The Mystery of The Princes in The Tower: A Causal Argument

     In every mystery and/or conspiracy there is lots of room left for cause and effect relationships. In this case specifically, there is a cause for Richard III to have had the princes killed, yet looking at this through a different lens, there are also many causal relationships that would support the claim that Richard III allowed the princes to live. It is important to acknowledge the fact that there are causal arguments on both opposing sides of this mystery, however there is more of a reason to believe that Richard III allowed the princes to live based off of not only research done by scholars and historians over the years but also archaeological, or shall I say lack of archaeological evidence as well. 

     Firstly, let’s acknowledge the fact that the two princes are Richard III’s nephews. This fact in itself would cause anyone to believe that the probability of Richard ordering the murder of these two innocent children is particularly unlikely. Although it is true that Richard was not supportive of his brother’s (King Edward IV) choice of wife, the princes were still his family. The prince’s mother, Elizabeth Woodville, was a widow and a mother already before she had even married King Edward IV. During the time this was almost an unacceptable choice of suitor for the king. However, the two married anyway and went on to have Prince Edward V and his younger brother Richard along with many other children. Since Elizabeth Woodville had these underlying factors against her legitimacy as queen, this in turn would make it unchallenging for Richard to simply declare the princes as bastards after his brother, King Edward IV, died.

  Being that Richard did in fact declare the princes illegitimate on the grounds that King Edward IV was already betrothed to Lady Eleanor Butler before he married the prince’s mother, why would he have any causation to have the princes killed. If they were illegitimate in his eyes, and also parliament under Richard’s influence as well, what threat would two illegitimate children with disgraced claims to the throne pose to him? The fact is that they wouldn’t. Because of both the prince’s young age and their mother, the dowager queen’s unpopularity at court, Richard had the most leverage in this situation to easily lay claim to the throne without murdering his nephews.

     Many scholars could argue the fact that based on the accounts of Sir Thomas More on Richard III, and even Shakespeare’s dramatization of the reign of Richard III, that Richard would have a cause to in fact murder the princes. This is because Richard is portrayed as power hungry in these works. However, as I mentioned in my defining argument, it is extensively speculated that these accounts are Tudor propaganda to smear Richard’s character. Another primary account by Italian Chronicler Dominic Mancini states that the princes were “Withdrawn to the inner apartments of the Tower proper, and day by day began to be seen more rarely behind the bars and windows until at length they ceased to appear altogether. Already there is a suspicion that they have been done away with.” According to the Historic Royal Palaces, Mancini was a minor diplomat in Edward IV’s court between the years of 1482 and 1483. With his role being a diplomat, he recorded what he saw and heard at the royal court. Refuting the foreign diplomat’s claims, things simply heard at court would almost always include foul rumors and gossip. This would cause his records, like those of More and Shakespeare, unable to be proven accurate.

     It is recorded that after the disappearance of the princes, also Richard III’s peak of power, Dowager Queen Elizabeth Woodville (the prince’s mother) came back to court and seemed to have mended relations with King Richard III. Since this had all happened after the princes disappeared, if Richard did have them killed, this would cause it to be extremely unlikely that their mother would travel back to court and face the man who ordered the deaths of her beloved sons. This is another unequivocally pivotal argument supporting the claim that the prince’s lives were spared. 

     Another cause and effect relationship in this case is the discovery of two children’s skeletal remains in the Tower of London. This discovery, that would make the remains seemingly belong to the two princes, caused many to believe that this was finally the missing piece in this greatly debated mystery. However, with the almost immediate internment of the bones, and the re-examination of them in the 1930’s, evidence was provided that could disprove these bones belonging to Prince Edward V and his younger brother Richard. This archaeological variance has caused an even more in depth debate on what happened to them. One point in particular is that the older set of remains (presumed to belong to Prince Edward V) had a disease that affected the jaw and facial features as well, leaving them deformed. The young prince’s doctor had no record of him having any disease that would cause his face to be deformed, and the disease is also said to lead to death as well. We know this is not the case because of records of the elder prince’s appearance, and as I mentioned previously, his physician’s records of his health and wellbeing. This lack of archaeological evidence to defend the claim that the princes were murdered in the tower, causes the claim that they were spared, to be strengthened. 

     Looking at the lines of succession for the English throne, the end results almost always stem from cause and effect relationships within the families that have reigned over the years. In this case, they can be as simple as the death of Edward IV caused Richard to come to London and claim the throne. They can also be as complex as Edward IV marrying Elizabeth Woodville (a widow), caused their son’s claim to the throne to be easily challenged, which in turn caused the princes to be imprisoned, which caused the rise of Richard III, which then caused the War of the Roses, and so on and so forth. A domino effect, some may say. In defense to my claim that the princes were allowed to live, the multitude of causal relationships are conspicuous. 

References

Shakespeare, W. (1593). Richard III: Entire play. http://shakespeare.mit.edu/richardiii/full.html

Leslau, J. (1988, December). The princes in the Tower | Moreana. https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/more.1988.25.2-3.7

More, T. (n.d.). The history of king richard the third – thomas more studies. https://thomasmorestudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Richard_III_English_glossed.pdf

The Princes in the Tower. Historic Royal Palaces. (n.d.). https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/the-princes-in-the-tower/#gs.00nsg9