The princes in the tower

[MrsJackRackham]

I'm watching a docudrama on the two princes who disappeared in the Tower of London. Why wasn't a huge fuss made when it happened? Surely it wasn't just a case of Riii declaring them illegitimate and then everyone forgot about them. What about their mother? Uncles, cousins? The Woodvilles all had prominent titles and were powerful men. Why weren't more questions asked?

Don't forget Perkin Warbeck turning up years later, claiming to be Prince Richard. Henry had him executed as a pretender. Henry was also by then married to the boy's sister Elizabeth of York. Warbeck is said to have been treated well when first taken to Henry in 1497.

I read they can track payments for a servant for them until a certain date, if at that point they actually die but were moved you might never find them. You'd be looking for the sudden start of payments for there upkeep at any number of castles around the country, assuming the records have survived. I could well imagine Richard iii might not have killed them but wanted them languishing in a ankle distant castle somewhere. That could easily bridge the gap between their disappearance and Henry VII ascendancy

Yes, nobody knew what had happened to them.

Perkin Warbeck’s claim to be Prince Richard was believed by their Aunt, Margaret of Burgundy, who was Edward IV’s sister.

Even the people who were most closely associated with them and the case really had no idea what had happened and where they had gone. Which is why they couldn’t make a fuss.

Incidentally, the Tower of London has now had access to the White Tower redesigned, and you can see the staircase where they were buried. You view it while you are actually standing outside the tower on a wooden staircase half way up to the entry. It is a tiny, tiny minor staircase tucked away. It’s incredibly sad thinking of those boys tucked away there so long with nobody knowing.

You should read The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.

As well as the lack of communication/knowledge about people, it could also be that there were letters or documents written asking about them or talking about their disappearance but those letters have been lost. It all happened in the late 1400s. Also the tudors were the winners in all this and had a vested interest in suppressing talk about the princes. The Tey book is excellent on this point.

I found the exhibit about them in the Tower very moving

I am far from convinced that the bodies in the tower were the Princes. At the very least, I think we cannot say definitively that they were.

I am a fan of Riii - not in a girly way were he can do no wrong, but in that I think he might have been a very good king, but never got the chance to fulfil that potential.

But if I put that to one side, and think about him and all the other possible suspects, I cannot work out why nothing was publicly said about their fate, whoever killed them - if indeed they were killed - if indeed they did die. If they had been killed (by whomever), it would make more sense to publicly declare that they'd died of illness - not exactly an uncommon thing. Equally if they actually died of illness. It does make me wonder if they were still alive, somewhere, somehow.

But we just don't know what happened - whether they died as boys, or as young men or old men. And where - in the tower, in Burgundy, in a quiet country town somewhere.

Because everyone knew what happened to them and didn't want the same fate.

Never knew this section existed. Love it!!!

I've always found this topic interesting. Great seeing others talking about it too

Another vote for Daughter of Time, great book. I think Richard was capable but he wasn't sloppy, their disappearance was sloppy and helped end his reign.

People didn't like the Woodvilles, and many believed the princes were illegitimate as the king had been through some sort of marriage ceremony with another woman before marrying Elizabeth woodville.

Many believed Richard was a better choice.

The Woodvilles all had prominent titles and were powerful men.

Agree with pp who said their power derived from Edward IV. When Edward IV died Earl Rivers (the brother of Elizabeth Woodville) was ordered to bring Edward V (the eldest Prince in tower) straight back to London. He and his nephew Richard Grey (half brother of Edward and son of Elizabeth from her first marriage) were intercepted by Richard III and executed with no trial. They had no power to prevent this. They were the senior Woodville men. Elizabeth, the dowager Queen, had no power to prevent her sons being taken and murdered. Nor to save her elder son and brother.

Sorry to bump this up again but it is a case that has always interested me.

I believe that if they were both killed at all, they were killed on the orders of Henry Tudor. He had the most to lose by them being alive. Richard believed (or found it convenient to pretend he believed) that the boys were illegitimate, making him the rightful king. If they were illegitimate then they were no threat to him. I think it's quite possible that he used this as an excuse to take over because he felt the country would be safer from invasion under an adult king with battle experience (remember he was leading armies, and had lost one of his own brothers in battle, by his late teens).

When Henry became king, he married Elizabeth, the boys' sister, as a political move, bringing the two factions together and ending the Wars of the Roses for good. For this marriage to bring him any prestige, he needed Elizabeth, and by extension her brothers, to be legitimate. But if they were legitimate they had a better claim to the throne than he had. If they were still alive at this point and not in hiding somewhere, having them killed would be a good way of removing this dilemma. We know he had a lot of other people, including the son of another one of Edward IV's brothers, executed as threats to his position. Why not these two as well?

However, I do believe there is a faint chance that neither of them was killed by anyone, at least at that point in their lives. Edward is known to have received visits from a doctor during his time in the tower; there's no record of what was wrong with him, but it's just possible he could have died of natural causes. There are various theories that one or both of them could have been spirited away to live anonymously: not very likely, but we just don't know enough to be sure. Certainly it doesn't seem as if anyone was seriously accusing Richard III of having had them killed until after his own death.