3. The Princes in the Tower by Alison Weir Weir, my favorite popular historian, concludes that Richard III murdered the eponymous princes in the tower. Even to this day, the mystery has not been definitively solved, nor, Weir argues, will it likely ever be. But she bases her conclusions on the existing contemporary evidence, asserting that it is a historian's job to deal in probabilities. And so, while Richard III could not be convicted in a modern court, she feels comfortable pointing her finger. Weir's evidence and reasoning are strong, but not overwhelmingly so. She bases her conclusions on contemporary or near-contemporary sources, relying most heavily on Italian monk Mancini, Henry VII's Italian biographer Polydore Vergil, the anonymous Croyland Chronicles, and Sir Thomas More's unfinished biography of Richard III. Weir makes strong arguments for the accuracy of these sources, not least of which that they corroborate each other in many places even though the ...
Life, Books, and SFF