Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York, are best-known in history as “the Princes in the Tower” since the 15th Century. Their deaths still remain a great mystery.
Twelve-year-old Edward V was proclaimed King on 11 April 1483, two days after his father’s death. Edward IV died unexpectedly after he caught a chill from a fishing trip. Edward IV’s trusted brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was named as Lord Protector.
Edward was intelligent, a good learner and possessed the abilities of a successful king had he lived. His mother was a major influence during the 1470s until he left for Wales.
Edward lived at Ludlow Castle, as Prince of Wales, under his uncle’s guardianship.
King of England
His mother, Elizabeth Wydville, sent a message to her brother, Earl Rivers, to bring Edward V to London immediately. Other Wydville relatives seized the treasury, secured the Tower of London and prepared defences in case of a military assault. Elizabeth planned to exclude her brother-in-law Richard from the new regime.
Preparations began for Edward’s coronation in May.
Lord Hastings sent a message to the Duke of Gloucester informing him of his brother’s death and the Wydvilles’ actions.
Richard loathed the Wydvilles because they shamelessly used their connections with the Queen to acquiring wealth and titles.
He travelled south after he swore loyalty to the new king.
However, Richard intercepts Edward en-route to London.
The Queen sought refuge in Sanctuary at Westminster Abbey with her children once Richard took charge. Earl Rivers was later arrested and sent to the Tower.
New kings went to the Tower of London prior to their coronation, including Edward V. Richard, Duke of York, soon joined his brother.
Deposed
Richard then revived an old rumour Edward IV was secretly contracted to marry Eleanor Butler, and his marriage to Elizabeth Wydville was null and void. All parties involved were now dead and unable to protest.
On 22 June, Parliament decreed Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Wydville invalid and their children were illegitimate.
Edward was deposed on 25 June 1483. Richard of Gloucester was proclaimed king.
Vanished
The two princes’ servants were dismissed in June. They were last seen playing in the Tower’s gardens until July 1483. They were never seen again.
Thomas More and Shakespeare circulated propaganda which destroyed Richard III’s reputation. Edward and his brother were allegedly smothered in their sleep by Sir James Tyrrell. (He later confessed under torture in 1502.)
Elizabeth Wydville believed they were already dead when she plotted to marry her eldest daughter to Margaret Beaufort’s son.
No one searched for their bodies at the time. No funeral was held.
The plot thickens …
Workmen found two bodies—assumed to be the princes—in 1674. They were reburied in Westminster Abbey on Charles II’s orders.
George V granted permission for the bones to be re-examined using improved medical technology. Dr Lawrence E Tanner (an eminent physician, archivist and Keeper of the Monuments in Westminster Abbey) and Professor William Wright (a dental surgeon) examined the bones in 1933. They were unable to identify the sex and age of the bones but they estimated they belonged to children aged twelve to thirteen and nine to eleven years.
Yet there were too many coincidences between the missing princes and the bones. The experts believed the princes were murdered in 1483.
The Richard III Society unsuccessfully applied several times to obtain royal permission to exhume the bodies for further tests to prove his innocence.
Scientific advances since 1933 could now establish the sex and ages of the bodies. Or compare DNA from Edward IV’s body at Windsor.
No experts could determine the cause of death or their murderer’s identity. Richard III remains the chief suspect although it can never be proved.
The Duke of Buckingham and Henry VII, no doubt, also wanted the princes dead because they were a threat.
Sources
Cunningham, Sean, Richard III: A royal enigma, The National Archives, Richmond, 2003
Erickson, Carolly, Royal Panoply, St Martin’s Press, New York, 2003
Hilliam, David, Kings, Queens, Bones and Bastards, Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 1998
Lewis, Brenda Ralph, Kings & Queens of England: Murder, Mayhem, and Scandal–1066 to the Present Day, Reader’s Digest, Pleasantville NY, 2003
Ormrod, W M, The Kings & Queens of England, Tempus, Stroud, 2001 (Reprinted 2004)
Starkey, David, Monarchy: From the Middle Ages To Modernity, HarperCollins Publishers, London, 2006
Weir, Alison, The Princes in the Tower, Pimlico (an imprint of Random House), London, 1992
© 2008 Carolyn M Cash
This article was originally published by Suite 101 on 1 October 2008.
