The New Murrey and Blue blog

No, professor, you DON’T have proof of Richard III’s guilt….!

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Professor Tim Thornton of Huddersfield University has caused quite a stir with his claims to have found new evidence that implicates Richard III in the “disappearance” of the boys in the Tower. I say disappearance because, truth to tell, that’s what happened as far as actual history is concerned. I don’t believe they were murdered at all, or indeed harmed by their uncle. Interesting new theories are being explored all the time, but no one now living knows what happened to them, least of all the good professor, who claims, ahem, Sir Thomas More as his astonishing new source of this proof. Eh? You couldn’t make it up. Oh yes, you can – More did! From beginning to end. A Tudor toady writing for a Tudor tyrant.

If you go to this article you’ll read that someone has at last risen to their hind legs to point out the ridiculousness of the professor’s claims. The item isn’t long, but it’s to the point. There is no proof of anything, and I wouldn’t believe anyone from the Tudor period about Richard III. The truth? Look outside pigs are flying!

Anyway, read this defence of Richard…which only falls down in one thing. Margaret Beaufort was never a queen – she simply thought she should be, and was allowed to conduct herself accordingly. In truth she was just the mother of a usurping king. Period.

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  1. amma19542019 Avatar
    amma19542019

    I read the Thornton article when it was available, and laughed.
    Thin gruel indeed; IF you know absolutely nothing about Richard, nothing beyond the triad of Shakespeare – More – Vergil (if even this one), then Thornton is waltzing his way to the nearest publisher (probably Amberley, who have been tossing red meat to the Tudor faithful with Nathen Amin’s efforts) ….
    BUT if you know anything beyond Shakespeare and you have a decent grasp of who More was and what his unfinished (abandoned?) manuscript may well represent then Thornton’s intentions and real purpose becomes quite clear: he wants a book deal, or a televised documentary of his own, or something he can use to advance his academic career. If I am suggesting a blatantly transparent opportunist then so be it. A leftover enchilada lying on any sidewalk knows more about Richard than does Thornton.
    But if Nathen Amin, as servile as he is likely earnest, can get published, so can this Thornton, taking bets anyone?

    (And I am still waiting for someone, anyone, as desperate as Amin, to begin a similar movement on behalf of Henry Stafford, 2nd duke of Buckingham, with or without the obligatory rubber chicken annual dinner!)

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  2. viscountessw Avatar
    viscountessw

    Agreed. Ricardian-baiting is guranteed to cause a stir, and you know what they say – there’s no such thing as bad publicity. A book must be talked about. It’s a calculated ploy to sell books and, unfortunaely, it works. As you say, a similar book praising Buckingham would have a similar effect. A sure way to sell because Ricardians will be up in arms. The quality of the book will have little to do with it. It’s manipulation.

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  3. Glenis Brindley Avatar
    Glenis Brindley

    I totally agree, and have nothing more to add!!

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  4. amma19542019 Avatar
    amma19542019

    To Glenis and Viscountess, I’m on my high horse of late, about Nathen Amin, this latest book, about the “Tudor Pretenders” may be the hill I die on! It’s one thing to begin “Tudor Summits” and host “Tudorcon” but when he decides to rewrite genealogy as well to suit his fevered dreams THEN I LOSE IT.
    Ok, it’s going to be over 95 today, matching my internal combustion, I will go water my poor garden, the lavender is taking a hit.
    (btw, Amin also wrote about the pubs in York… he’s like a mold, creeping, inching closer, when, not if, Thornton gets his book deal, Amin will write the glowing preface…)

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  5. Esther Avatar
    Esther

    Even if the guys named by More did do the crime, I can’t see Thornton’s argument, which rests on the theory that More’s co-workers (not even noted as particularly close friends) told him that “my dad told me he killed two kids”. They are just admitting that their dads could have prevented the entire Perkin Warbeck debacle by confessing earlier — and Henry VIII (a toddler at the time, who according to some historians, may have been traumatized, by having to refuge with his mom and sisters in the Tower) may not have been overly forgiving.

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    1. Glenis Brindley Avatar
      Glenis Brindley

      amma19542019, yes I agree with you.
      Some of the things that Nathen Amin has pontificated about over the years have at times gone from the ridiculous to the totally bizarre. There’s only one opinion and unfortunately, it’s his!
      I think he’s more than a little envious about the Richard the Third Society, and Ricardians in general, leading to him trying to start up his Tydder Society. I don’t go on fb very often these days (I couldn’t deal with all the negativity and the nastiness) so don’t know how far he got with that, or whether it crumbled in the way it deserved to, but he’s definitely someone I think we’ve all had ‘verbal disagreements’ with over the years!

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      1. amma19542019 Avatar
        amma19542019

        Glenis,

        Tydder Society hahaaa good, I approve of that one! I’m not on FB or any of the social sites (unless this is considered one), I just put Amin’s name in the search line and all sorts of material about him popped up, along with photo’s of his various fun activities with like minds. (Tudorcon? really?)
        I will give Amin this though, in an already clogged field of All Things Tudor he saw an opportunity, rather than more ridiculous made-for-BBC-series about the ever gorgeous son Amin decided to ‘rehabilitate’ the ever so unappreciated and glorious father, turning boring into fabulous, if Yorkist clods would just get out of his way.
        I agree with you that yes Amin is likely driven and chaffing with jealousy about the R3Society, but I suspect he wants HIS Tydders to be a somewhat different demographic, (why else a Tudorcon??? Can’t wait to see who shows up there as Warwick, carrying his head in basket, along side sister Margaret countess Salisbury with her matching head-in-basket; c’mon, if you are going to fixate on and imitate the Comicon millennial fascination with costuming that would quite literally put the BBC to shame then all bets are off on what to expect).
        I am working, have been working, on a project that with any luck, will achieve one thing, convince enough people outside the Ricardian circle to ask the questions that WE all ask, and have been asking, and with enough of us doing that we can turn what has been the last 500 years of Tydder misrepresentation into a sea change, I would like it to be 500 years of Richard’s turn, where the research and questions favor getting answers, not always playing defense. Let Tydder and the BBC and the Amins out there play defense for the next 500 years!

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  6. Zuzana Danova Avatar
    Zuzana Danova

    I agree professor is screaming for some business deal. But he must do much better. I didn´t find his article interesting at all, at least I didn´t a couple of months ago. I hated Thomas More for what he did to Richard. And I didn´t like this feeling because I used to like TM. So I put some effort I learn something about the man. Also why he wrote the thing, why he didn´t finish it and why he didn´t publish it. It seems it was meant as teaching tool in his school. It was like today, you put Richard III in headlines and people will read it. There is a lot of dialogues in the “biography” which of course, is nonsense. Huge “mistake” in the very first sentence of the book as well as other “mistakes” which brilliant lawyer Thomas More would never make if it was a real biography. i am glad I like TM again. it’s just a pity he didn’t burn his work (with some heretics perhaps). Now it looks like I agree with burning heretics, I don´t but it´s of course my 21st century view.

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    1. amma19542019 Avatar
      amma19542019

      Zuzana,

      there are such major problems with all of our “sources” for Richard that if you walk away for awhile, to work on another part of the WHOLE context of his life, and then come back to say, Thomas More, it’s a shock, DOES anyone take ONE single word in this tripe seriously? IF he meant any of it why not finish the manuscript, he certainly had nothing to fear from anyone in H7’s circle, especially if Morton was his alleged source. His self-regard was healthy enough that abandoning any of his works sounds highly problematic, did he realize HOW he sounded, like a hack low rent chronicler who had none of the advantages of a chronicler (no eye witnesses he could or would name, did not witness anything himself, if he is using other chroniclers works then what is the point of his?) … did he read the manuscript and decide, well, this is hardly edifying, I’m a fabulous genius with staggering integrity and this is shite based on what could pass for a fishwife’s gossip at its best!
      so our man of genius tosses it in some chest and never once mentions it in any of his vaunted lists of accomplishments, why would he? it is only later when the disgrace the DISGRACE of his ignominious execution, his head PIKED on London Bridge that drives family, not even blood relation family, to pull it out of cold storage and turn that sow’s ear into the Tudor silk purse it has become! Anything to recover some family dignity and the name, erasure you might call it, let Richard pay HIS price for what he, Thomas More, wrought in his devil’s bargain with a psychotic megalomaniac like H8 …
      I’m a big believer in karma, and karma was had, to a degree, for Richard. His coronation, presumably the biggest day of his short life, was 6 July 1483; on 6 July 1535 Thomas More was executed by his ever so glorious H8, 52 years later. And, not to be outdone, the last male Tudor, Edward VI, died, 6 July 1553, 70 years after Richard’s coronation, ending the beloved dynasty as fortunately they were a remarkably infertile one.
      (Edward VI, like his uncle Arthur, Prince of Wales, died at 15)
      so, yes, I take note that Richard’s coronation marks both the death of his current and still favored adversary (and a saint no less!) and the last of that very short ‘dynasty’

      As for the other ‘sources’ – Mancini is too long a discussion, Annette Carson has worked on a new translation which is worth investing in and I would add only that in m opinion he was a VERY low rent hack (yes we have a pattern) check on the spies already IN London, sent by Cato to more or less listen in on what was being put out by the professionals, many of whom may well have been sent by other members of LXI’s council – everyone was vying for positions in 1482-3 as LXI had been hanging by a thread for some time and no one wanted to be caught flat footed when the wretch did finally die! Much as retail stores have ‘secret shoppers’ to check on whether or not employees are actually doing what they should be doing, saying what they should be saying to unsuspecting customers, so too was Mancini just listening in on the street gossip, the court gossip as told to him by fellow travelers, clerics, diplomats, merchants, anyone he could understand, all seemingly helpful to his patron Cato. And all Cato wanted was “who else is planting the right gossip?’ That Edward conveniently died (oh what I could say about this!) was just lovely timing for Cato, and they made use of it, dragging out old slander from the 1450’s screed about the English murdering each other, and juicing it up with whatever Cato’s men could add from Mancini’s “report” – which was written just across the river from CVIII’s court and de Rochefort, how convenient.

      as for Vergil, pfft. Accused of destroying documents, files, etc. Personally I doubt he did, THAT sort of thing likely happened under Robert Morton, as soon as he got his hands on the rolls in 1485…
      (yes I am a cynic)

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  7. Professor Thornton is still insisting More is the Irrefutable Authority on Richard III….! – murreyandblue

    […] here https://murreyandblue.org/2021/04/26/how-trustworthy-is-thomas-more/ and here https://murreyandblue.org/2021/06/29/no-professor-you-dont-have-proof-of-richard-iiis-guilt/. One fact is certain. If you believe More, you’ll believe anything! That vile man was not […]

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