Edward V (1470-1483?) and Prince Richard (1473-1483?): the Princes in the Tower


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He had control of his nephews as their protector and guardian. He was the one who ensure they were in the tower. A regency wasn't a real option as it had failed massively with Henry VI resulting in the Wars of the Roses as Henry was manipulated one way and another.
 
I agree that he had power and control. I also agree that a regency wouldn't have been all that great. In English history regencies have a tendency of not being all that great.

That said, pre-usurping the throne Richard had power and control. He feasibly could have influenced Edward V into being the type of monarch that Richard thought the boy could have been. He had keeping Edward on the throne type options available to him.

He also had putting himself on the throne type options available. I think in the end he chose what he felt was both good for England and good for himself.
 
Edward V was 14 right? That means he would come of age in just 4yrs that is not that long for a regency. Plus wasn't it Edward III who was under a 4yr regency as well? I think the problem with Henry VI wasnt his regrncy as a child but his mental problems as an adult.
Sorry but I think Richard just wanted to be king.
 
Edward V was 12eee so 6 years and thus a power vacuum. They weren't keen on another regency. How much the situation as a child with Henry VI led to his later mental issues will never be known. Edward V was also known to be more sickly than his younger brother so there was a chance that he wouldn't have lived to 18 anyway meaning a longer regency and the very concept was still newish.
 
So because of a bunch of could woulda shoulda's a rightful king looses his throne? Whether he was a child or not it was rightfully his and no one had a right to take it from him. This is why I disregard the idea that Richard couldn't have killed the prince's because he was proclaimed King. Anyone at that time who was King of England was in danger of having it taken from them, especially by a boy who was the son of a king who grew up to be a man who was the son of a king.
 
If Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had not been made Protector of the Kingdom, would he still have been able to put Edward V and Richard, Duke of York in the Tower of London?

In The Kings and Queens of Great Britain, Ian Crofton wrote:

The young prince (King Edward V) was left to the tender mercies of his ambitious uncle, Richard, duke of Gloucester.

How would the mercies of Richard have been "tender"?
 
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If Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had not been made Protector of the Kingdom, would he still have been able to put Edward V and Richard, Duke of York in the Tower of London?
At that time (1483) the Tower of London was the second-most important Royal Palace in England after Westminster, and was the working "office" of the monarchy. Council meetings were held there, the armory was there, the Treasury and Mint were there etc. and even the Royal Menagerie was there. Over 300 people lived there full-time and over 1000 worked there. Kings and Queens Consort were expected to reside there in the Royal Apartments in the days before their coronations and in fact this tradition continued through the reign of Charles II. Young Edward was placed in the Royal Apartments as a prelude to his planned coronation and his brother was brought to join him. After their parents' marriage was proven bigamous and Richard III was elected King by Parliament they were moved out of the royal apartments to another house in the Tower. What became of them after that is really not known to us, despite much later speculation. One thing is clear though - none of those 1000 or so people who were in the Tower every day saw or heard anything suspicious or Henry VII would have trumpeted it from his throne to prove they were dead.

Later, in 1503, their older sister Elizabeth, Henry VII's Queen, gave birth to her last child in the Tower but died shortly afterward of childbed fever on her 37th birthday after being moved to Richmond. The Tower ceased to be a royal residence soon afterwards.

It wasn't until the time of the Tudors that the Tower became infamous more as a prison than palace: the "princes'" first cousins Edward Earl of Warwick and Margaret Countess of Salisbury losing their heads due to their Plantagenet royal blood under Henry VII and Henry VIII - Warwick after being held in close solitary confinement from the age of 10 (shortly after Bosworth) until his execution at the age of 24 and Margaret butchered by an inept executioner at the age of 69.
 
Nobody saw or heard anything because the boys were murdered, probably by Tyrell, on Richard's orders, and this occurred most probably, in the middle of the night.

If Richard was such a loving uncle why were all young Edward's attendants removed after the death of Hastings? Dr John Argentine, the last of those attendants, reported that the young King, 'like a vctim prepared for sacrifice, sought remission of his sins by daily confession and penance, because he believed that death was facing him.'
 
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Before the marriage between Henry Tudor and Elizabeth of York was arranged (and the final terms were agreed upon almost right before the battle), Elizabeth Woodville had every right to fear for her life and that of her children. Her children, especially sons, had far better claims to the Throne and would have been of considerable annoyance to Henry Tudor.

I tend to agree with Iluvbertie and Marsel's points of view; Henry Tudor seems to me a much likelier culprit - and one who had most to gain. In addition, such a brutal act would have been in his character, whereas Richard never showed signs of such aggressive character (disregarding post-battle Tudor propaganda which painted him almost as an Antichrist.).


Yep I lean to the Tudor's as the prime suspects.

I also think it's quite possible that Perkin Warbeck was Richard Duke of York.


LaRae
 
Henry Tudor wasn't in England at the time that the two young princes were last seen. Elizabeth Woodville didn't have any live sons left to be a trouble and a nuisance to Henry when he became king. Her daughter had a better claim to the throne but nobody in medieval times would have replaced a king who won the throne by conquest with a female.

However those two boys were certainly obstacles to the throne for Richard. Being Lord Protector wasn't good enough. Take a close look at Richard's actions between the summary execution of Lord Rivers and Richard's coronation and see whether these correlate with being a loving uncle. He did actually deprive his nephew king Edward V of the throne, you know, and placed himself there instead!
 
Well Henry Tudor didn't have to be in England to have them killed. His mother was there...easily enough to have it ordered to be done.

Henry Tudor didn't want to have to deal with any York heirs either that people might want to replace him with at some point. Or that might want to just kill him and replace him as they got older.

Tudor executed Edward Plantagenet along with Warbeck...Edward had been held in the tower for years. Henry killed a York heir and a possible heir. He could of easily ordered the death of the first two heirs (or rather heir and fake heir ..not that he would of known that one was a substitute).

He deprived a York heir from the throne as well.


LaRae
 
Executing Warbeck was justified - he had been trying to overthrow the king. Executing Edward was less so, as he hadn't done anything to justify execution, but you can kind of understand why Henry did it - Edward posed a threat.

Henry wasn't fighting for the Yorks, so saying that he was depriving York heirs of the right to rule is misleading. Henry was the Lancastrian heir and believed that he and his line had the right to rule, not the Yorks. The Yorks may have believed otherwise, but we don't say that Edward IV was depriving the Lancaster heirs of their right to rule, do we?

Richard III did deprive a York heir the right to rule - he was for the Yorks, but when it worked for him he locked up his nephews from both brothers in order to put himself on the throne.

It's logical to assume that Edward V and his brother died during the reign of Richard III, as that's when they disappeared. It would have been in Henry's favour to kill the boys too, but he's not the one seen holding them last - Richard is.
 
Yep I lean to the Tudor's as the prime suspects.



I also think it's quite possible that Perkin Warbeck was Richard Duke of York.





LaRae


The problem with the Warbeck claim is that he said he was spared by his brother's murderers because of his age and "innocence". While he was the younger brother, Edward V was only 13 when he disappeared. What murderers are able to justify killing a 13 year old because he's a threat to them, but not the 10 year old who is as much a threat to them the moment that the 13 year old is dead?
 
I still think Richard III had them killed, probably by Tyrell. The boys weren't seen after mid-1483, and rumours were circulating - had they still been alive, surely he'd have let people see them to prove that they were alive. I know that some people, mostly novelists more than historians, have suggested that someone else got into the Tower during 1483 and had them killed without Richard knowing about it, and that Richard then did nothing about it afterwards, but that idea seems way too far-fetched.

I can't see that we'll ever know for certain, though, which is incredibly frustrating.
 
Yes, I agree, on all points. The Constable of the Tower was a Duke of Gloucester man through and through. If Richard was keeping the brothers safe it would have meant Constable Brackenbury's head if anyone unauthorised had got into the Tower and harmed them. Plus, Richard would have started a hue and cry, hunting down those responsible. Instead we get nothing from Richard regarding his young nephews but deafening silence.
 
Thank you for this. I think I would have to read the whole book to be quite sure of where JA-H got the "bones " from which he made the comparison. I had always been led to believe that access to the nur in Westminster Abbey has been denied. Perhaps an exception has been made in the light of J A-H's research into Richard 111.
 
I'm not really getting this argument. From how it reads to me, all he's saying is that pictures of the skulls thought to be those of the princes show that they both had teeth missing, but that Richard III had all his teeth. I don't see that that proves anything. The boys could have inherited the missing teeth gene from the Woodvilles, or maybe Edward IV inherited the gene from either Cecily Neville or Richard of York but Richard III didn't - a gene from one parent isn't necessarily passed on to every one of their children. I've actually got a tooth missing and so has my sister, and we inherited this from our maternal grandma, but it seems to have bypassed our mum, so it's something that can even skip a generation.

Sorry, Mr Ashdown-Hill, but I don't see that this proves anything!
 
They'll have to do DNA to really know.


LaRae
 
Henr
However those two boys were certainly obstacles to the throne for Richard. Being Lord Protector wasn't good enough. Take a close look at Richard's actions between the summary execution of Lord Rivers and Richard's coronation and see whether these correlate with being a loving uncle. He did actually deprive his nephew king Edward V of the throne, you know, and placed himself there instead!
It was Richard III almost beyond a doubt.
 
There are hugh doubts about Richard's involvement.
 
Not by many modern historians, there aren't.

Im not an expert on medieval but it seems to me mcuh more likely that it was Richard. If he did not balk at having his 2 nephews illegitimised, to get power, i odnt think that he'd balk at killing them if he felt that power was being threatened. Henry Tudor might have done so, but I feel that he didn't have to, since Richard had done it for him.
 
Was there anything suspicious that Edward V stayed in the Tower of London? In the 15th century, the Tower was a palace as well as a prison. English kings sometimes stayed there before their coronations.
 
I believe most medieval and Tudor monarchs had sumptuously decorated and comfortable apartments at the Tower, with banquets and other celebratory events held there. This continued intermittently right up to the 17th century when these apartments, (many of them in wooden structures) fell into complete disrepair, and yes, most English Kings and Queens prior to King Charles II stayed at the Tower for a short time prior to their Coronations.

However, most, even very young Kings like Richard II, didn't stay in the Tower for a prolonged period, being observed playing out of doors with their brother, and then being withdrawn indoors to an inner part of the Tower, having servants and personal attendants withdrawn and finally being seen no more on this earth! I'd say that was very unusual!
 
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Was used to varying levels. Henry III invested a lot to make it as comfortable as possible as a royal residence a well as Fort. He held court there and parliament at times. It fell out of royal housing by Tudor times, for the most part, more a prison and storage, Charles II was the last king to leave it for coronation.
 
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