.

Well, I think the idea, and what Henry VII actually did, was to have the Eleanor Butler marriage retroactively annulled, thus making Edward free to marry Elizabeth Woodville when he did the first time. I know it seems like the church doesn't go around handing out annulments, but the reason Henry VIII couldn't get one was that Catherine of Aragon had connections (her sister was the mother of the Holy Roman Emperor), not because the Pope had a moral objection to giving Henry one. It wasn't as though Edward and Eleanor Butler had been living as husband and wife.

I can certainly see why Henry wanted to marry a Plantagenet. His claim to the throne was held together with chewing gum. You could throw a dart at a gathering of almost and European court, and hit someone with a better claim. It's probably the reason that he kept Catherine of Aragon practically a prisoner after Prince Arthur died, "saving" her for Henry VIII; her claim to the throne was as strong as his, and not through an illegitimate line.

[Phil H]

Errata - I'm not going to get into questions of whether cute animals might have like EW. from the sources she comes across (to me) as a hard faced woman, entirely self-absorbed or focused on her family (I see the two as linked). Her mother Jaquetta of Luxembourg was equally detested. I suspect servents liked EW more than most!! But that's just personal opinion.

I'm sure though that the ash blond (she was known as "The King's Grey Mare" - Rosemary Hawley-Jarman wrote a great novel of her under that title) Elizabeth has captivated even you Errata after so long!!

Margaret Beaufort seems to have been similar, but more ambitious for her son and with a religious bent. The Beauforts and the Wydvilles are interesting as two new families emerging in the period with no lands or power-base of their own, and an urgent desire tocreate on at the expense of others. I find them as groupings fascinating.

I'll try to find some more information about the "ape" and let you know, Rivkah.

Well, I think the idea, and what Henry VII actually did, was to have the Eleanor Butler marriage retroactively annulled, thus making Edward free to marry Elizabeth Woodville when he did the first time.

Are you sure? I am minded that the Tudors simply brushed the precontract (not marriage) to Lady Eleanor brushed under the carpet - the idea was that it was all made up by Bishop Stillington and Richard as an excuse. With TR it was a different matter - that was LAW and had to be repealed asap.

It wasn't as though Edward and Eleanor Butler had been living as husband and wife.

Edward IV could have done many things in his lifetime as you say, but I think (and we don't know) that the danger was that even a secret re-marriage would have leaked out and caused consternation. Edward married Elizabeth W in secret - presumably because of the matter of the precontract. When he announced his marriage to EW to his Council there was uproar - it widened further a growing breach with his cousin and mentor Warwick the Kingmaker (and that in turn led to a coup and revolt in 1468-1471). Warwick had been trying to get Edward wed to a French or Burgundian princess with all the political advantage that would bring - Edward and EW scuppered that.

Oh and Edward's mother cecily was SO INDIGNANT about the whole thing that she threatened to prove that Edward was illegitimate!

So a re-marriage would have re-opened LOTS of old wounds at the heart of the Yorkist faction. Further, George Clarence, up to his death in 1479 would have sought, in all likelihood, to make trouble. Edward's position was not the strongest - remember he had been forced into exile by Warwick and Clarence.

So I don't think a re-marriage would have been a realistic option at any point.

There is a recent theory that edward IV's sudden death was the result of being poisoned by the Wydeville's because he had decided to terminate the "marriage" - i.e. announce that it was effectively bigamous - and then remarry and have new heirs, he was only 41 after all. this would have destroyed the Wydeville's root and branch so they struck. That is the unsubstantiated theory.

But circumstantially - if you read the history of the period 1460ish to 1485 with the idea of the precontract in mind then much springs into sharp focus - why Clarence had to be killed; why the Wydeville's acted as they did in 1483 (and I am not thinking of poisoning here); the reasons why Richard acted so desicively against Hastings, Rivers etc; the events following Stillington's revelation of the precontract and how that man was treated by Henry VII after Bosworth...

I can certainly see why Henry wanted to marry a Plantagenet. His claim to the throne was held together with chewing gum.

Not quite right, I think. Henry claimed the throne "de facto" - ie because he WAS king by military victory. the "de jure" bit he ignored and his actions show that clearly. He did not marry Elizabeth until he had been crowned. Nor did he ever base his claim to the throne on his marriage to her.

Also, the overthrow of Richard is best perceived as a schism within the Yorkist faction - north v south. Edward IV's placemen were largely southerners, Richard bolstered his position by introducing northeners 9men he knew) especially after Buckingham's rebellion. Henry's marriage to Elizabeth - and the commitment to it in 1483 - were part of a "healing" process. Elizabeth was the symbol of Edwardian Yorkism and henry reconciled that to Lancastrian exiles. Together they got what they wanted.

jason c I am not going to consider the drivel More concocted from hearsay, with all its obfuscations, factual errors and uncertainty as history. the man was a hypocrite and a fraud and has done enough damage through Shakespeare. I would no more rely on More (pun) as a historian that I would the Bard.)

Phil H

[Errata]

I'm sure though that the ash blond (she was known as "The King's Grey Mare" - Rosemary Hawley-Jarman wrote a great novel of her under that title) Elizabeth has captivated even you Errata after so long!!

Oh god no. I'd have beaten her to death within a week. But it is something similar to the Kennedys. Love her, hate her, it doesn't matter. Everyone wanted be her. A vast amount of the resentment thrown her way was out of sheer jealousy. She was using her status to favor her horde of relations. But even her worst detractors objected to it because they wanted THEIR horde of relations favored. Her major sin appears to be in succeeding in elevating her family, where just about everyone failed. I'm sure she was ambitious, and grasping, and self centered. But she had good looks, or she wouldn't have captured Edward. She had charm, because managed to insinuate a lot of her family into positions of power before anyone noticed. She had brains, because she won. But she also had the ability to put on a winning personality, because even though everyone wanted her gone, she retained not only her position, but her power.

I however am keenly aware of the difference between being a "good" person, and being a "nice" person. I said she was capable of being nice. I never said she was good.

[RivkahChaya]

I can certainly see why Henry wanted to marry a Plantagenet. His claim to the throne was held together with chewing gum.

Not quite right, I think. Henry claimed the throne "de facto" - ie because he WAS king by military victory. the "de jure" bit he ignored and his actions show that clearly. He did not marry Elizabeth until he had been crowned. Nor did he ever base his claim to the throne on his marriage to her.

But, how popular was his right as conqueror? If he didn't think he had something to gain from marrying Elizabeth, why go to all the trouble of repealing Titulus Regius, just for the sake of marrying someone whose only advantage was to appease people who were either die-hard Yorkists, or just rattled at the idea of a non-Plantagenet ruler after so many hundreds pf years? Elizabeth had no land, and no money. Her only advantage was her tie to the old monarchy, and her "Englishness," for a king who spent most of his life in exile. Yes, I realize the Plantagenets were ethnically different from the English commoners, but after 300 years, and life on an island, there had to be some possessiveness. After Richard II, the monarchs did tend to live in England.

I always wondered if Henry named his first son after the legendary, very English, King Arthur, as an appeal to English sentiment, and waited until he had a second son to have a namesake. He seem like the sort of egoist who would want a "Henry, jr.," so I think he must have had a really pressing reason to name his first son something else. But Arthur wasn't the name of his father, or his wife's father.

You really don't think he married Elizabeth for her Plantagenet roots (pun intended)?

jason c I am not going to consider the drivel More concocted from hearsay, with all its obfuscations, factual errors and uncertainty as history. the man was a hypocrite and a fraud and has done enough damage through Shakespeare. I would no more rely on More (pun) as a historian that I would the Bard.)

Phil, I share your frustration, and anyone in the 21st century who insists on taking More at face value needs a wrist-slap; however, in More's time, history writing as a scientific endeavor didn't exist. For More, I suspect the lesson you could learn from a story was more important that its historical accuracy, and it's unfair of us to criticism him for not writing what is, by our own standards, good history, even if it makes me want to spit.

People writing history texts today should not be using More as a source, though. That's just wrong.

Oh god no. I'd have beaten her to death within a week.

Errata, wife abuse humor isn't funny. Say you'd throw her clothes on the lawn, and have the divorce attorney on speed-dial; say there aren't enough hours on the Lifetime network to play out her dysfunction. But physical abuse jokes are not funny.

But it is something similar to the Kennedys. Love her, hate her, it doesn't matter. Everyone wanted be her.

Again, speak for yourself. I can't stand the Kennedys, and I don't want to be them, either. I'm still steaming over William Kennedy Smith getting away with rape, then doing it again within a year of being acquitted the first time, and Ted K., jr.'s vaccinations = autism crusade makes me spit nails, especially since I know he just gets an audience because he's a Kennedy, and he plays up the "I'm handicapped too" thing. Seriously, I know a lot of kids living in poverty who'd trade a leg for Ted jr.'s education and trust fund.

A vast amount of the resentment thrown her way was out of sheer jealousy.

Resentment isn't envy, or jealousy. I think the Kennedys suck, and all their money originally came from bootleg liquor. I don't envy them, although they certainly make me think Robin Hood and Marx had a good point about redistribution. "Ask what you can do for your country." Sheesh. That from a guy who could have used his pocket change to feed Hell's Kitchen, Watts, and Appalachia for a year. Probably India too, but that's another country.

Now that I think about it, was Elizabeth I's court the first English-speaking court in England?

[Errata]

Errata, wife abuse humor isn't funny. Say you'd throw her clothes on the lawn, and have the divorce attorney on speed-dial; say there aren't enough hours on the Lifetime network to play out her dysfunction. But physical abuse jokes are not funny.

I didn't mean I would beat her to death if she were my wife, I meant I'd beat her to death if I was in her company. Which I guess is still a physical abuse joke, but has nothing to do with any relationship. I wasn't speaking as if I were Edward, I was speaking as me, who has little to no patience for manipulative women. It's probably a character flaw, but I occasionally have to throttle down the impulse to take these creatures aside and punch them in the brain, just so they shut up already. Like the Real Housewives of New Jersey. I have yet to do it, but every so often the temptation is strong enough to force me to leave suddenly.

[Phil H]

Rivkah - a few points of historical clarification:

But, how popular was his right as conqueror?

popularity, as such, was not an issue in C15th English politics.

Henry had a case to make, but to Parliament, and to his own faction. Marrying Elizabeth was the equivalent to an American president in C21st settling his debts with key interest groups after an election victory.

If he didn't think he had something to gain from marrying Elizabeth, why go to all the trouble of repealing Titulus Regius, just for the sake of marrying someone whose only advantage was to appease people who were either die-hard Yorkists, or just rattled at the idea of a non-Plantagenet ruler after so many hundreds pf years?

First, lose the idea of Plantagents and tudors as we have them set out in history textbooks today.

Henry was a scion of the Lancastrian house (albeit in an illegitimate branch- the Beauforts) descended from John of Gaunt/Edward III - just as Edward IV/RIII had been. He wanted to claim legitimacy and continuity in a way that other monarchs has by connecting himself to the last acknowledgable monarch - in this case E IV. Margaret Beaufort saw herself as the last politically legitimate (as distict from blood) heir of Henry VI. this in part relates to the politics of the 1440s/50s when succession to the throne had been a real issue (before the birth of Henry VI's son, Edward of Lancaster - killed 1471).

Elizabeth had no land, and no money. Her only advantage was her tie to the old monarchy, and her "Englishness," for a king who spent most of his life in exile.

No. Elizabeth of York represented legitimacy and continuity - the latter more important, and a welding of Lancastrian and Yorkist factions. she was also the sign of a commitment and a debt repaid.

I realize the Plantagenets were ethnically different from the English commoners, but after 300 years, and life on an island, there had to be some possessiveness.

This, I think is where your history misleads you, The "Plantagents" are a rather modern invention. RIII's father may have been the first to use the name as an actual surname, seeking to score points over the Lancastrain Henry VI, who had a junior descent. In a sense the last legitimate Planatagent king was Richard II (deposed 1399). He could claim direct descent from edward III and back to the Conqueror (1066). Henry VI based his claim (like HVII) on his right de facto, and as the only adult heir by male descent. But that right was confirmed by Parliament which was crucial.

After Richard II, the monarchs did tend to live in England.

Monarchs after John (died 1216 lived wholly in England apart from trips abroad). The loss of the Angevin Empire (in France) under John made the difference.

I always wondered if Henry named his first son after the legendary, very English, King Arthur, as an appeal to English sentiment, and waited until he had a second son to have a namesake.

If anything it was a tribute to his "Welsh" roots" - Arthur (the legendary warrior against the invading Angles/English and mentioned by Geofffrey of Monmouth etc) then being perceived as Welsh as apart from "English".

You really don't think he married Elizabeth for her Plantagenet roots (pun intended)?

No, as i hope I have explained.

in More's time, history writing as a scientific endeavor didn't exist. For More, I suspect the lesson you could learn from a story was more important that its historical accuracy, and it's unfair of us to criticism him for not writing what is, by our own standards, good history, even if it makes me want to spit.

I blame him for blighting the memory of a man who appears, on the whole, to have had the making of a good king. But we have better sources now - from the questionably biased Mancini, to actual historical sources such as the Croyland Chronicles (with care) and the copy of Titulus Regulus. We do not need to be trusting or credulous - we can dig deeper.

More is closer to Grimm's Fairy Tales than reliable history.

On wife beating, I'll simply comment that I have no time for the politically correct censorship of jokes and humour - as long as not personally aimed or politically loaded. Go for it Errata.

Phil H

[RivkahChaya]

Like the Real Housewives of New Jersey. I have yet to do it, but every so often the temptation is strong enough to force me to leave suddenly.

What, your TV doesn't have an "off" button? I've never even seen the show, other than parodies of it, but I lived in Manhattan long enough to know people from Jersey City, and Hoboken, so I know what they are parodying. You know those women are probably capable of being perfectly nice, but they'd be off the show if they were, right? They behave that way, because enough people tune in every week to watch them behave that way, then talk about how awful they are. But they get paid for it, and it's the easiest job they ever had.

I refuse to watch, because first of all, I don't want to; it would bore me silly, but second, it's a disservice to the many nice people I know in NJ. I've put up with hateful New Yorker stereotypes all my life, and now anyone from New Jersey has to face similar problems.

[Errata]

What, your TV doesn't have an "off" button? I've never even seen the show, other than parodies of it, but I lived in Manhattan long enough to know people from Jersey City, and Hoboken, so I know what they are parodying. You know those women are probably capable of being perfectly nice, but they'd be off the show if they were, right? They behave that way, because enough people tune in every week to watch them behave that way, then talk about how awful they are. But they get paid for it, and it's the easiest job they ever had.

I refuse to watch, because first of all, I don't want to; it would bore me silly, but second, it's a disservice to the many nice people I know in NJ. I've put up with hateful New Yorker stereotypes all my life, and now anyone from New Jersey has to face similar problems.

Women LIKE the Real Housewives of New Jersey, not the actual ones. I don't watch the show. I know two of them, and I find it appalling they are on tv, but whatever. I mean when I am in the company of actual women who behave like that, I have occasionally had to walk out in order to not completely lose my temper.

And the two women I know are EXACTLY like that in real life. Certainly they are capable of being nice, but mostly they are kind of terrible human beings. Especially the one who disciplined her daughter by saying things like "Keep that up and what man is going to marry you? You'll end up a nothing". I'm not entirely certain that a well placed blow to the head earlier on in life would not have provided the desperately needed correction of character she so badly needs. Violence is never the answer, but I have seen many times that when awful people push someone too far, and they get hit in the face, they stop being awful to that person.

It's like those middle school girls who bully a kid into committing suicide, and they STILL think it's funny, and spit on the body at the funeral or something and laugh about it. Time in which to apply basic behavior modification programs is running out on those girls, and if someone doesn't stop it NOW, the ship where they will learn a new way of being through non violent means will have sailed. And they will get to college, and they will be at a party, and they will indulge in their psychopathic bullying, and they will get hit over the head with a bottle by their target. And no one will lift a finger in her defense. And if she learns, yay. If she doesn't, she will end up dead. Now I don't believe in hitting a child unless their life is on the line (shoving a kid out of the way of a car for example), and nobody in a relationship should ever lay hands one another. But when it comes to peer judgement, when provoked, I can't say I'm entirely against a violent act. But popping a drunk dorm mate for spewing hatred and filth at you, and abusing a loved one are two separate things.

And the weird thing is I just had this conversation yesterday about whether or not kissing someone without their consent is sexual assault or just unacceptable personal space violation.

[Cogidubnus]

Apes

Sorry Rivkah

You're way off here...

The Greeks and Romans had knowledge of apes...you forget their world extended to North Africa...

The Romans had captured Chimpanzees and thought at first they were satyrs...later they developed a punishment for people found guilt of patricide. It was called culeus, and the guilty person was sewn up in a sack with an ape and dumped in the sea...nice...

The Romans are also known to have decorated pottery with depictions of apes, thought perhaps to be indonesian in origin called tityrus...they're generally depicted as having round faces, a reddish colouration and whiskers.

Galen, because it was forbidden to practise dissection on human bodies, is known to have dissected apes...

And that knowledge is carried forward to medieval times, when it was at one point fashionable to wear brooches and badges depicting apes, often imitating (or "aping") human actions...There's an example at:-

http://www.mainlymedieval.com/store/...oducts_id=3499

Sorry, apes were well known at this time, and it was quite feasible that the zoo at the tower had included examples...

(they apparently, briefly, even had polar bears in the moat at one stage...or so the Yeomen tell the tale anyway!)

All the best

Dave

[RivkahChaya]

Sorry Rivkah

You're way off here...

The Greeks and Romans had knowledge of apes...you forget their world extended to North Africa...

I could be entirely wrong about Greeks and Romans, I admit, because my knowledge of them after the fall of Jerusalem is very poor.

However, a lot of what there knowledge was lot to medieval Western Europe, and not rediscovered until the late Renaissance, and the Enlightenment, which is when West Europeans explored the forests of Africa and discovered gorillas and chimps. Now, it may be that they were rediscovered.

I did very recently learn, upon looking this up, that the word "ape" in English used to mean tailless Macaque monkeys, which were well known in medieval Europe, and the verb "ape" meaning "imitate" comes from that.

It's easier to imagine chimps and gorillas in menageries in Greece and Rome, because they probably were released when they got to big to handle-- they are very dangerous as adults, especially chimps. It's harder to imagine them in menageries in England in the middle ages, because the adults would be very difficult to care for. Humans wouldn't be able to approach them, people didn't have tranquilizer darts or stun guns, and the adults require enormous amounts of food. I don't know how well they'd do in the climate in forests in England-- probably not well-- but at any rate, they wouldn't find much of a niche there.

Maybe they were just killed. People wouldn't have had moral reservations about do that back then, I suppose. But at any rate, whatever skeleton was found, if it was mistaken for human, particularly a child, was almost certainly juvenile, if it were an ape. However, an adult Macacque, if it were missing canine teeth, and the pelvis were broken, and the skull were either broken, or it was very young, could be mistaken for human.

My real mistake, for which I apologize, was not knowing the sense in which the word "ape" was used before it came to be used as the name of a family in the order of primates-- which contains the superorder "hominid," which I think in the UK is "hominoid"; "hominid" contains all apes, all human species, including extinct ones, and the extinct Australopithecines.

But the word "ape" was not invented for the taxonomic system (which should have been obvious, since it isn't a Latin word), and is in fact an Old English word.

Anyway, that still leave it a mystery what "ape" referred to in regards to the bones in the tower. It depends on who said it, when, what their educational background was, and what the bones could possibly have been. It's possible that "ape" in the modern sense was intended, but I think it's highly unlikely that the princes were buried contemporaneously with any apes in the modern sense. If there was a dump site in the tower, where dead animals from the menagerie were dumped, and occasionally some humans, it still seems an odd place for the princes to ends up, especially if Richard killed them.

[Phil H]

but I think it's highly unlikely that the princes were buried contemporaneously with any apes in the modern sense. If there was a dump site in the tower, where dead animals from the menagerie were dumped, and occasionally some humans, it still seems an odd place for the princes to ends up, especially if Richard killed them.

First, we don't know that the "princes" were buried in the Tower - or anywhere else for that matter in the 1480s.

Second, the Tower has a history going back to 1066, and is built on a corner of the old Roman city of Londinium, so the site has been occupied for upwards of 2,000 years. During that time many may have died and been buried in the Tower (outwith the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula where some of those executed were laid to rest, like Anne Boleyn). throughout history, until comparatively recent times, child mortality way high, so it is far from impossible that several sets of children's bones have been interred somewhere in the confines of the Tower - and indeed, several sets have been found. Not surprising when one realises that through its long history the Tower has always had quite a numerous population including women and children. It still has!

If there was a "dumping ground" I suspect the adjacent River Thames might have served - carrying material away. But what I have been talking about is reports of bones found in the Tower - so they did exist.

The bones now in the urn in the Abbey were found on 17 July 1674. Charles Ross, in his biography of Richard III (an he is no pro-Ricardian) mentions abother set found in a walled-up room in the Tower in 1647.

Incidentally, the RIII Society made efforts in 1973 and 1980 to get the bones in the Abbey re-examined but were turned down. The original investigation was in 1933 with the specific permission of King George V.

I'm trying to track down another reference which has more detail on this.

Phil H

[Phil H]

A separate post to apologise for my bad memory (I feel like melville Macnaghten!!). I didn't want this to gt lost in case I have misled anyone.

On Lambert Simnel - it was the surname, not the first name - that is particularly mysterious. That said, Lambert was not a USUAL name in the period (a limited number of names tended to be used - Edward, Thomas, Richard, Henry etc and the given name was often that of a god-parent - a sponsor at the child's baptism).

My source is Michael Bennett, "Lambert Simnel and the Battle of Stoke" (1987,1993).

Bennett believes that the name could suggest connections to the Netherlands or around Liege where the cult of St Lambert was popular. (This of course, I might add, is where Perkin Warbeck was said to come from.) Another possibility is parts of England in close contact with that part of the continent.

Is it coincidence that Edward IV's famous mistress, Jane Shore, was the daughter of one John LAMBERT?

It is SIMNEL that is the more uncommon name. Only one other person of that name has been traced and he lived in the reign of Henry VIII.

Bennett suggests that the whole name might have been an invention. In the manuscript version of a herald's report, written only a few years after the Battle of Stoke (1487), the writer says of the boy "whose name was indeed, John". the person who published the report, called leyland, deliberately cut out that phrase, though it is apparently clear in the manuscript and there is no evidence of tampering.

So there you have it, my apologies for mis-remembering earlier.

Phil H

[Phil H]

Apologies for a third successive post, but the system would not allow me to edit the previous ones.

It appears that another child's skeleton was found as recently as 1997, but firmly dated to the iron age!! One wonders what date, given modern methods would be assigned to other remains, including those in the Abbey?

I have now tracked down another reference which has more detail on this. (Annette Carson "Richard III: The Maligned King" - to which I have referred before.)

The 1647 bones were apparently dismissed as the "princes" because they were thought to be of children no more than 8 years old. She adds (p 173) that there seems to have been an attempt to keep this discovery secret

Carson refers to the bones of an escaped ape, by adds that the accuracy of this identification is unknown.

On the 1647 bones, I am slightly confused. the account comes from a handwritten note signed by someone called John Webb, written on the flyleaf of a book (More's RIII!!!) published in 1641. But this refers to the discovery as having taken place when Sir Walter Raleigh was a prisoner, putting the discovery between 1603 and 1614.

I will continue to try to clarify.

Phil H

[DVV]

Excellent pub talk (with a well chosen title), thanks to Bridewell and all

[Errata]

i can't for the life of me remember where I read it, but at least someone out there is under the impression that three sets of bones have been found that could have been the princes.

And also, when the bones were removed from the urn in 1933, they had been interred with a bunch of the trash they were surrounded by. Including a chicken bone. The mystery for me is this. There is no way that anyone used a stairway of the Tower as a trash bin. So the account is wrong in some way or another. Either the burials didn't happen the way they said it happened, or those aren't the Princes. My initial thought was that they had been dumped into a trash pit and then moved, but they dealt with those on a regular basis, so they would have to have been moved pretty quickly. While the corpses were still intact, so there's no reason for a bunch of trash to have been moved with them. It's a puzzle.

Never mind the fact that if you are going to murder them, and dispose of them so no one ever finds out why bury them instead of dumping them in Thames, which was right there. Surely not out of respect, as they would not have gotten Christian rites or anything.

Lorenzo the Magnificent supposedly had an ape.