Overall Quality 3.0 / 5.0 (mildly recommended; on the good side of okay)
Gay Content 0.0 / 5.0

“The Princes in the Tower” by Alison Weir offers slightly above average entertainment value, but only just, and below average historical value.

A readable portrayal of the second half of the Wars of the Roses, beginning shortly before the reign of the much maligned Richard III and ending shortly after the his death and the seizure of the crown by Henry VII, founder of the Tudor dynasty. Weir has also written a fascinating and engrossing book about the first half of the Wars of the Roses called, appropriately enough, ‘The Wars of the Roses” (1995).

Unfortunately, “The Princes in the Tower” lacks quite the dramatic flair of that book. Nevertheless, her prose remains easily accessible to the lay person (probably her greatest strength as a history author), and she organizes her facts into a dramatic re-telling of the events, but the account tends to gloss over most of the players and frequently loses its momentum in dry quotations or arguments. From an entertainment standpoint, Weir offers a well-written and interesting read for history buffs but nevertheless succumbs occasionally to the dryness endemic to history texts.

Unfortunately, as a history, the book is not nearly as successful. I will give the author this much: she does a great job of culling and presenting the available facts, resources, and research. Her analysis of the information is clever, sensible, and thoughtful, and I learned much about this period of English history and the key players. But she undermines her own efforts by using the book as a platform to prove a point: that Richard III murdered the Princes in the Tower.

A little background. The first half of the Wars of the Roses ended when the House of York, in the person of Edward IV, seized and held onto the English throne. Unfortunately, Edward IV died young and unexpectedly, leaving a minor as his successor (Edward V). Meanwhile, the politicking of his scheming wife Elizabeth and his insecure sibling Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had created a zero-sum situation where one could only prosper if the other fell from power. Eventually, through careful strategy and judicious force (with a dash of brutality), Richard became Lord Protector and then King, and imprisoned the former King’s heir in the Tower of London, where he and his younger brother apparently died. But how? Did Richard murder them to secure his crown?

Weir knows the answer. Or thinks she does.

Honestly, she would have been better off writing a comprehensive volume of all the different theories and available facts in a truly objective fashion. She might have concluded with two or three chapters that spelled out her own theory, but otherwise left it to the reader to draw conclusions. Specifically, one theory states Richard III killed the princes. Another states that Henry VII did it. I would have appreciated more information about why some people conjecture Henry might have done it. Maybe the evidence is flimsy or unfounded, as Weir postulates. As it is, the reader pretty much just has to take her word for it.

Which leads us to the major flaw of her work. She makes many assumptions and then treats them like fact. Not only that, she builds further assumptions based on the assumptions she’s treating like fact, leading to a house-of-cards conclusion. It may well be that Richard III killed the Princes in the Tower, but Weir’s case for it is less than rock solid, and that undermines her claim that alternative theories fail to hold up to close scrutiny.

In fact, there’s probably insufficient surviving information for us ever to know the truth. Unless we find a secret manuscript written by Edward V on the night of his death where he says, “And I have intimations that King Richard plans to kill us. Wait! Oh no! Richard’s men are here to kill us! Aieeeee!” then the available information is simply inconclusive.

Overall, it’s an entertaining introduction to a tumultuous period of English history, but I suggest further reading before unilaterally accepting its arguments and conclusions.

Related Links:

Weir, Alison. “The Wars of the Roses” (1995)