Boy prince had no part in bloody battlefield

I READ with great interest Martin Hickes’ report (Yorkshire Post, August 8) of the renewed attempt to find the remains of the battlefield chapel at Towton planned by King Richard III but never completed.

Richard himself was only eight-years-old at the time of the battle in 1461 so any suggestion that he was personally involved cannot be supported.

Professor O’Gorman’s remarks that “Richard gloated over his victory”, yet at the same time that the battle of Towton “was a stupefying embarrassment for his administration” appear incongruous.

The battle which put Richard’s brother Edward IV on the throne could hardly be seen as an ‘embarrassment’, and certainly not to Richard’s ‘administration’ over 20 years later.

If anything, Towton was the House of York’s justifiable revenge for the killing at Wakefield, possibly by murder and not in battle, of Edward IV’s father and brother, as well as the execution of his uncle Salisbury and the deaths of many other noblemen.

Modern research seems to suggest that it was treachery by the Duke of York’s cousin John, Lord Neville, which contributed to this débâcle. Perhaps Towton should be best viewed as a grudge match due to the events three months before.

Your emotive headline referring to the “villainous reputation of Yorkshire king” does not take into account that his alleged villainy has now largely been disproved, except perhaps by those die-hards who really believe Thomas More is a serious historian!