THE WORLD'S MOST EVIL PEOPLE (True Crime) by Rodney Castleden Read Free Book Online Page A

as illegitimate but his elder brother as well, the brother he had served with unswerving loyalty. Why had Richard shifted his ground? Was it that he was incredibly devious and ambitious?
    A few days later, some evidence was produced, probably by the Bishop of Bath and Wells, to show that Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had been bigamous, and therefore all their children were bastards. If Edward’s two sons were illegitimate they could have no right to the throne. The children of George Duke of Clarence had lost their right on account of their father’s treason. That left Richard. He was crowned King Richard III at Westminster Abbey on 6 July, 1483.
    The two princes were seen a few more times in the Tower shortly after that, then never again. Eventually their skeletons were discovered, hidden under a stone staircase in the Tower. When they were murdered – by whom and on whose orders – is still not known, though it has usually been assumed that Richard III was responsible for ordering their murder. Richard had most to gain by their death and it does seem more likely than not that he gave the order for their assassination. It is nevertheless possible that they survived Richard’s short reign – he was only in power for two years – and were removed by Henry VII, who would equally have wanted rival claimants out of the way.
    Because of the way he had removed potential opposition, Richard was left with too few friends to govern safely. His was a very short and very troubled reign. His own loyal supporter, Henry Duke of Buckingham, turned against him and was promptly executed. Richard’s enemies finally united against him on the battlefield at Bosworth on 22 August, 1485. He was killed fighting bravely in the battle, famously unhorsed, and his body was carted naked through the streets of Leicester before being buried at Greyfriars Church.
    Richard III has become one of the most controversial English kings. Shakespeare was a mouthpiece for Tudor propaganda, and his play Richard III is in effect a justification for Henry VII’s usurpation of the throne; but Henry VII’s right to the throne was not as strong as Richard’s. Shakespeare blames Richard for the murder of his brother, the innocent George Duke of Clarence, but history records a very different story – that Clarence did indeed plot against Edward IV and it was Edward IV himself who had him executed. Nothing to do with Richard at all.
    Some have excused the (alleged) murder of the two princes on the grounds that England needed to be governed by a man, that the safety of the realm demanded that they should go. As for the accusation that Prince Edward (the boy-king) had no right to the throne, that turns out to have been doubly true. Edward IV was a bigamist, so Edward V was illegitimate. Edward IV was himself illegitimate. His mother was Cecily, but she conceived Edward while her husband was away and she had an affair with an archer called Blaybourne. The fact that Edward’s baptism was a very low-key event compared with the baptisms of George and Richard indicates that the Duke and Duchess knew perfectly well that he was illegitimate. It was also a matter of general comment that Richard and George were slightly built like the Duke of York, yet Edward IV was huge. His body was exhumed in modern times and the skeleton measured 6 foot 4 inches. Richard would certainly have known this, but kept quiet for safety’s sake, during Edward IV’s lifetime. George was unwise enough to challenge his brother – perhaps he even dared to mention the unutterable and now treasonable family secret, the matter of Edward IV’s parenthood – and was executed for it. Once Edward IV was dead, it was not only safe for Richard to expose the illegitimacy of Edward IV’s sons, but it was his family duty to the purity of the bloodline, and his patriotic duty to the integrity of the Crown. History reveals a very different Richard III from the crook-backed villain of