Princes in the Tower probe could reshape royal history

For numerous individuals, the narrative of the Princes in the Tower unfolds as a concise and tragic saga of homicide and treachery. The progeny of King Edward IV are commonly acknowledged to have met their demise in 1483 at the behest of their uncle, Richard III. The inquiry into the Survival of the Princes in the Tower scrutinizes the prevailing contemporary belief that at least one prince, and perhaps both Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, endured into the Tudor era. If, upon his arrival in London in September 1485, Henry VII were to ascertain that the Princes in the Tower were alive, he would have encountered a formidable quandary.

His ascent to triumph at Bosworth was largely propelled by the fervent support of the Yorkist faction, which had rallied behind Edward IV but recoiled from the dominion of Richard III. Henry's administration would inevitably bear a distinct Yorkist imprint due to his reliance on seasoned former members of Edward IV’s governance. These individuals had pledged their allegiance to Henry primarily due to his commitment to espouse Edward’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York. To consummate this union, Henry needed to annul the parliamentary decree of illegitimacy imposed on all of Edward IV’s offspring in 1484. The predicament, however, lay in the fact that such an act would also legitimize her brothers, endowing them with a superior and likely more popular claim to the newly acquired throne.

Given this conundrum, it is noteworthy that no documented inquiry or quest for the boys' remains transpired. Henry neither apprehended those privy to the events nor dismantled the Tower in search of them—or at least, no historical record attests to such endeavors. The uncertainty surrounding their fate persisted for over a decade, manifesting in the emergence of pretenders who posed a threat to Henry’s rule.

The Lambert Simnel Affair is conventionally remembered as an endeavor to employ an Oxford lad to impersonate Edward, Earl of Warwick. Yet, several incongruities surround this Yorkist conspiracy. Was Elizabeth Woodville’s dispossession and relocation to Bermondsey Abbey, coinciding with news of the plot, merely happenstance? The arrest of her eldest son, Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, during the same period raises questions. Bernard Andre, the blind poet and tutor to Prince Arthur Tudor, asserted that the plot aimed to place a son of Edward IV named Edward on the throne—an unmistakable reference to Edward V.

Henry VII ordered the destruction of all records of the 1487 Irish Parliament, suggesting the concealment of information he deemed detrimental. The prolonged challenge posed by Perkin Warbeck stemmed directly from the uncertainty surrounding the Princes' demise. Maximilian I, the Holy Roman Emperor, and James IV of Scotland staunchly supported Perkin as the genuine Richard, Duke of York. Perkin’s claim, coupled with his alleged physical marks, was never refuted by Henry, even after his capture. Speculation abounded that Perkin was maltreated and disfigured to obfuscate his unmistakably Plantagenet features.

Amateur art historian Jack Leslau contended that he had decrypted concealed secrets within Hans Holbein's family portrait of Sir Thomas More. These secrets purportedly pointed to an assumed identity used by the younger Prince in the Tower, with implications for the identity of the elder brother. If true, this revelation could have reverberated profoundly in the political landscape of the latter half of the sixteenth century.

A receptacle within the Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey proclaims itself as the ultimate resting place of the Princes in the Tower, purportedly slain by Richard III in 1483. Unearthed in 1674, the contents of the urn were initially discarded, but King Charles II, upon learning of their discovery, ordered their retrieval and placement in an urn designed by Sir Christopher Wren. At that time, there was no conclusive evidence of their regal lineage. While the location aligns with Sir Thomas More’s account of the murders, it disregards his claim that the bodies were promptly relocated.

References to velvet, often presented as proof of the remains' high status and dating after the fourteenth century, derive from an anonymous, undated, and unreferenced source uncorroborated elsewhere. The 1933 examination of the bones was subjective, aiming to affirm their identity as the Princes rather than establishing their origin. The bones were neither sexed nor properly dated, and the relationship between them was not definitively established. Additionally, other remains purported to belong to the Princes in the Tower were discovered in the Tower of London before and after 1674.

In the absence of concrete evidence, "The Survival of the Princes in the Tower" offers a fresh analysis of one of history's enduring and enigmatic murder mysteries, questioning the certainty of a murder ever taking place.