Sarah O'Connell

It's very compelling, but there's lots of mistakes in it.

But Philippa Gregory, I assume, isn't pretending she is a historian.

She's like, I'm a novelist.

But she's also like, yum, yum, yum, Channel 4 money.

On the 24th of April, Edward began travelling down to London with his uncle Anthony, only for Richard to intercept them in Buckinghamshire, with an army of 6,000 men.

The soon-to-be king spent an anxious night staying at a pub's lodgings, while the grown-ups negotiated terms.

When we say negotiated, the very next day Richard had Anthony Woodville locked up and later ordered his execution.

As with many things in this story, a lot of it comes down to a matter of opinion.

Either Richard genuinely had Edward's best interests at heart and was suspicious of the scheming Woodvilles trying to pull the strings from behind the curtain, or he himself had more sinister motives for wanting Edward under his thumb.

Or perhaps both?

Either way, Richard took over his protectorate duties and escorted a likely traumatised Edward the rest of the way to the capital, and straight to the Tower of London.

That summer of 1483, Richard kept pushing back Edward's coronation date.

During this time, a visiting Italian scholar named Dominic Mantini reported on how witnesses saw Edward playing with his little brother in the tower grounds, hoping to squeeze out one last drop of childhood before putting on that heavy crown.

But his uncle Richard apparently had other plans.

On the 22nd of June, a man named Reverend Shaw spoke at St Paul's Cross, a famous open-air preaching spot.

and quickly dropped a juicy bit of gossip to the crowd.

The late King Edward IV had allegedly been legally contracted to another wife when he married Elizabeth Woodville.

In other words, his bigamous relationship was therefore null and void.

And their ten kids?

Yep, bastards, the lot of them, including the two princes in the tower.