Before he died, Edward IV listed his brother, Richard of Gloucester, as “Lord Protector of the realm,” meaning he would rule England until Edward V reached maturity.
Richard, who has been cast as a villain throughout history, “was king in all but name,” explained Tracy Borman, author of “Crown and Sceptre.” She noted that the role may have fueled anger, giving him motive to order Edward’s murder and seize the throne for himself.
When news of his father’s death came, Edward V was escorted to London by his maternal uncle, Lord Rivers, while his paternal uncle, Richard, was kept in the dark about his brother’s passing. Historians believe this was because Edward’s mother, Elizabeth Woodville, wanted her son’s ascension to the throne to be cemented before Richard discovered the king had died.
Once Richard learned of the death, he intercepted the royal entourage and had Rivers arrested and eventually executed. Woodville went into hiding at Westminster Abbey, feeling increasingly unsafe after her husband’s passing.
Edward V’s coronation was scheduled for June 22, 1483. Preparations for the event were underway, with the royal mint producing coins to mark the new monarch’s ascension to the throne. But ahead of the event, Edward was sent to the Tower of London along with his 9-year-old brother, Richard, Duke of York, who would have been next in line to the throne.
“Initially, there was no cause for concern,” Borman said, explaining that it was tradition for the monarch to spend time at the tower before the coronation procession. Richard said the brothers, vulnerable as young royals, would be treated as guests and protected at the tower.
At first, the boys were seen shooting arrows and playing outside, but that changed as the coronation neared.
“Gradually during the summer after their father’s death, they were seen less and less, and by the end of the summer, they had disappeared,” Borman said.
Coronation plans also began to slow, when evidence was given in court that the late king Edward IV had a premarital contract — meaning his relationship with Woodville, the mother of the two princes, was invalid. Their children, including Edward and Richard, were deemed illegitimate by Parliament in mid-June — around the same time Edward’s coronation was planned.
The princes remained at the tower, which, at the time, was also used to keep prisoners. The two boys became captives, too, never to be seen again.
It remains unclear how exactly the boys died or when, but the story of the princes in the tower is one that lives on and is still widely debated to this day.
“It’s possible, but more likely, that they were murdered soon after their disappearance, I think,” Borman said when asked about the fate of the princes. “Whoever was responsible — if indeed they were murdered — needed them out of the way quickly.”
Richard III wasn’t the only person who wanted the boys to disappear. Henry Tudor was also “waiting in the wings to contest his crown, and he, too, needed those boys out of the way,” Borman said. Exactly what happened to the royal brothers is “a mystery that will probably never be solved,” she said.
The boys were last seen at the tower in September 1483, according to Historic Royal Palaces, a charity that represents some of London’s royal and historic landmarks, including the Tower of London.
On July 6 that same year, the boys’ uncle was crowned King Richard III. His reign lasted just two years.
On Aug. 22, 1485, Richard was killed in the Battle of Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses. He was fighting an army led by Henry Tudor, who would eventually become King Henry VII and marry Elizabeth of York, the elder sister of the princes in the tower.
Richard was the last English king to die in battle. A 2014 study revealed that he was probably hacked and stabbed to death during the medieval battle. His skeleton was found underneath a parking lot in 2012.
“A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” were Richard’s last words, according to William Shakespeare, who presented the late monarch as an evil villain in his play, “Richard III.”
In 1674, during the reign of King Charles II, the tradition of a monarch spending a night at the Tower of London ended when the bones of two children, thought to be the missing brothers, were found inside a wooden chest beneath the staircase leading to the White Tower at the Tower of London.
The remains were moved by the king to London’s Westminster Abbey, where they were entombed.
An analysis of the bones by medical experts in 1933 concluded that the remains were of children between the ages of 7 and 13. They were unable to tell whether the remains were male or female, though it is widely assumed that skeletons belonged to the two princes.
Modern day requests to have the remains tested were reportedly refused by the Church of England and Queen Elizabeth II. However, British media reported last year that King Charles III may grant permission for DNA testing.
“Is the 539-year-old Princes In The Tower murder mystery about to be SOLVED?” the Daily Mail reported in October 2022. For its part, the official website of the Tower of London reads: “We may never know the truth about the poor princes, but they were victims of one of the most vicious inter-family conflicts this country has ever known.”
