WEBVTT - Richard III: Good Guy or Evil Putz? 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:07.720 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.440 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:15.760 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and that makes this a 0:00:15.800 --> 0:00:18.520 good old fashioned episode of stuff you should know. 0:00:18.640 --> 0:00:22.799 That's right. This is where we well, we don't debate, 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:24.360 because we don't really do that. We're going to talk 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.320 about the merits of Richard the Third and the people 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:30.080 that say that Richard the Third was a lousy king 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:33.720 and terrible person, and other people will say, nah, that 0:00:33.960 --> 0:00:36.880 was rewritten by people who didn't like him, and he 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:39.680 was actually a pretty great king. And we'll get into 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:40.360 all that right now. 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:44.120 Wow, that's a great intro. So Richard the Third is 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:46.839 that you may his name may ring a bell if 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:49.559 you're not already familiar with him, because there is a 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.080 very very famous play by Shakespeare called The Tragedy of 0:00:53.159 --> 0:00:56.880 Richard the Third. And in this play, Richard the Third 0:00:57.480 --> 0:01:01.200 has a hunch back, he is a withered arm, he 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:05.880 has a horrible, dark soul at his core. He's a 0:01:06.040 --> 0:01:10.880 terrible person, a murderer of children, a usurper to the throne. 0:01:11.520 --> 0:01:17.080 And because this is Shakespeare, you know Shakespeare. That's how 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:21.280 everybody's thought of Richard the Third publicly or popularly for 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:22.600 hundreds of years. 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:25.880 Yeah, Like Shakespeare wouldn't have a hit piece on somebody right. 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.959 No way, if there was even one Shakespeare. I was 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.679 thinking back to our episode on I think it was like, 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:35.560 did Shakespeare really write all that stuff? That is one 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.199 of my all time favorite episodes because I knew nothing 0:01:38.240 --> 0:01:41.800 about it, and yet there's this huge, rich subculture of 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.840 people who like talk about this and investigate it and 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.920 debate it. I love that one totally. But Shakespeare did 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:54.600 basically write this play, probably at least in part to 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.280 flatter Queen Elizabeth, who is the reigning monarch at the time, 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.480 and he was a very loyal subject her. Queen Elizabeth 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.960 was related to the guy who took over from Richard 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.440 I after Richard the Third was killed before that guy's 0:02:09.560 --> 0:02:10.200 very eyes. 0:02:10.960 --> 0:02:13.920 That's right, And this story will get a little confusing 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:15.919 as we go back and go through it, because there's 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:20.040 a lot of Richard's, there's a lot of Edwards. Yeah, 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:22.880 but it's not the hardest thing to keep straight. We're 0:02:22.880 --> 0:02:24.480 going to do our best, but we if in order 0:02:24.520 --> 0:02:26.519 to talk about Richard the Third, we have to talk 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:29.080 a little bit about the War of the Roses, which 0:02:29.080 --> 0:02:32.919 were these bloody civil wars fought over the fourteen hundreds 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:37.080 basically in England, like, hey, who's in control here? Which 0:02:37.120 --> 0:02:41.480 family has a right to the British throne? Most of 0:02:41.520 --> 0:02:43.160 it was between the House of York and the House 0:02:43.240 --> 0:02:48.920 of Lancaster, whose symbols were the White Rose for York 0:02:49.080 --> 0:02:52.480 and the red Rose for Lancaster. There we go were 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:53.960 the roses white versus red. 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:59.000 Yes, that also explains that movie with Michael Douglas and 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:01.840 Danny DeVito and Kathleen. 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.320 Turner, one of my favorite all time movies. 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:05.760 That is a great movie. 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:08.000 It is great and holds. 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:09.760 Up, does it? I haven't seen it in a loi. 0:03:09.880 --> 0:03:11.360 It's still so very funny. 0:03:11.560 --> 0:03:14.839 Okay, So, the Houses of York and Lancaster were both 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:18.280 part of the Plantagenet dynasty, and that dynasty had been 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.400 ruling England from eleven to fifty four up to the 0:03:21.440 --> 0:03:24.680 point where we pick up our story. So like it 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.200 was a big deal that these two houses were warring 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:31.200 one another for control and even bigger deals. We'll see 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:34.640 that somebody who was basically unrelated to either one would 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:38.560 come in and end the Plantagenet dynasty. Richard the Third 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:40.480 was the last Plantagenet king. 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:43.320 Yeah, so he was born in fourteen fifty two. He 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:48.040 was Team York. His dad, Richard was the third Duke 0:03:48.080 --> 0:03:50.360 of York, and it was his dad who was a 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:52.120 big player in the early part of the War of 0:03:52.160 --> 0:03:56.720 the Roses. In fourteen fifty five he went to dethrone 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.480 King Henry the sixth, who was a Lancaster, and that 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:02.640 really kicked off the Wars of the Roses. I think 0:04:02.640 --> 0:04:05.120 I've been saying singular like the Danny de Vido movie, 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:07.040 but technically it's the Wars of the Roses. 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:11.400 I think it's all combined collectively under the umbrella the 0:04:11.440 --> 0:04:13.640 War of the Roses. And you could consider each of 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:15.560 these skirmishes or battles in it. 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:17.919 Oh okay, so we're right and wrong. 0:04:18.279 --> 0:04:22.080 Yeah so, but the thing to remember is that these 0:04:22.080 --> 0:04:27.680 were incredibly vicious, bloody battles being fought by ultimately two 0:04:27.680 --> 0:04:31.200 different sides of the same large family. But like the 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:35.640 term machiavellian is just perfectly used in this era. Like 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:37.840 these people were like, you're my brother in law, and 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.000 I'm gonna cut your head off because I want to 0:04:40.800 --> 0:04:43.640 get this other guy who's my cousin to the front 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:45.960 throne so I could take over my brother in law's 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:49.279 land like stuff like that. This was like the War 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:51.039 of the Roses. And to give you an example of 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:55.400 how brutal it was, when Richard the Third's father, Richard 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:59.279 the third, Duke of York died, he died in battle 0:04:59.640 --> 0:05:02.240 and his head was cut off and displayed on a pike, 0:05:02.480 --> 0:05:04.680 and they put a paper crown on it. Yeah, and 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:07.640 he was king at the time. The king had his 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.120 head cut off and a paper crown put on because 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:12.719 the other house had won and now they were the kings. 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:17.359 So after Richard's father, Richard once again died and his 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.720 head was put on a pike, his big brother Edward 0:05:21.120 --> 0:05:23.880 I think he had three kids total, took up the 0:05:24.279 --> 0:05:26.720 mantle to take up the fight and he defeated the 0:05:26.800 --> 0:05:30.520 Lancasters at the Battle of Tauton, in which I think 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.279 it's the bloodiest battle in British history. Twenty eight thousand 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:38.000 deaths man, which is just remarkable loss of life in 0:05:38.000 --> 0:05:41.840 any war, much less one in the fifteenth century. So 0:05:42.720 --> 0:05:46.520 after that happened, Henry six goes to Scotland. He's like, 0:05:46.560 --> 0:05:50.320 I'm out of here and Richard's brother was crown King Edward, 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:52.279 so all of a sudden he's King Edward the Fourth. 0:05:53.040 --> 0:05:56.320 The Yorks are in power, and Richard is second in 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.000 line at this point, behind only his older brother George. 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.320 And George is a great example of what kind of 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:10.680 duplacitousness and maneuvering was prominent in this era. He was 0:06:11.120 --> 0:06:14.360 executed under his brother's orders by being drowned in a 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:18.599 that of wine, executed for treason. And this wasn't like 0:06:19.120 --> 0:06:22.320 saying I want to take the throne. He really was 0:06:22.400 --> 0:06:25.760 treason is and plotting against his own brothers. So like 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:28.599 that was just something that happened in this family at 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:30.440 the time during the War of the Roses. 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:34.080 Yeah, for sure. Previous to that, when the Yorks were 0:06:34.120 --> 0:06:36.080 in power, it was only for a couple of years 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:40.520 because in fourteen sixty nine Henry the six was reinstalled. 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:42.920 He's like, I've been to Scotland for a while. I'm 0:06:42.920 --> 0:06:45.719 coming back because my wife, Margaret of Andrew led a 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:49.400 orchestrated a rebellion that worked, so thank you for that. 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:52.599 Now I'm back in charge. But then Edward and both 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:54.640 Richard and George, because George was not dead at this 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:57.880 point right, they came back defeated Henry the six again, 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:01.760 and this was basically for good in fourteen seventy one. 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:05.960 Yeah, So Edward the fourth, Richard's brother, is now on 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:09.360 the throne. He has two sons, Edward and Richard. We're 0:07:09.400 --> 0:07:10.720 going to put them to the side for a little 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:12.800 bit because he could not get more confusing if you 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.120 try to bring them in right now, we call him. 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:17.960 Eddie and Rick, yeah, or Eddie and Dick, how about that. 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:20.920 Yeah. And Edward the fourth, this is when he has 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:25.560 his brother George executed to drowning a vat of wine, 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:28.680 and Edward the Fourth died and I was looking into it. 0:07:28.680 --> 0:07:31.720 It's mysterious how he died. He just died suddenly. It 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:34.640 wasn't violently. He died of some sort of illness. But 0:07:35.520 --> 0:07:38.640 in his will he named his brother Richard Richard the 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:43.520 Third lord and protector over Edward's son Edward, who was 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:47.440 going to now become King Edward the fifth. He was twelve, 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:51.200 though Richard the Third was thirty at the time, and 0:07:51.320 --> 0:07:54.040 Richard the Third was like, I actually think that I 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:56.880 would make a better king. Yes, I know that through 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:00.520 royal lineage, Like Edward the Fifth is in line to 0:08:00.520 --> 0:08:04.040 take the throne. He's twelve, and I don't really like 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.960 his jokes. He's terrible joke teller. I tell great jokes. 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:08.960 I should be king. So he started to do some 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:11.560 maneuvering and kept putting off the coronation, putting off the 0:08:11.600 --> 0:08:16.200 coronation until he was able to produce a rumor. As 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:21.040 we'll see, that said the King Edward the fifth, the 0:08:21.080 --> 0:08:26.040 twelve year old was illegitimate, his father had not borne 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.720 him or his father was illegitimate, and he didn't have 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:32.040 any real claim to the throne. Hence Richard the Third 0:08:32.080 --> 0:08:34.840 did and it worked, so Richard the Third became king. 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:37.320 Yeah, so he had to do a little bit of 0:08:37.360 --> 0:08:40.320 other maneuvering to get this done. At one point he 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:43.880 met up with two of his deceased brother's closest advisors, 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:46.839 a guy named Anthony Woodville and a guy named Richard Gray, 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:49.800 and this was like, Hey, the coronation's coming up for 0:08:49.920 --> 0:08:52.439 this twelve year old to be king. And the very 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:54.880 next day he had Richard the Third had Woodville and 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:58.679 Gray arrested on charges of trying to usurp the throne, 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:02.040 and they were executed very quickly, along with another close 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:05.320 friend of his brother's William Hastings, so like he was, 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:08.160 you know, if it looks as if it appears to 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:11.480 look Richard the Third was just kind of cleaning house 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:14.400 of anyone from his brother's old team that would have 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:17.120 supported the boy king. 0:09:17.200 --> 0:09:21.319 Basically, yeah, and this was basically his brother's in laws 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:24.200 that he was killing off. He didn't want them to 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.200 try to vie for power because the mom of Edward 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:29.120 the Fifth, the young twelve year old, she could have 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:31.439 a ton of power, and so so could her brothers 0:09:31.520 --> 0:09:33.720 and all that kind of stuff. So they were basically 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:37.640 like wiping out the other side of the family. Remember, 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:39.880 I said, Richard the Third kept putting off the coronation 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:42.560 and putting it off. Well, typically if you're waiting to 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:44.720 be coronated king, you would hang out in the Tower 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.600 of London. And since he was able to keep putting 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:51.760 off the coronation, Edward the Fifth, who the kid who 0:09:51.800 --> 0:09:55.960 would be Edward the Fifth, was basically locked away in 0:09:56.040 --> 0:09:58.320 the Tower of London, and like a month or so 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:01.679 after he got there, his younger brother, Richard, who was 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:04.120 nine at the time, showed up and they were kind 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:08.440 of compartmentalized away in the Tower of London, out of 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:11.520 public view, just held off to the side while Richard 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:12.719 was doing his maneuvering. 0:10:13.400 --> 0:10:16.680 Yeah. So while this is going on, these two boys 0:10:17.000 --> 0:10:19.080 in line in front of Richard the Third are basically 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:21.439 hidden away in the Tower of London, and all of 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.120 a sudden, the Church of England says, you know what, 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:27.560 that marriage wasn't even legitimate, King Edward the fourth, your 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:31.479 older brother and his wife Elizabeth. It was an illegitimate 0:10:31.520 --> 0:10:34.840 marriage because Edward. I think there were a couple of things. 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.640 One was Edward had supposedly been engaged to another woman 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:39.400 when they married, which would be big of me at 0:10:39.400 --> 0:10:42.600 the time. But didn't they also say that Elizabeth had 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.640 a previous marriage or something like that. 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.240 No, they said that Edward the fourth and Richard the 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:53.640 Third's father right, that he had had an affair that 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:55.280 bore Edward the fourth. 0:10:55.440 --> 0:10:55.600 Yeah. 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.560 Yeah, but Richard the third was legitimate, So he was saying, like, 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:01.360 my brother wasn't even a legitimate king while he was alive, 0:11:01.400 --> 0:11:04.440 so his sons definitely aren't. I am though, because my 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:08.679 parents bore me legitimately. And so there were two illegitimate 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.520 rumors that were being bandied about at the time, and 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.600 I guess one of them got picked up on by 0:11:14.679 --> 0:11:18.640 the Pope I believe, who said, yeah, we're cool with this, 0:11:18.720 --> 0:11:21.040 and an Act of Parliament was passed that basically said 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:24.320 Richard the third has gone now from Lord Protector, he's 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:27.480 now king because he's the legitimate heir to the throne. 0:11:27.800 --> 0:11:31.200 Right, And that was June twenty sixth, fourteen eighty three. 0:11:32.679 --> 0:11:34.959 And maybe we'll take a break and talk about what 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:36.280 happened to these boys. 0:11:36.600 --> 0:11:39.080 Yeah, yeah, I need to take a breath. 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:42.480 All right, we're going to figure all these Dixon eddies 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:44.360 out and we're going to come back and talk about 0:11:44.360 --> 0:11:45.040 it right after this. 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.080 So, Chuck, you asked before we left, what happened to 0:12:17.400 --> 0:12:20.760 the two princes? That is one of the greatest mysteries, 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:25.400 one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in English history. Still today, 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:27.640 we don't know what happened to them, And there's a 0:12:27.679 --> 0:12:31.280 lot of great answers, and there's evidence that suggest one 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.280 way or the other, but there's nothing definitive, so we 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:36.840 can't really say what happened. But all we know is 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:39.640 that while he was sequestered, that was the word I 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:43.400 was groping for earlier. While he was sequestered, away or 0:12:43.440 --> 0:12:47.679 while they were Edward the fifth and his younger brother Richard, 0:12:47.720 --> 0:12:51.920 they like, they were seen increasingly less in public, usually 0:12:52.000 --> 0:12:54.120 walking around the grounds of the Tower of London because 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.880 they're basically being held hostage until I think in the 0:12:57.920 --> 0:13:02.600 fall of fourteen eighty five, I've they just disappeared from 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:05.120 public view. No one ever heard of them again as 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:07.160 far as the historical record is concerned. 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:09.559 Yeah, I mean, the spin doctors even wrote a song 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:09.959 about it. 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:12.920 Yeah, I mean, and they gave some pretty great advice. 0:13:13.440 --> 0:13:17.640 I agree. Uh. Oh, now that stupid song is going 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:19.079 to be in my head. It's been in my head 0:13:19.120 --> 0:13:22.559 for a while, has it really, Yeah, because of this episode. 0:13:22.800 --> 0:13:23.079 Yes. 0:13:23.440 --> 0:13:25.520 Oh, I didn't even think about it until two seconds ago. 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:27.319 So you were on that already. 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:28.800 For a long time. 0:13:28.880 --> 0:13:34.160 Yes, So, like you said, they were last seeing summer 0:13:34.200 --> 0:13:37.880 of fourteen eighty three. Of course, they're the you know, 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:41.120 we'll just call him team Antie Richard. They were the 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:44.000 ones that were saying, like, this guy clearly murdered these boys, 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:48.200 and everybody knows it. He got his henchman, Sir James Terrell, 0:13:49.080 --> 0:13:53.040 to do so. In Shakespeare's play, he whispers to that henchman, 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:55.720 come to me, Terrell soon act to have to supper 0:13:55.760 --> 0:13:58.679 and now shout tell the process of their death. So 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:00.040 Shakespeare certainly bought that. 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:03.679 Yeah, and we should say Shakespeare wrote The Tragedy of 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:07.000 Richard the Third about one hundred years after Richard died, 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:13.640 and the idea that rich of the Third murdered directly 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:17.560 because if he if they were murdered, he almost certainly 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:21.080 did it himself. A lot of people argue. Other people say, yes, 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:24.280 Sir James Terrell probably had somebody do it, and the 0:14:24.440 --> 0:14:27.920 ideas that they were smothered with pillows, But this idea 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:33.120 doesn't pop up in writing until after Richard's death. And 0:14:33.160 --> 0:14:35.960 the whole idea is is that he he had really 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:39.880 great motive to kill these kids because they even if 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:44.120 they were illegitimate, they could go off grow up train. Yeah, 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:46.800 there would probably be a montage of some sort as 0:14:46.840 --> 0:14:50.520 their training, and they could come back and try to 0:14:50.520 --> 0:14:54.320 topple him from the throne through battles and violence, and 0:14:54.480 --> 0:14:57.640 he was just wiping out this, you know, future challenge 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.800 to his rule. He was not the only one who 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:03.640 had that motive. There were a handful of other people 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.320 around the time who had just as good a motive 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.840 of wiping those two kids out for the exact same reason. 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.200 So that alone is not that's not like the most 0:15:13.320 --> 0:15:14.280 damning evidence. 0:15:15.280 --> 0:15:17.600 Yeah, I could see the montage. 0:15:17.840 --> 0:15:22.080 Bit bit dip was that two princes? 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:24.520 Yeah, you know that one part where he's kind of scatting. 0:15:26.800 --> 0:15:28.240 Yeah, that was good. 0:15:28.280 --> 0:15:32.120 Actually, so the montage could have happened for sure. Uh, 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.520 if you are team Richard, they will likely say, man, 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:37.440 there's no way he would have been fool enough to 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:39.880 do that. He didn't kill those guys. Maybe he moved 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:42.600 him up to the north and hid them away because 0:15:43.120 --> 0:15:45.640 he wanted them to be safe for something. Uh, but 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.560 Richard never said anything about it. Uh. There was no 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:53.280 evidence for centuries, like literal evidence tying anything there. But 0:15:53.760 --> 0:15:56.800 fairly recently there was a British TV historian that discovered 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:59.720 a will that included a necklace that belonged to Edward 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:03.040 the Fifth, the boy who would be king. This will 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:05.840 was drawn up thirty three years after he disappeared, and 0:16:05.880 --> 0:16:09.160 it belonged to a wealthy London widow named Margaret Capel, 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:11.720 who just so happened to be the sister in law 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:15.920 of that henchman James Terrell. So the man who either 0:16:15.960 --> 0:16:19.280 possibly murdered those two guys or at least was in 0:16:19.320 --> 0:16:22.840 on the plot ended up with this necklace that was 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:25.400 given to his wife thirty three years later. So it's 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:28.760 not like, hey, this is literal evidence, but it's pretty shady. 0:16:29.040 --> 0:16:31.880 It is, especially if you combine it with other evidence 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:35.960 people have generated over the years. But can we talk 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:38.080 for a second about why we don't know any of this, 0:16:38.480 --> 0:16:41.720 from the murder mystery to whether they were legitimate or not. 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:45.440 Yeah, I mean one reason is just that history wasn't 0:16:45.480 --> 0:16:48.000 recorded the same and there's just a lot of stuff 0:16:48.040 --> 0:16:49.920 that wasn't noted at the time, right. 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.680 Yes, that's part of it. I read also that the 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.320 Tutors when they took over after killing Richard the Third, 0:16:55.400 --> 0:17:01.240 destroyed a lot of the Platagenet like document in England. 0:17:02.400 --> 0:17:05.320 And then also there's not a lot of historians working 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:08.399 at the time. Luckily, there were a couple of chronicles 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.240 that were created. One was by a monk named Dominic 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:14.719 Mancini or Mancini. He happened to be in England at 0:17:14.720 --> 0:17:17.160 the time while this is going on, and went back 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:19.760 to Italy and wrote about it. So he had a 0:17:19.800 --> 0:17:23.080 pretty good in what you would think impartial chronicle of 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:25.199 the whole thing. He didn't really have a dog in 0:17:25.240 --> 0:17:28.160 the fight. And then there's something else called the Krolin Chronicle, 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.359 which was a chronicle that had been added to over 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:35.080 hundreds of years by some local monks at a nearby abbey. 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.920 And these two don't always agree. Sometimes they contradict each other. 0:17:39.000 --> 0:17:42.240 Sometimes one talks about an event, the other one doesn't 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:45.199 mention it, so you can kind of piece it together. 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:49.360 But like if you take Edward the forces will for example, 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:52.919 where he made Richard the third lord protector, that will's gone. 0:17:53.000 --> 0:17:55.560 We don't know if Richard made that up. We don't 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:59.000 know what the deal is. Without firsthand evidence and sources, 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:02.800 primary sources, all of this is essentially conjecture and up 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:03.760 for debate. 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:05.760 Yeah, for sure. And that's you know, that's why people 0:18:05.840 --> 0:18:08.480 still debate this stuff today. And there's you know, pro 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:11.840 Richard team an anti Richard team. As far as his rule, 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:14.080 he only ruled for a couple of years, from fourteen 0:18:14.119 --> 0:18:16.880 eighty three to fourteen eighty five. And this is again 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:19.080 where people will debate what kind of king he is 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.200 because some people will say that, you know, he fought 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:24.480 for the rights of the poor, he only convened one 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:28.600 parliament that he used to pursue like some pretty progressive 0:18:29.920 --> 0:18:33.479 agendas for the time, like presumption of innocence was created 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:34.640 under his watch. 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:37.400 And universal pre k Yeah, yeah, that's right. 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:41.639 A lot of his rule was pretty tragic, though there 0:18:41.680 --> 0:18:44.760 was a lot of war. One of his closest allies 0:18:44.840 --> 0:18:48.199 ended up turning against him. The Duke of Buckingham switched 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:52.280 over in aligned with the Tutors Henry Tudor. Specifically, they 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:54.720 were a different family who had this you know, they 0:18:55.400 --> 0:18:57.560 said they had a claim to an ancestral line that 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.520 was I guess to our modern eye seems fairly big, 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:02.919 but back then it seemed important enough to go to 0:19:02.960 --> 0:19:03.320 war over. 0:19:03.840 --> 0:19:08.560 Yeah. The Lancasters were basically like looking anywhere for somebody 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:12.600 who had a legitimate claim. So they went to a cousin's, cousins, 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:17.439 next door, neighbors, friends, dog's brother to find Henry Tudor, 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:21.080 who you could connect the dots to the throne. So 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:23.800 he did have a legitimate claim, but he was, like 0:19:23.840 --> 0:19:27.000 you said, essentially a different family. He was just barely 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.200 a Lancaster. He was a tutor. But this is who 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:33.199 they brought to bear has claimed to the throne to 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.879 challenge the Yorks in the form of Richard IID for 0:19:37.080 --> 0:19:40.119 this throne and his former friend, the Duke of Buckingham. 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:44.040 They staged the Buckingham Rebellion and it just got squashed 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:48.320 almost immediately, So within months of being coronated, his rule 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.920 was challenged right away. But he managed to get rid 0:19:51.920 --> 0:19:54.119 of that and I think another one and hang in 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.639 there for a couple of years before fortune turned against him. 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:00.919 Yeah, and you know, he also had personal tragedy a 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:05.280 few months after that. His only child, Edward died, his 0:20:05.320 --> 0:20:09.399 wife died not long after that, and then Henry Tudor 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:11.560 comes to knocking again. He is, you might have stopped 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:13.879 me once, but you're not going to stop me again. 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:18.000 And on August twenty second, fourteen eighty five, they went 0:20:18.040 --> 0:20:21.239 to battle again at Bosworth Field outside of Leicester, and 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:26.199 this is where Richard as King fought and was killed 0:20:26.280 --> 0:20:29.520 in battle. I think the last English king to actually 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:32.840 die on the battlefield, right, yes, but he was the 0:20:32.880 --> 0:20:36.760 last king, and he by all accounts died in a 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:41.840 pretty brutal way if you consider, like you know, blunt 0:20:41.840 --> 0:20:45.320 force trauma and head damage to be a brutal way 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:46.440 to go and I do. 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:50.840 Yeah. So, as we'll see, they found his skull and 0:20:51.680 --> 0:20:55.280 they examined it and found that he had not one, 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:59.400 but two potential death blows delivered to his head. One 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:02.680 was a sold thrust, so imagine sticking his sword into 0:21:02.720 --> 0:21:05.159 somebody's head, through their skull and into their brain. That 0:21:05.240 --> 0:21:08.399 happened to him. And then somebody came up with a 0:21:08.440 --> 0:21:11.560 pike or a halberd, which is a very sharp axe 0:21:11.680 --> 0:21:14.040 on one side and a point, very sharp point on 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:17.719 the other opposite the axe blade. And apparently a pikeman 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:21.320 came up and cut off essentially the lower part of 0:21:21.359 --> 0:21:23.880 his skull and took a big chunk of his brain 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:25.879 stem with it. So either one of those, which everyone 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:29.720 happened first, killed them virtually instantly. That was not the 0:21:29.840 --> 0:21:33.240 end of the torment to his poor body, though. 0:21:33.880 --> 0:21:36.480 No, they he didn't get the hat on a pike 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:39.399 with a paper crown. They instead stripped him down nude 0:21:39.440 --> 0:21:43.840 and paraded him through town on the horse. And apparently 0:21:44.119 --> 0:21:47.040 people were like you know, jabbing and stabbing at his 0:21:47.119 --> 0:21:50.000 body on the horse, and he was literally had stab 0:21:50.040 --> 0:21:55.159 wounds in his butt. He was buried, historically speaking, he 0:21:55.240 --> 0:21:59.840