John Ashdown-Hill has established himself as a ‘Ricardian’ historian, who in a series of publications has taken a fresh look at the personalities of the Plantagenet era and places great emphasis on primary documentary resources to provide new insights into their lives (for example, Ashdown-Hill Reference Ashdown-Hill2009 and Reference Ashdown-Hill2010). However, on this occasion he sadly has chosen not to reference numerous important details and also to be both eccentric and selective with his sources. For instance, when discussing the fate of the ‘Princes in the Tower’, he has decided to ignore Thomas More (b. 1478) and the ‘other Tudor writers, since they are not contemporary and have no basis in fact’ (p 41). However, later, when discussing Lambert Simnel’s origins, Ashdown-Hill quotes ‘Henry VII’s leading historian, Polydore Vergil’ at length (p 56) and then bases key aspects of his subsequent argument on Vergil’s account. While everyone accepts that More’s account (1526) of Richard III’s reign (Sylvester Reference Sylvester1963) is far from impartial, it is worth remembering that he was writing at a time when many people remembered the vanquished king’s reign. The greatest problem in determining what happened to the two princes is the fact that all the available documentary sources after June 1483 concerning their fate are hearsay. More claimed that the murdered princes were buried at a considerable depth at the foot of a flight of stairs within the Tower of London. In 1674 demolition work within the Tower revealed the (undated) skeletal remains of two juveniles, often claimed (but never proven) to be the two princes. These remains were found close to the external stairs that led from the King’s Lodgings to the chapel in the White Tower at a depth of about 10ft below ground level (Tanner and Wright Reference Tanner and Wright1934, 8–10). While More undoubtedly repeated and embellished some rumours, he clearly discovered some important information too. Likewise, Ashdown-Hill ignores the 1933 osteological study of the remains of the supposed princes (Tanner and Wright Reference Tanner and Wright1934), and the re-examination of this data (Molleson Reference Molleson1987). Now that Richard III’s DNA has been studied it would be very interesting to re-examine the remains of these two juveniles, to radio-carbon date them and to try and extract their DNA to see if there is a kinship relationship with Richard III (which Ashdown-Hill suggests on p 40).

The main body of the book is a series of three detailed biographies plus shorter ones of such minor characters as Perkin Warbeck. The first biography is of Richard, Duke of York (the younger of the ‘Princes in the Tower’). Secondly, the life and death of Edward V is discussed at length. Ashdown-Hill goes to great length to try and exonerate Richard III from any part in the death of his nephews, unconvincingly arguing that ‘the most obvious and logical explanation of Richard III’s silence [concerning the rumours of their death] seems to be that the fate of the two boys was somehow taken out of his hands. As a result he no longer knew if they were alive or dead’ (p 33). Richard’s silence on the well-being of his nephews is especially puzzling as by 1484 it was already rumoured that they had been murdered. After the death of Richard III’s wife, Anne, on 16 March 1485, it was also rumoured that he had poisoned her so he could marry his niece, Elizabeth of York. Therefore, on 30 March 1485, before an audience of London’s leading citizens, Richard III publicly denied poisoning Anne and wanting to marry his niece, which shows he was prepared to refute damaging rumours (Seward Reference Seward1997, 221). The author misleadingly states that Henry VII ‘initially levelled no accusation against Richard III of having his nephews killed’ (p 33). This is not correct as the November 1485 repeal of Richard III’s 1484 Act of Titulus Regius accused him of ‘unnatural, mischievous and great perjuries, treasons, homicides, and murders, in shedding of infants’ blood’ (Seward Reference Seward1997, 147). If Richard’s nephews were the ‘infants’ in question, why were they not mentioned by name? Possibly because since 1484 rumours concerning their murder had been circulating so ‘there was no need, by this stage, to say who those infants were’ (Wroe Reference Wroe2003, 70). Ashdown-Hill favours the theory that Edward V might have died from natural causes during the second half of 1483, arguing that an accurate translation of the key part of Mancini’s text should read ‘there was a suspicion that death had carried him off’ (p 46). After a failed rescue attempt in July 1483, the two princes appear to have been moved from the royal apartments in the Tower to more secure accommodation, where insalubrious conditions could have easily killed them.

Thirdly, there is a discussion of the origins and career of the pretender Lambert Simnel (whom he calls ‘the Dublin king’), who claimed to be Edward, Earl of Warwick, the son of George, Duke of Clarence, who, on 24 May 1487, was crowned Edward VI in Dublin. Ashdown-Hill is very taken with the idea that the Duke of Clarence might have secretly taken his infant son and heir to Ireland in 1477, where he had been brought up by the Earl of Kildare, so he really was the person he claimed to be, not an imposter. The implication is, therefore, that the Earl of Warwick, kept imprisoned by Henry VII in the Tower for some years and executed in 1499, was a ‘changeling’. Ashdown-Hill also considers it possible that the younger of the ‘Princes in the Tower’ might have been smuggled out of captivity and brought up abroad under an assumed identity, which was the basis of Perkin Warbeck’s claim to the throne and, of course, of the Arthurian legend. As regards the validity of Perkin Warbeck’s claim to be ‘Richard of York’ (ch 15), this has been already discussed in detail and rejected by Wroe (Reference Wroe2003). Surprisingly, Ashdown-Hill broadly agrees with Wroe’s view, but he considers it possible that Perkin Warbeck was an illegitimate son of Edward IV, which would explain his physical resemblance to the king (p 164). Ashdown-Hill’s suggestions regarding abducted or substituted children are highly speculative and of course impossible to prove without DNA evidence, which in the cases of Lambert Simnel, the Earl of Warwick and Perkin Warbeck seems impossible to obtain. The only example Ashdown-Hill provides of a contemporary concealed childhood is Henry Clifford, ‘the Shepherd Lord’ (tenth Lord Clifford, 1454–1523), whom he states ‘remained in hiding for twenty-four years’ (p 73). Unfortunately, Ashdown-Hill provides no references for this information. It is reputed that after Henry’s father was killed on the eve of the Battle of Towton in 1461, as his family was in disfavour, his mother had him ‘brought up as a shepherd’ (Gibbs Reference Gibbs1913, 294). However, more recent research states that ‘the legend of the Shepherd Lord first recounted by Edward Hall in the mid-sixteenth century … hardly stands up to scrutiny’ (Summerson Reference Summerson2004, 90). When considering the ‘changeling’ argument it is worth remembering that in 1475, Louis XI successfully trained in a few days a servant (un varlet) to act as a royal herald, who was good enough to fool Edward IV when he delivered a speech on the French king’s behalf (Wroe Reference Wroe2003, 98). This example shows that with careful coaching people could easily assume a new and convincing identity.

In summary, some aspects of the book, such as the discussion of Lambert Simnel’s coronation, are thought-provoking and encourage us not always to take the conventional historical perspective on these events at face value, but to question assumptions. Many aspects of the book would have been greatly improved, however, by a more objective and thorough appraisal of the data.