The New Murrey and Blue blog

According to this article (titled Vic Keegan’s Lost London 111: Elizabeth Woodville’s Westminster Abbey sanctuary) Elizabeth Woodville was “queen in her own right”. I think not. She was queen because she married King Edward IV. She was his consort.

Well, perhaps that too should be qualified, because Edward appears to have been careless enough to have entered into a precontract with someone else, Lady Eleanor Talbot. This awkward tangle meant that Elizabeth wasn’t really married to Edward at all, she was his mistress, and all their children were therefore illegitimate.

Anyway, the Lost London site is incorrect about her status. It’s also incorrect about Richard “almost certainly murdering” Elizabeth’s sons, the elder of whom would have become King Edward V had not his parents’ non-marriage got in the way. Richard certainly intended to have his nephew crowned, and was arranging the coronation, until this business with Lady Eleanor Talbot came to light. Once that happened, Richard himself was the rightful heir. And he had a son of his own who had a right in the succession

Yes, there’d been another brother —George, Duke of Clarence— between Richard and Edward IV, but he’d been executed for treason (by Edward IV please note, not Richard!)

Then Lost London goes on to say that Richard “was desperate to eliminate rival claimants to his throne”. Excuse me? Who, exactly, did he murder? His nephews are always waved before us as his victims, but there’s no proof that they died at all, let alone at his savage, bloodied hands. And then there were Clarence’s children of course. They were blighted by their father’s attainder, but they were legitimate and attainders could be revoked, so if Richard was indeed “desperate to eliminate rivals”, high on his list would be Clarence’s son and daughter. However, they survived his reign without harm, but they didn’t survive the House of Tudor, which did indeed set about eliminating any vaguely possible rival. The Tudors didn’t give a damn who or how many they slaughtered, just as long as they were slaughtered.

So the “facts” as presented by Lost London are iffy to say the least. But the site is entertaining.