Well, you need to read more, then. Because pretty nuch every serious history does.
he didn’t have any reason to fear kids from a marriage that had been declared invalid.
He himself forced Parliament to pass the act declaring his nephews illegitimate precisely because he feared them.
Maybe that is what he did, and no one thought anything of it at the time.
Nonsense. There were widespread rumors during his reign that he murdered his nephews. Why do Ricardians continue to pretend there were not? Very simply because the fact that the children disappeared long before the Battle of Bosworth Field puts a complete lie to the claptrap that the children disappeared during Henry VII's reign. They didn't. They were never seen again after the summer of 1483.
Buckingham's Rebellion put the cause of Prince Edward forward, so clearly the rebels knew that a phony act of Parliament disinheriting Edward could be repealed just as easily. Richard knew it, too. He also knew that Titulus Regius was complete baloney [it relied, for example, on a claim that even if there was no precontract, the Woodville claim was still invalidated because Elizabeth Woodville had employed "witchcraft" to obtain her marriage to Edward the IV.]
Make NO mistake: as long as Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury lived, they were a rallying point for rebellion and a threat to Richard the Usurper's throne.
We know he didn't send them away because court documents in both France and Spain during Richard's reign refer to the curious nature of their disappearance. The French, who had a boy king of their own in need of protection, used the fate of the Princes in the Tower for propaganda purposes.
All Richard need ever have done to dispel the rumors and rehabilitate his reputation was produce the princes alive.
Why didn't he?
I’m not a rabid believer one way or another, but I am aware of the power that kings and other members of the nobility had 500 years ago-and it was pretty much absolute-not something I would have liked to see.
They most definitely could send someone out of the country, and have them held there in conditions as cushy or as wretched as the noble sender/abductor was willing to send payment for. There are even a few documented cases of noble kids and adults whose relatives paid to have them abducted and sequestered in the American and other British colonies as late as the mid 17th century. It took decades before they were seen or heard from again, and some of them didn’t survive the experience-which I’m pretty sure was the intent...
There is no proof one way or the other of who killed the sons of Edward, or if that is what happened, just clues, innuendo and bits of evidence on both sides for both opinions. I simply don’t think killing the kids made sense when they could be made to disappear for as long as he wanted while among the living, especially when Richard had so many other problems.
Good grief... let it go.
Richard III was the legitimate monarch, as far as the legitimacy of monarchy can go. Why do the supporters of the usurper and murderer Henry VII claim otherwise?
His brother’s children were illegitimate, and that was known at the time. Why do the supporters of the usurper and murderer Henry VII claim otherwise?
Gosh, there were cranks back then who claimed he’d done this and that — and the Wars of the Roses meant there were lots of factions, and lots of rumors. Why do the supporters of the usurper and murderer Henry VII claim otherwise?
Henry VII had no legitimate claim to the throne, and had to marry the sister. Why do the supporters of the usurper and murderer Henry VII claim otherwise?
Re-legitimizing her meant re-legitimizing her brothers, so they had to be done away with. Why do the supporters of the usurper and murderer Henry VII claim otherwise?
If the princes were a threat, obviously the princess was as well — yet Richard III didn’t get rid of her. He also didn’t get rid of the princes. Why do the supporters of the usurper and murderer Henry VII claim otherwise?
What surprises me is how vivid hatred toward a murdered monarch (he was murdered on the field by hired traitors, paid by Henry VII. Why do the supporters of the usurper and murderer Henry VII claim otherwise?) has persisted across the centuries. For that matter, it’s surprising how the vociferous defense of his successor, the usurper Henry VII, considering A) the passage of time and B) the fact that monarchy is, at the very least, a bit passe’.