The Survival of The Princes in the Tower:
a Thorough Examination of the Innocence of Richard III

Over the course of these three thousand words, I am going to be dissecting a mystery that has been plaguing the minds of historians and scholars alike for centuries. According to Shakespeare’s play Richard III, King Richard ordered the slaying of the princes in the tower because they had a true claim to the throne he had usurped. Now, given lack of evidence to this claim there has been much speculation as to what happened to the princes in the tower. Although this is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries in history, not many people are too familiar with this case. The English monarchy has always been at odds in terms of the succession of the throne. In this case, we are traveling back to the reign of Edward IV. Edward IV belonged to the house of York, and with his wife Elizabeth Woodville, he had two sons, Edward V, and Richard of Shrewsbury. These two boys would go on to be known as the princes who were imprisoned in the tower of London.

After the death of Edward IV, his brother Richard (who will later be known as King Richard III) descended into London and usurped the throne, which rightfully belonged to King Edward IV’s eldest son Edward V. After this, King Edward’s two young sons were locked up in the tower of London, never to be seen again. This is where the intricate web of the mystery starts to weave itself because in reality, the princes only had two options for their fate: exile or death. Many people seem to believe that Richard had them murdered to strengthen his claim to the throne, whereas others believe that he stripped them of all titles, spared their lives in secrecy, and allowed them to live out their days in exile under aliases.  

Both murder and exile are possible, and of course able to be argued for or against, but the most sensible aspect to look at this from is, which theory is more plausible. Looking at this case from the perspective of presuming the princes were murdered, the only really solid motive for this is that it rids Richard of the true heirs to the crown, strengthening his claim to usurp his nephew’s rightful throne. This also eliminates any possibility of those boys producing heirs that could threaten the succession even to this day. Looking at this from the perspective that he allowed the boys to live, the case you can make for this is that it allows Richard to avoid murdering his nephews, and it would also snuff out any wave of rebellion against Richard from those who loved Edward IV and his sons.

With that being said, in every mystery and/or conspiracy that involves murder and or disappearances, there is always at least two things: motives, and suspects. In this case specifically, there is a cause for Richard III (our prime suspect in both theories) 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. For example, on the theory that the princes were murdered, there is faith placed in the claim that because Richard III had his sights set on the throne, he murdered his nephews in cold blood. The throne and the power that comes with it would act as a motive for murder in this case. However, on the theory that the princes were spared, there is faith placed in the claim that because the princes were Richard III’s nephews, he did not have them killed. Human decency and not desiring to kill members of his family would act as Richard’s motive to spare the princes. The difference between the two is, there is exiguous evidence of the prince’s deaths, and the scarce evidence that is linked to the princes does not have a solid foundation to stand on. Most importantly, the refusal of the crown to further investigate what could have happened to these two young princes provides uncertainty that Richard ordered their deaths.

Let’s again acknowledge the fact that the two princes are Richard III’s nephews, His brother King Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth Woodville’s children. 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. As I’ve said previously the cause for this would be ordinary human decency and also not possessing a particular proclivity to order the slaying of one’s own kin. 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 had many children including the princes in the tower. Although Richard seemed stagnant on this issue while his brother Edward IV was still alive, upon his death the question of the legitimacy of their marriage created a window of opportunity for Richard to seize power. Since Elizabeth Woodville had these underlying factors against her legitimacy as queen, upon his brother Edward IV’s death and along with the presumable public favor, this in turn would make it unchallenging for Richard to simply declare the princes as bastards and exile them. And what threat would two bastard boys pose to Richard III that would be salient enough to have them killed?

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, there would be no cause to have them killed. If they were illegitimate in his eyes, and also parliament under Richard’s influence as well, there is simply no threat that two illegitimate children with disgraced claims to the throne could pose to him. 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 be able to easily lay claim to the throne without murdering his nephews. His brother Edward’s unfavorable marriage perhaps provided him with the most motive to dismiss the boys without bloodshed.

However, let’s agree for a short while that the princes were in fact murdered. Why would Richard III order their deaths when the majority of England were in favor of his brother Edward IV and his sons, the princes in the tower. If there was anyone who had more of a motive to murder these two boys, it would be Margaret Beaufort. The biggest motive for this would be for her to have men she is in alliance with murder the boys and put the blame on Richard, casting him out of the favor of England. For context, Margaret Beaufort was the mother of Henry VII, King of England who defeated Richard III in battle and ascended the throne. Margaret lived at court while Richard III was king. This meant she had a closer than most access to the tower of London, where the princes were being held. During this time, her son Henry VII is plotting an attack against Richard. So Margaret, using her piety to shroud her devious ways, and being the devout mother that she was, would of course want to clear the path even further than just Richard for her son Henry to win the throne. If Henry defeated Richard in battle, and the princes were left alive, he would still have the princes and their supporters to deal with. Margaret was known for her schemes and political skills so if the princes were murdered it was not at the hands of Richard III, but the Tudor matriarch who betrayed the house of York to place her son on the throne.

Adding on, Sir Thomas More and other important figures from this time have written accounts stating that the princes were murdered, but most of these were not written until after the fall of Richard III. With that being said many scholars who support the belief that the princes were not murdered, say that most of these accounts are simply Tudor propaganda post the War of the Roses and the defeat of Richard III by Henry Tudor (Henry VII). Another possible seed of Tudor propaganda is Shakespeare’s play Richard III. It portrays Richard as deceitful, manipulative, and bloodthirsty to be king. Both of these works support the claim that the princes were murdered. However, as I have previously mentioned, they were written by two men who were not in favor of Richard III and had no issues slandering his name, especially in favor of the Tudor king they were ruled under who could have very well ended their lives if they went against him. I can support this claim because Shakespeare actually pulled most of his inspiration for writing this play from the accounts of Sir Thomas More, which have no fact other than hearsay supporting them. Sir Thomas More’s accounts of how Richard III was in terms of his traits and behaviors, and how he ordered the deaths of the princes in the tower, is highly speculated to be Tudor propaganda as well. He served Henry VIII (a Tudor monarch) as Lord High Chancellor of England from 1529 – 1532. This alone would mean any accounts of the Yorkist King Richard written by More, are unequivocally biased being that the House of Tudor and the House of York (Richard III’s house) did not get along. 

Many scholars could argue the fact that based on these accounts of Sir Thomas More on Richard III, and Shakespeare’s dramatization of the reign of Richard III, that Richard would have a cause to in fact murder the princes. 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 cannot be emphasized upon enough that Shakespeare and Sir Thomas More were not omniscient. Shakespeare was born close to one hundred years after the death of Richard III, and Sir Thomas More was a boy of only seven years upon the death of Richard III. With that being said, why would any scholar not question the legitimacy of the content of their writings and accounts of Richard III? Many historians have this picture of Richard III in their minds as a cruel, calloused, power hungry usurper who ordered the murder of his own nephews, the princes in the tower. However, there is simply no way of proving this, unless any devout readers hold truths to the works I’ve previously mentioned written by men ruled under monarchs who bear the name Tudor. The Tudors destroyed Richard in the battle at Bosworth Field and put an end to the York reign. This alone is enough to claim that they would not want any recorded history of Richard being a good and just ruler. 

It is also 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. We have to think about Elizabeth’s motive in this situation as well. Is it possible that she returned to court and mended relations in the public eye to quell any rebellions on behalf of her late husband Edward IV and their sons only if Richard had promised to spare the princes? This very well may be. Elizabeth’s seemingly painless return to the English court is another unequivocally pivotal argument supporting the claim that the prince’s lives were spared. 

An argument that could be the most compelling piece of evidence is the fact that to this day the truth about the princes has not come out to the public. The late Queen Elizabeth II’s refusal to allow further investigation into this case should make people wonder why. Why are two medieval princes still relevant to the crown today? They would hold no relevance if they were murdered. However, if they were allowed to live, and went on to marry, and produced their own heirs, they would have created a lineage that could still be alive today. And if that is the case, which I wholeheartedly believe it is, the entire line of succession in the English Monarchy today would be thrown out of order. Living heirs of the princes would mean total and utter chaos for the English Crown today. According to The Telegraph “Previous correspondence suggests that the Church of England, backed by the Queen, refused DNA testing on the grounds that it could set a precedent for testing historical theories that would lead to multiple royal disinterments.”

With that being said, another pivotal point that adds legitimacy to this argument is the discovery of the prince’s bones. In 1674, two sets of skeletal remains were found under a staircase in the Tower of London. King Charles II proclaimed that these bones belonged to the princes in the tower and they were almost immediately laid to rest in an urn in Westminster Abbey. It seems very suspicious that the bones were identified with extreme haste in order to “close” a case that still to this day leaves the world pondering an answer. However, in 1933 the bones were exhumed for archaeological analysis. They did in fact find that the bones belonged to two children about the same age as the princes, but they couldn’t determine the sex based off of the remains. This in itself aids the theory that their lives were possibly spared. The older child’s bones (presumed to belong to Edward V) showed evidence of an aggressive bone disease that would leave one’s face incredibly deformed, and the disease also has a high probability of leading to death. This evidence would show on the princes face eventually while he was still alive. Not only do records of the prince’s physical features exhibit no claims of anything of this nature, but also Prince Edward V’s doctor has no record of the prince having any such disease. This fact alone is enough to determine that these bones have little to almost no probability of belonging to the princes in the tower and could possibly explain the royal family’s reluctance towards further investigation.

This discovery 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 would almost certainly 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 and the overall 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. 

Along with the fact that the monarchy is clearly hiding something from desirous historians and academics alike, there is the solution that if scientists were allowed to do further research, carbon dating analyses, and also extensive DNA testing on these bones, we would have a simple and true answer to if these bones belonged to the princes, and if so, what the most likely cause of death was. As of right now, scientists do not have access to do this, so the minimal evidence that is given must be used to ascertain the most logical fate of the princes, which is that Richard declared the princes illegitimate and spared their lives. The bones that were discovered near a staircase in the Tower of London were not even concluded to be those of two young boys as I have previously mentioned. They could have very well been two female child skeletons for all that we know, or two commoner male child skeletons. Another interesting point in the favor of my thesis is that if Richard did want all the power for himself and he was callous and cruel, wouldn’t he present the bodies of the princes to the people if he did murder them? To snuff out his brother’s entire line of succession and those who support it? It was a common thing in medieval times for the bodies of dead traitors or enemies to be put on display or placing traitors heads on spikes by the tower gates as well. Why would Richard as he is portrayed by More and Shakespeare leave anything up to the imagination when it came to his enemies? Why would he give the princes’ supporters that glimmer of hope that they are still alive? The Richard so cruelly and unfairly portrayed in history would not have done those things.

Although refused, there have been requests made to exhume the bones again for further DNA and carbon dating analyses. The English Monarchy would most certainly benefit from the simple explanation that Richard III had the princes murdered. What could these hundreds of years old bones tell us that could jeopardize anything of relevance to the crown? Members of the royal family, both alive and recently deceased, have a deeper insight than most historians and academics as to what happened to Edward V and his little brother Richard. King Charles has been quoted to be supportive of further exploration into this mystery whereas we know his mother Queen Elizabeth II, contrasted this entirely. An interesting theory I think could be entirely true is that maybe Queen Elizabeth was reluctant to divulge information about this case because the princes lives were in fact spared and they went on to have children (heirs), that would challenge the claim to the throne even to this day if there are any living descendants of the two princes. This in itself is a big enough challenge to the theory that they were murdered because there is no other reason for Queen Elizabeth to refuse further investigation of this case unless the uncovered truths could put her, her family, and their positions at risk. Say Edward IV died when his son Edward V was older, old enough to become king, would key historical events like the rise of Richard III and the War of the Roses even have happened? And if that’s the case, it would have affected the entire lineup of succession to the throne even to this day. Those who possess a proclivity towards knowledge of the history of the rivalry between the houses of Tudor and York need not be told how it highlights every claim in regards to the fate of the princes in the tower.

The evidence in this case I have thus provided is conspicuous. There really are no solid facts that would uphold the claim that Richard murdered his nephews, the princes in the tower. This theory in itself also is one that provides no intrigue. Sure, claiming that “treacherous” Richard III ordered the deaths of his brother’s beloved little boys would emit scandal and shock, but the theory that he allowed them to live, provides a different insight into the character of Richard III. Queen Elizabeth II’s refusal for further investigation, the degenerative bone disease found on the eldest skeleton that did not match any health or physical attributes of the princes, their mother Elizabeth of Woodville’s return to court after their disappearance, and Margaret Beaufort’s ambitions, all hold enough power to disprove More and Shakespeare’s accounts of Richard and any other vicious account of him thereof, that he murdered the princes in the tower.

References

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

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

Brain, J. (2023, November 21). Lady Margaret Beaufort. Historic UK. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Lady-Margaret-Beaufort/

Ward, V. (14 Oct. 2022) Mystery of Princes in the Tower Could Finally Be Solved – with Help from King Charles. The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group www.telegraph.co.uk/royal-family/2022/10/14/king-charles-rumoured-want-mystery-princes-tower-solved/

The mystery of the princes in the tower. TheCollector. (2021, November 3).  https://www.thecollector.com/princes-in-the-tower-mystery/

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

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