The Princes in the Tower, page 1
‘We find but few historians, of all ages, who have been diligent enough in their search for truth; it is their common method to take on trust what they deliver to the public, by which means, a falsehood once received from a famed writer, becomes traditional to posterity.’1
John Dryden (1631–1700), poet, translator, critic playwright.
Created first Poet Laureate in 1668.
Endpapers: Tower of London, Survey 1597; image, 1742. (© British Library Board.
All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images)
First published 2023
The History Press
97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,
Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB
www.thehistorypress.co.uk
© Philippa Langley, 2023
The right of Philippa Langley to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 80399 542 7
SPECIAL EDITION ISBN 978 1 80399 625 7
SIGNED EDITION ISBN 978 1 80399 644 8
Typesetting and origination by The History Press
Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall
eBook converted by Geethik Technologies
Contents
Foreword by Nathalie Nijman-Bliekendaal
Preface
Family Trees
Maps
Introduction: The Inspiration
Part 1
1 The Missing Princes Project: A Cold-Case Investigation
2 The Missing Princes: Edward V and Richard, Duke of York
3 1483: Two Weeks, One Summer
4 The Disappearance: A Timeline
Part 2
5 The Sources: Missing, Murdered, Maintained
6 The Suspects: Means, Motive, Opportunity, Proclivity to Kill
7 Richard III: King by Right – The Evidence
8 Sir James Tyrell’s Confession: Fact or Fiction?
Part 3
9 Windsor Coffins and a Westminster Urn
10 To Kill a King: The Aftermath of Bosworth
11 In Living Memory: The Mortimer Heirs – A Blueprint
Part 4
12 Edward V: Proof of Life by Nathalie Nijman-Bliekendaal and Philippa Langley
13 The Yorkist Invasion of 1487: Edward V and the Second Fleet by Zoë Maula, Dutch Research Group 182
14 Richard, Duke of York: Proof of Life by Nathalie Nijman-Bliekendaal and Philippa Langley
15 The Journey of the White Rose to the Island of Texel, April–July 1495 by Nathalie Nijman-Bliekendaal and Jean Roefstra
Part 5
16 The Family of Edward V and Richard, Duke of York 229 17 Case Connections
18 Avenues for Exploration
19 Summary and Conclusion
20 Postscript
Appendix 1 King Richard’s Oath and Promise: Westminster, 1 March 1484 (Modernised)
Appendix 2 Edward V: Proof of Life, 16 December 1487 309
Appendix 3 An Ideal Place to Hide a Prince by John Dike, Lead Researcher, Coldridge Line of Investigation 311
Appendix 4 The Dendermonde Letters, 25 August 1493 327
Appendix 5 Richard, Duke of York: Proof of Life, c. 1493 331
Appendix 6 Richard of England: Dresden MS, Signature and Royal Seal, 4 October 1493
Appendix 7 Trois Enseignes Naturelz, 27 November– 12 December 1493 by Zoë Maula, Dutch Research Group
Appendix 8 Maximilian I: Legal Supplication to Pope Alexander VI on Behalf of Richard, Duke of York, 22 September 1495 (Modernised)
Appendix 9 Richard IV’s Proclamation, September 1496 (Modernised)
Appendix 10 Maat, and Black & Hackman Reports: ‘Bones in the Urn’, 14 June 2018, 11 November 2021
Timelines
Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Contributors
Acknowledgements
Foreword
In September 2017, on a small bench in the Cramond Inn in Edinburgh, we sat gazing at the late fifteenth-century handwriting that had just appeared on my laptop screen. This was a remarkable archival find from the National Archives in The Hague, only recently discovered by a Dutch team of researchers. I translated the Middle Dutch on the screen into English for Philippa. Line after line, the words, penned in Holland by a clerk more than 500 years ago, revealed in detail the journey of ‘The White Rose’, in the northern part of Holland, to the Island of Texel …
Uncovering this, and proving that the events surrounding the Yorkist invasion in 1495 were not handed down through history as they actually happened, was exciting and full of promise. We had only just begun to investigate the archives on the continent, and now it dawned on me just how much potential there was in neglected archival material and pieces of evidence that could lie outside the UK. It seemed that answers to Britain’s age-old mystery were waiting to be found in the archives of the Low Countries, which made perfect sense because there had been precedents: in 1470 King Edward IV and his brother Richard had fled to Bruges via Texel, while nine years earlier Richard and his other brother George were sent to Utrecht as children. The reason? To find shelter in the Burgundian Netherlands in times of uncertainty and danger in the kingdom.
Returning to the Netherlands from Edinburgh, and infected by Philippa’s enthusiasm, I couldn’t wait to continue searching in the archives on the continent. As a lawyer myself, I leaned on the historical expertise of my fellow Dutch team members and the kindness of archivists who were so willing to offer me the help I needed.
How I loved those ancient sources and their medieval handwriting. Slowly, I learnt to decipher and transcribe texts that, at first sight, appeared unreadable – and what a joy the moment was when their contents revealed themselves to me. Just to hold those magnificent leatherbound books and scrutinise city accounts, letters and receipts – all the while eager to find that one snippet of evidence that could possibly shed new light on this enduring mystery – was enough to become passionately involved in Philippa’s project.
Over the years, it did turn out that the archives on the continent were indeed real treasure troves, containing a wealth of previously neglected material from the key years. Philippa, while undertaking her own original research and analysing in minute detail the reign of Richard III and subsequent Yorkist uprisings in Henry VII’s reign, once joked that thanks to the Dutch project members all she had to do was ‘sit back and open her inbox to get another avalanche of new finds coming in from Europe’.
Recently, Philippa asked me if I would write the foreword for her new book. This is a great honour and, indeed, I would like to pay tribute to all the other contributors, specialists, experts, Latinists and researchers, from the UK and overseas, who selflessly and generously dedicated their time and energy to help make The Missing Princes Project a success.
This unprecedented work that is now before you is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in history and historical mysteries. Its completeness and the astonishing breadth of sources it makes use of define this as a landmark study in British history. It is the result of what can be achieved when forces are brought together for the same cause by an inspirational woman, tireless in her quest to uncover the truth about what happened to the sons of King Edward IV, last seen in the summer of 1483, playing in the Tower grounds.
Nathalie Nijman-Bliekendaal
Member of the Dutch Research Group
Formerly a criminal lawyer, now a passionate historical researcher
Preface
This work represents the first five-year report of The Missing Princes Project (2016–21). The project is a cold-case investigation into the disappearance of Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, in 1483, employing the same principles and practices as a modern police enquiry. The project’s remit, assisted by members of the police and investigative agencies, is to follow the basic tenet of any modern investigation, ABC:
Accept Nothing – Believe Nobody – Challenge Everything
This work, therefore, makes no apologies for upsetting any long-established apple carts, including those of famed and famous writers.
Our only objective is the truth.
Philippa Langley MBE
Family Trees
Maps
England, France and the Low Countries (Belgium and Holland). (Philippa Langley)
UK, Ireland and the Channel Islands. (Philippa Langley)
Introduction
The Inspiration
On 25 August 2012, the mortal remains of Richard III of England (1452–85) were discovered beneath a car park in Leicester. News of the discovery and the king’s eventual reburial went viral, reaching an estimated global audience of over 366 million.1 The return of the king captured the world’s imagination, but how had this come about? The search for Richard III had been instigated and led not by an academic or archaeologist, but by a writer.
The Looking For Richard Project was a research initiative which questioned received wisdom and dogma. It proved the ‘bones in the river’ story
We also disproved the local projection that the lost Greyfriars Church was probably inaccessible, being under the buildings and road of Grey Friars (street). This was suggested in 1986, with a plaque erected four years later to mark the location. It would be further supported in 2002.3
The Looking For Richard Project also examined Richard III’s character by commissioning the first-ever psychological analysis by two of the UK’s leading experts, Dr Julian Boon and Professor Mark Lansdale. Their eighteen-month study, based on the known details of Richard’s life, revealed that he was not psychopathic, narcissistic or Machiavellian – three of the traits long employed by traditional writers to describe the king.
In physical terms, analysis of Richard’s remains by scientists at the University of Leicester revealed that the king was not, as Shakespeare depicted, a ‘hunchback’ afflicted by kyphosis (a forward bend of the spine). Richard suffered from a scoliosis (a sideways bend), which resulted in uneven shoulders. As there is no record in the king’s lifetime of any disparity in shoulder height, the condition was not readily apparent.4
Analysis also discovered that Richard, contrary to Shakespeare, did not walk with a limp. His hips were straight and his legs normal. He was not lame and was not described in such terms during his lifetime. Similarly, he did not suffer from a withered arm as alleged by the Tudor writer Thomas More. Both arms were of equal length and size.
In addition, the story that the king’s head had struck Bow Bridge when his body was brought to Leicester over the back of a horse following the Battle of Bosworth was also proved false. There were no marks on the king’s skull to suggest that it had come into contact with anything resembling a stone or bridge.
The Looking For Richard Project heralded a new era of evidence-based Richard III research and analysis. It was a major opportunity for the academic community and leading historians to employ this new knowledge as the basis for further discoveries.
We didn’t have to wait long. As we headed towards the king’s reburial, two key members of the team were undertaking their own evidence-based investigations.
Dr John Ashdown-Hill was investigating the king’s dental record, revealing that Richard’s teeth showed no consanguinity (blood relationship) with the ‘bones in the urn’ in Westminster Abbey, said to be those of the Princes in the Tower. The story promulgated by historians for centuries was now open to question.5
Richard III had no congenitally missing teeth, a condition known as hypodontia. This was in direct contrast to the bones in Westminster Abbey, where both skulls presented this genetic anomaly. Previously, it had been argued that this inherited dental characteristic had proved the royal identity of the remains.6
So, was this story yet another myth; as great a historical red herring as the ‘bones in the river’ story?
Another key member of the Looking For Richard Project was undertaking her own enquiries. Annette Carson, a leading biographer of Richard III, published an important constitutional examination of Richard’s legal authority in 1483. Richard, Duke of Gloucester as Lord Protector and High Constable of England (2015) revealed that Richard’s actions during the protectorate were fully compliant with his official position as Protector and Constable of England. This included the execution of William, Lord Hastings, where Richard is traditionally accused of overstepping his rightful authority. So, it seemed that the Looking For Richard Project had been the catalyst for a new era of evidence-based research that would lead to significant discoveries concerning the debate around Richard III.
It would be important for traditional historians to raise their own questions. In May 2014, a year after the announcement of the identification of the king, Professor Michael Hicks, Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the University of Winchester, was the first.7
Despite the overwhelming evidence supporting a positive identification, Hicks contested that the remains could belong to ‘a victim of any of the battles fought during the Wars of the Roses’. He questioned the DNA evidence and singled out the carbon-14 dating analysis, which covered a period of eighty years, as ‘imprecise’. University of Leicester scientists responded firmly, explaining how the identification had been made by ‘combining different lines of evidence’. They would ‘challenge and counter’ Professor Hicks’ views in follow-up papers, ‘demonstrating that many of his assumptions are incorrect’.
In December 2014, the university published a paper on the DNA investigation, explaining that ‘analysis of all the available evidence confirms identity of King Richard III to the point of 99.999% (at its most conservative)’.8 Genealogist Ashdown-Hill examined Hicks’ suggestion and established that no other individual satisfied the criteria as an alternative candidate.9 Hicks felt that the remains were those of an illegitimate family member whose name is now lost to us.
On Tuesday, 24 March 2015, during reburial week, a headline in the Daily Mail proclaimed, ‘It’s mad to make this child killer a national hero: Richard III was one of the most evil, detestable tyrants ever to walk this earth.’ The writer, Michael Thornton, presented no verification or proof. His piece drew online comments from around the world, best summed up by Catherine from Chicago, United States, ‘This article shows a complete disregard for what counts as historical evidence’.
Thornton’s article had been prompted by a TV programme screened a few days earlier. On Saturday, 21 March 2015, the day before the king’s coffin made its historic journey to Leicester Cathedral, Channel 4 broadcast The Princes in the Tower by Oxford Film & Television,10 promoted as ‘a new drama-documentary … in which key figures … debate one of English history’s darkest murder mysteries’. An extended release from Oxford Film & Television stated:
More than 500 years after the Princes disappeared the arguments about their fate rage as fiercely as ever. No bodies were produced, no funeral was performed. This is the ultimate medieval whodunit: there are villainous tyrants, scheming rivals, and two young boys in the Tower who meet a grisly end. Was the dastardly Richard to blame as Shakespeare says? Or was Richard framed by a powerful enemy? By unpicking the events that led to the boys’ disappearance, and exploring the murderous power struggle at court, this film cuts through centuries of propaganda to examine the real evidence …11
The programme was a strange mish-mash. Despite an apparent intention to engage in meaningful debate, the broadcast failed to live up to its billing. Most historians and writers gave pertinent and important material insights, particularly Janina Ramirez, who was at pains to offer fact over reported fiction. But sadly, instead of following the known facts, the programme took the road most travelled: evil schemers in dark corners leading the viewer to the requisite conclusion – the boys were murdered, and by their uncle Richard. Indeed, the finale claimed that the mystery of the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower had been solved, a conclusion erroneously reached by a Tudor historian misrepresenting a later Tudor source. The Daily Telegraph reviewed it as a ‘flimsy documentary drama which served as hype … with little reference to any evidence’.12
I nevertheless held out hope that the traditional community might embrace a new era of evidence-based history. However, what happened next would act as a catalyst for an entirely new research initiative.
On Monday, 22 March 2015, as Richard’s coffin was received by Leicester Cathedral in preparation for reburial, Channel 4 TV presenter Jon Snow asked a Tudor historian for the evidence of Richard’s murder of the Princes in the Tower. ‘The evidence’, the historian replied, ‘is that he would have been a fool not to do it.’
In another of Snow’s television interviews on 26 March, the evening of King Richard’s reburial, I was asked, ‘What next?’
