An obscure marriage contract between Edward IV and Lady Eleanor Butler was dug up, proving that Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous, and their children therefore illegitimate. 12 was unusually young for a king, but the Woodvilles were happy to rule through their scion until he reached maturity (and maybe even after that). The date of Edward V’s coronation was set for 22nd June 1483. He knew he would lose the immense amount of power he had built up as his brother’s premier magnate in the north when the young king was crowned, which the Woodvilles insisted should happen as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Edward V’s extended family on his mother Elizabeth’s side, the Woodvilles, weren’t big fans of Richard. That meant a regency, with good old Uncle Richard as Lord Protector. Technically they weren’t both princes, which was the whole problem: Edward V, the son of Richard’s elder brother Edward IV, was already king of England, but at 12 years old, he was too young to rule under his own power. Unfortunately, sometimes myths are built around a kernel of truth, and Richard III murdering the Princes in the Tower is one such kernel, even if we tend to get the details wrong. Surely this man didn’t kill his nephews to take the throne for himself. Surely Richard III can’t have been as bad as all that, we think, scoffing at Thomas More’s descriptions of a “malicious, wrathful, envious” little man. It’s tempting to believe in the version of Richard III that Jim Howick plays so well in the Horrible Histories song, purely because the evil monster of Shakespeare’s play is so prevalent in British culture.
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