Shortly after becoming King in 1483, the 12-year-old Edward V was lodged in the Tower of London to await his coronation. His uncle and Lord Protector, the Duke of Gloucester soon arranged for the young King’s brother, Richard, Duke of York, to join them.
But the day of the coronation never came. Instead, it was announced that the boys were illegitimate – the result of a bigamous marriage – and that their Uncle would reluctantly reign as Richard III. In the weeks that followed the boys were seen playing in the grounds or looking out of windows. But such sightings soon stopped. By the end of the year, they were widely presumed to be dead.
To the minds of many historians, the circumstantial evidence weighs heavily toward Richard’s guilt. He had the motive, means and opportunity. The Princes were in his custody. But if Richard is the most likely candidate, he is hardly the only one. A host of others have been accused of the crime over the past five centuries. Some who have studied the subject, don’t believe the boys died at all. And there is no hard evidence that they did.
No one wants to believe that an uncle could order the death of his nephews. Any alternative theories are going to be attractive. But when we start to scrutinise those on offer, each can, sadly, be found wanting.
Let’s take a quick look at them.
1. The Princes in the Tower were never killed
I would love this to be true. Even 500 years later, the thought of what might have happened to those boys is chilling. Could they have escaped a brutal end? Might they have exchanged sovereignty for survival?
Sadly, I think it’s unlikely. The theories range from Richard stashing the Princes somewhere else to a secret deal between Elizabeth Wydeville and her brother-in-law. Secret identities and alternative careers as construction workers in Colchester are all offered as possibilities.
Others still, argue that someone sympathetic to the Princes managed to smuggle one or both from the Tower to safety. Many would identify the imposter Perkin Warbeck as Richard, Duke of York, believing that the younger boy had somehow escaped his uncle’s custody. Could the man sent to do the deed have taken mercy on him?
The belief that Richard had killed the Princes cost him dear. Some could accept him as King but never tolerate child murder. An unlikely coalition formed against him. The remnants of Lancaster and supporters of his late brother, united against Richard’s reign. Ultimately, they would take his life and his crown at Bosworth Field. Had Richard been able to produce the Princes, this shaky alliance would have fractured immediately.
So why didn’t he? That the boys were dead, and could not therefore be produced, is not the only explanation. But it is, sadly, the most likely one.
One day, we may be allowed to DNA test the bones that were discovered in the Tower in 1674. Should they be identified as those of the Princes, we will at least be sure that they died in the tower in the 1480s.
At the moment, we can’t draw too many conclusions from what we know of the skeletons. But I will say this: the discovery of two skeletons, of children roughly the same age as the Princes in 1483, discovered exactly where Thomas More claimed they were buried, hardly detracts from the argument that the boys met their end that year.
2. The Duke of Buckingham did the deed to frame Richard, or to further his own claim to the throne
To my mind, this is the best alternative theory. It’s certainly peculiar that Buckingham had been Richard’s staunchest supporter until he – somewhat suddenly – decided to spearhead a rebellion. It may have been him that spread the rumours that the Princes were dead. But could he have killed them?
Some say that given his closeness to Richard, he was the only person that could have gained access. I have some sympathy with that. But even in this scenario, the King would have found out pretty sharpish. Surely when he finally got his hands on the Duke, he would have publicly accused him. It would have been the perfect solution for Richard. His rivals would have been eliminated. He would have been free from blame. He would emerge as both legitimate King and grieving Uncle.
3. Seeing an opportunity for her son, Margaret Beaufort had the Princes done away with in 1483
This theory is popular on social media but not entertained by most historians. I’ve blogged about why I think it has little weight elsewhere.
Fundamentally, however much the Countess of Richmond was ambitious for her son, she wouldn’t have had access to the Princes in the Tower. They were guarded by Richard’s men and she had nothing to bribe them with which was more attractive than the rewards offered by service to the King.
4. Henry VII, after his victory at Bosworth, had the Princes murdered
The first Tudor King has regularly been named as an alternative suspect. But there are problems with this. Firstly – and I refer readers to arguments earlier in the article – it relies on the Princes being alive until 1485, something which as I have demonstrated, seems unlikely.
And what about Henry’s reaction to the pretender Perkin Warbeck? Was he convinced that this man wasn’t truly Richard, Duke of York? Some historians believe there was doubt in his mind. A murderer would know the boys were dead. Henry may not have enjoyed that confidence.
5. The boys died of natural causes
Edward V was being visited by a physician while in the Tower (before Richard removed his attendants). Forensic investigations of the skeletons have shown some problems with the elder child’s jaw. I’ve never known anyone die of jaw ache, although it could have been a symptom of something more serious.
But even if the elder boy had died, isn’t it a bit too convenient to think the younger had followed suit? Had this gift been handed to Richard, surely he would have made use of it.
*
In a court of law, it would be unfair to convict someone by process of elimination. The fact that these scenarios are unlikely to have played out, doesn’t make Richard guilty.
DNA testing of the bones may be able to confirm in the boys died in the tower. But even that won’t tell us who killed them. The truth is, we will never know for sure.
But as we begin to scrutinise all the alternative theories, we start to see their limits. While recognising that we cannot be 100% certain, the finger of suspicion inevitable points again toward the man who took both Prince’s into custody, placed them in a high-security prison and, despite damaging rumours of their murder, never produced the boys to counter them.
That man is Richard III.
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Thomas Penn, in his book “The Brothers York: An English Tragedy”, speculates that Bishop Morton had the Duke of Buckingham’s ear when he was in his custody and convinced the Duke he had a claim to the throne himself. This could explain why Buckingham rebelled against Richard III.
Also, while investigating the bones found in Tower precincts during the 17th C., it was explained that Edward V may have had osteomyelitis and it settled in his jaw, causing the king pain and possibly, depression
Thanks – I’ll have to check out the book
While I think RIII innocent of the death of his nephews, I think your arguments are generally correct. But I must disagree on a point or two:
“An unlikely coalition formed against him.”
No. The coalition was almost inevitable once the boys are out of the equation. With them dead, the Yorkist/Woodville claim goes to Elizabeth (of York), an unattached female. The remnants of the Lancastrians had as claimant an unattached male. The marriage was a certainty in those circumstances.
Which means that if Richard III thought about murdering the boys, he would have taken the prospects of such a coalition into consideration. So, a strong reason for leaving the boys alive.
” Had Richard been able to produce the Princes, this shaky alliance would have fractured immediately.”
Right. And he would have known that-so, unlikely to have killed them.
“… the discovery of two skeletons, of children roughly the same age as the Princes in 1483, discovered exactly where Thomas More claimed they were buried, ….”
Wrong. More says the bodies were buried beneath in the Tower, “at the stayre foot, metely depe in the grounde under a great heap of stone.” He does not say they were taken outside the building in which they were murdered.
More then says that Richard didn’t approve of that spot, so he ordered the corpses to be reburied, elsewhere. More then claims that a priest of the Captain of the Tower dug the bodies up and reburied them, in a place only known to him. The priest then died, so could not be questioned.
The skeletons found in 1674 were found well beneath an exterior staircase attached to one of the buildings within the Tower wall. There was no way the bodies of Edward IV’s sons could have been put there without someone noticing. The work would have been public and time-consuming.
“DNA testing of the bones may be able to confirm in the boys died in the tower. ”
Maybe. But much likelier to disprove that. I’d refer you to Annette Carson’s RICHARD III The Maligned King, chapter 10 “Bones of Contention”, for the likelihood that these are not skeletons of Edward V and of Richard of Shrewsbury.
Richard McArthur I agree with all of your points!
Personally I believe that Henry Tudor had a much stronger motive to eliminate the boys than their uncle Richard. As long as the ruling that the boys were illegitimate was intact, Richard´s right to be king could not be disputed. Therefore he had no reasons to kill the boys. He might have deemed it necessary, though, to keep them in custody in order to prevent that they would become pawns of an opposing faction. But as soon as Henry Tudor had won the battle and Richard was killed, Henry had the ruling that the boys were illegitimate, annulled. He did this in order to marry the legitimate daughter of Edward IV and strengthen his own claim. As long as the princes were considered illegitimate, the same would be true of their sister and the marriage would not have been advantageous. However, this chess move of Henry had the unpleasant side effect that the boys would have a stronger claim to the throne than him – if they were still alive. And Henry might have decided to rectify this unfortunate situation quietly.
Even if the disputed bones are really the remains of the princes, we will only be able to eliminate all theories that one or even both of them survived. But it would not tell us who killed them.
I had heard a mumbling of an idea which has always intrigued me. The historian claimed the walls/ window in the prince’s cell which they are known to live in, she to found graffiti. But this started her wondering that if both the boys were boys. Or if the older one was in fact a girl, and had been called a boy in order to claim the crown until a boy came along. I thought this was bonkers, until she backed up her theory with listed items around that time, extra cloth was bought.. and she wondered had the girl hit puberty at 12 she will have started her cycle and development – bring less of a threat was she released, after all no one was looking for a girl?
It’s a theory but sometimes looking outside the box can open options. I guess we will never know.
Fascinating !
When I saw the reconstructed image of RIII , I couldnt believe he did the deed….silly? Yes….but I’ve always loved Richard.
I suggested in my reply to Richard McArthur that Henry Tudor had a much stronger motive than Richard to kill the princes, since the anullment of the illegitimacy ruling , which Henry engineered in order to marry the sister of the princes as a legitimate daughter of Edward IV, also turned the boys into legitimate claimants again. Therefore Henry´s motive is very obvious. The biggest problem with this scenario is that Henry only had access to the boys in the Tower after he had won the battle and Richard was dead. But the boys had not been seen since the late summer of 1483.
The extremely strange aspect of this story is that the boys seemed to have disappeared gradually. It was almost as if they had faded away into the inner realms of the Tower to be never seen again. And even after some time had elapsed, absolutely no one seemed to have an idea what actually happened to the boys – or at least no one with inside knowledge came forward. Not even many years later. And it is also very strange that Henry Tudor never accused Richard III openly of having murdered the princes, although he accused Richard of many other crimes! The historian David Baldwin thinks it is simply impossible that no one knew what had happened to the boys. Two boys don´t just disappear without a trace. If Richard III had ordered the murder, some people must have noticed that the boys were missing! And at least their mother should have eventually made a hue and cry – but she never did – not even after her brother-in-law´s death, when she did not have to fear him anymore. It is also interesting that the two claimants who came forward many years later both claimed to be Richard, the younger prince. Wouldn´t it have been much more straightforward to claim to be the older brother, Edward V? Edward´s claim to the throne would have been far more straightforward because he would have had a direct claim as the successor of his father, while the younger Richard would have needed to establish first that his older brother was dead, in order to make his claim stick. David Baldwin thinks that there might have been an insider tradition that Edward was definitely dead, while Richard might have left the Tower alive. Baldwin constructs a scenario where Edward may have died of natural causes while he was still under the care of his uncle. It is known after all that he has been frequently visited by a physician. IMO it is not at all far fetched that at least one of the boys died naturally. Back then child mortality was very high, and the Tower might not have been the healthiest place for children. We also don´t know how healthy the boys were in the first place when they started to live in the Tower. Richard III might have hesitated for very obvious reasons to admit openly that one or maybe even both boys died while they were under his care. Therefore they simply disappeared without being mentioned again. If both boys died they might have been buried quietly. But if only one of the boys died, the surviving prince – maybe Richard – might have been brought away in order to provide him with a healthier accomodation. David Baldwin thinks that the mother Elizabeth Woodville might have known all the time what had happened to their sons, but she may have prefered to keep quiet for various reasons, and she may have come to an arrangement with her brother-in-law, and keeping silent about little Richard might not have been intended to be a permanent arrangement. But when Richard III was dead and Henry Tudor became king, Elizabeth Woodville would have had very good reasons to conceil that one of her sons – maybe little Richard – was still alive, because the boy would have been a very obvious target for Henry Tudor. It is even possible that little Richard was still living in the Tower when his uncle died, and that he was brought away before Henry Tudor could get hold of him.
As I said already, the disappearance of the princes in the Tower is a very strange case, and less obvious scenarios should be considered, too. I really don´t think that Richard III had a very strong motive to order the murder of his nephews, since it would not have been in his best interest – at least not at the time when the boys seemed to have disappeared. Since the boys had been officially declared to be bastards, Richard´s seat on the throne was secure. But it needs to be explained why the boys were never seen again after the summer of 1483 and why Richard never produced the boys. I think that a scenario where one or maybe even both of the boys died of natural causes deserves more attention. Even the fact that the boys were seen less and less and didn´t play outside anymore could be easily explained with an illness. And fatal illnesses of children were nothing unusual in the budding Tudor aera.
I don´t have the foggiest idea if either Lambert Simnel or Perkin Warbeck could have been the younger brother of Edward V. But at least one of them mut have lied. why didn´t the liar claim to be the older brother? Was there a reason why both claimants said that they were Edward´s younger brother Richard? I think that needs to be explained in order to unravel the mystery.
We also must note that Richard also had a third nephew, teddy, who had a better claim to the throne, being the duke of Clarence son. However I will also point out that his father was executed as a traitor. But my point in all this is simple, he did not kill teddy. Instead he took him into his home. Just a thought .
The problem with the Earl of Warwick is he was always treated differently to the princes. He was never put under the same security is kept from view. So it seems clear that Richard did not consider him a threat in the way that he considered Edward IV’s sons a threat.
A friend of mine theorized that the princes both died of the plague. That would have required an immediate burial and might explain that their mother never publicly accused Richard–or anyone else–of their murder, even after Bosworth Field.
Is there any way of tracking this possibility down?
As ever with this topic, anything is possible. It would just seem very odd indeed if there was no public pronouncement of this.