MovieChat Forums > Tower of London (1939) Discussion > What was with the failure to mention bas...

What was with the failure to mention bastards?


King Edward V was deposed on the grounds that Elizabeth Woodville's marriage to Edward IV was discovered to have been bigamous and thus their children became officially bastards ineligeable for the throne. As a result, Richard Duke of Gloucester became the next in line. This version of the story didn't go into the questions of legitimacy at all. The 1962 one though a much cheaper version actually did but not in the same way (I'm afraid that one reason for that is that if you want to present Richard as a villain you can't have too much ambiguity - to have people think that he may have been right)... I wonder if it was a topic that they didn't want to bring up in the movie.

I also noticed with those people in line for the throne that it's more complicated than that. You have different possible lines to the throne and declaring people illegitimate or not changes them and also it's a question of being in power. As long as Henry VI and his son were alive they were threats to oust the existing regime so they could conceivably rule instead of Richard, but they weren't in line behind Edward IV, they were just rival claimants. Getting rid of the son was the key to preventing such a claim. Next, the little princes can be got out of the way by declaring them to be bastards. Problem solved. Then they become not unlike Henry VI and his son so perhaps if necessary they can be removed after the fact.

Is it just me or were the battles not very realistic. They used a lot of archers in those days. The fighting looked like something from an earlier time.

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Next you'll be telling us that there weren't any Americans in the royal court in the 15th century.

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