ALL MY TUDORS...history chat

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George, Duke of Clarence was in conflict with his siblings Edward & Richard since he was old enough to scheme straight. He married Isabel of Warwick against Edward's express wishes. He joined Warwick in his rebellion against Edward in the late 1460s. In 1471, he abandoned Warwick & rejoined Edward's party. When Richard expressed an interest in Anne Neville, the younger sister of Isabel, George allegedly hid Anne from him & then squabbled with Richard incessantly about the Warwick inheritance, impoverishing their mother-in-law to the point where Richard & Anne had to take her into their household & support her.

With the early death of Isabel in 1476, George seemed to lose all his marbles completely. He immediately began scheming for a second marriage to Mary, the heiress of the Duke of Burgundy & stepdaughter of his sister Margaret (there's a consanguinity nightmare waiting to happen as she was his niece-by-marriage), and then to Princess Margaret, a sister of James III of Scotland. This was shot down by Edward, who had no reason to trust him & certainly didn’t want him in any position of potential power.

Rebuffed by Edward with the marital scheming, George stayed away from court & pointedly refused to eat or drink anything that came from the King’s kitchens, fearing poison in a paranoid fashion. Two astronomers, Stacey & Blake, and a member of George’s household, Burdett, were accused of "practicing the black arts" to bring about the deaths of Edward & his sons. They were tried, & the astronomers were executed. George burst into Edward's council meeting to protest their deaths.

Angrily, Edward then summoned George before him at Westminster to answer for the execution of Annette Twynho, a servant of Isabel's, whom George had accused of poisoning his wife & whose trial & execution George had authorized, thus taking upon himself the justice of the King (never a good thing to assume).

Parliament opened on January 19, 1478, & Edward introduced his own bill of attainder against George. Edward accused George of "unbrotherly disloyalty", despite his having forgiven his previous offenses. Edward complained that George had schemed to harm him & his family at various times & places. It was further charged that George had retained an agreement made during Henry VIs brief Warwickian restoration in 1470, saying that George would be king if Henry died without heirs.

Was Edward getting rid of Clarence because he was a "career traitor" & an ingrate sibling at best, or because George & his network of servants were broadcasting allegations that Edward himself was a bastard & that his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid & all of his children by this marriage were illegitimate?

On the night of February 18, 1478, George of Clarence was quietly executed in the Tower of London as a result of his brother's bill of attainder....in the mythical butt of malmsey?

What do we think? Was Edward justified in executing George? What drove George to thwart Edward at every turn? Just how dysfunctional a family WAS this, anyway?

<with a nod to Painter as I couldn't resist it LOL>

"I wanna be the king!" Georgie said

I want the crown on MY fat head!

Tain't fair you gave it back to Ed!

And I ain't waiting till he's dead!

You know he's gonna take me out

Of that I do not have a doubt!

Eddie & Ritchie are so scared of me

I knows all the seecruds in the family!

I know just what Mommy was doin

With that archer over in Rouen!

Ed ain't even Daddy's get

Whatcha wanna make a bet?

And he put ol Warwick in a tizzy

When he up & married Lizzie

Warwick had to lose his life

He knew about Ed's other wife!

Them kids is bastards, yes, they is

That crown shouldn't even BE on Liz!

Ed is such a stupid dork

I'M the heir of the Duke of York!

I want it now! That crown is MINE!

Those three suns weren't a GOOD sign!

Henry said I could get it soon

No one cares he was a loon!

I got a document, signed & sealed

I want the hand that I was dealed!

I should be king! It isn't fair!

You KNOW I have the bestest hair!

I'm so much prettier than Ed

He's fat & can't get out of bed!

I tried invasion, I tried a spell

I used a candle, book, & bell!

I even practiced "Off with her head!"

But seems I can't do THAT said Ed

He says I'm just a rotten ingrate

And a butt of malmsey will be my fate!

I do kind of feel sorry for George. Yes, he wasn't the nicest guy in the world, or the best sibling. But executing your own brother? Well, you shouldn't do it should you?!

While I don't believe that there was one compelling reason to have George put to death, the multiple reasons do add up.

You have detailed them in your original post, George's serial treason, his desire for the throne, and, his frightening derangement when his wife died. Imagine you are Edward IV, safe on your throne at last, with the House of Lancaster in shambles and Warwick dead. Keeping your two remaining brothers from each other's throats seems to be a full-time job. It would be very easy to take sides, and blame the troublemaker George for everything. And E4 was notoriously less forgiving after Warwick's rebellion than he was before.

Imagine if George had married Mary of Burgundy (his sister's step-daughter). He would have easily been able to launch an invasion of England with Burgundian armies behind him. Even more frightening is the prospect of George on the throne of Scotland, able to launch an invasion from the north. And there's no doubt that E4's wife hated George, saw him responsible for the deaths of her father & brother (at least one of them, I think, during Warwick's rebellion). I'm sure la Woodville poured poision in her husband's ear against his brother. Also, their son was only a baby, soon to move to Ludlow with his Woodville Uncle Anthony as guardian. After all they had been through, I'm sure that the queen saw the famously disloyal and now mentally unbalanced George as a threat to the Prince's safety.

As I have said, there are many reason to seriously mistrust George, but none to compell his execution. Yet the weight of evidence is not in his favor. Maybe Edward was simply tired of putting up with George, and didn't want to deal with him anymore.

As Terrilee put it, "Maybe Edward was simply tired of putting up with George, and didn't want to deal with him anymore.". I would agree with that statement. But it goes beyond "putting up with". Yes, Edward was secure on the throne, but any insurgent with grandios ideas of Kingship could not be tolerated. Not even if it was one's own delusional brother.

Also, the amount of "evidence" needed for conviction, at that time, was very different from what we are used to in the western world's courts today.

The fact he had (and there was no doubt of this) attempted to take the throne (with Warwick's help) is pretty much all that would be needed for a justifiable conviction.

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