6 Famous Prisoners of the Tower of London - History Lists History Lists September 11, 2012 By Evan Andrews Share Get all the facts on London's most iconic landmarks. Share this: 6 Famous Prisoners of the Tower of London Author 6 Famous Prisoners of the Tower of London URL Google The Tower of London has served as everything from a royal residence to a zoo for exotic animals, but it remains best known as a fearsome prison and torture chamber. First constructed in the wake of the Norman Conquest in 1066, the Tower has held some of Great Britain’s most prominent inmates, including disgraced royals, would-be revolutionaries and even Nazi officers. Find out more about six of these famous captives of one of history’s most forbidding prisons. Anne Boleyn The second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn was twice a resident of the Tower of London—once as a queen-in-waiting and once as a condemned prisoner. Boleyn married Henry in 1533 after the English king defied the Roman Catholic Church and annulled his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

Housed in the Tower of London prior to her coronation in June 1533, Boleyn would reign as queen of England for nearly three years. Coupled with courtly intrigue and accusations of infidelity, Boleyn’s failure to give birth to a male heir ultimately proved to be her undoing. Accused of seducing the king into a cursed marriage, in May 1536 she was arrested on trumped-up charges of adultery, treason and even an alleged incestuous affair with her brother. Boleyn was confined to the Lieutenant’s Lodgings of the Tower of London, where she was tried and found guilty. She was beheaded by a French swordsman on a scaffold at the Tower on May 19, 1536. Catherine Howard, Henry’s fifth wife, would meet a similar fate when she was imprisoned and then executed at the Tower of London in 1542. Sir Walter Raleigh One of the longest-serving prisoners of the Tower of London was the famed Sir Walter Raleigh, who was confined to the citadel for some 13 years.

A soldier and explorer who engineered the ill-fated English colony at Roanoke Island, Raleigh was knighted by Elizabeth I in 1585 and became one of the queen’s favorite courtiers. Despite his influential position, Raleigh was briefly imprisoned in the Tower in 1592 when it was revealed that he had secretly wed Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of the queen’s maids of honor. Raleigh was confined to the Tower a second time in 1603 after he was accused of plotting against King James I. Stripped of most of his wealth, he would spend nearly 13 years detained in a part of the castle known as the Bloody Tower. While he was ostensibly a prisoner, Raleigh’s high social standing ensured that he had comfortable lodgings, and he was even joined in the Tower by his family. During this time he devoted himself to science and writing—composing his “History of the World” in 1614—and also fathered a son. Raleigh was released in 1616 and dispatched to Central America in search of the mythical gold city of El Dorado.

The mission proved unsuccessful, and Raleigh was arrested and executed at the block after his forces attacked a Spanish outpost against the orders of the king. The Princes in the Tower Twelve-year-old Prince Edward V and 10-year-old Prince Richard of Shrewsbury—better known as “the Princes in the Tower”—are among the most famous prisoners to have disappeared within the bowels of the Tower of London. The two boys first arrived at the castle in 1483 after the death of their father, King Edward IV. The princes were originally housed in the Tower on the orders of their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, but were stripped of their royal titles after the duke invalidated their father’s marriage, declared them illegitimate and claimed the throne for himself as King Richard III. Moved from their opulent royal apartments to the confines of the Garden Tower (later known as the Bloody Tower), the boys effectively became prisoners of the crown. While there were initially sightings of the former princes playing in the Tower courtyard, by mid-1483 they had vanished without a trace. The would-be monarchs’ true fate remains a mystery.

While a Flemish man claiming to be Prince Richard would invade England in 1497 and attempt to take the throne, he was later revealed to be a pretender and was executed at the Tower of London. The only clue would come in 1674, when the skeletons of two children were found during renovations to the Tower. While these were never proven to be the bodies of the Princes in the Tower, the discovery fueled speculation that the boys had been murdered, with their uncle Richard III the most likely culprit. Guy Fawkes Guy Fawkes was a soldier and revolutionary who was imprisoned in the Tower of London for his role in the notorious Gunpowder Plot. A militant Catholic, in 1604 Fawkes became embroiled in an audacious plan to assassinate the Protestant King James I and other members of the British government by blowing up the House of Lords. After renting the storage room beneath Westminster Palace, Fawkes and his accomplices packed the cellar with 35 barrels of gunpowder, which they planned to detonate on November 5, 1605, during the opening of Parliament.

The plot was foiled after an anonymous letter led authorities to search the cellar, and Fawkes was captured when he was found guarding the door. He was then sent to the Tower of London and confined to the infamous cell known as the “Little Ease,” a cramped room that prevented its occupant from either standing up straight or lying down. Following intense interrogation and torture—most likely on the rack—Fawkes exposed the other men involved in the plot. Found guilty of treason, he was condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered at the palace yard at Westminster, but he avoided this gruesome punishment by throwing himself from the gallows and breaking his own neck. The Gunpowder Plot would later become the inspiration for Guy Fawkes Day, a British holiday celebrated every November 5. Lady Jane Grey Lady Jane Grey’s meteoric rise and fall saw her go from ruler of England to a prisoner in the Tower of London in little more than a week. The teenage Grey was installed as queen of England in July 1553 after her cousin Edward VI died without a male heir.

Desperate to thwart his Catholic half-sister Mary’s claim to the throne, Edward VI had chosen Grey as his successor in order to ensure the crown remained under Protestant control. The new queen’s reign would last only nine days. After Mary raised a large band of supporters, the royal government abruptly switched their allegiance and declared her the rightful queen of England. Forced to relinquish the crown, Grey was taken prisoner and moved from the Tower’s royal apartments to the Gentleman Gaoler’s lodgings. While she was kept under constant guard, she was allowed occasional walks around the castle grounds and even given a weekly allowance. Grey was tried and found guilty of treason in November 1553, but was quickly pardoned by Queen Mary I. A final twist of fate came in January 1554, when Grey’s father’s participation in a Protestant rebellion led the royal government to proceed with its death sentence. Grey was then beheaded on the Tower Green on February 12, 1554. Rudolf Hess By the 20th century the Tower of London had primarily become a tourist site and storage facility for the Crown Jewels.

But during World War II the castle was briefly restored to its role as a state prison when it held two high profile Nazis captured on British soil. One of these men was Josef Jakobs, a German spy apprehended in rural England. Jakobs became the last man put to death at the Tower of London when he was executed by a firing squad in August 1941. Even more famous was “Deputy to the Führer” Rudolf Hess, who served as Hitler’s second-in-command in the Nazi Party. Hess was captured in May 1941 after he parachuted into Scotland as part of a renegade plan to negotiate peace with the British. Doubtful of Hess’s motives, Prime Minister Winston Churchill had him sent to the Tower, making him the final state prisoner to be held at the castle. Hess would only remain for a few days, but rumors that he was hidden away in the Tower would persist for several months. Hess was later tried at Nuremberg and given a life sentence. He died at Spandau Prison, West Berlin, in 1987.

Tags 1000+ images about Princes in the Tower on Pinterest | Loyalty, King richard and London Forward "The Princes in the Tower" refers to Edward V of England and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York. The two brothers were the only sons of Edward IV of England and Elizabeth Woodville alive at the time of their father's death. Sometime around 1483, it is assumed that they were murdered, although there is no proof of this theory other than their disappearance. See More Princes in the Tower, Richard Duke of York and Edward V By Ben Johnson | Comments In 1933 the skeletons of two young boys, one aged about 10 and the other 13, were disinterred from Westminster Abbey and examined by L.E. Tannery and W. Wright. These bones had been re-buried in an urn in 1674 and placed in the Henry VIIth Chapel in the Abbey. The skeletons aroused much interest and debate as they were believed by many historians to be the bones of the two princes who were reputably murdered in the Tower of London in the 15th century.

The princes were Edward V and his brother Richard Duke of York, the sons of Edward IV and his Queen, Elizabeth Woodville. Their uncle, Richard of Gloucester, later Richard III, came after them in the succession. In his 'history', Sir Thomas More was quite sure that these young boys were murdered by their uncle Richard of Gloucester and Shakespeare also portrayed Richard III as the evil murderous uncle. Sir Thomas More states in his writings that the princes were buried "at the stair-foot, meetly deep" and certainly in 1674 two skeletons were found buried beneath a stone staircase during alterations at the Tower. Mr. Tannery and Professor Wright concluded in 1933 that the princes had "probably" died in the summer of 1483. Sir Thomas More states that the princes were smothered with the pillows on their beds by Sir James Tyrell, John Dighton and Miles Forest. Tyrell is reported to have confessed to the crime in 1502 when under sentence of death for treason. But who gave the orders to Tyrell and his accomplices? Richard III is the name most associated with the mystery of the two little princes.

It is said that he had them killed as their right to the throne was stronger than his. Shakespeare certainly decided that he had given the order for the boys to be killed. But Henry Tudor, who later became Henry VII in 1485 after defeating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth, had an even shakier claim to the throne. His claim was based on the right of conquest! Richard III Henry VII If the princes were alive in 1485, and they could have been, they would have been a great embarrassment to Henry, and Henry had as much to gain as Richard by the death of the young boys. There is no proof of Henry's guilt any more than there is of Richard's. Immediately Henry gained the throne he accused Richard of cruelty and tyranny but strangely did not mention the murder of the little princes. Henry did not announce that the boys had been murdered until July 1486, nearly a year after Richard's death. Did Henry have them murdered? It is likely we will never know exactly what happened to the princes, and so this will remain one of the most intriguing who-done-its of all time. Tweet If you enjoyed this article, you might also like...

The Tudors - The Tudors remain among the most instantly recognisable of England’s monarchs. There is no mistaking Henry VIII in the great Holbein portrait of which so many copies survive. And is there anyone out there who wouldn’t recognise Elizabeth's equally carefully cultivated image? Not all the Tudors are as well-known as Henry and Elizabeth ... Tower Ravens - The ravens at Her Majesty's Palace and Fortress ... Ednyfed Fychan - Father of the Tudor Dynasty ... Lady Jane Grey - Queen Victoria is well known to have had the longest reign in English history, over sixty years, but poor young Lady Jane Grey had the shortest …just nine days. Why was Lady Jane Grey’s reign as Queen of England so short? Advertising BBC - History - Historic Figures: The Princes in the Tower The Princes in the Tower z The Princes in the Tower, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, c.1500 © The 'Princes in the Tower' were Edward (1470-1483) and Richard (1473-1483), the sons of Edward IV. Shortly after Edward was crowned Edward V, he and his brother disappeared and were never seen alive again.

Edward was born in London in 1470. His brother Richard, Duke of York, was born in 1473 in Shrewsbury. Their parents were Edward IV and his wife, Elizabeth Woodville. Edward IV had come to the throne as a result of the Wars of the Roses and managed to restore a certain amount of stability to the country. Edward IV died suddenly on 9 April 1483 and his eldest son was proclaimed Edward V at Ludlow. Edward's uncle, his father's brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was named as protector. Elizabeth Woodville and her supporters attempted to replace Gloucester with a regency Council, aware of the dislike Gloucester had for them. As the new king, Edward V, travelled towards London, he was met by Gloucester and escorted to the capital, where he was lodged in the Tower of London. In June, Edward was joined by his brother, the Duke of York. The boys were declared illegitimate because it was alleged that their father was contracted to marry someone else before his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. In July 1483, Richard, Duke of Gloucester was crowned Richard III. The two boys were never seen again.

It was widely believed that their uncle had them murdered. Did Richard III Kill the Princes in the Tower? Did Richard III Kill the Princes in the Tower? By Leanda de Lisle On 7/13/14 at 10:12 AM King Richard III's skull is seen next to a portrait of him during a news conference in Leicester Darren Staples/Reuters Culture King Richard the Third Shakespeare English Reformation body Princes History Since King Richard III of England’s remains were discovered under a car park two years ago, we know where he is going to be buried—in Leicester Cathedral—and what his tomb will look like: fit for a king. But was he really the child murderer he is painted as in the history books? He has been called a “maligned king,” a victim of Tudor propaganda, accused by Shakespeare of ordering the deaths of the “Princes in the Tower.” But was Shakespeare right? The truth emerged as I researched Tudor: The Family Story , but only when I stopped thinking like a 21st century person and began thinking like someone from the 15th century, when the murders took place.

In the summer of 1483, the 12-year-old Edward V and his 9-year-old brother Richard, Duke of York, were imprisoned in the Tower of London. The boys had been declared illegitimate, which allowed their uncle, Richard, to become king in their place. According to Shakespeare, Richard III wanted to go further, and in the eponymous play he declares, “I wish the bastards dead.” Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week Thomas More’s The History of Richard III, which influenced Shakespeare’s take on the events, describes how Richard’s killers went into the princes’ bedchamber, “lapped them up among the bedclothes…keeping down by force the featherbed and pillows hard unto their mouths” until they were “stifled.” But More’s history was inaccurate and biased, written as it was during the reign of Henry VIII - the son of Richard’s archrival, Henry VII, the first Tudor king who won the crown, after defeating Richard on the battlefield. All that is known for certain is that the princes vanished in 1483. No bodies were displayed by Richard III or found by Henry VII.

And after the end of the Tudor dynasty, people began to question Tudor accounts of Richard’s guilt. The most popular work to argue his innocence is Josephine Tey’s 1951 crime novel, The Daughter of Time . It has inspired generations of readers to join the Richard III Society, which campaigns for a reassessment of Shakespeare’s portrayal of Richard III. It was a member of this society who raised the money for the archaeological dig that in 2012 discovered Richard’s body in a shallow grave in a Leicester car park. Tey’s novel features a modern detective investigating the historic murder of the princes who believes that if the princes were illegitimate (it was claimed their father, Edward IV, had married their mother bigamously), Richard III had no motive to kill them. The detective also argues that since there is no hard evidence they died in 1483, they might still have been alive in 1485 when Henry Tudor became Henry VII. When Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth, the new Tudor king, Henry VII, had to justify his claim to the throne. His right through blood was weak, drawn as it was through an illegitimate female line.

But Henry VII married the princes’ sister, Elizabeth of York, having had Edward IV’s children declared legitimate to strengthen her claim to be the senior heir to the House of York. It strikes Tey’s detective that if the princes were alive, their right to the throne was superior to Elizabeth’s, giving Henry Tudor a motive to kill them and cast the blame on Richard. But was it in character for Richard III to commit such a terrible crime? He was a religious man and, in many respects, a fine king. And if he was guilty, why did Henry VII make no effort to launch an inquest into the deaths of the princes? It was the primary, even religious duty of a good king to ensure the nation was united. After Richard III’s coronation on July 6, 1483, it was clear that not everyone accepted that the princes were illegitimate. And so long as they lived, they remained a focus of opposition and division. So Richard did have a motive to kill the princes, just as his brother, Edward IV, had killed Henry VI, the king he had deposed. The mentally ill Lancastrian Henry VI was found dead in the Tower in 1471.

It was said he had died suddenly of “grief and rage” over the death of his son in battle. But few doubted that Edward IV ordered Henry’s murder. The death wiped out the House of Lancaster, leaving only Henry Tudor, a descendent of the Lancastrian house through his mother’s illegitimate Beaufort line, to represent its cause. Henry Tudor was in exile in Brittany, France, in 1483 when Edward IV died and Richard overthrew the princes to become Richard III. Londoners, remembering the fate of Henry VI, feared for the boys. A foreign visitor described men weeping in the streets as “day by day they began to be seen more rarely behind the bars” of the Tower’s windows. By October 1483, rumors that the princes had been murdered began to fuel talk of a rebellion. If Richard knew the boys were still alive, it seems strange he did not say so to quell the rumors. But equally, if the princes were dead, why did Richard not follow the example of earlier royal killings?

The bodies of deposed kings were put on public display with the claim they had died of natural causes (like “grief and rage”) so the people could transfer their loyalty to the new king. It is the disappearance of the princes that lies at the heart of centuries of conspiracy theories about what exactly happened to them. The solution to the mystery lies in a sequel to Henry VI’s murder that was forgotten soon after Henry VIII separated the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. Mad king Henry VI had been popularly acclaimed a saint, with miracles reported at the site of his modest grave in Chertsey Abbey, Surrey. Edward IV failed to suppress this explosive cult, and Richard was well aware of its power. In an act of reconciliation and in an effort to gain some control over the cult, Richard allowed Henry VI’s body to be moved and buried alongside Edward IV at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. But Richard knew the princes would likely attract a cult with a far larger following than that for Henry, because in the murdered boys the religious qualities of royalty were combined with the innocence and purity of childhood. Having the princes vanish suited Richard, for without a grave there could be no focus for a cult, and without bodies there would be no relics either.

Nevertheless, Richard wanted the Edwardian Yorkists to know the princes were dead so they would transfer their loyalties to him. But when the boys’ mother, Elizabeth Woodville, was given the news they were dead, she called for vengeance. And Henry Tudor’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, suggested how that might come about. A promised marriage between Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York would unite the old Lancastrian affinity with Edwardian Yorkists and bring Richard down. Richard crushed the October rebellion that followed, and by 1485 a despairing Elizabeth Woodville accepted Richard as king. But Henry fought on and emerged victorious at the Battle of Bosworth. So why did Henry then do nothing in public to investigate the deaths of the princes? Well, it is possible Henry feared this would draw attention to a role in the murders played by someone close to his cause. A document in the College of Arms, London, dating to around 1512, says the princes were killed “by the ‘vise’ [advice or device]” of a royal cousin of Margaret’s, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham.

He had been a close ally of Richard in plotting the overthrow of the princes, but then turned against Richard and plotted the October rebellion with Margaret. Buckingham may have encouraged Richard to have the princes murdered, hoping to see the House of York extinguished and that of Lancaster restored, with Henry Tudor, or himself, as king. It is even possible Buckingham was acting on Margaret’s advice, as she hoped to clear the way for her son. But this does not absolve Richard. The Lieutenant of the Tower, who controlled access to the princes, was totally loyal to Richard. Without the king’s word, he would never have permitted their murder. When Richard executed Buckingham for taking part in the October rebellion, he did not accuse him of killing the princes. The real reason Henry Tudor did not look for the princes’ bodies is that he had his own reasons for wishing to forestall a cult. It is true Henry’s blood claim to the throne was extremely weak. Yet he was determined not to be seen as a mere king consort to his wife. Henry did not base his right on her legitimacy but on divine providence.

To prove his case, Henry argued that before the “saint” Henry VI was murdered, the holy man had prophesized his, Henry’s rule. God’s will was confirmed by the victory at Bosworth. It would have been unwise to allow Yorkist royal saints to compete with the memory of Henry VI, whose cult Henry VII now encouraged. Nothing was said, therefore, about the princes in 1485, beyond the vague accusation in Parliament that Richard III was guilty of “murders in shedding of infants’ blood.” The danger for Henry was that there was still no real proof the princes were dead. As Henry’s enemies sought a figurehead to rally round, it was a question they took advantage of. In 1491 a young man appeared in Ireland claiming to be the younger of the Princes in the Tower. He said one of the assassins, who could not bring himself to kill “so little a child,” had helped him escape. Henry said the young man was, in fact, a Dutchman, Perkin Warbeck, who was in the pay of foreign powers. But who could be sure? Warbeck led three attempts to invade England before he was captured in 1497.

Henry then kept Warbeck alive long enough for him to publicly confess his modest birth. But even after Warbeck’s execution in 1499, Henry continued to fear the emergence of other “pretenders.” In May 1502, a condemned traitor named Sir James Tyrell supposedly confessed before his execution to murdering the princes on Richard’s orders. Thomas More tells us that Tyrell claimed that the boys had been buried at the foot of a staircase in the Tower “under a great heap of stones,” but that Richard had asked for their bodies to be reburied somewhere more dignified. Those involved had subsequently died, so the final resting place of the princes was unknown—a suspiciously convenient outcome for Henry VII. Richard’s reputation plummeted, the deaths of the princes were “confirmed,” and their graves were lost. Meanwhile, the tomb of “saint” Henry VI had come to rival in popularity that of Thomas Becket at Canterbury, one of the top three pilgrimage sites in Europe. Thousands were still visiting it in 1533, the year Henry VIII broke with Rome.

But the protestant English Reformation that outlawed Catholicism brought to a close the cult of saints, and memory of them faded, along with an understanding of why Richard had the princes disappear and why Henry did nothing to find them. In 1674, the skeletons of two children were recovered in the Tower of London in a place that resembled More’s description of their first burial place. Whoever they are, we might remember how the princes murdered in the Tower were denied any decent burial at all, while a grand tomb to house Richard III’s remains is currently being built in Leicester Cathedral. Leanda de Lisle’s Tudor: The Family Story is published by Vintage. Since King Richard III of England’s remains were discovered under a car park two years ago, we know where he is going to be buried—in Leicester Cathedral—and what his tomb will look like: fit for a king. But was he really the child murderer he is painted as in the history books? He has been called a “maligned king,” a victim of Tudor propaganda, accused by Shakespeare of ordering the deaths of the “Princes in the Tower.” But was Shakespeare right?

The truth emerged as I researched Tudor: The Family Story , but only when I stopped thinking like a 21st century person and began thinking like someone from the 15th century, when the murders took place. In the summer of 1483, the 12-year-old Edward V and his 9-year-old brother Richard, Duke of York, were imprisoned in the Tower of London. The boys had been declared illegitimate, which allowed their uncle, Richard, to become king in their place. According to Shakespeare, Richard III wanted to go further, and in the eponymous play he declares, “I wish the bastards dead.” Thomas More’s The History of Richard III, which influenced Shakespeare’s take on the events, describes how Richard’s killers went into the princes’ bedchamber, “lapped them up among the bedclothes…keeping down by force the featherbed and pillows hard unto their mouths” until they were “stifled.” But More’s history was inaccurate and biased, written as it was during the reign of Henry VIII. He was the son of Richard’s archrival, Henry VII, the first Tudor king who won the crown, after defeating Richard on the battlefield.

All that is known for certain is that the princes vanished in 1483. No bodies were displayed by Richard III or found by Henry VII. And after the end of the Tudor dynasty, people began to question Tudor accounts of Richard’s guilt. The most popular work to argue his innocence is Josephine Tey’s 1951 crime novel, The Daughter of Time . It has inspired generations of readers to join the Richard III Society, which campaigns for a reassessment of Shakespeare’s portrayal of Richard III. It was a member of this society who raised the money for the archaeological dig that in 2012 discovered Richard’s body in a shallow grave in a Leicester car park. Tey’s novel features a modern detective investigating the historic murder of the princes who believes that if the princes were illegitimate (it was claimed their father, Edward IV, had married their mother bigamously), Richard III had no motive to kill them. The detective also argues that since there is no hard evidence they died in 1483, they might still have been alive in 1485 when Henry Tudor became Henry VII.

When Richard III was killed at the Battle of Bosworth, the new Tudor king, Henry VII, had to justify his claim to the throne. His right through blood was weak, drawn as it was through an illegitimate female line. But Henry VII married the princes’ sister, Elizabeth of York, having had Edward IV’s children declared legitimate to strengthen her claim to be the senior heir to the House of York. It strikes Tey’s detective that if the princes were alive, their right to the throne was superior to Elizabeth’s, giving Henry Tudor a motive to kill them and cast the blame on Richard. But was it in character for Richard III to commit such a terrible crime? He was a religious man and, in many respects, a fine king. And if he was guilty, why did Henry VII make no effort to launch an inquest into the deaths of the princes? It was the primary, even religious duty of a good king to ensure the nation was united. After Richard III’s coronation on July 6, 1483, it was clear that not everyone accepted that the princes were illegitimate. And so long as they lived, they remained a focus of opposition and division.

So Richard did have a motive to kill the princes, just as his brother, Edward IV, had killed Henry VI, the king he had deposed. The mentally ill Lancastrian Henry VI was found dead in the Tower in 1471. It was said he had died suddenly of “grief and rage” over the death of his son in battle. But few doubted that Edward IV ordered Henry’s murder. The death wiped out the House of Lancaster, leaving only Henry Tudor, a descendent of the Lancastrian house through his mother’s illegitimate Beaufort line, to represent its cause. Henry Tudor was in exile in Brittany, France, in 1483 when Edward IV died and Richard overthrew the princes to become Richard III. Londoners, remembering the fate of Henry VI, feared for the boys. A foreign visitor described men weeping in the streets as “day by day they began to be seen more rarely behind the bars” of the Tower’s windows. By October 1483, rumors that the princes had been murdered began to fuel talk of a rebellion. If Richard knew the boys were still alive, it seems strange he did not say so to quell the rumors.

But equally, if the princes were dead, why did Richard not follow the example of earlier royal killings? The bodies of deposed kings were put on public display with the claim they had died of natural causes (like “grief and rage”) so the people could transfer their loyalty to the new king. It is the disappearance of the princes that lies at the heart of centuries of conspiracy theories about what exactly happened to them. The solution to the mystery lies in a sequel to Henry VI’s murder that was forgotten soon after Henry VIII separated the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. Mad king Henry VI had been popularly acclaimed a saint, with miracles reported at the site of his modest grave in Chertsey Abbey, Surrey. Edward IV failed to suppress this explosive cult, and Richard was well aware of its power. In an act of reconciliation and in an effort to gain some control over the cult, Richard allowed Henry VI’s body to be moved and buried alongside Edward IV at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. But Richard knew the princes would likely attract a cult with a far larger following than that for Henry, because in the murdered boys the religious qualities of royalty were combined with the innocence and purity of childhood.

Having the princes vanish suited Richard, for without a grave there could be no focus for a cult, and without bodies there would be no relics either. Nevertheless, Richard wanted the Edwardian Yorkists to know the princes were dead so they would transfer their loyalties to him. But when the boys’ mother, Elizabeth Woodville, was given the news they were dead, she called for vengeance. And Henry Tudor’s mother, Margaret Beaufort, suggested how that might come about. A promised marriage between Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York would unite the old Lancastrian affinity with Edwardian Yorkists and bring Richard down. Richard crushed the October rebellion that followed, and by 1485 a despairing Elizabeth Woodville accepted Richard as king. But Henry fought on and emerged victorious at the Battle of Bosworth. So why did Henry then do nothing in public to investigate the deaths of the princes? Well, it is possible Henry feared this would draw attention to a role in the murders played by someone close to his cause.

A document in the College of Arms, London, dating to around 1512, says the princes were killed “by the ‘vise’ [advice or device]” of a royal cousin of Margaret’s, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. He had been a close ally of Richard in plotting the overthrow of the princes, but then turned against Richard and plotted the October rebellion with Margaret. Buckingham may have encouraged Richard to have the princes murdered, hoping to see the House of York extinguished and that of Lancaster restored, with Henry Tudor, or himself, as king. It is even possible Buckingham was acting on Margaret’s advice, as she hoped to clear the way for her son. But this does not absolve Richard. The Lieutenant of the Tower, who controlled access to the princes, was totally loyal to Richard. Without the king’s word, he would never have permitted their murder. When Richard executed Buckingham for taking part in the October rebellion, he did not accuse him of killing the princes. The real reason Henry Tudor did not look for the princes’ bodies is that he had his own reasons for wishing to forestall a cult. It is true Henry’s blood claim to the throne was extremely weak.

Yet he was determined not to be seen as a mere king consort to his wife. Henry did not base his right on her legitimacy but on divine providence. To prove his case, Henry argued that before the “saint” Henry VI was murdered, the holy man had prophesized his, Henry’s rule. God’s will was confirmed by the victory at Bosworth. It would have been unwise to allow Yorkist royal saints to compete with the memory of Henry VI, whose cult Henry VII now encouraged. Nothing was said, therefore, about the princes in 1485, beyond the vague accusation in Parliament that Richard III was guilty of “murders in shedding of infants’ blood.” The danger for Henry was that there was still no real proof the princes were dead. As Henry’s enemies sought a figurehead to rally round, it was a question they took advantage of. In 1491 a young man appeared in Ireland claiming to be the younger of the Princes in the Tower. He said one of the assassins, who could not bring himself to kill “so little a child,” had helped him escape.

Henry said the young man was, in fact, a Dutchman, Perkin Warbeck, who was in the pay of foreign powers. But who could be sure? Warbeck led three attempts to invade England before he was captured in 1497. Henry then kept Warbeck alive long enough for him to publicly confess his modest birth. But even after Warbeck’s execution in 1499, Henry continued to fear the emergence of other “pretenders.” In May 1502, a condemned traitor named Sir James Tyrell supposedly confessed before his execution to murdering the princes on Richard’s orders. Thomas More tells us that Tyrell claimed that the boys had been buried at the foot of a staircase in the Tower “under a great heap of stones,” but that Richard had asked for their bodies to be reburied somewhere more dignified. Those involved had subsequently died, so the final resting place of the princes was unknown—a suspiciously convenient outcome for Henry VII. Richard’s reputation plummeted, the deaths of the princes were “confirmed,” and their graves were lost.

Meanwhile, the tomb of “saint” Henry VI had come to rival in popularity that of Thomas Becket at Canterbury, one of the top three pilgrimage sites in Europe. Thousands were still visiting it in 1533, the year Henry VIII broke with Rome. But the protestant English Reformation that outlawed Catholicism brought to a close the cult of saints, and memory of them faded, along with an understanding of why Richard had the princes disappear and why Henry did nothing to find them. In 1674, the skeletons of two children were recovered in the Tower of London in a place that resembled More’s description of their first burial place. Whoever they are, we might remember how the princes murdered in the Tower were denied any decent burial at all, while a grand tomb to house Richard III’s remains is currently being built in Leicester Cathedral. Correction: The article originally contained an ambiguity which could be taken to imply that Thomas More rather than Henry VIII was the son of Henry VII. Thomas More was the son of John More, a lawyer and judge. The article has been edited to make this clear.

Britain Magazine | The official magazine of Visit Britain | Best of British History, Royal Family,Travel and Culture - The Princes in the Tower Latest issue The Princes in the Tower Today marks the birthday of Richard, Duke of York, one of the Princes in the Tower. Their fates – after Richard III seized the throne – remain shrouded in mystery. We take a look at facts behind the stories. Richard III and the Shakespeare memorial at Stratford-upon-Avon © Steve Frost/Alamy William Shakespeare ’s portrayal of King Richard III as a charismatic, deformed, treacherous usurper of England’s throne has intrigued audiences for more than 400 years. The murder of Richard’s nephews, “the gentle babes…girdling one another within their alabaster innocent arms”, so the royal villain could grab the crown is shocking stuff. Yet are we witnessing historic fact, dramatic licence or retrospective Tudor propaganda to discredit King Richard? In 1984, some five centuries after the sudden disappearance of the two boys immortalised in history as the Princes in the Tower, a jury in a TV ‘trial’ found that it could not, on the evidence presented, convict Richard of his nephews’ murder.

Such is the mystery of the Princes’ fate that it fascinates to this day – you can even join a jury and decide for yourself at the Richard III Museum in York . © Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy So what did happen to the Princes? The gist of the story is well known: King Edward IV dies unexpectedly in April 1483, leaving his 12-year-old son Edward to inherit the throne. The late king’s brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, becomes Protector of England and lodges Edward and his sibling, nine-year-old Richard, Duke of York, in the  Tower of London . Events move fast. Before the year is out Edward V and his brother have been declared illegitimate, Edward is deposed and they both vanish, and the Duke of Gloucester is crowned King Richard III. Within another two years, Richard is killed at the Battle of Bosworth and the victor, Henry Tudor, is crowned King Henry VII. Thus ends the turbulent era of dynastic dispute known as the Wars of the Roses and the momentous Tudor age dawns. The fate of the Princes has divided opinion for centuries.

Popular belief is that they were murdered – whether smothered, locked in a room and left to starve, poisoned or even drowned in wine – theories range from realistic to fanciful. Richard III, his ally the Duke of Buckingham, his henchmen, and even Henry VII have all variously stood accused of carrying out the crime. Partisan Tudor writers – including those that provided Shakespeare’s source material – were unequivocal that Richard was responsible. Paintings show him as a hunchback, his physical deformity an outward sign of his wickedness, though no contemporary reports record such an appearance. The Richard III Society, originating in 1924, aims to promote research into the life and times of the much-maligned king, and to secure a reassessment of the material relating to the period. President, historian and author Peter Hammond says, “The Society has no official view on the death of the Princes but would point out that there is no evidence that they were in fact murdered at all. They were known to have been in the Tower of London in the late summer of 1483 and there are no reports of them being seen after that.

The implication usually drawn is that they were murdered but that does not necessarily follow; they could have been moved elsewhere.” The Tower of London photos: © Steven Phraner Indeed, in the wake of the Princes’ disappearance it was sometimes rumoured they had been spirited to safety in the countryside or abroad. Well into the reign of Henry VII figures would emerge claiming to be one or other of the brothers. A humble bricklayer working at Eastwell Park in Kent around 1530 surprised folk by reading Latin in his spare time: some whispered he was Richard, Duke of York. Let’s step right back to the beginning of the saga in April 1483 and follow the trail of events. Young Edward was residing at Ludlow Castle in Shropshire when he heard of his father’s death and, as the new King Edward V, set out for London with an escort including his maternal uncle Earl Rivers. Edward’s paternal uncle, the Duke of Gloucester, was at his northern stronghold of Middleham Castle, Yorkshire, and hastened south to assume the role of Protector of the Realm.

On the way he and his ally the Duke of Buckingham intercepted the royal party and arrested Rivers, Edward’s half-brother Sir Richard Grey, and two others. Did Gloucester already have designs on the crown? Or did he simply want control of the boy king, fearing plans by the queen’s family and their faction in London to make Edward their puppet? In the following months Richard would successfully sideline his opponents, having Rivers and Grey executed at Pontefract Castle for alleged plotting against him. So Richard escorted Edward to the capital. Sir Thomas More, later railing against tyranny in his 16th-century History of King Richard III, says Edward “wept and was nothing content” at what had happened. Following tradition, the young king lodged in sumptuous apartments at the Tower of London (it was still a royal residence, not solely a prison) while awaiting his coronation: originally set for 4 May, then 24 June, then 22 June, then postponed indefinitely. Meanwhile Gloucester, busy manipulating the council called to decide plans for the coronation and government while Edward was a minor, was officially named Protector and Defender of the Realm.

He also pushed the queen, who had sought sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, to surrender Richard to join his brother Edward in the Tower. Laurence Olivier as Richard III © Alamy John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, tells us that Edward possessed a “gentle wit and ripe understanding, far passing the nature of his youth”, while French chronicler Jean Molinet said York was “joyous and witty, and ever ready for dances and games.” The brothers were seen playing in the garden at the Tower. But sometime after 16 June Edward V and York were withdrawn to inner apartments. Edward Mancini, a monk in the entourage of the French ambassador to England, reported “day by day [they] began to be seen more rarely behind the bars and windows.” It is thought they were kept in the White Tower. Suddenly it was announced that Edward IV had been in a pre-contract of marriage before he married the Princes’ mother, Elizabeth Wydville, and the boys were illegitimate. No evidence was produced but an assembly of lords and commons deposed Edward V on 25 June. The next day Gloucester became King Richard III.

Richard proved an efficient and capable ruler but the fact that the Princes were never seen publicly again and the widespread belief that he had done away with them blackened his reputation: even in those ruthless times, murder of children was considered shocking. Many writers presented Richard’s death at Bosworth in 1485 as a fitting come-uppance. Nevertheless, persisting uncertainty over the fate of the Princes allowed ‘pretenders’ to the throne to emerge periodically throughout the reign of Henry VII, most notably Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck. Both purported to be the long-lost Duke of York. Then in 1502 Sir James Tyrrell, while being held in the Tower for treason, confessed that he had smothered the Princes on the order of Richard III. Sir Thomas More later wrote a chilling re-enactment of the alleged scene when Tyrell’s accomplices entered the Princes’ bedchamber at midnight and “so bewrapped and entangled them, keeping down by force the feather bed and pillows hard into their mouths”.

The Tower of London today is dwarfed by the City of London © Roland Nagy More also said that the bodies were buried “at the stair foot, meetly deep under the ground” and that the murder happened on 15 August 1483; modern historian Alison Weir calculates it was 3 September. In 1674 workmen found two skeletons at the base of the staircase to the chapel in the White Tower. Following investigations by the royal surgeon and selected antiquaries, the remains were declared to be those of the Princes, and King Charles II had them reburied in an urn in Westminster Abbey . 4In 1933 the skeletons were re-examined using more modern scientific techniques and, while findings are not considered conclusive, they are generally thought consistent with two children of the ages of the Princes. Bones, circumstantial evidence, reports and rumours paint a poignant and bloody tale, but mystery still shrouds the full truth. The Two Princes in the Tower The Princes in the Tower of London The mystery of what happened to the two princes in the Tower of London has puzzled historians and the academic world for over five hundred years.

The English poet and playwright William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) created his ‘Richard III’ play in the early 1590’s portraying Richard III as a wicked hunchback king who killed the Princes in the Tower, but did Richard III murder these two children? Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478- 6 July 1535) an English lawyer and councillor to Henry VII and Lord Chancellor from October 1529-16 May 1532, worked on a History of King Richard III, which he never finished and was published after his death had a similar opinion to Shakespeare, presenting Richard as, the shadowy King Richard an outstanding archetypal tyrant. A view supported by a contemporary of Thomas More, Polydore Vergil (1470- 18 April 1555) an Italian humanist scholar, historian and priest who was commissioned by Henry VII to write an "official" History of England in 1505. The opinion of these three well-known persons is not accepted by all academics, historians, and those researching this period of the Dark Ages of English history.

Through archaeology a different interpretation King Richard III as has come to light by the recent discovery of Leicester city’s King in the Car Park and the knowledge and understanding of deoxyribonucleic acid more commonly known as “DNA” The ‘Princess in the Tower’ were the sons of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, Edward V and his younger brother. Elizabeth Woodville had sought sanctuary at Westminster Abby from the Lancastrians who deposed his father, the Yorkist King during the course of the War of the Roses. It was in the abbey that Edward V was born on 2nd November 1470. He was only 12 when his father died, on 9th April 1483. In his father’s will he appointed his son's uncle Richard the Duke of Gloucester as Lord Protector of the young King Edward V. In his role as Protector to Edward V, it was claimed that the Duke of Buckingham met Richard at Northampton with an armed escort.

Elizabeth’s brother Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, and others were accused of planning to assassinate Richard, they were arrested, and taken to Pontefract Castle where they were later executed without trial after appearing before a tribunal led by Henry Percy, 4th Earl of Northumberland. Baron Hastings had advised Richard to arrange for Edward V to stay in the Kings quarters in the Tower of London, which he did. Edward’s younger brother the nine year old Richard, Duke of York was moved there as well, which his mother Elizabeth was reluctant to allow but the nine year old joined his brother in the Tower of London on 16th June 1483. The princes were not seen in public after August 1483, which resulted in accusations that the boys had been murdered giving rise to the legend of ‘The Princes in the Tower’. King Edward IV was known to have a number of mistresses, included Elizabeth “Jane” Shore (1445-1527) whom Edward described as "the merriest, the wiliest, and the holiest harlots" in his realm.

She also became a concubine to other noblemen, including Edward's stepson, Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset, and William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings, his close friend and adviser. Also mistress was Elizabeth Lucy, which the 18th century antiquarian John Anstis in The Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (London, 1724) identified her with "Elizabeth Wayte", the daughter of Thomas Wayte of Southampton, saying she was the mother of Arthur Plantagenet. Elizabeth Wayte, was the long-standing mistress of King Edward IV of England, and probable mother of several children by him, including Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle, (died 3 March 1542) was an illegitimate son of King Edward IV, half-brother of Queen Elizabeth of York, and thus an uncle of King Henry VIII, at whose court he was a prominent figure and by whom he was appointed Lord Deputy of Calais (1533–40).

Another one of Edward’s mistresses was the daughter of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, Lady Eleanor Talbot (1436- 30 June 1468) also known by her married name ‘Eleanor Butler’. The 13-year-old Eleanor married Sir Thomas Butler (or Boteler), son of Ralph Butler, Lord Sudeley In 1449, Thomas died at an unknown date before Edward IV of England's overthrow of the House of Lancaster on 4 March 1461, According to the French chronicler Philippe de Commines, Richard the Lord Protector proclaimed that the two princes in the tower were illegitimate due to the declaration of Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells. Commines wrote, regarding Edward IV marriage to Lady Eleanor Talbot ‘The bishop discovered to the Duke of Gloucester that his brother king Edward had been formerly in love with a beautiful young lady and had promised her marriage upon condition that he might lie with her; the lady consented, and, as the bishop affirmed, he married them when nobody was present but they two and himself.

His fortune depending on the court, he did not discover it, and persuaded the lady likewise to conceal it, which she did, and the matter remained a secret.’ The marriage was claimed to have taken place some years before Edward VI married Elizabeth Woodville, in 1464, as a result of which the two princes were illegitimate, Elizabeth Woodville’s sons had no rightful claim to his throne. On 22 June 1483, a sermon was preached outside Old St. Paul's Cathedral declaring Edward's children bastards and Richard the rightful king. Shortly after, the citizens of London, both nobles and commons, convened and drew up a petition asking Richard to assume the throne. He accepted on 26 June and was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 6 July 1483. His title to the throne was confirmed by Parliament in January 1484 by the document Titulus Regius. In the summer of 1483 servents attending Edward V and his younger brother Richard were dismissed, the two boys were taken into the "inner apartments of the Tower" and then were seen less and less until they disappeared altogether.

Dominic Mancini, an Italian friar who visited England in the 1480s and who was in London in the spring and summer of 1483, records that during this period Edward was regularly visited by a doctor, who reported that Edward, "like a victim prepared for sacrifice, sought remission of his sins by daily confession and penance, because he believed that death was facing him." Was the young Edward seemed to be in poor health, which is why he was regularly visited by a doctor? In which case he could well have been unwell as it was summer and London was not a healthy place to live at the time and he could have died. Rumours began as to what happened to the two princes in the Tower after they was last seen playing in the grounds of the Tower of London in late June early July 1783. There has been speculation that a failed attempt was made to rescue the two princes from the Tower of London around 29th July 1783, which may have resulted in Richard being forced into taking certain actions.

There was a rumour that Edward V’s brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, was not murdered but escaped to Flanders and had been made to swear an oath to his rescuers not to reveal his true identity for "a certain number of years". He was recognized as Richard of Shrewsbury by Margaret of York, the sister of Edward IV and was raised by her, in the ways of the Yorkist court, living under the name of Perkin Warbeck. After a few years he declared his was the younger prince in the Tower, who went claimed to be a pretender to the throne. His father, Jehan de Werbecque, he claimed was in truth Edward IV of England, and his mother, Katherine de Faro, was claimed to be Elizabeth Woodville. On 3 July 1495, funded by Margaret of Burgundy, Warbeck landed at Deal in Kent, Warbeck's small army was routed and 150 of the pretender’s troops were killed without Warbeck even disembarking. He retreated to Ireland.

and found support from Maurice FitzGerald, 9th Earl of Desmond, and laid siege to Waterford, but, meeting resistance, he fled to Scotland, and was well received by James IV of Scotland who realised that his presence gave him international leverage. Warbeck was permitted to marry James's distant cousin, Lady Catherine Gordon, a daughter of George Gordon, 2nd Earl of Huntly. In September 1496, James IV prepared to invade England with Warbeck. A red, gold and silver banner was made for Warbeck as the Duke of York; James's armour was gilded and painted, and the royal artillery was prepared. John Ramsay of Balmain (who called himself Lord Bothwell) described the events for Henry VII. He saw Roderic de Lalanne, a Flemish knight, arrive with two little ships and 60 German soldiers and meet James IV and talk to Warbeck. In Edinburgh Castle Ramsay saw two great French guns called 'curtalds,' 10 falconets or little serpentines, and 30 iron breech loading 'cart guns' with 16 close-carts or wagons for the munitions.

He estimated the invasion force would last only 4 to 5 days in England before it ran out of provisions. He suggested, from the safety of Berwick upon Tweed, that the Scots could be vanquished by a modest English force attacking from north and south in a pincer movement. The Scottish host assembled near Edinburgh and James IV and Warbeck offered prayers at Holyrood Abbey on the 14 September and on the next day at St Triduana's Chapel and Our Lady Kirk of Restalrig. On 19 September the Scottish army was at Ellem and on 21 September 1496 they crossed the River Tweed at Coldstream. Miners set to work to demolish the tower of Hetoune (Castle Heaton) on 24 September, but the army quickly retreated when resources were expended, and hoped-for support for Perkin Warbeck in Northumberland failed to materialise. According to an English record, the Scots penetrated four miles into England with royal banner displayed, and destroyed 3 or 4 little towers (or Bastle houses). They left on 25 September 1496 when an English army commanded by Lord Neville approached from Newcastle.

Later, wishing to be rid of Warbeck, James IV provided a ship called ‘the Cuckoo’, and a hired crew under a Breton captain which returned Perkin to Waterford in shame in July 1497. James IV made peace with England by signing the Treaty of Ayton at St Dionysius's Church in Ayton in Berwickshire. Once again Perkin attempted to lay siege to Waterford, but this time his effort lasted only eleven days before he was forced to flee Ireland, chased by four English ships. According to some sources, by this time he was left with only 120 men on two ships. On 7 September 1497, Warbeck landed at Whitesand Bay, 2 miles north of Land's End, in Cornwall hoping to capitalise on the Cornish people's resentment in the aftermath of their uprising only three months earlier. Warbeck proclaimed that he could put a stop to extortionate taxes levied to help fight a war against Scotland and was warmly welcomed. He was declared "Richard IV" on Bodmin Moor and his Cornish army some 6000 strong entered Exeter before advancing on Taunton.

Henry VII sent his chief general, Giles Daubeney, 1st Baron Daubeney, to attack the Cornish and when Warbeck heard that the King's scouts were at Glastonbury he panicked and deserted his army. Warbeck was captured at Beaulieu Abbey in Hampshire where he surrendered. Henry VII reached Taunton on 4 October 1497, where he received the surrender of the remaining Cornish army. The ringleaders were executed and others fined. Warbeck was imprisoned, first at Taunton, then at the Tower of London, where he was "paraded through the streets on horseback amid much hooting and derision of the citizens". Warbeck was initially treated well by Henry. As soon as he confessed to being an impostor, he was released from the Tower of London. He was, however, kept under guard and was not allowed to sleep with his wife, who was living under the protection of the queen. After eighteen months at court, Warbeck tried to escape. He was quickly recaptured. He was then held in the Tower, initially in solitary confinement, and later alongside Edward, Earl of Warwick; the two tried to escape in 1499.

Captured once again, on 23 November 1499, Warbeck was drawn on a hurdle from the Tower to Tyburn, London, where he read out a confession and was hanged. (Extract taken from Wikipedia.org) Click here for “ Richard Plantagenet ” the Kentish myth? The most popular version of the “Princes in the Tower” is told by William Shakespeare in his play, Richard III Act IV, scene 3. Edward V. and his brother, the Duke of York, were smothered in the Tower of London on August 17, 1483, by order of their uncle, who succeeded to the throne as Richard III. Enter TYRREL.

Question: Which Englich king was the father of the two boys known as 'The Princes in the Tower'?
Answer: EDWARD IV