The Princes in the Tower - Alison Weir

Advantages: Intelligent, accessible writing, great storytelling.
Disadvantages: Hmmm @ Thomas More.

...a damp, dank room in the Tower of London? Or is he the most wrongly maligned figure in English history, blackguarded by the upstart Tudors so that the English people would accept them as rulers? Ask any historian and they will tell you that their job is - for the most part - detection. History is all about finding clues. History is about piecing together tiny shreds of evidence. In this way, the historian hopes to interpret the past. We all like ...
...of popular history than the most famous murder mystery of all; the story of the Princes in the Tower? This double murder has fascinated for over five hundred years. The disappearance – and we assume, death – of the erstwhile Prince of Wales and Duke of York has never, in the public imagination at least, been satisfactorily solved. Did the boys' uncle, Richard III really "do them in"? Or should we look elsewhere, to Henry VII perhaps, or perhaps even ... Read review

Advantages: Well written - makes a potentially boring subject come to life
Disadvantages: If you hate history it ain't for you!

Just thought I'd get the confession out of the way first - I really enjoy reading about medieval history. I know, I know, but it's really interesting, and... Okay, so I'm not going to convince you if you're not at all interested, but everyone knows that one of the longest-running mysteries in British history is: who actually killed the Princes in the Tower. Everybody ALSO knows that Richard did it (or did he??), but this book by Alison Weir is one ...
...there's any dumbing-down here - the facts are presented clearly, not so simply that there's no challenge in reading it - but the style and organisation of the whole book is excellent. The evidence for (and against) the various theories (and, boy, are some wild!) that have been circulated in the intervening 500 or so years is presented, examined and then (if appropriate) debunked. I know that some of the revisionists (you know, the "Richard III wasn't ... Read review