[gmw]

Originally Posted by issybird

[...] Grant's attitude toward historians (except those he agreed with), ah, Rose of Raby! have been sufficiently skewered, so I'll end with a quote from him on the nature of criminality as reason why Richard wasn't criminal. "The criminal mind is essentially a silly one." Well, Q.E.D.! I bet the criminal masterminds in London would have laughed themselves silly over that one.

I'd forgotten that Grant had been dismissive of criminals too. Such an opinion doesn't actually say all that much for inspectors who often have such trouble catching these silly criminals.

Originally Posted by Victoria

[...] Thank you everyone, for all the great material you’re posting! It’s fascinating to hear opposing arguments. The more I read outside sources, the more agnostic I feel. I don’t think I could convict Richard without better proof.

There’s no evidence the boys were murdered. For example, they could have succumbed to a virus or infection. Children died regularly - Richard and Edward had several siblings that didn’t make it to adulthood. If it happened during an uprising, there may only have been a private funeral. [...]

On the plus side, Richard was never convicted of murdering those children. Sliced and diced on the battle field after being betrayed (as all the kings of these times were, sometimes multiple times by the same people), but convicted of murder, no.

For me, it doesn't really matter how they died, I want to know how and why it was kept a secret. Even Titulus Regius, which Henry VII tried so hard to destroy, eventually came to light, and even if the document itself hadn't, the attempt to make it a secret was no secret. These kids had a mother and siblings that should have wanted to talk about them later - one of them even became queen! So how was it possible hide the deaths of these children so effectively that we don't even know when they died?

Originally Posted by Victoria

I don’t mean to play the devil’s advocate because I know you’ve tried Grant twice. But I’ll just mention that I decided to give it another try too, given how many folks here seem to enjoy his character. I just finished the last novel, The Singing Sands, and really enjoyed it. This time it was easy to empathize with Grant - he had humour, depth and character, and plenty of little grey cells. And I thought Tey’s writing was very good; lots of atmosphere and great observations about human nature. [...]

Thanks for the suggestion. Maybe after some time has passed I will give it a try. (Better not to read it now while I'm disposed to think poorly of it.)