Tower Hill is setting for historical drama

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32562, 23 March 1971, Page 4

Tower Hill is setting for historical drama

Since the time of Julius Caesar a fortress has stood on London’s Tower Hill, a palace prison that as recently as the 1939-45 war saw the execution of spies within its walls. Hundreds have been imprisoned in the square citadel built by the Norman kings, and for many of them the only way out was by the scaffold on Tower Hill or the block on Tower Green. It has been a prison particularly associated with kings and queens. The story of “The Innocent,” a 8.8. C. programme bought by the N.Z.8.C., takes place in 1499, during the reign of the first Tudor king, Henry VII. It is 14 years since the end of the civil conflicts known of the Wars of the Roses —14 years of a peace that Henry is determined to preserve. He must make sure that the throne is secure for his eldest son Arthur, and he must find an

ally in Europe. To ensure such an alliance he intends to marry Arthur to Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella.

The security of the throne was a more difficult matter. Henry’s claim to the crown is based on three things—descent from a king, but through an' illegitimate branch; marriage to the daughter of Edward V; and possession. There is a string of rival claimants—most of them imposters. They sometimes claim to be one of the two young princes (the brothers of the Queen) generally believed to have been murdered in the Tower. And often they claim to be the Earl of Warwick, son of Edward V’s murdered brother, the Duke of Clarence.

The King’s problem is that Warwick is indeed alive—a prisoner in the Tower for the past fourteen years, seen only by his gaolers, a barber and a priest. At one time

rumours of his death had become so widespread that Henry had been forced to parade him in public, to be seen and spoken to by those who had known the 10-year-old boy, now a 24-year-oid man of whom it had been written: “Out of the company of men and sight of beasts, he could not discern a goose from a chicken.” Warwick’s very existence is endangering the Spanish marriage. Ferdinand has made it clear that the marriage will not be concluded until he considers the Tudors’ crown safe—and that this Will not be for so long as the early lives. Warwick must die, and he must die in public with the full approval of English justice. So Henry sets out to solve the problem. And he contrives the conviction of Warwick for high treason.

James Maxwell plays Henry VII, Corin Redgrave is Perkin Warbeck, and Robert Powell is Warwick.