"The Princes in the Tower"

The so-called "Princes in the Tower" were the sons of Edward IV: Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York. The disappearance of the two boys lies at the heart of the Ricardian debate, but their fate will probably never be known.

The point most damning to Richard is that they disappeared when they were under his protection, and were never seen again. Despite having them declared illegitimate, they would still have been a focal point for rebellion, and would have been better out of the way. History gives many examples of usurpers murdering the monarch they deposed (his own brother had), why would Richard have been any different? Richard needed the princes to be dead, and he needed people to know they were dead, to discourage rebellion in their name, but he would not have wanted be seen as their murderer. Perhaps this is why they were never spoken about by Richard, who went to a great deal of trouble to deny he was planning to marry his niece Elizabeth, but did not deny the rumours that the princes had been murdered.

Their fate is made more mysterious by the fact that Henry Tudor never spoke of them either. It has been said that he found them to be still alive at his accession, and had them murdered himself. He certainly had good reason to. Henry never accused Richard of the death of the princes, though he accused him of just about everything else. He could have invented the evidence to damn Richard, thus further blackening Richard's name, and saving himself the trouble of all the claimants he would have to deal with during his reign - but he never did. Did he suspect they were still alive?

The actions of the boys' mother, Elizabeth Woodville, are further perplexing. If she knew, or even suspected that Richard had murdered her two sons, she kept quiet about it and then let her daughters out of sanctuary and into his care. This was rather strange behaviour for a woman who had spent her entire married life promoting the claims of her large family. There also appears to be some evidence that she supported an uprising in 1486 in the name of one of her supposedly dead sons. This uprising was put down, and the ringleader proved to be an imposter by the name of Lambert Simnel. For Elizabeth to risk the future of her daughter the queen and her grandson who would one day be king, she must have strongly believed that at least one of her sons was still alive.