The French city of Angers in Loire Valley has made an interesting demand for restitution. Angers has demanded that England turn over the Royal Jewels for the murder of Edward Plantagenet in the Tower of London in 1499. The town values the termination of the Plantagenet line of kings at billions of dollars, but the city will accept the Crown Jewels in exchange for ending its string of 14 English kings, including Richard the Lionheart and Henry V.
Edward Plantagenet was the 17th Earl of Warwick and the son of George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence. Clarence was executed for treason (as portrayed in Richard III by Shakespeare). At ten, Edward had a claim to the thrown following the death of King Richard’s son in 1484. Notably, Edward is believed to have been “retarded” or “simpleminded” according to historians. He was kept a prisoner in the Tower of London by Henry VII as a threat to his legitimacy as King and, in 1499, he was executed under the claim of an conspiracy to escape. He was beheaded — thereby ending the line of the House of Plantagenet.
Obviously, there is no legal basis for this claim and appears an effort by Angers to attract tourists. It should not have to. It is a lovely town that I visited previously in France.
None of the characters of this period were particularly redeeming. However, in litigation like life, the advice of Queen Margaret in Richard III remains the same: “Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were,
And he that slew them fouler than he is.”
Source: Daily Mail