Other historians have been more sceptical. John A. Wagner states that "most modern historians believe the precontract to be a fabrication devised to give Richard III's usurpation a veneer of legitimacy. The betrothal cannot be documented beyond the account rehearsed in "Titulus Regius", and Richard never attempted to have the precontract authenticated by a church court, the proper venue for such a case". Anne Crawford takes the view that any actual precontract with Eleanor Talbot is unlikely. If it had occurred before her marriage to Thomas Butler it would have been invalidated by the marriage. She suggests that the story may have originated with discussions between Edward's father Richard, Duke of York, and Eleanor's father John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, of a possible marriage, while both men were serving in France. But even that "seems hardly likely". Any valid precontract would most likely have been made in the early phase of Edward's reign, but the fact that Eleanor did not come forward when Edward married his queen militates against it. She also considers it odd that Eleanor's family did not support Richard's claims about the precontract. Since Edward was "not stupid enough" to have been unaware that any precontact would threaten his children's claim to the throne, if it had existed he could easily have applied to the Pope to free himself of it, which would have been the action of "any prudent king and his advisors". Michael Alexander argues that a precontract of marriage to Eleanor Talbot would not have affected the legitimacy of Edward's sons, since they were born after she died, her death negating any marriage.