Boleyn said

One of things I find very odd about the whole battle of Bosworth is why did Henry Tulip date his reign from the day before the big showdown at Bosworth? I think it was all down to money personally. I know that there were very few Lords left after Bosworth, so I’m guessing that those who had survived on the wrong side (Richard’s) side would be willing to part with any ammount of money to 1 Save their life, land and wealth, and 2 any commoner would literely sell their soul in order to buy a title, land and wealth.
But surely the same could have been said if Richard had cut down Henry Tulip instead.

It was a clever tactic to make anyone who fought for their annointed King (Richard) traitors. It had never happened before, despite the fact that the crown had changed hands several times. It was a very dangerous precedent to set and Parliament later convinced Henry Tudor (not Tulip please ) to change his mind.

OK – I’ll make a deal with you – continue calling Henry Tulip but call Richard Richard and not Dicky – how about that

Result!

I think Richard could see the mistakes E4 was making in his reign and was determined not to follow the same route. E4 wascertainly a very hedonistic King and sometimes acted on impulse, rather than actually reasoning things out. I’m not saying E4 marriage to E4 was wrong, but it cerainly seemed to me at least that it was an inpulsive marriage based more on lust than love. In time I think E4 grew to love EW.
I do believe that Richard did marry Anne Neville for love, and I believe he sincerely mourned her. Certainly I feel that whatever he did policially in his ruling of the kingdom was not done on impulse, he weighed up both sides of an arguement. The only mistake I think in his entire reign was allowing “Sans Changer” to live. Once he found out that he was plotting behind his back with his wife Margeret Beaufort he should have nipped it in the bud (I.e chopped his head off) once and for all, and not even given him the chance to have betrayed him as he did at Bosworth. I’m convinced that if Sans Changer” had stayed true to Richard, Richard would have easily won Bosworth, and it would have been the Welsh Milksop who would have been found in the car park, not Richard.
Can I get away with calling Henry Tudor as the Welsh Milksop?

Boleyn said

Certainly I feel that whatever he did policially in his ruling of the kingdom was not done on impulse, he weighed up both sides of an arguement. The only mistake I think in his entire reign was allowing “Sans Changer” to live. Once he found out that he was plotting behind his back with his wife Margeret Beaufort he should have nipped it in the bud (I.e chopped his head off) once and for all, and not even given him the chance to have betrayed him as he did at Bosworth.

I agree – Richard has been given the reputation of being ruthless and wading through pools of blood to obtain the crown, yet in many respects he was not ruthless enough. He should have dealt properly with Margaret Beaufort, not just given her into the custody of Lord Stanley, and he should have dealt with Stanley and not left him free to act as he did. There was Morton, too, who should have been imprisoned and the key lost.

If we leave aside the vexed question of the princes, Richard’s acquisition of the crown involved the deaths of 4 people, the three with Edward V (Rivers, Grey and Vaughan) and Hastings – hardly a blood bath.

With regard to the boys – the only evidence we have is that they disappeared from sight. A ruthless Richard, after ordering their deaths, would have displayed the bodies and got them buried – done and dusted.

Olga said

Richard didn’t have any evidence against Stanley, he only had suspicions, which led him to holding Stanley’s son hostage and politically that is all he could do. An execution just as he was attempting to rally his peers for Bosworth would have been disastrous, and many of them did not answer his call to arms as it was. And of those few people he executed to get to the throne, the execution of Hastings was an extremely unpopular decision. Not to mention Rivers.

So as to Margaret Beaufort, what was he to do with her? Margaret of Anjou had been successfully placed under house arrest for years, he would not have been entertaining the idea that MB was a more dangerous foe. Killing women did not happen until the reign of Henry VIII.

Richard did not marry for love. He married Anne Neville for her wealth and position, he had four men before him in the succession and had his own position to secure. And Anne married him for his power, and I am sure they grew to love each other.
And as to Edward IV he knew Elizabeth Woodville for quite some time before they were married, I don’t think there is a question of him ‘growing’ to love her. That was an actual example of marrying for love, outside of the norm.

What is your evidence that the executions of Rivers and Hastings were extremely unpopular?

Giving MB to the custody of Stanley (who had the reputation gained over many years of fence sitting and with whom Richard had had personal disagreements over the Harrington affair) was particularly short-sighted. She could have been sent to a nunnery, well isolated. I am not suggesting that she be executed – as you say, that was for a later period. Another short-sighted decision was putting Buckingham and Morton together – look where that led!

I agree that Anne and Richard did not marry for love. There were sound, practical reasons for their union. However, they did know each other and had a common link through Warwick. There may have been some affection there at the beginning. Afterwards, they lived away from Court, which may have drawn them closer together.

I am not sure E4 married EW for ‘love’ – perhaps lust might be a better reason. If one accepts the Eleanor Talbot marriage as being true, then Edward seems to have had a predilection for older widows who would not hop into bed without a marriage. Later, EW proved very fertile so he could not get rid of her easily. He used her family as a counterweight to the established nobility by marrying them off to all available heirs/heiresses, thus depriving the establishment of forming powerful alliances. As we know with hindsight, this policy carried its own dangers.

Later, if one believes Collins, the Woodvilles feared their influence over Edward was waning and they were looking forward to controlling a minority reign via Edward V.

It’s a fascinating period, isn’t it!

Olga wrote: ” Various books mention the executions were unpopular Jasmine, though obviously Hastings caused more of a stir than Rivers. If you put aside the traditional views of the grasping greedy Woodvilles Anthony was well-liked and respected by many. And no executions without proper trials could be carried out without any comment on it, whoever the king was.”

I agree there would be talk – but you said extremely unpopular, so I wondered if there had been something specific mentioned in the more recent books. Not sure about no proper trials – certainly in respect of Rivers, Grey and Vaughan – there was a trial under Northumberland. Hastings is another matter. I am currently reading on and off Bellamy’s The Law of Treason in England in the Later Middle Ages – mainly to find out the duties and powers of the Lord Constable (which Richard was at the time of Hastings’s execution) but he doesn’t have much to say except “…there does not seem to have been any legal process….before the execution of Lord Hastings…..’ I need to see what he says about what the Lord Constable’s powers before I come to any conclusion and that stuff is dotted about throughout the book, so it will take a bit of time. AFAIK Constables had the power of summary execution where treason was concerned. As we don’t know what Hastings was accused of because no record of what transpired at the Council meeting exists, except the later More stuff which reads like a play, complete with dialogue, it is difficult to say whether or not Richard had good grounds.

Olga wrote: “You can accept the first marriage and still accept Edward thought himself in love with Elizabeth Woodville, again they knew each other from court – and through Hastings – for quite some time before they were married.”

Now that is interesting – did you get that from Baldwin? I can accept that Edward thought himself in love/lust but he must have known a secret marriage while Warwick was in the process of trying to find a foreign bride was risky, especially to an older Lancastrian widow. After all, he was king, not an ordinary person, and as such had duties and responsibilities.

Yes, Collins is the one with the poisoning theory. I am not sure what I think about that one. Whenever there is an unexpected royal death, poison is always thrown into the mix. I think Collins has an interesting theory which is worth considering. Of course, like so much about this period, there is no way of proving or disproving it – one can only make assumptions and speculate……

Olga said

“Whenever there is an unexpected royal death, poison is always thrown into the mix” and even when it is expected. They accused Anne of poisoning KOA too. And did someone accuse Seymour of poisoning Edward VI at the time or is that a modern thing?

I think that particular story probably came about because E6 was given arsenic as a treatment, which of course, hastened his death. I read, a long time ago, a terrible account of the boy’s suffering in the last few days of his life.

It’s so frustrating not knowing what exactly happened at the Council Meeting. It must have been something quite dramatic for Richard to have pronounced a summary death sentence. Unfortunately all the records have been lost and all we have are the accounts written by More so many years afterwards and later Tudor historians.

Yes Sharon I’ve heard that ridiculous slur on Anne as well. She was supposed to have given poor Richmond a slow acting poison, during her time in the tower, she was supposed to have written to him asking to plead with Henry Turnip to spare her life, and the ink that she used was poisoned so that when he read the letter the ink/poison would have got into Richmond’s blood through the tissues of his fingers..BAH Humbug….

Anne was even blamed for the bad harvests there were, but then Deja vu has a funny way of repeating as the same thing happened in Mary’s reign. There were bad arvests which the people blamed her for, as it was God’s judgement on her for burning people. On the other hand Mary saw the bad harvests as God’s judgement for not burning enough people.

As for poor Little Eddy I do feel that Northumberland did try everything he could to prolong the life of the king, and tried all sorts of Quack medicines, which to be honest probably just made him feel a whole lot worse. I think I have mentioned this before about some of the more bizarre ideas. One of them involved freshly caught salmon/trout being strapped to his feet and as the fish rotted it was supposed to draw the illness from the afflicted person, the rotten fish would then be burned on a fire therefore burning away the illness and leaving the person fighting fit and ready to go.

He may have be given things like mercury, infused with something else, maybe even drinkable gold, which was also said to prolong life/health and preserve beauty. Diane de Portiers (King Henry of France’s mistress) was a believer in such fiddle faddle, although in truth like so many other quack cures and simples it probably hastened her end. I do know from what little I’ve read about her, (an amazing woman by all accounts) that when her tomb was discovered her hair contained high levels of gold in it.

We will never really know what hastened Little Eddy end, was he indeed poisoned as has been suggested? If he was given mercury and other quack cures, then I would have to say yes he was poisoned, but purely from the point of view that the medicines used on him at the time, the doctors really didn’t understand what they were doing to him. They may have used Mandrake,(tropane Alcaloid) and Hemlock (Conium) both of which cause death by aphixiation by surpress the nervous system into a state of collapse, death will then follow rapidily.

Both of these were used by the ancient Romans to commit suicide, Hemlock (Conium) being the preferred method. Socates being among one of it’s victims, when he was sentenced to death for impiety (Basically not believing in the Gods of the state) and corruption of the youth of Athens.

Long exposure to Mercury would have easily caused hair loss as well and fingernails and toe nails to fall out. If his doctors had bleed Little Eddy, they certainly would have weakened and already weakened King, and then with a combination of the medicine being poured down his throat for his own good they as good as signed his death warrant for him.. Mandrake consumption also produces hallucinations, and it’s highly possible that Old Fat arse, may have been given a concotion containing Mandrake when he was on his death bed, I I have read somewhere that before Cramner was sent for to come and give fat arse his last rights the last words uttered by fat arse were “Monks, Monks, everywhere.” Was he perhaps seeing the Monks, that he had murdered to get his own way where religion was concerned?

Northumberland was ambitious, in some ways Eddy dying the way he did put a stop to Northumberland’s plots and schemes. If Little Eddy had perhaps lived 6 months or may a year longer, Northumberland’s plan to put Lady Jane on the throne in place in of Mary, may well have worked, as it was Little Eddy dying as he did, caused Northumberland to panic and act rashly before thinking things out properly he had managed to get the lords to agree to Lady Jane Grey’s plan to be Queen, but getting it through Parliament was a bigger task and one that he wasn’t really ready for. I.e he hadn’t got his case altogether, for Judge Judy to ratify, etc…
I do feel however if Northumberland had succeeded in getting both Mary and Elizabeth under lock and key, and quietly done away with them, by whatever means, his masterplan would still have failed somewhere along the line, for his case was built on very flimsey evidence, and that Mary Queen of Scots would have ended up as Queen due to her being the next heir being the grandaughter of the eldest of H7 children, which would have gone down like a lead balloon.
Off the beaten track here my mind’s chewed it’s lease again and is on the loose. (Be afraid be very afraid). Led Zeppelin, quite possibly the best rock band in the world, got their name from a record producer, who on hearing their demo tape said that they would never get anywhere in showbiz and would sink like a lead balloon, hence they called themselves “Led Zeppelin” and the rest is history as they say.
Ah there you are you little sod come here time to go back in your box. “Brain sniggers and climbs back in it’s box” “Phew” the world can sleep safely again…LOL