The Princes in the Tower, page 17
The Westminster Urn
In 1674, bones were discovered at the Tower of London while workmen were demolishing several structures abutting the south face of the White Tower, in the Inmost Ward, including a forebuilding and jewel house, which had been erected during the previous five centuries. This was to make way for a new open area and outer staircase.9 The bones had been found at a depth of 10ft when digging down to the foundations at the south-east corner. Initially, they were thrown onto a nearby rubbish heap with other building detritus. Sometime later, when news of the discovery became known to the authorities at the Tower, they were retrieved on the orders of Charles II and said to be the remains of Edward V and Richard, Duke of York. The now partial remains were placed in General Monck’s tomb in Westminster Abbey.
Four years later, in 1678, they were exhumed and reinterred in an urn in the abbey, complete with a Latin inscription stating they were the princes.10 It is not known what caused the four-year delay.11
On 6 July 1933, the urn was opened, and the contents were investigated by historian Lawrence Tanner and anatomist Professor William White (White was assisted by dental surgeon Dr George Northcroft). Their report states that they identified the skeletal remains of two male children – the elder was 12–13 years old and the younger was 9–11 years old. Assessing evidence of consanguinity (blood relationship), they found features ‘of no small significance’ in the bones and jaws. Based on Thomas More’s story (their chosen reference), it was concluded from these assumptions that they were the right ages for the princes in 1483 and so they were given the names Edward and Richard. A red stain on the older skull was thought to be blood and evidence of suffocation.
This is an important scientific paper for the enquiry. Since its publication, leading traditional historians have relied on its findings as evidence of murder, although many specialists have questioned its findings. To help clarify this, experts have been engaged by the present project to investigate the bones in the urn. They are Professor George Maat (August 2017) and Professor Dame Sue Black (August 2019).
Report 1 (Maat)
Professor George Maat is a leading Dutch bio-anthropologist specialising in archaeological and forensic anthropology and based at Leiden University Medical Centre. Maat is involved in the identification of victims, including the mass graves in Kosovo, the Tsunami in Thailand and several air disasters including MH-17 in Ukraine.
To undertake his analysis, Maat was furnished with all available materials from the only first-hand examination on record. These included fifteen black and white photographs of the remains (1933); five X-ray images (1933); and the Tanner and Wright report (1935). For the analysis to be blind, the 1935 report was redacted to include factual information only. This eliminated any historical references and any early twentieth-century bias.12
For the Maat report, see Appendix 10. What follows is a precis:
The Minimum Number of Individuals present is 2 (with a possibility of 3), with the elder set of remains more likely to be female. Consanguinity between the two main sets of remains is possible via the age range. Age range of the remains is indicated at 9.5–12.5 years (older set) and 7–11 years (younger set). No cause of death indicators were present, and no antiquity for any of the remains was identifiable.
Report 2 (Black and Hackman)
Professor Dame Sue Black is one of the world’s leading anatomists and forensic anthropologists. In 1999, she was the lead anthropologist for the British Forensic Team in Kosovo. Her expertise has been crucial in adjudicating many high-profile criminal cases. Based at Lancaster University, in April 2021 she was created Baroness Black of Strome.
Assisting Black was Professor Lucina Hackman, who is also a leading forensic anthropologist specialising in living age and human identification. She has given expert evidence in court in relation to trauma analysis, identification and age estimation, and is based at Dundee University.
To undertake the analysis, Black and Hackman were furnished with all available materials from the only first-hand examination on record (with no redactions), and with papers by Theya Molleson (1984),13 P.W. Hammond and W.J. White (1986),14 John Ashdown-Hill (2018),15 and Glen Moran (2018)16 – all later commentators who had not handled the remains. Following the events of the pandemic, the final report was submitted on 11 November 2021, with some follow-up questions on 16 November.
Black and Hackman’s report was ‘based only on the papers above and in light of forensic standards’.17 For the report (and subsequent questions), see Appendix 10. What follows is a precis:
In terms of Tanner and Wright’s identification of the remains, the 2021 report noted confirmation bias. The remains are human, incomplete and fragmentary with at least two individuals represented. These are juvenile. The oldest individual whose age can be estimated from some of the remains is between 9–15 years, the youngest is estimated at between 8–12 years. There is no evidence to support the suggestion that all remains are male. There is no scientific evidence to support a date of death. There is no strong evidence to support consanguinity. We would question the stain being blood. We would not comment on whether such staining could be evidence of suffocation using a pillow.18
Other Physical Evidence
With no scientific evidence to support Tanner and Wright’s conclusion that the remains were those of King Edward’s sons, can we look to other disciplines to provide relevant information?
Archaeological investigation at the Tower over many decades has revealed sub-strata levels with remains dating from the Iron Age, Roman, Saxon and Norman periods. The Tower’s location at a strategic point on the River Thames has ensured habitation over many centuries, prior to construction of the Norman fortress in the 1070s.
In 1965, the complete skeleton of a 13–16-year-old boy was discovered close to that of the 1674 discovery.19 Modern techniques dated the skeleton to the Iron Age. At the depth the bones in the urn were discovered, archaeological experts agree that the remains in the urn will most probably date to a pre-medieval period.20
And what of the anonymous note cited in Tanner and Wright’s historical narrative which stated that ‘there were pieces of rag and velvet about them’? Might this help to date the remains?21 The undated note, mentioned in a book on the Tower by Richard Davey (1910), is said to be from an unidentified manuscript on heraldry.22
Velvet was in production in Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with church vestments known to have been made of velvet by 1250.23 While searches continue, could the discovery of the unidentified manuscript on heraldry (with its seventeenth-century marginalia) indicate an early medieval foundation burial?
Foundation burials were common across Europe in the early Middle Ages as a means of offering protection to new buildings against possible collapse.24 By 1170, new royal lodgings had been added to the White Tower on its southern side.25 These were part of the palace buildings (including the Jewel House, see the 1597 plan at Plate 15), which were demolished from 166826 to make way for the new open area and outer staircase. Could this suggest an early medieval foundation burial for the Royal Apartment buildings themselves?
This is, of course, pure speculation. Both accounts of the original discovery of the bones, penned by John Knight, surgeon to Charles II, do not mention velvet, and the first of these, Knight’s ‘official’ account, was signed by him.27 No velvet (or other material) was found in the urn when it was opened in 1933. Moreover, foundation sacrifices were common during the Roman and Saxon periods.
The southern aspect of the White Tower is built on the foundation of earlier Roman structures at its south-east corner.28 The Normans were known to utilise Roman foundations in several of their buildings. Colchester Castle, for example, was constructed on the foundation of a Roman temple.29 In the sixteenth century, John Stow stated that the Tower of London had originated as a Roman stronghold. This tradition was later supported by archaeological investigation.30 The 1674 remains were ‘ten foot’ down (foundation level) beneath a newly demolished set of exterior stairs which had risen to the second bay along from the left, accessing entrances in the southern elevation of the White Tower.31
Discoveries of remains of children (and animals) at the Tower have been many and varied over the centuries, perhaps not wholly surprising in an ancient site. Some from the early seventeenth century were tentatively identified as the princes before being disregarded.32
Today, the remains in the abbey urn are said to be those of the princes on account of Thomas More’s sixteenth-century narrative. As we have seen, More claimed the princes were buried in the Tower at the ‘stair foot’ (which stair is not stated), but shortly afterwards, again according to More, the bodies were exhumed and reinterred secretly in a ‘better place’, ‘God wot where’ (see Chapter 5).
For more on Henry Tudor’s unsuccessful search of the Tower in the immediate aftermath of Bosworth and analysis of potential witnesses, see Chapter 10.
Our investigation has uncovered a lack of both physical and documentary evidence in support of foreign and Tudor allegations of death or homicide. As a result, it is important to widen the enquiry to examine any relevant information from King Richard’s reign regarding the potential survival of the princes and any later traditions that may support this position. This may inform new lines of investigation.
The Wider-Ranging Investigation – The Whereabouts of King Edward’s Sons During King Richard’s Reign
The question of where various royal children were domiciled during King Richard’s reign is itself uncertain, with few clues available. Still fewer are any clues as to the specific location of Edward IV’s sons.
Surviving records from the King’s Signet Office describe household ordinances for a royal nursery at Sandal Castle with the ‘Children togeder at oon brekefast’ on 24 July 1484. Which children is not made clear, although Francis Lovell’s teenage nephew, Henry Lovell, Lord Morley (a minor),33 is said to be at his breakfast with John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln.
Viewed objectively, the domiciled presence of the Yorkist children in Richard’s heartlands of Yorkshire would make strategic and political sense.34 Additionally, several events may suggest that one or more of the boys were taken north. These include the payment and dismissal of a number of Edward V’s attendants on 18 July 1484,35 just before the royal progress left the capital on 19 July,36 and the presence on the progress of the former tutor and President of Edward V’s Prince of Wales Council, John Alcock, Bishop of Worcester.37
Did the Accounts Clerk at Cambridge misremember King Richard and Queen Anne’s visit of 9–11 March 1484 and mistake the Earl of Warwick for Edward IV’s youngest son? And what did Popplau mean in his report after visiting the royal court in York in early May 1484 (compiled a year later), when he referred to the safekeeping at Pontefract Castle of the king’s treasure, children and sons of princes, kept as close as they would be if in actual captivity? And why did Popplau consider the boys to be alive but hidden in a secret place?
We must also consider several traditions surrounding the possible where-abouts of Edward IV’s sons during King Richard’s reign. Perhaps one of the most well known is the Tyrell family tradition that the boys stayed at Gipping Manor in Suffolk with their mother ‘by permission of the uncle’.38 At this remove, the tradition sounds plausible as a story that may have been recounted by subsequent generations of the Tyrell family following Sir James’ execution and Thomas More’s story about his later confession to their murder.
Other locations with modern local traditions concerning the residence of one or more of the princes during King Richard’s reign include Llandovery in Wales, and its connection to Tyrell (and Buckingham);39 and Barnard Castle in County Durham, with its connection to Sir Richard Ratcliffe, its Constable,40 Miles Forest, its Keeper of the Wardrobe (see Chapter 17) and its Brackenbury Tower. An oral tradition states that Robert Brackenbury was in charge of one or more of the princes being moved to Barnard Castle.41 There is also a tradition at Scarborough Castle,42 Bedale in North Yorkshire (see Chapter 14)43 and Mottram in Longdendale, Lancashire.44
Longdendale is particularly interesting. Once a possession of Francis Lovell, the king’s close friend and Chamberlain, an information panel on display at the Portland Basin Museum in Ashton-under-Lyne records, ‘A persistent local story claims that the two “Princes in the Tower” were not murdered but were secretly moved to Longdendale by Francis Lovell, Lord of Longdendale, who was Chamberlain to Richard III.’
Longdendale was later granted to Sir William Stanley.45 Sir William, who played a crucial part at Bosworth, became King Henry’s Chamberlain, was not present at Stoke Field and rebelled ten years after Bosworth in the name of Edward IV’s youngest son, Richard, Duke of York.46 William was summarily executed after many of the rebels had been brought by deception to the Tower of London.47 As Vergil and Buc confirm, the rebellion in 1495 in the boy’s name was extensive and included a number of leading nobles from Henry’s court under Sir William’s titular leadership.48
A tradition which has recently come to prominence is the one at Coldridge in Devon and its connection to Edward V. For more on this, see Appendix 3.
With a lack of both physical and documentary evidence in support of the deaths or homicides of the princes – and several potential signifiers for their survival – it is important to again widen the enquiry and return to the immediate period following the death of King Richard, the person most likely to have known what happened. What might this reveal?
We will now place under the microscope the immediate aftermath of Bosworth and undertake a detailed examination of potential witnesses.
10
To Kill a King
The Aftermath of Bosworth
As a cold-case police enquiry, an important facet of The Missing Princes Project is to attempt the recreation and forensic examination of events as they happened – that is, without the contamination of so many unverifiable accounts that were written in retrospect by persons who had no personal insight into what took place. One such example is the period immediately post-Bosworth when the worlds of Richard III and Henry Tudor collided. What Henry and his forces investigated at this key moment may help to illuminate the mystery of the missing princes.
Henry’s Delayed Arrival into London
One of the project’s significant questions concerns Henry’s delayed arrival into London and apparent change in strategy following King Richard’s death. Securing the capital was a vital military objective, so why did Henry spend twelve days undertaking a journey that should have been completed in three?1 Moreover, why did Henry’s focus turn north at this crucial juncture? We are told that Henry (and his army) wished to enjoy the progress and acclamation. This may be partly true.2
However, in postponing his arrival the new uncrowned and self-proclaimed king risked finding the gates of London closed to his invading foreign army and rebel force. London had rallied to King Richard, providing 3,178 men3 and imposing martial law to protect the city from the invaders.4 The fact that London stood down and eventually welcomed Henry, following confirmed reports of King Richard’s death5 and a show of strength by Henry,6 suggests no Yorkist force or heir was present in the capital at the time of Richard’s defeat.
Post-Bosworth Events – Under the Microscope
It is important to note that Henry VII’s historian, Polydore Vergil, devoted only two lines of text to this crucial time, describing it as a triumphant progress. The later Tudor chroniclers followed his lead. To replace this lack of record, we will examine surviving contemporary sources to shine a new light on Henry’s preoccupations during this key period, when he focused his attentions on the north.
In Leicester by the early morning of 23 August, Henry Tudor’s immediate focus was York, signing arrest warrants for Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and the late king’s close friend and confidant, Sir Richard Ratcliffe. Henry also sent a proclamation to the city, detailing the death and defeat of King Richard and his supporters.7 This was delivered by Windsor Herald.8 The proclamation included (incorrectly) the deaths of Francis Lovell, Thomas Howard and John de la Pole. Interestingly, it also included (correctly) the death of Richard Ratcliffe.
Forces were now despatched from Leicester, carrying these communications and arriving near York the following day, 24 August, a distance of some 100 miles. Afraid to enter, Sir Roger Cotton9 sent word to the city fathers requesting a meeting on the outskirts of the city at ‘the sign of the boar’.10 They complied and the following day, King Henry’s proclamation was read throughout York. On the same day, the city fathers sent a delegation to the new king with letters for ‘several’ people.
On 27 August the arrest warrant for Stillington and Ratcliffe (signed four days earlier on the 23rd) was delivered to the city. By 30 August, Sir Robert Halewell arrived carrying an intriguing letter requesting the city’s ‘assistence and aide’, for which it would receive Henry’s ‘especial thankes’. The letter had been signed by Henry at Leicester on 24 August, six days earlier.11
What was this ‘assistence and aide’, and why did Henry’s letter arrive some considerable time after signature, along with the arrest warrants for Stillington and Ratcliffe? Moreover, where was Robert Willoughby? A Wiltshire landowner, Willoughby had fled to the continent in October 1483 following the failed uprising against King Richard and fought for Henry Tudor at Bosworth.12
