Quote:
Originally Posted by Wearever
I thought Grants defence strategy was a pretty good one.
1) Discredit the most credible witness. He was relentless with his attacks on Thomas Moore. Character assassination.
2) He brings up the pre marriage contract between King Edward and Eleanor Butler. Thus claiming his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville and her children have no right to the throne.
3) King Richard would then have no reason to kill the princes, they have no claim. So why would he kill them ?
I think in a court of law this would have caused enough doubt for an acquittal.
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No way! Only if the court was in a tv drama. You could drive a truck through the holes in Grant’s arguments. It’s true Grant used them cleverly. But real courts have rules about what constitutes acceptable evidence. At least in Canada
For example, there has to be consistency in the evidence you are presenting / story you are telling. As you note, Grant attacks the motive against Richard. He says that Richard would not benefit from the killing the Princes, because they were illegitimate, and therefore not eligible for the throne.
However, he then abandons that reasoning, and reinstates the motive. He tells Carradine that the Princes were “the vital ones” for Henry to eliminate, because they stood between Henry and the throne. And maybe because I may have ocd, I have pages of notes with similar contradictions by Grant.
Edited to add an example