Management of a conspiracy

I keep trying to put this aside to work on other things, but y'all know how
that goes--

I like the idea that Richard was a whopping success at concealing what he
did with his nephews (who, in this message, for brevity's sake & however
incorrectly, I'll just call "the princes"). But before I can convince
myself that this is true, I find I have a whole slew of questions.

Baldwin says it's really about how *many* people knew what happened. Which
echoes what my husband always says every time we talk about any conspiracy
(& here in the States were are chock-a-block with them - I cut my teeth on
the Kennedy Assassination & have demonstrated my own lack of discrimination
by swinging in every possible direction it's possible to swing on that
one). It's hard to keep everybody involved quiet.

As King, Richard clearly could not personally have taken the boys off
somewhere & told them to keep their mouths shut; I don't think medieval
monarchs really had that much personal space, not to mention how compliant
a couple of nephews would have been who hardly knew their uncle, an uncle
who had just executed a couple of relatives that at least one of them did
know well. And, as soon as Richard handed them off, even if up to that
point he had been the only one with them, immediately someone else would
have known what was going on. Did the princes agree to "keep quiet?" And
allowed themselves to be handed about with false identities? If Perkin
Warbeck was indeed one of the princes, he evidently never made such an
agreement or thought better of it later.

If Richard really did value loyalty as a personal attribute (was Loyaulte
me lie understood to be his personal & consistent motto, or was it used
sporadically, & interchangeably with others?) how good was he in
recognizing it in others? We know he was pretty terrible at managing those
who he ought to have predicted would be self-serving &/or disloyal. Did
he, on the other hand, have a body of associates who valued loyalty to the
degree he did & so didn't really need to be "managed?" And if so, who were
they & what happened to them after Bosworth?

Were the princes hidden in England? If so, for how long? Were they hidden
in plain sight? (References to the children's breakfast in the household
regulations for the castle in the north (sorry name currently unretrievable
from my non-peripheral brain) where the King's Council was held? I do
think, given the context in which they occur amongst other documents, that
most of the references to the "Lord Bastard" are likely to refer to
Richard's bastard son John. If, as Doug just mentioned, Perkin Warbeck
didn't surface until 1490, who had him in charge until then?

I really have to go - late for an appointment....

A J

There are "reports" that "Perkin" was living in Portugal in the household of Edward Brampton. I don't think that Brampton came back to England after he went to arrange the Portugese marriage. He was not at Bosworth either. I have read on the internet that he did come back around 1500 and around that time H7 knighted his son. I had a nasty feeling when reading it because wasn't Perkin executed in 1499, so if he was Richard of York had Brampton told H7 the truth and that is why he was executed.

--- In , A J Hibbard <ajhibbard@...> wrote:
>
> I keep trying to put this aside to work on other things, but y'all know how
> that goes--
>
> I like the idea that Richard was a whopping success at concealing what he
> did with his nephews (who, in this message, for brevity's sake & however
> incorrectly, I'll just call "the princes"). But before I can convince
> myself that this is true, I find I have a whole slew of questions.
>
> Baldwin says it's really about how *many* people knew what happened. Which
> echoes what my husband always says every time we talk about any conspiracy
> (& here in the States were are chock-a-block with them - I cut my teeth on
> the Kennedy Assassination & have demonstrated my own lack of discrimination
> by swinging in every possible direction it's possible to swing on that
> one). It's hard to keep everybody involved quiet.
>
> As King, Richard clearly could not personally have taken the boys off
> somewhere & told them to keep their mouths shut; I don't think medieval
> monarchs really had that much personal space, not to mention how compliant
> a couple of nephews would have been who hardly knew their uncle, an uncle
> who had just executed a couple of relatives that at least one of them did
> know well. And, as soon as Richard handed them off, even if up to that
> point he had been the only one with them, immediately someone else would
> have known what was going on. Did the princes agree to "keep quiet?" And
> allowed themselves to be handed about with false identities? If Perkin
> Warbeck was indeed one of the princes, he evidently never made such an
> agreement or thought better of it later.
>
> If Richard really did value loyalty as a personal attribute (was Loyaulte
> me lie understood to be his personal & consistent motto, or was it used
> sporadically, & interchangeably with others?) how good was he in
> recognizing it in others? We know he was pretty terrible at managing those
> who he ought to have predicted would be self-serving &/or disloyal. Did
> he, on the other hand, have a body of associates who valued loyalty to the
> degree he did & so didn't really need to be "managed?" And if so, who were
> they & what happened to them after Bosworth?
>
> Were the princes hidden in England? If so, for how long? Were they hidden
> in plain sight? (References to the children's breakfast in the household
> regulations for the castle in the north (sorry name currently unretrievable
> from my non-peripheral brain) where the King's Council was held? I do
> think, given the context in which they occur amongst other documents, that
> most of the references to the "Lord Bastard" are likely to refer to
> Richard's bastard son John. If, as Doug just mentioned, Perkin Warbeck
> didn't surface until 1490, who had him in charge until then?
>
> I really have to go - late for an appointment....
>
> A J
>
>
>
>

From: ricard1an
To:
Sent: Tuesday, April 23, 2013 7:31 PM
Subject: Re: Management of a conspiracy


> I had a nasty feeling when reading it because wasn't Perkin executed in
> 1499, so if he was Richard of York had Brampton told H7 the truth and that
> is why he was executed.

Or Brampton came back because there was no longer anything he could do for
Perkin (whoever he was), so no point staying away.