Read Princes in the Tower Online
Authors: Alison Weir
Lane, Henry Murray:
The Royal Daughters of England (2
vols, Constable, 1910)
Lindsay, Philip:
Kings of Merry England
(Howard Baker, 1936)
Macdougall, Norman:
James IV
(John Donald, Edinburgh, 1989)
Minster Lovell Hall: Official Handbook
(Department of the Environment, HMSO, 1977)
Palmer, Alan:
Princes of Wales
(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979)
Palmer, Alan and Veronica:
Royal England: A Historical Gazeteer
(Methuen, 1983)
Peck, F.:
Desiderata Curiosa
(1799) (for the tale of Richard Plantagenet of Eastwell)
Platt, Colin:
The National Trust Guide to Late Mediaeval and Renaissance Britain
(National Trust, 1986)
Platt, Colin:
The Traveller's Guide to Mediaeval England
(Seeker and Warburg, 1985)
Poole, Austin Lane:
Late Mediaeval England
(2 vols, Oxford University
Press, Oxford, 1958) Rae, Dr John:
Deaths of the English Kings
(1913)
Robinson, John Martin:
The Dukes of Norfolk: A Quincentennial History
(Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1982)
Royal Britain
(The Automobile Association, 1976)
Weinreb, Ben and Hibbert, Christopher:
The London Encyclopaedia
(Macmillan, 1983)
Westminster Abbey: Official Guide
(various editions)
Wickham, D. E.:
Discovering Kings and Queens
(Shire Publications, 1973)
Wilkinson, B.:
The Late Middle Ages in England, 1216-1485
(1969)
For the Wars of the Roses
Alderman, Clifford Lindsey:
Blood Red the Roses: The Wars of the Roses
(1971)
Chronicles of the Wars of the Roses
(ed. Elizabeth Hallam, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1988)
Cole, Hubert:
The Wars of the Roses
(Hart-Davis MacGibbon, 1973)
Goodman, Anthony:
The Wars of the Roses: Military Activity and English Society, 1452-1497
(Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981) Kinross, John:
The Battlefields of Britain
(David and Charles, Devon, 1979)
Lander, J. R.:
The Wars of the Roses
(Alan Sutton, 1990)
Pollard, A. J.:
The Wars of the Roses
(Macmillan, 1988)
Ross, Charles:
The Wars of the Roses
(1976)
Rowse, A. L.:
Bosworth Field and the Wars of the Roses
(Macmillan, 1966)
For Edward IV and His Family
Clive, Mary M.:
This Sun of York: A Biography of Edward IV
(Macmillan, 1973)
Davies, Katharine:
The First Queen Elizabeth
(Lovat Dickson, 1937)
Falkus, Gila:
The Life and Times of Edward TV
(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1981)
Hicks, M. A.:
False, Fleeting, Perjur'd Clarence
(Alan Sutton, 1980)
Ross, Charles:
Edward IV
(Eyre Methuen, 1974)
Scofield, Cora L.:
The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth
(2 vols, 1923, reprinted by Frank Cass and Co. 1967)
Simons, Eric N.:
The Reign of Edward IV
(1966)
For Richard III
Cheetham, Anthony:
The Life and Times of Richard III
(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972) (revisionist)
Drewett, Richard and Redhead, Mark:
The Trial of Richard III
(Alan Sutton, 1984)
Given-Wilson, Chris and Curteis, Alice:
The Royal Bastards of Mediaeval England
(Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984) (for details of Richard Ill's bastard children)
Hammond, P. W. and Sutton, Anne F.:
Richard III: The Road to Bosworth Field
(Constable, 1985)
Hanham, Alison:
Richard III and his Early Historians
(Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1975)
Kendall, Paul Murray:
Richard the Third
(Allen and Unwin, 1955) (revisionist; for many years, the definitive biography, but now largely discredited)
Lamb, V. B.:
The Betrayal of Richard III
(The Research Publishing Company, 1959) (revisionist)
Markham, Sir Clements:
Richard III: His Life and Character
(1906) (revisionist)
Potter, Jeremy:
Good King Richard?
(Constable, 1983) (revisionist)
Ross, Charles:
Richard III
(Eyre Methuen, 1981) (traditionalist; the definitive biography)
St Aubyn, Giles:
The Year of Three Kings: 1483
(Collins, Glasgow, 1983)
Seward, Desmond:
Richard III: England's Black Legend
(Country Life Books, 1983) (traditionalist)
Tudor-Craig, Pamela:
Richard III
(National Portrait Gallery, 1973, 1977)
Woodward, G. W. O.:
King Richard III
(Pitkin, 1972)
The Princes in the Tower
Crawford, A.: 'The Mowbray Inheritance*
(The Ricardian,
June, 1981)
Jenkins, Elizabeth:
The Princes in the Tower
(Hamish Hamilton, 1978)
Molleson, Theya: 'Anne Mowbray and the Princes in the Tower: a Study in Identity*
(The London Archaeologist,
Vol. 5, no. 10, Spring 1987)
Richard III and the Princes in the Tower
(ed. Langdon-Davies, Jackdaw Series, 1965)
Tanner, L. E., and Wright, W.: 'Recent Investigations Regarding the Fate of the Princes in the Tower'
(Archaeologia,
LXXXIV, 1934)
Williamson, Audrey:
The Mystery of the Princes
(Alan Sutton, 1978)
The Tower of London
Charlton, John:
The Tower of London: Its Buildings and Institutions
(HMSO, 1978)
Hibbert, Christopher:
The Tower of London
(Readers' Digest, 1971)
Mears, Kenneth J.:
The Tower of London: 900 Years of English History
(Phaidon Press, Oxford, 1988)
Minney, R. J.:
The Tower of London
(Cassell, 1970)
Picard, Barbara Leone:
The Tower and the Traitors
(Batsford, 1961)
Rowse, A. L.:
The Tower of London in the History of the Nation
(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972)
Somerset Fry, Plantagenet:
The Tower of London: Cauldron of Britain's Past
(Quiller Press, 1990)
Wilson, Derek:
The Tower, 1078-1978
(Hamish Hamilton, 1978)
Henry VII
Chrimes, S. B.:
Henry VII
(Eyre Methuen, 1972)
Chrimes, S. B.:
Lancastrians, Yorkists and Henry VII
(1966)
Grant, Alexander:
Henry VII
(Methuen, 1985)
Lenz-Harvey, N.:
Elizabeth of York, Tudor Queen
(1973)
Macalpine, Joan:
The Shadow of the Tower: Henry VII and his England
(BBC Publications, 1971)
Rees, David:
The Son of Prophecy: Henry Tudor's Road to Bosworth
(Black Raven Press, 1985)
Williams, Neville:
The Life and Times of Henry VII
(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1973)
The Tudor Period
Bennett, Michael:
Lambert Simnel and the Battle of Stoke
(Alan Sutton, 1987)
Durant, Horatia:
Sorrowful Captives: The Tudor Earls of Devon
(Griffin Press, 1960)
Elton, G. R.:
England under the Tudors
(Methuen, 1955)
Mackie, J. D.:
The Earlier Tudors, 1485-1558
(Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1952, 1966)
Morris, Christopher:
The Tudors
(Batsford, 1955)
Plowden, Alison:
The House of Tudors
(Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1976)
Routh, C. R. N.:
Who's Who in History, Vol. II, England 1485-1603
(Blackwell, Oxford, 1964)
Sir Thomas More
Marius, Richard:
Thomas More
(Dent, 1984)
Ridley, Jasper:
The Statesman and the Fanatic: Thomas Wolsey and Thomas More
(Constable, 1982)
Strong, Sir Roy:
Tudor and Jacobean Portraits
(2 vols, National Portrait Gallery, 1969) (for a discussion on paintings of the More family group)
Trapp, J. B. and Herbrüggen, H. S.:
The King's Good Servant: Sir Thomas More, 1477/8-1535
(National Portrait Gallery, 1977)
Wilson, D.:
England in the Age of Thomas More
(1978)
About the Author
Alison Weiris the author of
The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy, The Wars of the Roses, The Children of Henry VIII, The Life of Elizabeth I,
and
Eleanor of Aquitaine.
She lives in Surrey with her husband and two children.
[Captions on removed pictures from the middle of the book]
1
above
Richard III: early 17th century (?) copy of a portrait by an anonymous artist of
c.
1518-23 in the Royal Collection. When this picture was painted the legend of the villainous 'crookbacked king' with one shoulder higher than the other was firmly established.
2
above right
The earliest surviving portrait of Richard, dating from
c.
1516-22 and almost certainly a copy of a lost original painted from life, shows no apparent deformity.
3
right
The 'Broken Sword' portrait by an unknown artist, f.1533-43. X-rays show that drastic alterations were made later on, when Richard's reputation was rehabilitated, to give the deformed-looking king a more normal appearance.
4 Edward IV: his son Edward. the elder of the two Princes, was 'his greatest joy'.
5 Elizabeth Wydville: 'everyone, as he was nearest of kin unto the Queen, was so planted next about the Prince, whereby her blood might of youth be rooted in the Prince's favour' (Sir Thomas More).
6
opposite page
Illustration from The York Roll: at the top is Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, 'the Kingmaker', and his wife, Anne Beauchamp, the mother-in-law whom Richard III treated so callously. To the left is Warwick's daughter Anne Neville with her two husbands, Edward of Lancaster and Richard III, with Edward of Middleham, Prince of Wales, her son by Richard, below. To the right is Anne's sister Isabella Neville with her husband, George, Duke of Clarence, and their children Edward, Earl of Warwick, and Margaret, later Countess of Salisbury.
7 The Tower of London: contemporary sources indicate that the Princes were imprisoned in the White Tower. The forebuilding housing the staircase beneath which the bones of two children were found in 1674 may clearly be seen in front of the White Tower, facing the River Thames.
8
above left
Henry Tudor: this obscure scion of the royal house, whom Richard III referred to as "an unknown Welshman', claimed to be 'the very heir of the House of Lancaster'.
9
above
Elizabeth of York and her sisters: Elizabeth claimed that Richard III 'was her only joy and maker in this world, and she was his in heart, in thought, in body and in all'.
10
left
Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond: a wise but dangerous woman who 'imagined the destruction of the King' (The Rolls of Parliament)
11
opposite page
The Princes in the Tower: Lord Chancellor Russell wrote that Edward
(right)
had a 'gentle wit and ripe understanding, far passing the nature of his youth'. The French chronicler Jean Molinet describes York
(left)
as 'joyous and witty, and ever ready for dances or games'.
12
above
Sir Thomas More: 'I shall rehearse you the dolorous end of these babes, not after every way that I have heard, but after that way that I have heard by such men and such means as me thinketh it were hard but it should be true'.
13
above right
The burial of the Princes: More says they were buried 'at the stair foot, meetly deep under the ground, under a great heap of stones'.
14
right
Ruins of the minoresses' convent at Aldgate after the fire of 1797: here, in 'the great house within the close', lodged four ladies who may well have known the truth about the Princes' fate.
15 The remains found in 1674: 'They were small bones of lads in their teens, fully recognised to be the bones of those two Princes' (Eye-witness report, 1674;
Archaeologia).
16 The urn in which the bones repose in Westminster Abbey: 'a curious altar of black and white marble', designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1678.
17 The skull of Anne Mowbray: York's child-bride and the Princes' cousin, exhumed in 1964. Dental evidence indicates a familial relationship between her bones and those in the urn.