Assassinated by their uncle or miraculously escaped one night? - Philippa Langley's thoughts on the Princes in the Tower mystery

King Edward V and the Duke of York (Richard) in the Tower of London (Paul Delaroche, Louvre Museum, 1830).

Edward V, King of England, and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, were born to Edward IV, King of England, and his wife Elizabeth Woodville. They married in secret, which rattled the court. Edward and Elizabeth had a total of ten children, seven daughters and three sons. Their daughter Elizabeth of York would go on to marry Henry Tudor, later Henry VII, King of England, making her the first queen of the newly founded Tudor dynasty.

A marriage was being arranged for Edward IV with a French princess, which clearly did not happen. Queen Elizabeth Woodville was not liked at court and they accused her of witchcraft. Anne Boleyn would also be accused of witchcraft in an attempt to discredit her. Elizabeth had arranged advantageous marriages for her sisters with her elevated status. This also did not sit right at court. Isabel and Anne Neville would see a smaller pool in marriage prospects as a result which angered their father.

Edward IV passed away in 1483 aged only forty-one. It is possible he passed from pneumonia or typhoid. He left his brother Richard (later Richard III) as Lord Protector of his son Edward, aged twelve. With the death of his father, Edward was meant to become Edward V, King of England. Edward V was at Ludlow when he heard the news of his father’s death. He travelled to London accompanied by his maternal uncle, Earl Rivers from his mother’s first marriage to Sir John Grey.

Richard was not told of Edward IV’s death immediately for strategic reasons. With his death, Elizabeth Woodville was now vulnerable at court with very little allies. Elizabeth and her children took sanctuary at Westminster sensing the unstable climate. They arrived at Westminster in April of 1483. Elizabeth had her daughters and her younger son, Richard in her care.

As Lord Protector, Richard, who already had Edward in his care, convinced an initially unwilling Elizabeth to release Richard to him under the guise of attending his brother's coronation. She would never see her sons again. Richard already had Edward at the Tower of London. This initially was not seen as unusual as monarchs would prepare for their coronation at the Tower. They were young and needed to be protected as heirs to the throne.

Edward’s coronation was scheduled for June 22^nd 1483. At this point his mother had been in sanctuary for about two months along with his other siblings. By mid-June, the boys were declared illegitimate by the government (on Richard’s authority) on circumstantial evidence at best. With Edward’s son's claim discredited, Richard was next in line. On July 6th, Richard was crowned Richard III in a joint coronation with his wife, Anne Neville. Richard had Earl Rivers and Richard Grey, one of Elizabeth Woodville’s two sons from her first marriage, sent to the north of England and later executed.

Sir Thomas More had written an unfinished biography on Richard III about thirty years after the events. More was a Tudor loyalist, working for Henry VIII. Richard was portrayed as a villain in More’s account, ordering the boys murder by servants. The most popular theory is that they were murdered, but by who remains up for debate.

The princes would be seen from time to time together in the Tower. They grew up largely apart, as Edward was the next heir to the throne and Richard was raised alongside his sisters as the second son, so this would be the first time they would be spending time together. They had not seen their mother or sisters in months, something that must have upset them deeply. Late summer of 1483 was the last time the boys were seen as Dr Alison Weir offers a possible date of early September as the point where it may have been ‘obvious’ that Edward and his brother were deceased as there were no other reported sightings of either of them following summer 1483.

In the late 1490s, Queen Isabella of Castile entered into a diplomatic alliance with Henry VII through a message conveyed by Geoffrey de Sasiola. However, she would not allow her daughter Katherine to leave for England to marry Arthur Tudor unless the regime was stable. There could be no threat to her daughter’s future throne and therefore any threat to the Tudor throne through imposters or rivals with a possible claim to the throne had to be dealt with immediately. It is possible she felt some distrust and uneasiness about the new Tudor king, understandably.

There are four main suspects in the probable murder of the princes: Richard III, Henry Stafford, John Howard, and James Tyrell.

Richard is seen by most as the prime suspect in the murder of the princes. Whether he did it himself or it was done on his order, it is likely he was involved. He had locked the princes in the Tower of London, declared them illegitimate and crowned himself king. They were clearly a threat to his unstable power.

Henry Stafford was once Richard’s right-hand man. Later he had a falling out with Richard and was executed for treason. John Howard was a loyal friend to Richard III. He had custody of the Tower when the princes disappeared. After their disappearance, he gained young Richard’s estate and title. Howard clearly had something to gain with the disappearance of the boys. Richard III and Howard had a monumental rise in status with their disappearance. Stafford as Richard’s right-hand man, he would likely be the one given the order.

James Tyrell is known for allegedly confessing to the murder of the princes on order of Richard III. On May 2nd, 1502 Tyrell was tried at Guildhall with John Wyndham, Wellsbourne and a sailor for an “unspecified treason.” They were condemned to death. Tyrell and Wyndham were beheaded on Tower Green. The sailor was hung, drawn, and quartered due to his lower rank; he was not afforded the more merciful death of beheading.

Henry VII and his mother Margaret Beaufort are also mentioned as suspects, but this is highly implausible as neither Henry or Margaret had access to the princes nor was there a motive considering Margaret Beaufort was allied with Elizabeth Woodville on the prospect of their children marrying and joining the two feuding houses.  

On August 22^nd 1485 was the Battle of Bosworth Field. Henry VII returned from his long exile in Brittany and faced Richard III in battle. Henry was victorious while Richard was killed in the battle. As mentioned above, Elizabeth Woodville had been working with Margaret Beaufort to marry her daughter Elizabeth to Margaret’s son Henry as Elizabeth held a strong hatred towards Richard III after he ‘usurped’ her sons. Henry VII, shortly after the battle, married Elizabeth of York, ending the tumultuous Wars of the Roses.

In 1674, King Charles II ordered the demolition of what remained of the royal palace to the south of the White Tower. Beneath the foundation of the remains of a privy staircase leading into St. John’s Chapel, ten feet below ground, workers found a wooden chest containing two skeletons. It was concluded at the time that these were the skeletons of the children. Charles II arranged for their reburial at Westminster Abbey a few years after the discovery.

In 1933 the skeletons were forensically re-examined and it was concluded that they belonged to two boys possibly aged ten to twelve. This matches the ages the boys would have been at the time. Richard was nine and Edward was twelve at the time of their disappearance, and the apparent hastiness of the burial would align with the boys being secretly and quietly murdered.

The urn was opened in the presence of the Society of Antiquaries among others. In addition to the bones, the urn contained three rusty nails and fine dust. The skeletons being found on the grounds of the Tower of London in the location that they were matches up with Thomas More’s account that the bodies were buried “at the stair foot, meetly deep in the ground” [1]. Although More also states in his work that the bodies were removed to another place. Unfortunately, he never revealed this secondary location.

The way the urn was buried several steps would have had to be removed. This would have been quite a noisy and time-consuming endeavour. It has been suggested that the box was uncovered at the foot of the steps and not several feet underground. The teeth found were examined by Dr. George Northcroft. His opinion was that the teeth matched the ages the boys would have been in 1483. It is hard to ascertain the sex of skeletons before puberty, so it is difficult to judge whether the skeletons were even male.

Unfortunately, not much information can be ascertained from the examination of the skeletons. It is unclear as to when they died, cause of death and the possible age margin is several years. This does not discount the discovery of the box containing the skeletons in 1674. While much of the information is circumstantial, it is still valuable.

Philippa Langley who spearheaded the search and ultimate discovery of Richard III’s remains after hundreds of years also has started ‘The Missing Princes Project’ regarding the Princes in the Tower. From the website:

“The Missing Princes Project is a Cold Case History investigation employing the same principles and practices as a modern police investigation… The modern investigation is employing forensic analysis of the people and events surrounding the disappearance of the sons of Edward IV to open exciting new lines of investigation. At the same time, the project is initiating searches for neglected archival material in the UK and overseas" [2].

Philippa has also written a book published in 2023, ​​The Princes in the Tower: How History's Greatest Cold Case Was Solved. In the book she goes into detail about her new initiative after discovering Richard’s remains “The Missing Princes Project” and the project's findings. The book is split into five parts chronicling the investigation.

Resources:

1. Audrey Williamson, The Mystery of the Princes (Gloucestershire: Amberley, 2010), 184.

2. https://revealingrichardiii.com/langley.html

3. https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/the-princes-in-the-tower/