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Originally Posted by Wearever
Absolutely, and yet Parliament let King Richard lll get away with it. They were declared illegitimate and no claim to the throne. I'm not saying it's right only that it happened. Why ? Richard had powerful friends who wanted the Woodvilles out. Only they didn't know how far Richard would go. Richard got to be King and no one stopped him.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Victoria
True, that was Grant’s reasoning. I guess I can’t accept Grant’s argument in the first place, which is that Richard did not benefit from their deaths, because of the Titulus Regius. I know very little about English history, but it isn’t consistent with what I did read.
The various branches of the Plantagenet family had been jockeying for the throne and eliminating the competition for decades. As long as the boys were alive, they could be championed by supporters of Edward IV, or the remaining the Lancasters, or the Woodville hopefuls, as a pretence to rise against Richard.
I realize the same argument applied to Henry. If you live in times and in places where ‘might is right’, elimination of the competition is often seen as the best way to hang on to power.
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I think this point is important when considering history. We have to put ourselves into the mindset of the people at the time and can't apply our modern sensibilities. I believe that holding the throne was a constant struggle for control from threats. I suspect that many people acted from fear and self-preservation for themselves and their families. Therefore we don't know that actions were necessarily consistent with belief. Justice could be swift and the punishment death and all without a fair legal trial.