[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Wearever

I thought Grants defence strategy was a pretty good one.

1) Discredit the most credible witness. He was relentless with his attacks on Thomas Moore. Character assassination.

2) He brings up the pre marriage contract between King Edward and Eleanor Butler. Thus claiming his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville and her children have no right to the throne.

3) King Richard would then have no reason to kill the princes, they have no claim. So why would he kill them ?

I think in a court of law this would have caused enough doubt for an acquittal.

Is Grant a defense lawyer or a detective? Sure, a clever lawyer can make a case, and win it with the right jury--the defense lawyer's job isn't to find the truth, it's to defend the client. But Grant's supposed to be a detective looking for truth, and instead he too often is selective in what he decides to believe about a man whose face he likes.

I'm reading Weir now, and occasionally going back to Tey to see how some things match up. Tey glosses over the sudden execution of Hastings:

‘Yes, according to the sainted More he [Hastings] was rushed down to the courtyard and beheaded on the nearest log.’
‘Rushed nothing,’ said Carradine disgustedly. ‘He was beheaded a week later. There’s a contemporary letter about it that gives the date. Moreover, Richard couldn’t have done it out of sheer vindictiveness, because he granted Hastings’ forfeited estates to his widow, and restored the children’s right of succession to them—which they had automatically lost.’

I'm not sure why the specific timing ("rushed") is so important to Grant and Carradine, but Weir says:

All sources agree that Hastings was executed within minutes of his arrest, ‘suddenly without judgement’.

As to the matter of the forfeited estates being restored, Weir says:

He [Richard] was anxious to convince his subjects that he was not the tyrant they believed him to be, that he only punished traitors when he had to, and that his vengeance did not extend to their families.

Weir's take makes perfect sense to me.

Per why the princes needed to be killed when they were already delegitimized, Weir talks about the Sanctuary plot:

What we do know is that a plot was hatched in the Sanctuary, not to rescue Edward V – which the intriguers must have realised was impossible, but to spirit his sisters overseas. ... If anything happened to Edward and Richard, the Lady Elizabeth would in the eyes of many be the rightful Queen of England; abroad, she would be free to make a strategic marriage with one of a number of foreign princes who would be willing and eager to take up arms to restore her to her inheritance and so gain a crown.

Ironically, by seeking to ensure the boys’ safety, the conspirators – including their own mother – had sealed their fate.

Tey, as far as I can recall, made no mention of this plot and how it might have affected Richard's plans for the princes.

That's as far as I've gotten in Weir (a little over halfway); I am finding it much more compelling and interesting than Tey.