WHAT HAPPENED TO EDWARD V AND RICHARD DUKE OF YORK? Biggest royal mystery ever? Princes in the Tower

Описание: The question of WHAT HAPPENED to Edward V and Richard Duke of York, the so-called Princes in the Tower has fascinated and frustrated historians for centuries and is considered by many to be the biggest royal mystery ever, certainly within the English royal family. After being placed in the Tower of London in the spring/summer of 1483 by their uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the brothers soon disappeared from public view forever. Richard had them declared illegitimate and was soon afterwards crowned King Richard III. No bodies were ever produced though and no official explanation given as to what happened. Theories as to the fate of the Princes in the Tower (actually a King and a Prince – but let’s not nit-pick!) have therefore abounded ever since. Richard III, his cousin, Henry, Duke of Buckingham and Henry Tudor, the future Henry VII, have all been accused at some point of having had them killed as part of the ongoing conflict now known as the Wars of the Roses. Even Henry’s mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort (aka the Red Queen) has been suspected of involvement thanks to the historical fiction written by Phillipa Gregory. However all this assumes the King and his brother, who were the children of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, died in the 1480s. Some believed (then and now) that one or both of the boys escaped and survived into adulthood and in later years pretenders, most notably Perkin Warbeck, claimed to be the Duke of York, also known as Richard of Shrewsbury. But what does the evidence show? In this History Calling video, we’ll go back to the sources and ask who was responsible for the fate of the Princes in the Tower, or at least, who may have been? These sources will include works by Thomas More, Polydore Vergil, Domenico Mancini and William Shakespeare. We’ll also look at the possible discovery of the Princes in the Tower during the reign of Charles II, when bones were found beneath a staircase in the this most famous of royal residences and what an examination of those remains in 1933 showed. The murder of the Princes in the Tower, if that is indeed what happened, will likely now never be solved, but that needn’t stop us talking about it!

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BUY OR RENT

The White Queen (2013). [Depicts the story of the Wars of the Roses from Elizabeth Woodville’s point of view. Gets the broad strokes of history correct, but definitely not completely accurate] https://amzn.to/3dm7kBL (UK LINK) OR https://amzn.to/2VcbQO5 (US LINK)

The White Princess (2018). [Covers the marriage of Henry Tudor to Elizabeth of York. Again, gets the broad strokes of history correct, but definitely needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.] https://amzn.to/3ftrmNt (UK LINK) OR https://amzn.to/3C1NLdl (US LINK)

Britain’s Bloody Crown Presented by Dan Jones (2016) [Documentary covering the Wars of the Roses. Historically accurate] https://amzn.to/2TPep8i (US LINK)

The King in the Carpark (2013). Documentary about the discovery of Richard III’s skeleton in 2012. https://amzn.to/3C0loMF (UK LINK)

READ MORE:

John Ashdown-Hill, The Mythology of the Princes in the Tower (Amberley, 2018). https://amzn.to/2XQn3Fr

Weir, Alison, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower (2014) https://amzn.to/3EiD5Yn

Tim Thornton, ‘More on a murder: the deaths of the “Princes in the Tower”, and historiographical implications for the regimes of Henry VII and Henry VIII’ in History: the Journal of the Historical Association (2020), pp 4-25.

Phillipa Gregory, The Red Queen (2011). Fictionalised account of the Wars of the Roses told from Lady Margaret Beaufort’s point of view. Read for fun, but definitely don’t get your history from this. https://amzn.to/2V8IQa3

Phillipa Gregory, The White Queen (2011). Fictionalised account of the Wars of the Roses told from Elizabeth Woodville’s point of view. Read for fun, but definitely don’t get your history from this. https://amzn.to/37bO9YK

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THUMBNAIL: The Sons of Edward IV by Paul Delaroche, 1831. Original in Louvre Museum, Paris. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

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