In the past six posts I have attempted to demonstrate why I believe the circumstantial evidence and other reliable sources point firmly to the blame of Richard III who usurped his throne and killed his nephews.  Now I will sum up my conclusions and look forward to the conversation that will follow.

This has been an epic journey.  And of course it should be.  It is one of the most hotly debated questions in English history.

Perhaps it’s because of this, that I was surprised how quickly I came to my conclusions.  That’s not to say that I haven’t continually approached the subject with an open mind, and indeed I am very happy to be persuaded to an alternative theory – that’s all part of the fun.

But nonetheless I remain –for now at least – convinced that the case against Richard is near watertight.

From the moment he became aware of his brother’s death, he acted to take the heir and spare to the throne into his custody.  He flooded the capital with his own men and illegally executed the most loyal supporters of the young King on the flimsiest of pretences.  He and his supporters then circulated three stories that would render Edward V’s claim to the throne illegitimate and once they found the one that stuck, used it to declare Richard King.

While this was going on, he placed his nephews in a high security prison guarded only by people he trusted the most.  In the weeks that followed they were seen less and less until eventually they were never seen again.  Rumours that would eventually prove fatal to his reign began to circulate but he never produced the Princes, or accused others of their murder, to counter them.  Years later, two skeletons of children exactly the same age as the Princes were found buried in the tower.

There are of course theories that take all of this into account but still managed to vindicate Richard.  But they all involve mental somersaults that rob them of credibility.

For me, the circumstantial evidence is enough.  But it’s reassuring that we have so much ‘More’ to go on.  Thirty years after the event – when many involved were still living – one of the greatest intellects England has ever produced investigated the facts and put the blame squarely at the door of the last Plantagenet King.  It so happens he was also a man of great integrity and unrelenting honesty.  I trust his account.

There are other aspects and sources that I believe bolster my conclusions which I have deliberately left out.  For example I have not relied on anything from Polydore Vergil even though I have a high degree of trust in his work.  Because he was a historian commissioned by Henry VII, to many people he was nothing more than a Tudor propagandist.  While I disagree, this is too big a battle to fight in the series.  Besides, the truth shines through by examining the universally trusted sources alone.  I also haven’t touched the more partisan Tudor sources.  However, as Alison Weir argues, the discovery of Richard’s bones have given us many reasons to question whether there was truly an orchestrated campaign by the Tudors to ‘blacken his name.’

As I have stated many times, blogging has its limits, particularly when it comes to history.  There are two important pieces of evidence of that I could not do justice to during this series, but are likely to support my conclusion.  The first is the discovery, many years later, of the skeletons of two children in the Tower.  The second is new findings around Tyrell’s confession of his involvement with the murder.  I hope to explore both of these in subsequent blog posts.

Let me conclude with a final plea to anyone reading: please don’t take my word on any of this.  Check it out for yourself.  As a starter for 10 I recommend nothing more highly than Alison Weir’s ‘Richard III and the Princes in the Tower.’  For balance (and because it’s an excellent read), trawl through Paul Murray Kendell’s more sympathetic biography of Richard.  Do also check out the well-written and brilliantly articulated content on the Richard III Society website.

Above all, please try and put fact above feeling.  So much emotion surrounds this debate – but it needn’t.  This question is fundamentally about trying to unearth the facts; it is not primarily a judgement on the character of the last Plantagenet King.  Whatever else he was or wasn’t, Richard III was a medieval man who, like Edward IV and Henry VII, did things that would be abhorrent to us.  He can never be entirely redeemed; nor should he be uncontextually condemned.  Our job is to try and discover the truth.  Let’s leave the judgement to someone else.

So geeks, this was an epic series – now it’s over to you.  Where am I right?  What have I missed?  I’d love to know WHAT you think!