History Is Present

King Richard and the Princes in the Tower

King Richard III. Who was he? A brave solider, a loyal man, a king of England or a tyrant, a power hungry man, a cold-blooded killer?

King Richard III

Richard was the last king of England to be killed in battle on the 22nd August 1485. He was butchered and left bleeding on muddy ground of Bosworth ground. He was stripped naked and thrown into an unmarked grave.

It was not until 2012, 527 years after his death, was his remains under a car park in Leicester. He was then buried at Leicester Cathedral in March 2015. 

History remembers him as a man with a hunchback who murdered for power and took the throne but this is the image of man that William Shakespeare created for Tudor propaganda. Richard has been blamed for killing his own nephews the Princes in the Tower in 1483 in order to claim the throne. However, did he do it? We have to take a look at the man, the events and the evidence.

Richard Plantagenet of York

Richard was born at Fotheringham Castle, Northamptonshire on the 2nd October 1452 to Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York and Cicely Neville. He had three older brothers: Edward, Earl of March; Edmund, Earl of Rutland and George of York. 

Depiction of Edmund's murder at
Wakefield

On 30th December 1460, the Lancastrian army destroyed Richard's father's army at the Battle of Wakefield. Richard Duke of York was killed in the battle and his brother Edmund was intercepted as he tried to flee and was executed by John Clifford, 9th Baron de Clifford, in revenge for the death of his own father at the First Battle of St Albans. They were buried at Pontefract, but their heads were put on a pike by the Lancastrians and displayed over Micklegate Bar at York, wearing a paper crown. 

Richard was only 8 years old when his father and brother died. His mother sent him and his brother George to the low countries for their safety. They returned to England in 1461 after his brother Edward's victory at the Battle of Towton on the 29th March. Richard took part in Edward's coronation in June.

King Edward made his younger brother Duke of Gloucester, Knight of the Garter and Knight of the Bath. 

Traditionally young boys were sent to serve as squires at the homes of Kinsmen or families liege lords. Richard was raised in his cousin, Richard Neville earl of Warwick, in Middleham Castle in Yorkshire. There he met his future wife, Anne. Neville, Richard's youngest daughter.

In October 1470, Richard fled with his brother Edward to Burgundy after their cousin the Earl of Warwick betrayed them and joined the Lancastrians. Two years earlier his sister. Margaret married Charles Duke of Burgundy who was also their second cousin as well as Edward's wife. Elizabeth Woodville's cousin via her mother.

Richard returned to England in 1471 and fought at both the Battle of Barnett and Tewkesbury when he was 18. Richard Neville was killed at Barnett while Edward of. Lancaster, Anne Neville's husband, was killed at Tewkesbury.

Anne Neville

Anne was 15 at the time when she was widowed and placed under the guardian of George Duke of Clarence, Richard's brother. George had married Isabel Neville in 1469. Richard saved her from his brother greed for power and married her in a private ceremony on the 12 July 1472.

During his adolescence, he developed Idiopathic Scoliosis a disease that affects the spine. This is the reason why Richard had a hunchback (not as Shakespeare portrays in his play). However, Richard was still able to ride a horse and led men in battle.

Richard is known for taking the throne from his nephew Edward V and killing his nephews, Edward and Richard of Shrewsbury, known as the Princes in the Tower. Who were these young princes?

Prince Edward

Edward being led into London

Edward V was born on the 2nd November 1470 in the sanctuary if Westminster Abbey after his father fled England. He was nursed by his mother for the first few months if his life before his father retook the throne.

Edward was created Prince of Wales in June 1471 and was established at Ludlow castle in 1473 where he stayed throughout his father's reign. He was raised by his Uncle Anthony Woodville and his half-brother Richard Grey where he was taught and studied to become King one day.

In 1480, he was betrothed to the Duke of Brittany's daughter Anne who was five years younger then Edward. The marriage never happened.


Prince Richard

Edward's brother, Richard was born at Shrewsbury Castle on the 17th August 1473. He was created Duke of York and a Knight of the Garter in 1474. He was created the Earl of Nottingham in June 1476 and then the Duke if Norfolk in 1477 

On the 15th January 1478 Richard married Anne de Mowbury, 8th countess of Norfolk. Anne died in November 1481 and the Mowbury estates were passed onto Richard in 1483.

The Events that Occurred

In 1483 King Edward, the prince's father and Richard's brother, health began to get worse. He fell fatally ill at Easter 1483, but lingered on long enough to add to his will that his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, be Lord Protector until his son, Edward who was 12 at the time, came of age to rule on his own. 

King Edward IV died on 9th April 1483 and was buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. Prince Edward was now king and his brother Richard as his heir.

Prince Edward and Richard:
The Prince's in the Tower

Thee new king and his party from the west set out for London. On the night of 29th April, Richard met and dined with Earl Rivers and Richard Grey, but the following morning Rivers and Grey were arrested and sent north. Edward protested for their lives but they were executed for treason and the remainder of his entourage was dismissed and Richard escorted him to London. 

On 19th May 1483, the new king took up residence in the Tower of London and on 16th June, he was joined by his younger brother Richard, Duke of York.

A publicity campaign was mounted in June condemning Edward IV's marriage to the princes' mother, Elizabeth Woodville, as invalid and their children illegitimate as Edward IV had already been contracted to marry Lady Eleanor B

utler. Edward and Richard's sisters, Elizabeth, Cicely, Anne, Catherine and Bridget were also made illegitimate and were given the name of their mother's first husband, Grey. 

As the princes were illegitimate, the rightful heir to Edward IV was Richard. Richard III officially began his reign in July when he was crowned at Westminister Abbey with his wife Anne. 

The Young Princes were last seen playing
in Tower's grround

The two young princes were kept in the tower and were last seen playing in the tower's ground in July before they were moved and never seen again. It is believed they disappeared in August and were widely rumoured that Richard murdered his nephews in order to keep the throne. 

Elizabeth Woodville the prince's mother was devastated by the news of her sons' death. She plotted with Margaret Beaufort to overthrow Richard. She agreed that if Margeret's son Henry Tudor defeated Richard and became king that he would marry her daughter Elizabeth therefore making her queen. Tudor would have the support if York to take the crown.

Was Richard guilty?

There are four theories into the disappearance of the prince's:
(a) They were murdered.
(b) They were kidnapped and taken to safety in secret.
(c) They died of illness or accident.
(d) They escaped from the Tower and lived on in secret.

It is a possibility that the boys got ill and died. Edward was regularly visited by a Doctor Argentine who reported that "like a victim prepared for sacrifice, sought remission of his sins by daily confession and penance, because he believed that death was facing him." Argentine would later serve as the doctor to Edward's nephew Arthur, Prince of Wales, eldest son of King Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York. 

Perkin Warbeck claimed to be Richard in the 1490s. He had all the charms of a son of Edward IV and monarch across Europe including James of Scotland believed he was who he said he was. He was hung as a pretender. It could be possible that the princes survived and taken to the Low Countries for safety.

The major theory is that they were murdered. However, if they were murdered did Richard do it? 

It would be highly unlikely for Richard III to carry out the act himself but he was surrounded with supporters and associates whom he could have directed to carry out the task on his behalf. James Tyrell, Master of the Horse to Richard III has been accused of doing this on behalf of Richard. Two other men, Miles Forest, who had been assigned to look after the princes, and Tyrell’s horsekeeper John Dighton, are thought to have carried out the actual deed. They could all have been involved. 

The other suspects

Henry Tudor and Margaret Beaufort benefited
from the Princes' disappearance

Henry Tudor benefited from the "disappearance" of the princes as he gained the support of the Yorkists so is another potential suspect. He married Elizabeth of York, strengthening his claim to the throne after the Battle of Bosworth. This could have been jeopardised if the boys had survived. However Tudor was in exile in France with his Uncle Jasper therefore he was not in England at the time the princes disappeared. 

Tudor's mother Lady Margaret Beaufort was married to Thomas Stanley who was in high regard with Richard and had access to the Tower where the boys were held. They are likely to conduct a plot to get rid of the boys. With death of the princes Tudor was one-step closer to the throne. As the mother and stepfather of the King of England, they would have power and land.

Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham is another suspect. He was the nephew through her marriage to her second husband Henry Stafford and was the uncle of the princes through his marriage to their mother's sister Katherine Woodville in 1465. He was ten and she was seven. It was an arranged marriage to strength the new Queen's family. Buckingham resented his wife and the other Woodvilles because of his marriage to a woman of a lower status. 

Richard's downfall

A rebellion was raised in October 1483 by the Duke of Buckingham, Richard's former ally, quickly collapsed. However, Buckingham's defection, along with his supporters, eroded Richard's power and support among the aristocracy and gentry. Buckingham was beheaded for treason.

On 22nd August 1485, Henry Tudor landed in South Wales and marched with his army east and engaged Richard in battle on Bosworth Field in Leicestershire. Although Richard possessed superior numbers, several of his key lieutenants defected. Richard cried "Treason!" In addition, not Shakespeare's "a horse. A horse for my kingdom" before falling. Refusing to flee, Richard was killed in battle and Tudor took the throne as Henry VII.

He was stripped naked and thrown into an unmarked gravedigger in a local abbey. Richard's great-nephew Henry VIII. Had the abbey shut down and destroyed. His final resting place was lost until in 2012 when Richard was discovered under a car park under the letter "R". Spooky! 

After 530 years after his death, a political between the people of York and Lancaster about where Richard should be buried: his family's home or the place where he died, Richard was buried which lavish celebrations. 

During the Stuart Era in the 17th century two skeletons were found ‘at the stair foot’, were discovered when a building in front of the White Tower was demolished in 1674. The skeletons were examined in 1933 and pronounced as belonging to two boys, aged about ten and twelve. There is a plaque commemorating the princes near this site.

The remains were placed in an urn and placed in Westminster Abbey where their sister Elizabeth of York us buried as is their great niece, Elizabeth I, and great-great niece, Mary Stewart, Queen if Scots. Their parents were buried at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. 

My verdict

With all the facts, I believe that a Richard had his nephews killed. If the boys had died of illness then why didn't he show the bodies like him and his brothers did when Henry VI died. 

The thing that is important is if the boys were illegitimate then they could never take the throne. So why didn't Richard release the boys. Instead, he kept them locked up. Why? Was he scarred? 

I don't believe he did it to vindictive or evil but to secure his right as king and the protection of his family and England. 

He knew, like others, that young Kings never had a good record. King Richard II became King at ten and he was deposed by his cousin Henry of Lancaster. During his reign. The people of England revolted. King Henry VI was a baby when he came to the throne. He was controlled by regents and during his reign, England was torn apart with blood.

Now that Richard's remains have been reburied maybe the remains if the boys in Westminster could be tested. Even if it is them we will never know what really had been closed doors during the Summer of 1483. It is one of the greatest mysterious of all time. 

Whatever had to those two innocent little boys over 530 years ago they have found peace.