The Princes in the Tower and Historical Romance of the Time

The Princes in the Tower is a phrase many people recognise, but do you know who they were?

We all know they were two princes locked up in the Tower of London, but only history addicts like us know why they were there, who they were and what happened to them.

One of the Princes was a King

This is the most well known portraits of the Princes, although it is from imagination. Nobody knows what they looked like.

This portrait was painted in the nineteenth century.

Although they are always referred to as the Princes in the Tower, in fact, the elder one, was King of England. Edward V was the son of Edward IV and as soon as his father died, he became King.

The younger boy was Richard, Duke of York, but let's get it straight - it was a King of England who was locked up in the Tower.

The Guardianship of the Princes in the Tower

When Edward IV (above) passed away, he left in his Will guardianship of his two young sons to his brother, Richard of Gloucester, later Richard III.

At the time of his death, his eldest son, Edward, was being cared for by the brother of the Queen, Lord Rivers. He had practically raised young Edward and had been responsible for his upbringing and his education, and the pair were very close.

But Richard arranged to meet Lord Rivers and Edward at Stony Stratford, on their way back to London from Ludlow Castle where Edward had been living since he was three years old.

But Richard promptly arrested Lord Rivers for treason, and took custody of Edward. He was then taken to London and, after living in the house of the Archbishop, he was moved to the royal apartments at the Tower, presumably in preparation for his coronation.

It was normal practice for the new monarch to spend the weeks before their coronation in the royal apartments at the Tower, so this would not have raised any eyebrows.

Richard then persuaded the Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, to allow her younger son, Richard, to join his brother, to keep him company and to have a role in the coronation. In fact it is unlikely that they even knew each other, having been raised in completely different places, but the Queen had little choice but to agree.

She never saw either of them again.

Richard managed to delay the coronation at least once and then declared his nephews illegitimate, since he found tenuous evidence that his brother, Edward IV, had been pledged to another lady before the Queen, making all his children illegitimate.

The date set for young Edward's coronation was taken by Richard himself and the princes were moved from the royal apartments to other apartments in the Tower. They do not appear to have ever been imprisoned in a cell.

There were even a few coins minted with Edward V's head on them, but it is thought this was a ploy by Richard to convince the people that he had every intention of supporting his nephew's claim to the throne.

I won't give my opinion on who was responsible for the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower. There is too much controversy on the subject, with much support for Richard III's innocence in the matter.

Fingers have been pointed at Henry VII, but I find it unlikely that Elizabeth Woodville would have arranged for her daughter to marry him, had there been any evidence that he was responsible for the death of her two sons.

Fingers have been pointed at Margaret Beaufort, Henry's mother, but again, I find it unlikely.

man turned up claiming to be Richard of York, the younger of the two boys. Perkin Warbeck, who managed to acquire a large following and even married into the Scottish nobility in the form of Lady Catherine Gordon.

He ended on Tyburn at the end of a rope.

Lambert Simnel claimed to be Edward, Earl of Warwick, who had a greater claim to the throne than Henry Tudor. However, the genuine Edward was alive and imprisoned in the Tower, where he had more or less grown up.

It seems likely that Henry didn't take his claim seriously, since he dismissed him and set him to work in the palace kitchens.

The Skeletons of the Princes in the Tower

In 1674, workman renovation parts of the Tower of London, discovered the skeletons of two young boys beneath a staircase.

It was accepted that these could be none other than the Princes in the Tower and they were given a royal funeral and tomb in the crypt of Westminster Abbey, along with many other royal tombs.

When the remains of Richard III were discovered in 2012, beneath a car park in Leicester, DNA tests were done on the skeleton and compared to a descendant who was found. It was thought that the opportunity would be taken to open the tomb of the Princes and compare their DNA with that of Richard, just to be sure the remains really were the Princes.

However, the Queen refused permission so even now it is only an assumption. I believe the remains are those of the Princes. I can think of no others they could possibly be.

However, I have only an opinion and many other opinions argue that the skeletons were not those of the Princes. I don't know what evidence there is for that, but who knows? One day we might discover the truth.

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