Woodville and Desmond affair - and John Tiptoft......

Personally I can't find any real evidence for the fact that Desmond's
infant sons were also killed, I think it's exaggeration, partly to
bred alongside Tiptoft's "butcher of England" image. In fact, from
reading about Tiptoft, it seems he was an extremely intelligent and
pious man, and I think his "cruelty" was actually a mistaken sense of
duty. He was way ahead of his time and saw himself as part of the
renaissance beginning in Italy. The Italians showed a great deal of
cruelty to their prisoners, and punished heresy vehemently and I think
Tiptoft saw this as the way forward for England. A sort of fanatical
duty to Crown and God.

However, the Lancastrians wanted to paint a much crueller picture of
him, as a sadistic murderer rather than a fanatical inquisitor if you
like, and I think stories like the Desmond children one have grown
along with the Lancastrian need to vilify Tiptoft.

I'm not trying to excuse his actions, as he clearly executed many
prisoners in rather unpleasant ways, but I am convinced it was not out
of a personal sense of sadistic satisfaction, as history would have us
believe.

Sorry about the double post - I didnt thinkt he first had gone, its
taking about 6 hours for them to upload it seems.

--- In , "John Horgan"
<elhoggo@...> wrote:
>
> Personally I can't find any real evidence for the fact that Desmond's
> infant sons were also killed, I think it's exaggeration, partly to
> bred alongside Tiptoft's "butcher of England" image. In fact, from
> reading about Tiptoft, it seems he was an extremely intelligent and
> pious man, and I think his "cruelty" was actually a mistaken sense of
> duty. He was way ahead of his time and saw himself as part of the
> renaissance beginning in Italy. The Italians showed a great deal of
> cruelty to their prisoners, and punished heresy vehemently and I think
> Tiptoft saw this as the way forward for England. A sort of fanatical
> duty to Crown and God.
>
> However, the Lancastrians wanted to paint a much crueller picture of
> him, as a sadistic murderer rather than a fanatical inquisitor if you
> like, and I think stories like the Desmond children one have grown
> along with the Lancastrian need to vilify Tiptoft.
>
> I'm not trying to excuse his actions, as he clearly executed many
> prisoners in rather unpleasant ways, but I am convinced it was not out
> of a personal sense of sadistic satisfaction, as history would have us
> believe.
>