 Many modern historians believe he was an imposter, whose supporters accepted his claim for political reasons.The fact that two persons claimed to be Richard led the 18th-century writer Horace Walpole to argue that Richard had in fact escaped death, and that Warbeck genuinely was Richard, a view also supported by the Scottish historian Malcolm Laing.Walpole, however, later retracted his views and stated that he now believed the princes to have been murdered by Richard III to secure his hold on the crown.