Seven Medieval historians give their verdict on one of history’s most divisive conundrums
Contributors
Derek Wilson
“If the princes were killed, it has always seemed strange and risky to me that the murderers would go to the trouble of burying their bodies in situ”
John Ashdown-Hill
“What need would a man who had been legitimately proclaimed king have to murder two young bastards?”
Michael Hicks
“The Princes in the Tower were killed by order of Richard III in 1483”
Josephine Wilkinson
“A rumour that the princes were dead, spread for propaganda purposes, developed into certainty that they had been murdered”
Alison Weir
“Richard had the motive, the means and the best opportunity for doing away with them; and they were never seen again”
Matthew Lewis
“For centuries, the argument has raged over who murdered the Princes in the Tower, but what if the question we should be asking is whether they died during Richard III’s reign at all?”
A J Pollard
“Richard III was probably responsible for the deaths of the Princes in the Tower”
The background
What do we know about the months leading up to the princes’ disappearance?
“The king is dead. Long live the king!” But which king? The year is 1483 and the mighty Edward IV has died, but the succession crisis that now consumes the English monarchy will ultimately destroy the House of York and create a notorious mystery that remains unsolved to this day.
The timing of Edward IV’s death was unfortunate, but the situation was not entirely desperate. Although he had died prematurely aged only 40, he had left a kingdom that was finally at peace after years of dynastic conflict. Edward had been a powerful warrior who had managed to destroy the House of Lancaster not once but twice. He had even managed to regain his throne after being forcibly exiled in 1471. By 1483, Edward had developed a prosperous kingdom and firmly established the House of York as the ruling dynasty. He even had two legitimate male heirs in Edward, Prince of Wales and Richard, Duke of York.
However, all was not as it appeared. The princes were legitimate, but their mother was Elizabeth Woodville, a beautiful but relatively low-born member of the English aristocracy. The rise of her family had created resentment among the king’s remaining family, who regarded them as upstarts. The most prominent enemy of the Woodvilles was the king’s surviving brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester.
The 12-year-old Prince Edward was at Ludlow when his father died on 9 April 1483, but the king had intended for his son to have a swift coronation and a date was set for 4 May. The proclaimed but uncrowned Edward V set out for London with companions including his half-brother, Sir Richard Grey, and uncle, Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers. They were intercepted at Stoney Stratford in Buckinghamshire by Gloucester, who took his nephew and arrested Rivers and Grey. The duke accus
