The Princes in the Tower refers to the mystery surrounding the fate of King Edward V of England and his younger brother, Prince Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York. They were the sons of King Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth Woodville and were 12 and 9 years old, respectively, when their father died in 1483. Their paternal uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, placed them in the Tower of London to prepare for Edward V’s coronation as king. However, before the coronation, Parliament declared the boys illegitimate. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, then became king as Richard III.
It is unknown what happened to the two princes after their last recorded sighting in the Tower. Many believe they were murdered, with some suggesting Richard III ordered the killing to take control of the throne. Their deaths are thought to have occurred in 1483, but no direct evidence exists. Other theories suggest their uncle, Henry Stafford, or future king Henry VII and his mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, might have been involved. Some also believe the princes may have escaped. In 1487, a man named Lambert Simnel claimed to be Prince Richard and was crowned "King Edward VI" in Dublin, though others later said he was the Earl of Warwick. Later, from 1491 to 1497, a man named Perkin Warbeck claimed to be Prince Richard, saying he had fled to Flanders. Some people, including Richard’s aunt, Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, supported Warbeck’s claim.
In 1674, workers at the Tower of London found a wooden box containing two small skeletons under a staircase. At the time, people believed the bones belonged to the princes, but this has never been proven. King Charles II had the bones buried in Westminster Abbey, where they remain today.
Background
On April 9, 1483, King Edward IV died suddenly after being sick for about three weeks. At that time, his son, the new King Edward V, was at Ludlow Castle in Shropshire. King Edward IV’s brother, Richard III (then Duke of Gloucester), was at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire. The Duke of Gloucester learned about Edward’s death around April 15, though he may have been warned earlier about Edward’s illness. He then went to York Minster to publicly say he would support the new king. The Croyland Chronicle recorded that Edward IV had named his brother Gloucester as Lord Protector before his death. However, Edward’s words may not have been followed, as history showed that the Privy Council was not required to obey a dead king’s wishes.
Edward V and Gloucester traveled to London from the west and north, meeting at Stony Stratford on April 29. The next day, Gloucester arrested Edward V’s group, including his uncle, Anthony Woodville, and his half-brother Sir Richard Grey. These men were sent to Pontefract Castle in Yorkshire, where Woodville and Grey were beheaded on June 25. Gloucester then took control of Edward V himself, which led Edward’s mother, Elizabeth Woodville, to take her other son, Prince Richard, and her daughters to sanctuary at Westminster Abbey.
Edward V and Gloucester arrived in London together. Plans for Edward’s coronation continued, but the date was delayed from May 4 to June 25. On May 19, 1483, Edward was placed in the Tower of London, a traditional location for monarchs before coronation. On June 16, his younger brother, Prince Richard, joined him there after leaving sanctuary. At this time, Gloucester (later Richard III) postponed Edward’s coronation indefinitely. On Sunday, June 22, a sermon was given by Dr. Ralph Shaa, the brother of London’s Lord Mayor, at St. Paul’s Cross. The sermon claimed Gloucester was the only true heir of the House of York. On June 25, a group of lords, knights, and gentlemen asked Richard III to become king. Both princes were declared illegitimate by Parliament, a decision confirmed in 1484 by an Act of Parliament called Titulus Regius. This act stated that Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville’s marriage was invalid because Edward had previously promised to marry Lady Eleanor Talbot. Gloucester was crowned King Richard III of England on July 6. Historian Rosemary Horrox described the princes’ illegitimacy as a reason given after the fact to support Richard III’s claim to the throne.
Disappearance
Dominic Mancini was an Italian friar who visited England in the 1480s and was in London during the spring and summer of 1483. He wrote that after Richard III took control of the throne, Edward V and his younger brother, Prince Richard, were moved to the "inner apartments of the Tower" and were seen less and less until they disappeared completely. Mancini recorded that during this time, Edward V was regularly visited by a doctor, who noted that Edward "sought forgiveness for his sins through daily confession and punishment because he believed he was about to die." The Latin term "Argentinus medicus" was first translated as "a Strasbourg doctor," but D.E. Rhodes suggests it might refer to "Doctor Argentine," an English physician named John Argentine. Later, John Argentine worked as provost of King’s College, Cambridge, and as a doctor to Prince Arthur, the eldest son of King Henry VII (Henry Tudor).
There are reports that the two princes were seen playing in the Tower grounds shortly after Prince Richard joined his older brother, but there are no records of them being seen after the summer of 1483. A rescue attempt in late July failed. Their fate remains a mystery.
Many historians believe the princes were murdered, with some suggesting this happened near the end of summer 1483. Maurice Keen says the rebellion against Richard III in 1483 first aimed to rescue Edward V and his brother but later shifted to support Henry Tudor because "Buckingham almost certainly knew the princes were dead." Historian Alison Weir suggests 3 September 1483 as a possible date, but her work has been criticized for relying more on her own ideas than on clear evidence.
Clements Markham believes the princes may have been alive as late as July 1484, citing regulations from Richard III’s household that stated, "the children should be together at one breakfast." James Gairdner, however, argues it is unclear who "the children" refers to, as they may not have been the princes. They could have been Edward, Earl of Warwick, and Edward IV’s two youngest daughters, who were also under Richard’s care.
Several sources mention rumors of the princes’ deaths after their disappearance. These rumors spread in France, where in January 1484, Guillaume de Rochefort, Lord Chancellor of France, urged the Estates General to "take warning" from the princes’ fate, as France’s young king, Charles VIII, was only 13. Early reports, including those from Rochefort, Philippe de Commines, Caspar Weinreich, and Jan Allertz, claimed Richard killed the princes before he took the throne (before June 1483). However, de Commines’ Memoirs (written around 1500) identify the Duke of Buckingham as the person who killed them.
There is no direct evidence that the princes were murdered, and no reliable, independent sources confirm their deaths. Despite this, rumors of their murder spread in France. Before November 2023, only one contemporary account of the princes’ time in the Tower was known: Dominic Mancini’s. Mancini’s account was discovered in 1934 in the Municipal Library in Lille. Later accounts written after Henry Tudor became king are often biased or influenced by Tudor propaganda.
Only Mancini’s account, written in London before November 1483, is contemporary. The Croyland Chronicle and de Commines’ account were written three and seventeen years later, respectively (after Richard III’s death and Henry VII’s reign). Markham, who wrote before Mancini’s account was discovered, argued that some accounts, like the Croyland Chronicle, might have been influenced by John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, to blame Richard III.
William Shakespeare’s play King Richard III (Act IV, scene II) portrays Richard as the murderer. Robert Fabyan’s Chronicles of London, written about 30 years after the princes’ disappearance, also names Richard III as the killer. Thomas More, a Tudor loyalist who grew up in the household of John Morton, an enemy of Richard III, wrote The History of King Richard III around 1513. In this work, More claims Sir James Tyrrell murdered the princes on Richard III’s orders. Tyrrell, a loyal servant of Richard III, confessed to the murder before his execution in 1502. More wrote that Tyrrell’s agents, Miles Forrest and John Dighton, smothered the princes in their beds and buried them "at the stair foot, metely deep in the ground under a great heap of stones," later moving their bodies to a secret location. Historian Tim Thornton suggests Thomas More may have learned details about the murder from the sons of Miles Forrest, who were at court during Henry VIII’s reign. More intended to write about a moral lesson rather than a precise historical account. While More’s story includes some firsthand sources, it is generally based on other accounts.
Holinshed’s Chronicles, written in the late 1500s, also claims Richard III murdered the princes. This account and More’s work were key sources for Shakespeare’s play, which portrays Richard as the killer who orders Tyrrell to murder the boys. Historian A. J. Pollard notes that by the time Holinshed’s Chronicles was written, the "standard and accepted account" of the princes’ deaths had become historical fact, even though it originally reflected propaganda.
Polydore Vergil, in his Anglica Historia (around 1513), also states that Tyrrell was the murderer. He wrote that Tyrrell "rode sorrowfully to London" and carried out the deed reluctantly, as ordered by Richard III. Vergil claims Richard III spread rumors of the princes’ deaths to prevent rebellion.
Bodies
On 17 July 1674, workers repairing the Tower of London uncovered a wooden box containing two small human skeletons. The bones were found buried 10 feet (3.0 meters) beneath the staircase leading to the chapel of the White Tower. These remains were not the first children's skeletons found at the Tower; earlier, two children’s bones had been discovered in an old chamber that had been sealed off. Pollard suggests these earlier bones could also have belonged to the princes. The 1674 bones were linked to the princes because their location partially matched a description by More. However, More also wrote that the princes were later moved to a "better place," which does not match where the bones were found. At the time of Richard III, the staircase where the bones were discovered had not yet been built. One report said the bones were found with "pieces of rag and velvet" around them, which might indicate they belonged to aristocrats. Four years after their discovery, the bones were placed in an urn and, at the order of King Charles II, buried in Westminster Abbey, in the wall of the Henry VII Lady Chapel. A monument designed by Christopher Wren marks the spot where the bones are believed to rest. The Latin inscription on the monument reads: "Here lie interred the remains of Edward V, King of England, and Richard, Duke of York, whose long desired and much sought after bones, after over a hundred and ninety years, were found interred deep beneath the rubble of the stairs that led up to the Chapel of the White Tower, on the 17 of July in the Year of Our Lord 1674."
In 1933, the bones were examined by Lawrence Tanner, an archivist of Westminster Abbey; William Wright, an anatomist; and George Northcroft, president of the Dental Association. By measuring bones and teeth, they concluded the remains belonged to two children of the correct ages for the princes. The bones were found buried carelessly alongside chicken and other animal bones, as well as three rusty nails. One skeleton was larger than the other, but many bones were missing, including part of the smaller jawbone and all the teeth from the larger one. Many bones had been broken by the original workers. The examination was criticized because it assumed the bones were those of the princes and focused only on signs of suffocation, without checking whether the bones were male or female.
No further scientific tests have been done on the bones since 1933, and they remain in Westminster Abbey. DNA analysis has not been attempted, even though it could provide more information. In 2013, a petition on the British government’s website requested DNA testing of the bones, but it was closed before reaching 100,000 signatures, which would have required a parliamentary debate. Pollard notes that even if DNA and carbon dating proved the bones belonged to the princes, it would not explain who or what caused their deaths.
In 1789, workers repairing St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, accidentally discovered and broke into the vault of Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth Woodville. Inside, they found a small adjoining vault containing the coffins of two unidentified children. No examination was done, and the vault was resealed. The tomb was marked with the names of two of Edward IV’s children: George, 1st Duke of Bedford, who died at age 2, and Mary of York, who died at age 14. Both had died before Edward IV. Later, two lead coffins labeled as George Plantagenet and Mary Plantagenet were found elsewhere in the chapel and placed in Edward IV’s vault, but no effort was made to identify the earlier coffins in the tomb.
In the late 1990s, work near Edward IV’s tomb in St. George’s Chapel required excavating the floor to replace an old boiler and create a new repository for future remains. A request was made to examine the two vaults using a fiber-optic camera or to reinspect the lead coffins found in 1810–13. Royal permission was needed to open any royal tomb, so the mystery was left unsolved for future generations. The 2012 discovery of Richard III’s remains sparked renewed interest in re-examining the "two princes," but Queen Elizabeth II did not approve such testing. In 2022, Tracy Borman, joint chief curator of Historic Royal Palaces, stated that King Charles III held a different view and might support an investigation.
Theories
The lack of clear proof about what happened to the princes has led to many different theories. The most common idea is that they were killed around the time they disappeared. Among those who believe they were murdered, many think Richard III, their uncle, was responsible.
Many historians believe Richard III is the most likely person involved in the princes' disappearance for several reasons. Even though the princes were no longer in line to become king, Richard's control over the throne was weak because he had taken it in a way that caused anger among the Yorkist group. People had already tried to save the princes and return Edward V to the throne, showing that their lives were a threat as long as they were alive. The princes could have been used by Richard's enemies as symbols for rebellion. By late 1483, rumors of their deaths were spreading, but Richard never tried to prove they were alive by showing them to the public, which suggests they were already dead. However, he did not stay quiet about the matter. Raphael Holinshed, who wrote Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland in 1577, wrote that Richard "tried to clear his name about the murder of his nephews and spent a lot of money to gain support from others." Richard also did not investigate the princes' disappearance, which would have been in his interest if he was not responsible for their deaths.
At the time the princes were last seen alive, Richard was traveling through the Yorkist heartlands. They were kept in the Tower of London, guarded by his men, and access to them was tightly controlled. It is unlikely they could have been killed without his knowledge. More and Polydore Vergil both named Sir James Tyrrell as the murderer. Tyrrell was an English knight who fought for the Yorkist family. He was arrested by Henry VII's forces in 1502 for supporting another Yorkist claimant. Before his execution, Tyrrell reportedly admitted, under torture, that he had killed the princes at Richard III's order. The only record of this is from Thomas More, who wrote that Tyrrell confessed to the murders and said Richard III ordered them. Tyrrell also named two other people, but he could not say where the princes' bodies were, claiming they had been moved by Brackenbury. William Shakespeare later portrayed Tyrrell as the murderer, as ordered by Richard after Buckingham refused to help. Alison Weir and Hicks believe Tyrrell's career and quick rise after 1483 support the idea he killed the princes. However, the only record of Tyrrell's confession is through More, and no actual written confession has ever been found. Pollard questions the accuracy of More's account, suggesting it might be based on other stories. Clements Markham thought More's account was actually written by Archbishop Morton and that Tyrrell was forced by Henry VII to kill the princes. A recently discovered will from 1516, belonging to Tyrrell's sister-in-law, mentions a gold chain that may have belonged to Edward V, possibly his official chain. This has renewed interest in More's story.
Many people at the time believed Richard III was guilty. George Cely, Dominic Mancini, John Rous, Robert Fabyan's Chronicle of London, the Croyland Chronicle, and the London Chronicle all recorded the princes' disappearance. Most of these sources repeated rumors that Richard was their murderer. Guillaume de Rochefort, France's chancellor, told the Estates General in 1484 that Richard was responsible. Elizabeth Woodville, the princes' mother, later supported Henry Tudor against Richard, possibly because Richard had promised to protect her children.
Many modern historians, including David Starkey, Michael Hicks, Helen Castor, and A. J. Pollard, believe Richard III was most likely responsible. There was no formal accusation against Richard III about the princes' disappearance. However, the Bill of Attainder passed by Henry VII accused Richard of "shedding infant's blood," which may refer to the princes' murder. Hicks suggested this phrase could relate to speeches in Parliament that condemned Richard for killing the princes, showing his guilt was widely known.
Some historians, like Paul Murray Kendall, think Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, might have been responsible. Buckingham was Richard's close ally, but he was executed in 1483 after rebelling against him. Some believe Buckingham had motives, as he was a descendant of Edward III and might have wanted to claim the throne. A Portuguese document from the time suggests Buckingham was responsible, claiming the princes were handed to him and starved to death. A later document found in the College of Arms archives also mentions Buckingham's involvement, though it was written years after the princes' disappearance.
Impact
The political situation regarding the disappearance of the princes, no matter what actually happened to them, was that people believed they were murdered, and Richard was held responsible for their deaths. Even if he had not directly caused their deaths, the fact that he had removed them from power and kept them under strict watch made him accountable for their safety in the eyes of people at the time. The belief that they were murdered made Richard appear guilty. Baldwin supported the idea that Richard likely did not murder the princes by saying, "It seems unlikely Richard thought killing his nephews would help him gain support or be accepted by his people." An uprising in September 1483, aimed at removing Richard and restoring Edward V to the throne, did not stop because of rumors that Edward had been killed. Instead, the rebels chose Henry Tudor as a possible leader; Horrox noted that Tudor was "an unlikely choice if Edward V and his brother were still alive."
Anthony Cheetham, who believed Richard likely murdered the princes, said this was "a huge mistake. Nothing else could have caused the weakened Woodvilles to join Henry Tudor’s group." The fact that most rebels were wealthy and powerful southern nobles, loyal to Edward IV, suggests they strongly opposed Richard’s taking the throne by force. Their willingness to fight under an unlikely leader shows they preferred anyone over Richard as king because of his takeover and the belief that he had killed his nephews. Bennett suggested that some who had supported Richard in taking power may have felt responsible for the crime, which he thought "might explain the strong blame and accusations against him later." Hicks believed these men may have been "shocked by Richard’s actions and the nature of his rule." Their support for Richard weakened, forcing him to place his northern allies in southern areas to control the region, a move that was unpopular and worsened his reputation. Pollard stated, "The belief that Richard killed his nephews seriously hurt his ability to hold onto the throne he had taken by force."
In popular culture
The mystery of the Princes in the Tower has led to popular books, such as Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time and four books in Philippa Gregory's Cousins' War series. Historians and novelists continue to be interested in this mystery.