Wednesday, February 17, 2021

The Mystery of the Princes


 From Smithsonian:

Thornton draws on archival records to posit that Tudor courtiers Edward and Miles Forest—who held positions in the households of the king and top adviser Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, respectively—were the sons of Miles Forest, one of two men More claims were tasked with carrying out the princes’ killings. “[A] fellow hardened in murder before that time,” the elder Miles reportedly recruited John Dighton, “his own housekeeper, a big, broad, square strong knave,” to assist.

By the time More started researching the princes’ disappearance, Miles senior was dead. But Dighton was still alive, and, notes Thornton in a blog post accompanying the study, “living just across the Channel” in the English territory of Calais—an area where More “spent many months” around the time that he wrote History of King Richard III.

“[More] wasn’t writing about imaginary people,” says Thornton in the statement. “We now have substantial grounds for believing that the detail of More’s account of a murder is credible.” (Read more.)


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4 comments:

Sansa said...

When Thomas More was writing his book/history of Richard iii, he must have talked to a number of people who were still alive and knew something about the princes in the tower Edward v and Richard Duke of york. They were ready to tell More what they knew and so.

elena maria vidal said...

St. Thomas More spent a lot of time in the household of the Bishop of Ely where he heard all kinds of stories about the House of York, some true and some false.

Sansa said...

The bishop of Ely was cardinal Morton, a man who was no fan Richard 3.

elena maria vidal said...

That's for sure