Evidence that Woodvilles were looking to overthrow or assassinate Richard iii

Welcome!

Not being an English mediaevalist, I'm not speaking with much authority. However, I'm with Josephine Tey--I believe that the murderer of the princes was Henry VI Tudor. My thought is that the Woodvilles were merely opportunist who were in over their heads.

sahsha said:

Often,people who conclude that Richard iii was responsible for the death of the Princes in the Tower justify this with the conclusion that if Richard had not done do, he would have been overthrown and killed by the Woodvilles.

Is there any concrete evidence regarding this?Elizabeth Woodville and Richard did not seem to have any deep-seated animosity during the lifetime of Edward IV and Richard anyway seemed to prefer the north.

Isn’t it quite possible that given Richard and the Neville powerholds in the north, the Woodvilles would have left Richard alone and let him tend to the north while they kept the power in London and the south just as under Edward IV?Even if Richard was Lord Protector there seems to be no reason they couldn’t have come to some arrangement such as a council of sorts with some power for the Woodville faction?

From what events does this speculation arise regarding the Woodvilles’ enmity with Richard iii ? What occurred immediately after Edward IV’s death that made Richard insecure enough to kidnap the young Edward V?

Click to expand...

I always thought Anne Neville, wife of Dicky III, was a more likely suspect behind the Princes murders. Richard III had no cause to worry about the princes, as they had been declared illegitimate. Apparently, Anne attended all the very many executions of the Woodville family, and detested them thoroughly. Wiping out two more probably wouldn't prick her conscience. She had means, motive and opportunity.

Of course, just an opinion based on limited data, and willing to change my POV .

Nick the Noodle said:

I always thought Anne Neville, wife of Dicky III, was a more likely suspect behind the Princes murders. Richard III had no cause to worry about the princes, as they had been declared illegitimate. Apparently, Anne attended all the very many executions of the Woodville family, and detested them thoroughly. Wiping out two more probably wouldn't prick her conscience. She had means, motive and opportunity.

Of course, just an opinion based on limited data, and willing to change my POV .

Click to expand...

I'm a long-standing Ricardian. I have never read or heard that Anne Neville attended any execution.
The Parliamentary declaration of illegitimacy of the sons of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville may not have been widely believed. So Richard III would have some reason to be uneasy about the boys.
I suspect Richard of Gloucester felt uneasy about the Woodvilles because he may have regarded them as responsible for the death, 5 years earlier, of his brother George of Clarence. He may well have felt that they would try the same thing on him; especially after his arrest of Lord Rivers, and Grey and Vaughn.

MJuingong said:

I'm a long-standing Ricardian. I have never read or heard that Anne Neville attended any execution.
The Parliamentary declaration of illegitimacy of the sons of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville may not have been widely believed. So Richard III would have some reason to be uneasy about the boys.
I suspect Richard of Gloucester felt uneasy about the Woodvilles because he may have regarded them as responsible for the death, 5 years earlier, of his brother George of Clarence. He may well have felt that they would try the same thing on him; especially after his arrest of Lord Rivers, and Grey and Vaughn.

Click to expand...

My source for Anne Neville attending every execution is from Phillipa Gregory. This is why I said it was an opinion based on limited data.

I am also a fan of Richard III, a man that history has been unkind towards.

I think it is all too easy to project a "reasonable" scenario onto people living in the late C15th. Unfortunately it was an extremely volatile time. By 1483 England had been torn apart by getting on for 30 years of unrest, civil war and political backstabbing. A lot people people had died/been executed/met with unfortunate ends as a result of being on the wrong side of political struggles by that time.

A power struggle between the Woodville faction and RIchard III's supporters was unlikely to have ever ended with a settlement so civilised and amicable as the one proposed.

England at that time was a political vipers nest.

I see no evidence really to suggest that Anne Neville was a prime mover in political events at that time. If she had have been, or if there had even been a suspicion that she was, the Tudor propagandists would have really had a field day at her expense post-Bosworth!

I would also question the claim that Anne Neville attended many of the Woodville faction executions. Anthony Woodville, Richard Grey and Thomas Vaughan were amongst the most prominent men executed & neither Anne nor Richard were present at their executions.

SilasMarner said:

I would also question the claim that Anne Neville attended many of the Woodville faction executions. Anthony Woodville, Richard Grey and Thomas Vaughan were amongst the most prominent men executed & neither Anne nor Richard were present at their executions.

Click to expand...

I'll gladly change my opinion if you can provide sources for this post .

MJuingong said:

I'm a long-standing Ricardian. I have never read or heard that Anne Neville attended any execution.
The Parliamentary declaration of illegitimacy of the sons of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville may not have been widely believed. So Richard III would have some reason to be uneasy about the boys.
I suspect Richard of Gloucester felt uneasy about the Woodvilles because he may have regarded them as responsible for the death, 5 years earlier, of his brother George of Clarence. He may well have felt that they would try the same thing on him; especially after his arrest of Lord Rivers, and Grey and Vaughn.

Click to expand...

Saying that those Plantagenet boys King Edeard III and Richard Duke of York were Woodvilles because theiir mother was a Woodville is a bit misleading.

It has been calculated that their ancestor King Edward III of England (1312-1377) is also the ancestor of almost every English person alive in the present, even if only a minority of them can trace their lineage genration by generation back to Edward III.

Andrew Millard's Genealogy : Probability of descending from Edward III

I don't kow the ethnic ancestry of every person who has posted on this thread or who will post on this thread in the future. But it is possible that many or most of them have significant English ancestry and thus are very probably descended from Edward III.

Remember that everyone has two p parents, and ancestral poisitons for 4 grandparents, 8 great grandparents, 16 great great grandparents, 32 great great great grandparents, and so on. So everyone is descended from a vast number of patrilineal families, and if one particular family is singled out to be their only or main family, it is usually their father's father's father's and so on family, unless their mother's family is much more important.

Would you call Edward V and Richard Duke of York members of the Carolingian family because they had Charlemagne as an ancestor?

Would you call Edward V and Richard Duke of York members of the Salian and Hohenstauffen dynasties because their great great gandmother Isabella of Castile was descended from Manfred, illegitimat son of Emperor Frederick II, and their maternal grandmother Jacquetta of Luxembourg (1415/16-1472) was descended from Margaret (1230-1298), illegitimate daughte rof Emperor Fredreick III?

Would you call Edward V and Richard Duke of York membrs of the "Byzantine" families of Doukas, Komnenos, and Angelos because King Edward III was descended from Emperor Isaac II Angelos and his wife Philippa of Hainaut was descended from Emperor Alexios III Angelos, brother of Isaac II, and the Angelos brothers were descended from Emperor Alexios I Komnenos and from his wife Irene Doukaina, a member of the Doukas family?

And if you might be descended from Edward III would you call yourself a member of the Carolingian, or Capetian, or Doukas, or Komnenos, or Agnelos families, merely because Edward III was descended from them?

The two boys were Plantagenets (albeit of the York branch).

Nick the Noodle said:

I'll gladly change my opinion if you can provide sources for this post

Click to expand...

Well I am struggling to find reference to Anne attending such executions; although I would not be surprised if she attended any that Richard III also attended.

As regards the execution of Anthony Woodville (Lord Rivers), Richard Grey and Thomas Vaughan; their execution was carried out at Pontefract castle and presided over by Earl of Northumberland and Sir Richard Ratcliff. I can find no reference to the presence of either the King or Anne.

.

SilasMarner said:

The two boys were Plantagenets (albeit of the York branch).



Well I am struggling to find reference to Anne attending such executions; although I would not be surprised if she attended any that Richard III also attended.

As regards the execution of Anthony Woodville (Lord Rivers), Richard Grey and Thomas Vaughan; their execution was carried out at Pontefract castle and presided over by Earl of Northumberland and Sir Richard Ratcliff. I can find no reference to the presence of either the King or Anne.

A Tragic Day at Pontefract | History Refreshed by Susan Higginbotham

.

Click to expand...

You've convinced me . It appears Richard III did not arrive at Pontefract castle until August.

I recommend #95 of the Medieval Podcast. Daniele interviews an author who wrote about Richard III, Chris Skidmore. He suggested that the eldest prince wasn't looking too friendly to Richard III and preferred his Woodinville uncles. With a new king comes a rearrangement of favors, ya know? I don't know if he offered CONCRETE evidence or if it was a theory, but you might check it out.

Ultimately we only really have two sources:

• Dominic Mancini’s Usurpation of Richard III, written in December 1483
• The Continuation to the Croyland Chronicles, written in April 1486

As the latter was written post Bosworth, it was unlikely to be out of step with Henry Tudor's view of the world. The former is the only real contemporary (pre-Bosworth) source.

It is Mancini who tells us that when Richard met Edward V at Stony Stratford, he advised Edward to remove the Woodville's and their supporters from office. Mancini tells us Richard advised Edward that he should be his sole advisor:

'he himself, whom the king’s father had approved, could better discharge all the duties of government, not only because of his experience of affairs, but also on account of his popularity. He would neglect nothing pertaining to the duty of a loyal subject and diligent protector’

He advised on getting rid of the Woodville faction/removing them all from office because:

1) They had ruined Edward IV's health... 'they were accounted the companions and servants of his vices, and had ruined his health’

2) They were plotting against Richard. Richard 'accused them of conspiring his death and of preparing ambushes both in the capital and on the road, which had been revealed to him by their accomplices. Indeed, he said it was common knowledge that they had attempted to deprive him of the office of regent conferred on him by his brother’

3) They were likely plotting against Edward V. ‘these ministers should be utterly removed for the sake of his own security, lest he fall into the hands of desperate men, who from their previous licence would be ready to dare anything’

Mancini tells us that Edward V's reaction to Richard's arguments was as follows:

‘The youth…replied to this saying that he merely had those ministers whom his father had given him; and, relying on his father’s prudence, he believed that good and faithful ones had been given to him. He had seen nothing evil in them, and wished to keep them unless otherwise proved to be evil. As for the government of the kingdom, he had complete confidence in the peers of realm and the queen .’

Mancini believed that Richard III's hatred of the Woodvilles was driven by the fact that Richard believed they had been behind the execution/murder of his brother George:

‘At that time Richard duke of Gloucester was so overcome by grief for his brother [Clarence]… but that he was overheard to say that he would one day avenge his brother’s death.’

Mancini also suggests that there was tension between Richard and the Queen during Edward IV's reign but that they had avoided any clash mainly because they avoided each other:

'By these arts Richard ... avoided the jealousy of the queen, from whom he lived far separated.‘

This is Croyland's account of the same events:

In the meantime, the duke of Gloucester wrote the most soothing letters in order to console the queen, with promises that he would shortly arrive, and assurances of all duty, fealty, and due obedience to his king and lord, Edward the Fifth, the eldest son of the deceased king, his brother, and of the queen. Accordingly, on his arrival at York, with a becoming retinue, each person being arrayed in mourning, he performed a solemn funeral service for the king, the same being accompanied with plenteous tears. Constraining all the noblity of those parts to take the oath of fealty to the late king’s son, he himself was the first of all to take the oath. On reaching Northampton, where the duke of Buckingham joined him, there came thither for the purpose of paying their respects to him, Antony, earl of Rivers, the king’s uncle, and Richard Grey, a most noble knight, and uterine brother to the king, together with several others who had been sent by the king, his nephew, to submit the conduct of everything to the will and discretion of his uncle, the duke of Gloucester. On their first arrival, they were received with an especially cheerful and joyous countenance, and, sitting at supper at the duke’s table, passed the whole time in very pleasant conversation. At last, Henry, duke of Buckingham, also arrived there, and, as it was now late, they all retired to their respective lodgings.

When the morning, and as it afterwards turned out, a most disastrous one, had come, having taken counsel during the night, all the lords took their departure together, in order to present themselves before the new king at Stony Startford, a town a few miles distant from Northampton; and now, lo and behold! when the two dukes had nearly arrived at the entrance of that town, they arrested the said earl of Rivers and his nephew Richard, the king’s brother, together with some others who had come with them, and commanded them to be led prisoners to the north of England. Immediately after, this circumstance being not yet known in the neighbouring town, where the king was understood to be, they suddenly rushed into the place where the youthful king was staying, and in like manner made prisoners of certain others of his servants who were in attendance on his person. One of these was Thomas Vaughan, an aged knight and chamberlain of the prince before-named.

The duke of Gloucester, however, who was the ringleader in this outbreak, did not omit or refuse to pay every mark of respect to the king, his nephew, in the way of uncovering the head, bending the knee, or other posture of the body required in a subject. He asserted that his only care was for the protection of his own person, as he knew for certain that there were men in attendance upon the king who had conspired against both his own honor and his very existence. Thus saying, he caused proclamations to be made, that all the king’s attendants should instantly withdraw from the town, and not approach any place to which the king might chance to come, under penalty of death. These events took place at Stony Stratford on Wednesday, on the last day of April, in the year above-mentioned, being the same in which his father died.

Croyland also gives us evidence that there was unease amongst a section of the nobility with regard to the influence that the Woodvilles had with Edward V. This unease extended to a wide number of people and was not directly inspired by Richard III. Croyland discusses this in relation to period imediately after the death of Edward IV, at which time Richard III was not present in London or party to any of the discussions:

'For while the councillors of the king, now deceased, were present with the queen at Westminster, and were naming a certain day, on which the eldest son of king Edward (who at this time was in Wales), should repair to London for the ceremonial of his coronation, there were various contentions among some of them...The more prudent members of the council, however, were of opinion that guardianship of so youthful a person, until he should reach the years of maturity, ought to be utterly forbidden to his uncles and brothers on his mother’s side.'

So there is plenty of evidence to suggest there was a pro and anti Woodville faction at Edward IV's court and that this was not simply a case of Richard vs the Woodvilles. There were many other people who clearly were very uneasy at the prospect of a young King controlled by the Woodville family.