List of pedigrees Bland of Northern Neck Va. Nicholas of Roundway Hester of Fleming Co Ky Thruston Author's DNA match comparisons  |
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| Born: WFT Est. 1441-1500
Married: Jane Ingleton WFT Est. 1465-1531. Died: January 15, 1547/48 Buried: Humphrey or his father (the dates I have for them are rather contradictory) must have been a brother, nephew or cousin of Sir James Tyrrell, whose star rose with Richard III, unless the following hypothesis unexpectedly proves true: My investigations indicate that Sir James did not kill the princes in the Tower, Edward V and his brother Richard, but instead on the request of Richard III took them to Flanders or Calais for safekeeping at the end of 1484. Henry VII was out for the princes himself for years after the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, and he probably had Sir James tortured to find out where they were, so knowing he was going to be beheaded for harboring Richard III's grandnephew, Henry de la Pole, in Calais Sir James confessed to killing them in the Tower. But the bodies could not be found despite the confession and great searching, as Thomas More reported only years later in his history of the reign of Henry VII. Furthermore, it is entirely possible that the princes lived out their lives with new identities and that they were taken in by one of Sir James Tyrrell's brothers or cousins. It would rather premature at this stage of research to say that our Humphrey or his father or some other Tyrrell was not a Tyrrell but in truth one of the princes and hence a Plantagenet, but it might be interesting to have a DNA test done on a direct male descendent for the Y chromosome and compare it with a Plantagenet sample. Shakespeare's Richard III was the result of Tudor propagandists and has as little to do with history as his MacBeth, who as the richest of the clan was the rightful King of Scotland, not Duncan, who was not murdered but killed on the battlefield after usurping the throne. It is true, of course, that Richard had the princes declared illegitimate and claimed the throne for himself. But with Buckingham and Tudor and others in the offing to be benefitted by the princes' death, having them declared illegitimate was the best way to keep them out of harm's way. And so what is branded as conniving can also be seen as a most noble deed drawing Henry Tudor's ambitious scorn upon himself and sparing his nephews. The times were indeed hard and there was much evil from all sides. The crux of the argument is basically that Richard III was an intelligent man experienced in the law and at court. So if he had had the princes killed, he would have had "evidence" found to be able to blame someone else. Yet when rumors began to spread late in 1484 that the princes had been killed he did nothing to show they were alive or that someone else had killed them. And early in 1485 his nieces, princes' sisters, were displayed in public, and they would have been next in line for the crown after the princes except for the illegitimacy finding. And years later Henry VII was obviously looking for the prince's. Blaming Richard III - and Sir James Tyrrell - for their deaths does not make sense and was nothing but Tudor propaganda that Thomas More first implied with his account of the confession. But this account only indicates that Henry VII was out for the princes and willing to torture a man to find them because he believed they were alive. |
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| Humphrey Tyrrell and Jane Ingleton had issue
(Te14) George Tyrrell |
James Tyrrell (c. 1450 - May 6, 1502) was an English knight, a trusted servant of King Richard III of England. His main claim to fame is that he is supposed to have confessed to murdering the Princes in the Tower on Richard's orders.
Tyrrell was the son of Sir William Tyrrell (c. 1415 - February 22, 1461) and Margaret Darcy (c. 1425), married in 1444. Like his father before him, a loyal Yorkist, James was knighted in 1471. He married Anne Arundell on March 9, 1483. They would later have a son also named James Tyrrell.
James was in France in 1485 and played no part in the Battle of Bosworth Field which signalled the start of the Tudor's reign.
In the following year, he returned to England and was pardoned by King Henry VII, who reappointed him governor of Guisnes (in the English possession of Calais). However, in 1501, Tyrrell lent his support to Edmund de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, now the leading Yorkist claimant to the English throne, who was in voluntary exile. When Henry heard of this, Tyrrell was recalled, accused of treason, and tortured. Thomas More wrote that, during his examination, Tyrrell made his confession, implicating two other men, but, despite further questioning, was unable to say where the bodies were -- he claimed that they had been moved. He was beheaded on May 6, 1502, and his confession, if it happened, was never made public.
Although serious historians have never given much credence to the Tyrrell story, Ricardians have exploited the confusion over the date of the pardon in order to point the finger at King Henry.
This explanation in itself begs several questions. Given that Henry was ruthless and clever enough to murder the princes, the question arises of why he would he have waited a whole year after his accession to do so, and why he would he have selected a dyed-in-the-wool Yorkist as his instrument.
Archbishop John Morton is said to have been the source of the information in Sir Thomas More's The History of Richard III, which is where the story of the "confession" of Tyrrell appears. According to More's account, King Richard first sent a man named John Green to Robert Brackenbury, keeper of the Tower, with a written order to kill the two princes. When Brackenbury refused, Richard sent Tyrrell to Brackenbury with a written order to deliver the keys to the Tower to Tyrrell for one night, which he did. Tyrrell killed the boys that night, and Brackenbury's priest moved the bodies from where Tyrrell buried them.
On the other hand, if Henry had murdered the princes, it is inexplicable that he should have missed the opportunity of making Tyrrell his scapegoat by publishing his confession at the time of his execution. More's account suggests that Henry's reason for suppressing the confession was that he feared that his earlier pardoning of Tyrrell would lead to his being blamed for the murder. Morton, apparently the source of this information, was dead by the time of Tyrrell's supposed confession, thus none of the content of More's book was contemporary with the events described. It is now accepted that More's book was an exercise in rhetoric and was never meant to be taken as historical fact; however, for a while, it became good propaganda for the Tudor dynasty.