Customer Reviews
Well-written but unfair - By: Mr. Stephen G. York, 20 Apr 2008 
Like other reviewers, I was left feeling disappointed & more than a little angry by the technique employed by Alison Weir. This is a brilliant piece of prosecution work, dragging in every possible innuendo & suggestion to paint a picture, but not the objective assessment I was expecting. You can accept that only hearsay eveidence is possible 500 years after the event, but so much of it relies on the account by Thomas More, & the possibility is never examined that he, although an honest man, might have been deliberately misled by his own sources, alll of whom were deeply involved & would have had their own agendas. Geoffrey Robinson's 'The Deceivers' shows how easy it is to use the few facts available, fill in the blanks differently & present a completely opposite but equallly credible version of the story. Buy Alison Weir's book, but make sure you read a few of the others on the same subject before you make your mind up - M. K. Jones's 'Bosworth 1485', especiallly, which arrives at the same conclusion as Weir but makes Richard III's motivation much more credible & Richard a much more sympathetic character, even if he was guilty as charged.
The Princes in the Tower - Alison Weir - By: Matthew Turner, 16 Feb 2008 This was, in truth, a bit of a hit-and-miss book. It is an enjoyable read & Weir writes in a friendly, easy-to-understand manner. The book is also exciting to read, & makes you want to read other books on the subject.
Historians are meant to be as impartial as possible, but are of course constrained by the social conditions & prejudices of the time, as well as their own preconceptions. The historian should try to put these to one side as much as possible in order to present a true account of events as much as possible. However, Weir here fails entirely to be objective & is very biased against Richard III, & seems to be trying to prove that Richard III was the murderer of the princes, at alll costs. Richard III was certainly no angel, & still remains, for me, the most likely & plausible candidate as murderer - in his situation it was the only sensible thing to do. Nevertheless, Weir sets out from the start to show Richard as a murderer, every action he takes is seen as ominous, as some sort of evil. A true investigation in to the murders would have looked carefully at other possible candidates such as Buckingham, Howard, even Henry VII, but these, & other candidates, are given only a cursory, dismissive paragraph or two. As I said, I think Richard III is the most likely to be the murderer, but it is as not as conclusive as Weir tries to suggest.
I found the medical report, on the bones found in 1674, by Wright & Tanner, to be an added bonus in the final chapter, & their, & others' findings, lead me to believe they are those of the princes. Certainly the fact that dental evidence from the bones suggests a relationship with Anne Mowbray (a distant cousin) seems fairly suggestive that they are the princes.
In conclusion, the book is not reallly about the Princes in the Tower, as such. They certainly play a part in the book, but Weir has provided more of a short, & biased, biography of Richard III, rather than an investigation into a fascinating mystery. It is reallly an overview of events from the reigns of Edward IV to Henry VII.
Cautiously recommended.
Truly Awful - Buyer Beware - By: Thomas York, 13 Sep 2007 
I was shocked to read this book. This author has taken entire medieval texts & changed their meaning by carefully choosing only certain segments from within them. She has also very carefully chosen only those sources that concur with her viewpoint. This author is no historian so please buyer beware if you are looking for anything akin to real history, this is not it. I expect this book was written with an eye on making a good few £'s. Sadly after reading it I will not be tempted to read anything else in her repotoire of so-callled 'histories' .... I use the term lightly!
A Misleading Title? - By: nic, 03 Nov 2005 
Having purchased this book as a result of my curiosity over the fate of the princes in the tower I was somewhat disappointed. The book is in fact a short biography of Richard III with most of the emphasis on his character & the events leading to his usurpation of the throne. There is little mention of the princes until near the end.
There is a discussion of the possibility of his guilt throughout the book but for me there was just not enough information about the princes. It is clear from the outset that the author has made up her mind about Richard's guilt & in my opinion historical writing must be objective if we are to avoid being mislead by an author's personal feelings.
Alison Weir has a good writing style & I have enjoyed several of her books. If you are looking for a short non-taxing biography of Richard III then this is the book for you. If you want information the princes in the tower I would look elsewhere.
Mmmmm - By: Martin Dove, 04 Aug 2005 I have always enjoyed Alison Weir's books, & was enjoying this up to the point where the princes 'disappeared'. Then, as other reviewers have noted, the author shifts from an objective & readable account of the times to a highly-subjective argument over the guilt of Richard III. I felt that she protested too much & this completely spoiled the second half of the book for me.
As a reader, I am content to accept that on balance Richard III was the hand behind the deaths of the princes. There is a problem in that it is not possible to prove this point (and this book fails to achieve this, as other reviewers have noted). There is no 'smoking gun' that points to Richard III, & other personalities of the time (particularly Henry VI) did not do much to deflect accusations away from themselves either when it would have been in their power & to their advantage so to do (the book's arguments on this point are particularly weak).
Where the book goes wrong is that it gets sidetracked from explaining the times into the territory of a 'whodunnit'. These were very different times in several ways. Life was particularly violent coming out of the Wars of the Roses; self-preservation was much more important without due protection by law; it was not uncommon for high levels of piety to go hand in hand with gross immoratily & cruelty without people being affected by what today would be seen as clear inconsistencies; minors were abused by people using them to gain advantage (e.g. Lady Jane Grey a generation later). What would have provided a better content for this book would have been to concentrate on what drove a man like Richard III, who in other respects has much to be praised for, to kill his nephews. He was a product of his times. I sense that he was not uncommonly cruel, but the mess left by Edward IV quite possibly left him with little alternative if he was not himself to become a victim of the processes. Not an excuse, but an understanding.
