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Every other Friday, True Crime of the Historical Kind returns to the scene of the crime...
We uncover the deeper story. The world that shaped the violence, and the humans that played a hand in history's tragedies.
Because the past may be distant, but human nature rarely is.
Just beyond the shadow of the infamous princes in the tower stood another figure, their cousin, also a York born into dangerous tides. He was a rival, a prisoner, and a pawn in rebellions that weren't his own. In the end, he would lose his head on Tower Hill, condemned for his Plantagenet blood.
Speaker 1:This is true crime of the historical kind. You're listening to the sideshow bonus episode of the life and execution of Edward Plantagenet, the end of the line.
Speaker 1:The life of Edward Plantagenet is defined by the times he was born into. In medieval England, being a royal wasn't always the safest lot in life, especially being a Plantagenet during the Wars of the Roses. The Wars of the Roses were a brutal family feud that tore England apart in the fifteenth century. Two rival factions of the Plantagenet line spent generations tearing each other apart for the crown. The red rose of Lancaster and the white rose of York found themselves in a struggle that was defined by betrayals and a lot of death.
Speaker 1:It pitted brother against brother and cousin against cousin. Kings were toppled, heirs erased, and whole families destroyed in the fight for supremacy. By the time Edward Plantagenet was born in 1475, this conflict had already raged for decades. His parents were not just caught in the storm. They were at its very center.
Speaker 1:Their loyalties and unloyalty would shape the fate of their family line. Eventually, it would all come crashing down on Edward himself. But before we reach his fall, we begin on the February 25 in 1475 inside Warwick Castle. A baby boy was born, and from his very first breath, he was tied to some of the most powerful and dangerous figures in English history. Edward was the son of George Plantagenet, the duke of Clarence, and Isabel Neville, the heiress to the great Neville fortune.
Speaker 1:That parentage alone made him a child of immense consequence. His father, George, was no ordinary dupe. He was a son of York and the younger brother of a king, Edward the fourth. And his mother, Isabelle, was the elder daughter of Richard Neville, the man history remembers as the kingmaker, the formidable sixteenth Earl of Warwick who had made an unmade monarchs during the Wars of the Roses. From birth, Edward was styled the seventeenth Earl of War, a name that carried enormous weight even if it would not officially pass to him just yet.
Speaker 1:At his christening, king Edward the fourth himself stood as godfather. By all accounts, you would think this child was bound for great things to come in his future, but destiny is a dangerous thing in Plantagenet, England. To be born with royal blood was both a blessing and a curse. It offered status, privilege, and possibility, but it also placed you directly in the crosshairs of ambition, suspicion, and betrayal. Edward's life would prove to be no exception.
Speaker 1:In December 1476, when Edward was only a year old, tragedy had already struck. His mother, Isabel Neville, died at just 25 years old. Some said that she wasted away from consumption. Others suggest she never recovered from childbirth. More scandalous still, others believed she was actually poisoned.
Speaker 1:George of Clarence was unhinged with grief and suspicion, and he accused one of Isabel's household women of murder and had her executed. Historians now see it as almost certainly a miscarriage of justice, but it just goes to show how death was never a simple fact of life. It usually caused accusations and potential revenge justified or not. Whatever the cause, her death was devastating for her two children, Edward and Margaret, and dangerous for her husband. Isabel had been their link to the vast Neville inheritance, and without her, they stood politically exposed.
Speaker 1:The beginning of George's downfall had come years earlier, but with the death of Isabel, this marked the end. In 1478, when Edward was only three years old, his world was shattered again, this time by one of the most infamous family backstabbings of the age. George had always been restless and ambitious. During the Wars of the Roses, he betrayed his own brother, the king, by joining forces with his father-in-law, Richard Neville, the kingmaker, who had, yes, helped make Edward the fourth king. They plotted a coup to take power from Edward the fourth and placed their Lancastrian cousin, the former king, Henry the sixth, back on the throne.
Speaker 1:The Neville's and York's were already deeply intertwined, but the kingmaker was a powerfully ambitious man. Yet, he didn't have any sons of his own. He had two daughters. So by choosing their husbands, this was his best way to secure alliances. By marrying Isabel to George, he could get at the York name and titles, securing his legacy through future generations.
Speaker 1:A part of the plot was that his other daughter, Anne, was married off to Henry the sixth's son. But when this elaborate scheme came crashing down, the kingmaker was killed along with Henry the sixth's son. Edward triumphantly returned to power, and he forgave George for his disloyalty, at least publicly. In reality, the damage was done. Suspicion between the brothers never truly healed.
Speaker 1:Eventually, tensions came to a head when rumors reached Edward the fourth that George was yet again undermining his reign. We don't even know if George was truly guilty this time around, but it didn't matter. George was sent to the Tower Of London. Then parliament condemned him of high treason. The king ordered the death of his little brother, George.
Speaker 1:Legend says that George was drowned in a barrel of Malmsey wine. And whether or not it's literally true, we're not sure, but it's forever a part of the duke of Clarence's story. A man consumed by ambition, forced to drown in the same sweet wine that was thought to be a luxury. For little Edward, the consequences were devastating. By act of parliament, his father was tainted, meaning that his titles were stripped, his lands were confiscated, and the Neville fortune would be rerouted.
Speaker 1:But most importantly, his heirs were barred from succession. That meant Edward, despite being the nephew of a reigning king and the grandson of the kingmaker, the Earl of Warwick, he was legally disinherited from the royal line. At just three years old, he was a marked child. He still carried the Plantagenet name, but it was shadowed by disgrace. Both sides of his family had betrayed the king.
Speaker 1:The blood that should have made him powerful instead became a burden, one that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Edward was just a toddler, orphaned and disinherited. The crown placed him as a royal ward to Thomas Gray. In medieval England, warship was less about guardianship in the modern sense and more about control. When a noble child lost their father, the crown claimed the right to decide who would raise them, manage their estates, and most importantly, arrange their marriage.
Speaker 1:For kings and their favorites, it was an opportunity. A child heir wasn't seen as a person to nurture, but as a prize to be distributed. So when Edward was placed under the worship of Thomas Gray, it wasn't an act of kindness or protection. It was a strategy. Gray was a stepson to Edward the fourth and son of the queen consort Elizabeth Woodville, and now he held the keys to Edward's future.
Speaker 1:This meant Edward's childhood was not his own. He was already a pawn, a name and a bloodline to be maneuvered or pushed aside in the great game of dynastic survival. Because even though Edward had disgraced lineage, he still carried royal blood. And in the topsy-turvy world they lived in, who knows? Maybe in the future, his marriage could forge powerful bonds or dangerous rivalries.
Speaker 1:In medieval politics, marriage was never about love. It was about alliance and fortune. Whoever held the right to arrange Edward's marriage also held the power to shape his future loyalties. Soon, the tides would turn again for Edward. When he was eight years old, his uncle, king Edward the fourth, died of an illness.
Speaker 1:This left the court in turmoil as the crown was supposed to be passed to the king's young son, the newly named Edward the fifth, followed in succession by his younger brother, Richard of Shrewsbury. But the boy king would never formally be crowned. Within months, power shifted violently. Edward's other uncle, Richard of Gloucester, seized the throne and became king Richard the third. Richard was the younger brother of Edward the fourth and George, duke of Clarence.
Speaker 1:He had been made lord protector, but what he did was cut out the sons of Edward the fourth by claiming they were illegitimate and no longer heirs. These were Edward Plantagenet's cousins and similar in age. Imagine seeing his cousin Edward the fifth elevated one moment as the next in line to the throne only to be struck down with an accusation. From there, the young princes would vanish from within the Tower Of London, never to be seen again. Their whole story plays out in episodes one and two in case you missed it.
Speaker 1:Here, we focus on Edward Plantagenet's perception and what it might have felt like for him to see the fall and eventual disappearance of his cousins. Did he relate? Could he have felt some sort of retribution for his own mistreatment, or did it instill a fear in him knowing how fragile his position at court truly was? The cousins were probably not close in any way, but they would have been aware of each other, probably seeing each other at ceremonies before the fall of the duke of Clarence. Yet they were still connected by royal blood, and what happened to one could just as easily happen to the other.
Speaker 1:With the rise of their uncle, Richard the third, the prince's lives were destroyed, but it did elevate Edward. He was removed from the worship of Thomas Gray and was more than likely sent to live with Anne Neville, the wife of Richard the third. Anne would be no stranger to the peril of power. As we know, she had been married to and then widowed by the son of the former king Henry the sixth. After that, she had remarried to Richard of Gloucester, now king Richard the third.
Speaker 1:This made her the current queen consort. So, yes, the two York brothers, George and Richard, had married the two Neville sisters, Isabel and Anne, which made Anne Edward's aunt by both blood and by marriage. In her household, Edward would have been surrounded by reminders of his family's turbulent legacy. It's tempting to picture what life was like for Edward at Midlham Castle, racing through the halls with his cousin, Edward of Midlum, the only son of Richard the third and Anne Neville. We can only hope it was a happy time for him.
Speaker 1:But in the world of the Plantagenets, even the most promising new beginnings could twist into tragedy in an instant. Just a year later, his cousin Edward of Midlam would die, leaving Richard the third without an heir. It's speculated that Richard may have named Edward Plantagenet as his heir. Richard had staged a grand ceremonial progress through the North, and at York, he placed his nephew Edward at the center of the display. He knighted Edward Plantagenet, and though he had formerly been disinherited, he was now being referred to as the earl of Warwick, his grandfather's title.
Speaker 1:On the surface, it was a moment of honor, and it made sense. Edward was royal blood, nephew to Richard both by birth and through his wife and Neville. With their child, Middlham, dead and the princess missing, the Yorkist line was painfully thin. So here we see something promising, a child raised up given the trappings of knighthood and recognized by the most powerful man in England. For Edward, the ceremony may have felt like belonging again, a fleeting return to the circle of family and legitimacy.
Speaker 1:But for Richard, it was more likely a calculated move. By honoring his nephew, he projected generosity, loyalty to his own bloodline. Or was this perhaps damage control to control his image that was the exact opposite for what people suspected he did to his other nephews, all while keeping young Edward exactly where he wanted him, close and controlled. For a very brief moment, people may have wondered whether this boy, once disregarded, might now stand closer to the crown than ever before. His safety relied on what protection his uncle, the king, could offer.
Speaker 1:But like so many kings that rise quickly, the fall comes just as fast. In 1485, Richard the third was cut down in battle by a distantly related Lancastrian named Henry Tudor. With his death, the Plantagenet dynasty collapsed forever. Henry Tudor sees the crown as king Henry the seventh. What could possibly happen now for the 10 year old Edward?
Speaker 1:Without much surprise, the change in dynasty was catastrophic for him. The rise of the Tudors was done by either absorbing the Yorks and Lancasters or by eliminating them. Edward was sort of a remnant from an age that had already passed. Killing him would be doing exactly what people accused Richard the third of doing to the princes, but keeping him meant future threats. The newly crowned Henry the seventh recognized the danger Edward represented.
Speaker 1:The boy was not only a nephew of two kings, but the grandson of the kingmaker and should have been the heir to the vast Neville inheritance had he not been attained because of his father's duplicity. Henry acted quickly. Before anyone else could have possession of the boy, Edward was taken from his household and placed in the Tower Of London just as the princes had been. Though when Edward was led through the tower gates in 1485, the princes had likely been long gone. Whether they were already dead and hidden under a staircase where they would remain for another two hundred years or whether they had managed to escape, we don't know.
Speaker 1:But the cousins would more than likely not have crossed paths in the tower. Edward was now a prisoner in the very place his father had been, which, like we know, he never left alive. Every corridor, every stone chamber whispered the danger of being young and royal on the wrong side. For the outside world, Edward all but disappeared. There's barely a trace of his daily life in the records, a silence so complete, it feels deliberate.
Speaker 1:Yorkist loyalists began to say that Edward wasn't in the tower at all and that he had managed a daring escape. They began to rally behind his name, calling for Edward Plantagenet to be named the rightful Yorkist heir. After all, he was the last living York male who had once been in line for the crown. Though he had been nearly forgotten and passed around, his fate rising and falling with every whim of those in power, his blood could once again be useful when it came to overthrowing the Tudors. Word reached Henry the seventh that Edward Plantagenet was now crowned Edward the sixth in an Irish cathedral.
Speaker 1:A full rebellion was underway, but this claim was impossible. Henry the seventh had Edward locked in the tower. It can be hard to imagine today, but in the late fifteenth century, proving who someone really was was nearly hopeless. There were no newspapers to print portraits, no photography, no easy way for common people to know what a royal child even looked like. If a boy appeared with the right supporters dressed in noble clothes and spoke the right story, that could be enough.
Speaker 1:And for the nobles with an axe to grind against Henry the seventh, a false royal was the perfect tool. They didn't have to believe it themselves. They only needed to be convincing enough to raise an army. Henry the seventh finally found a use for Edward. He pulled the boy out of the tower only to parade him through London as living proof against the pretender.
Speaker 1:The people more than likely saw a pale, quiet child being carried like a pet. We can only guess what Edward himself thought of this. Was it a chance to see the outside world? Did he realize how much power his name could potentially raise, or was he shuffled around in pure confusion of the event? Afterwards, it was back to the tower he went, like a ghost left to haunt the halls for the years to come, though he was fully alive.
Speaker 1:The rebellion was eventually crushed. Henry the seventh took the pretender into custody only to find a young boy who had been used as a figurehead. His name was Lambert Simnel. He was given mercy by the king and sent to work in the royal kitchens. Whether Edward and Lambert ever stood face to face is uncertain, but for a time, the real boy and a counterfeit were both in the custody of Henry the seventh.
Speaker 1:One, a pawn of rebellion, the other, a pawn of the crown, and time went on. So what did life look like for Edward in the tower during those years? He probably wasn't thrown in a filthy dungeon. He would have been kept in a royal apartment with attendants to serve him, but without freedom or purpose. He had no estates to manage, no companions his own age, and as far as we can tell, almost no education.
Speaker 1:Later chronicles described him as simple minded, yet we don't know if that's the result of isolation or just Tudor propaganda meant to weaken his image. What we do know is that the tower consumed his youth. The shouts of Londoners at market, the toying of bells, the clatter of carts over the bridge, all would have reached him as muffled echoes, constant reminders of a world just out of his reach. By 1499, Edward Plantagenet was 24 years old. He had spent more than half his life inside the tower.
Speaker 1:The world had long since passed him by. When another pretender started an uprising claiming to be Edward's cousin, Richard Shrewsbury, who is the younger of the missing princes, danger had a way of roping in Edward. The false prince was captured and sent to the tower. His name was Perkin Warbeck. We don't know how much interaction Warbeck and Edward actually had inside of the tower, yet somehow word emerged of a plan that Edward and Perkin Warbeck would escape together.
Speaker 1:Had Edward sat in the tower long enough that he was willing to risk his life to escape? Had he spent years wondering what could happen if only he was free to rally a legitimate Yorkist army behind his name? Or was it yet another baseless accusation in a world where royals used the law to manipulate reality for their selfish ambitions? What we do know is that the rumor alone was enough to put him on trial. For Henry the seventh, this was the moment he had been waiting for.
Speaker 1:The Tudor crown was still precarious with enemies abroad and descent at home. As long as Edward lived, Yorkist loyalists had a figure to call the true heir. Now with this supposed plot, Henry had a reason to finally get rid of Edward. There's even more to it. By the late fourteen nineties, Henry the seventh was negotiating one of the most important alliances of his reign, the marriage of his eldest son, prince Arthur to Catherine of Aragon, daughter to the king and queen of Spain.
Speaker 1:This match promised to tie Tudor dynasty to Spain, the rising power of Europe, a match that could give the Tudor dynasty the stamp of legitimacy it desperately needed. But Ferdinand and Isabella were cautious rulers. They wanted assurance that the Tudors were secure and had truly moved past the assassinations and coups of the Wars of the Roses. That meant there couldn't be rival claimants lurking in the shadows ready to pop out. Here, Edward Plantagenet was a glaring problem.
Speaker 1:Even locked away in the tower, his bloodline rivaled Henry's claim. To the Spanish court, he wasn't a forgotten prisoner. He was a living threat, a rival who might one day be lifted up by Yorkist loyalists or foreign backers. As weak as some may have viewed Edward, stranger things have happened. Ferdinand and Isabella made their concerns clear.
Speaker 1:If Catherine was to marry into the Tudor family, the matter of Edward Plantagenet had to be taken care of. The supposed escape plot was the perfect excuse. And on 11/21/1499, Edward Plantagenet was brought to face judgment. After years of silence and confinement, the young man was placed before a court charged with treason. When called to respond, Edward pleaded guilty.
Speaker 1:Some suggest this was either under duress or if after so many years of isolation, Edward simply lacked the full understanding of what the proceedings meant. Likely, the verdict was set before the trial even took place anyway. Henry the seventh needed Edward gone, and the trial provided the necessary cloak of legality. A week later, Edward Plantagenet, Earl O'Warwick, was led from the Tower Of London to Tower Hill. He was only 24 years old, surrounded by guards and the watchful eyes of the crowd when he laid his head on the executioner's block, his neck exposed.
Speaker 1:With a swing of an axe, it was over, his head falling to the ground with a light thud. As gruesome as it was, it was the most merciful death a nobleman could ask for, but a brutal end all the same. There are no reports of speeches, no words preserved for history. His end was almost as silent as his life. For Henry the seventh, he needed quiet erasure and official close to one chapter to open the door to the next.
Speaker 1:Edward's body and severed head were taken to Bisham Abbey in Berkshire, where he was buried without spectacle. With Edward's death, legitimate male line of the Plantagenet was extinguished. The great house that had given England kings for more than three centuries came fittingly to a bloody end. Yet his story endures, not as a rebel or a usurper, but as a tragic figure, a boy born into power, stripped of his inheritance, imprisoned for most of his life, and executed. Not for what he did, but for what he represented.
Speaker 1:His death was, in every sense, the end of the line. This was true crime of the historical kind. Thank you for listening. Don't forget to like and subscribe. Until next time.
Speaker 1:Bye.