The Princes in the Tower, page 4
For Richard of York’s distinguishing physical marks, see Chapter 14, note 84, Chapter 17, note 250, and Appendices 4 and 7.
Profiles
From this, we can construct profiles of both missing individuals. Edward was clearly intelligent and seems to have had a particular love and understanding of literature and poetry. He had blond hair and resembled his father. He may also have been physically slight. At the time of his disappearance, he was a pre-teen and seems to have begun pushing boundaries and asserting himself. He may have had a predisposition to melancholia or a susceptibility to pre-teen sulks.
His brother, Richard, seems to have been healthy and physically active, with a more robust constitution. He enjoyed singing and dance and may have had a natural aptitude for music and some sport. He also seems to have been a particularly happy and exuberant child. He probably had fair colouring. Both boys were considered handsome, particularly Richard, who seems to have been ‘the most beautiful creature’. They also possessed charm and were clearly memorable, particularly in terms of their appearance and personalities. Both boys also lived in large, busy households.
The next stage of the enquiry will reconstruct events immediately prior to the boys’ disappearance, allowing us to delve back in time and open new lines of investigation.
3
1483
Two Weeks, One Summer
On Monday, 16 June 1483, Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, and John, Lord Howard, escorted Edward IV’s youngest son, Richard, Duke of York, from sanctuary at Cheneygates Mansion1 at Westminster Abbey to the Royal Palace of the Tower of London.2 Travelling in a flotilla of boats along the Thames with these two stalwarts of his father’s court, the young prince may have taken the opportunity to wave to the people on the quaysides as they passed.3 London was always busy but now it was teeming with visitors.
In the Royal Apartments at the Tower, Richard of York would join his elder brother, Edward, for his brother’s coronation in six days’ time, on Sunday, 22 June. The following day, however, everything would change.
On Tuesday, 17 June, the King’s Council postponed Edward V’s coronation until 9 November.4 What had caused this unprecedented event?
Five days later, on the day the coronation was due to take place, news of Edward IV’s bigamous marriage and the illegitimacy of his children was announced.5 As a bastard, Edward was barred from the succession. He could not be anointed with the Holy Chrism and crowned. An unparalleled constitutional crisis had erupted. On Wednesday, 25 June, the Lords, Church and Commons, the Three Estates of the Realm, petitioned the next Yorkist heir to accept the throne.6 The following day, on Thursday, 26 June, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the children’s paternal uncle, accepted the throne. England now had a new king.7
On Sunday, 6 July 1483, Richard III was crowned at Westminster Abbey, his wife, Anne Neville, beside him. It was the first double coronation since Edward II and Isabella of France in 1307. It was also the first-ever coronation of northerners. Sometime afterwards, it seemed that the whereabouts of the sons of the late king Edward IV were no longer known.
The events of the summer of 1483 are among the most contested in British history. Foreign and Tudor chroniclers (and Shakespeare) describe a ruthless grab for power, planned in the north following Edward IV’s death in early April. From this moment on, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Edward’s erstwhile loyal brother, would stop at nothing until he had taken the throne.
This is the traditional story, devoid of context and detail, but is it supported by contemporary sources from Gloucester’s own lifetime? If we follow our police methodology, drill down into the moment, eliminating all hindsight reporting, what might this reveal?
Today, the Tudor account of 1483 is still the generally accepted version of events, promulgated for centuries by prominent traditional historians – and they may be correct. However, if we are to attempt to uncover the truth, we must reconstruct events from the start and investigate where contemporary evidence suggests a far more nuanced version.
As an example, in April 2015 new research was published by historical biographer Annette Carson which changed perceptions by expanding what we know. It revealed one small detail that has been hitherto forgotten or omitted by our leading historians. In 1483, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was Lord High Constable of England.8 He had been granted the office for life on 17 October 1469 at the age of 17. Within an overall span of fourteen years,9 he had carried out this role for his brother with apparent responsibility, prudence and judiciousness, as indeed (the sources attest) he had performed all offices awarded to him by the king. These included Warden of the West Marches, Lord Great Chamberlain of England, Lord High Admiral of England and, since 1480 and the Scottish wars, Lieutenant General of England’s land forces.10
So, what powers did the Constable of England exercise? Carson reveals:
The High Constable of England, as one of the Great Officers of State, wielded national powers which included some that were second only to the king himself, principally when dealing with rebellion, insurrection or any of the many other activities deemed to be treasonable.11
The role was military and judicial, with powers to arrest, try, condemn and sentence without appeal. The Constable operated through the Constable’s Court, also known as the Court of Chivalry or Court of Knighthood. A knight was a member of an international Christian fellowship of honour, a knight of Christ. Thus, if he breached a solemn promise made on his honour, he could be charged with ‘treason to his knighthood’.12 In dealing with treason, the Constable’s Court could supersede the right of the nobility to trial by their assembled peers. It also extended to encompass not only the ranks of miles (knights) but all levels of society.13 The Constable also had the power to appoint a deputy or deputies.
Richard’s authority as High Constable will be new to many readers, which is why, in terms of our enquiry, it is important that the role of the High Constable is taken into serious consideration.
In order to investigate the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower in 1483, we must first contextualise the events that led to the boys’ presence in the Tower, and the wider events surrounding what we now know as the Wars of the Roses, or the Cousins’ War, as it is perhaps better understood. This is important in order to form and inform potential lines of enquiry.
We’ll begin by discussing briefly the background to the conflict and then consider the events of 1483, based on our police methodology and most recent research.
Background: The Cousins’ War
In the mid-fifteenth century, there arose contention during the disastrous reign of the Lancastrian King Henry VI (1421–71). Henry suffered from a condition which resulted in prolonged bouts of mental instability and catatonia (a combination of symptoms causing lack of movement and communication, confusion, mutism and agitation). In 1455, on the king’s latest return to relative stability, his cousin Richard, 3rd Duke of York (1411–60) found himself and his circle discarded by Henry and under political attack from the bewildered king’s favoured advisors. Violence on both sides erupted into sporadic battles, until in 1460 York saw his only recourse was to assert his claim to the throne through his family line, a line senior to Henry’s House of Lancaster.
The Duke of York (father of Edward IV and Richard III) was, like Henry, a direct descendant of Edward III (1312–77), who had several surviving sons (see family tree on p. 10). Henry was descended from the third son, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. Gaunt’s son took the throne in 1399 as Henry IV. Richard of York inherited his ducal title from Edward III’s fourth son, but his senior royal lineage descended from Edward’s second son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, whose entitlement to the succession had been disenfranchised when Henry IV took the throne.
In order to understand why a descendant of a third son of Edward III was king, instead of the descendant of a second son (following the established right of male primogeniture), we have to go back to the end of 1376 and the beginning of 1377. At this time, following the death of Edward III’s eldest son and heir, Edward, the Black Prince, and subsequent accession of the prince’s heir, Richard II, a boy of 10 years, Edward III amended the right of succession by removing the heirs of Lionel, Duke of Clarence. The reason for this removal was because Lionel’s heir was a female (Philippa). Philippa had married Edward Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March.
As historian Ian Mortimer clarifies, ‘King Edward [III] and others at his court believed that he had the right to establish the line of succession without reference to Parliament as this is implicit in his entail of the throne on his heirs male.’14 As a result, John of Gaunt and his son, Henry Bolingbroke, now established their right to the throne. It is important to note here, however, that Edward III was pursuing a claim to the crown of France, where there existed a Salic Law of succession. Had he been successful, his descendants would have been affected by this Salic Law, which excluded women and their descendants from the throne. England had no such law, and indeed, attempts at entailing the throne were viewed dubiously by the English Parliament.
Richard II, despite two marriages, remained childless, and in the Parliament of 1386, Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March (son of Philippa), was declared his heir. The Westminster chronicler also recorded that Roger’s young sons, Edmund and Roger, were the heirs presumptive.
Richard was adept at using the succession as a political weapon, and by January 1398 had changed his mind. Mortimer, unlike his cousins, received no dukedom, but at the prorogued Parliament of January 1398 he received a ‘hero’s reception when he arrived at Westminster’. Ian Mortimer adds:
Twenty thousand turned out to see him, according to Usk, which even though it is probably a gross exaggeration, is probably sufficient indication to conclude that many of the populace still believed that the rightful line of succession lay in the Mortimer family, and wished to demonstrate in his favour as a protest against Richard.15
By 1394, Richard, suspicious of Gaunt and harbouring a deep hatred of Gaunt’s son Henry Bolingbroke, decided that his new heir was to be ‘his very dear uncle’, Edmund of Langley, 1st Duke of York (Edward III’s fourth son). Richard believed that he had finally eradicated the Lancastrian claim to the throne.16
Henry Bolingbroke thought otherwise. After his father’s death, he took up arms and seized the throne from Richard II, having secured Edmund of Langley’s capitulation. Bolingbroke, now Henry IV, the first Lancastrian king, would witness rebellions against his reign, most famously by his erstwhile supporter Henry Percy (Hotspur). Percy was a revered and respected noble in the north who had married Elizabeth Mortimer, granddaughter of Lionel, Duke of Clarence.
Henry IV’s son, Henry V, would also experience rebellion and conspiracy, significantly by Richard, Earl of Cambridge, Edmund of Langley’s second son (see the family tree on p. 10), whom he executed. As to the young Mortimer heirs, Edmund and Roger, you can read more about them and their neglected significance in Chapter 11.
It seems apparent that Edward III sowed the seeds of the Cousins’ War with his unilateral attempt in 1376–77 to erect a barrier to the descendants of Clarence, who would otherwise be heirs presumptive after his death – thus providing cover for Henry IV’s seizure of the crown. The disruption of the line of succession by the Lancastrian dynasty in 1399 was still remembered in the 1450s by those who, like Richard, Duke of York, sought remedy for being dispossessed and ostracised under his grandson, Henry VI. York’s claim to the throne was adjudicated and found valid by Parliament, resulting in the dynasty of Yorkist kings.
With this in mind, let us now place under the microscope the events of summer 1483, which led to the presence of the sons of Edward IV in the Tower of London.
1483
On Thursday, 3 April 1483,17 King Edward IV died at his Palace of Westminster in London. The day previously, Edward had sent a letter to John Howard at his home at Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk. The letter was received by Howard on Friday, 4 April.18 We do not know the contents of the letter.
It seems that Howard now prepared a large contingent of men to travel with him to the king at Westminster.19 Howard left for London on Monday, 7 April.20
In London, no announcement was made regarding the king’s death. We do not know why. Edward was only 40 years of age, his illness was short and his death unexpected.21 He also left a very young heir, aged 12. It seems that Edward prepared for the eventuality of his death because he added a number of codicils to his will at this time.22
In York, on Sunday, 6 April, news of his demise was received by the Dean of York Minster, who immediately notified the city’s mayor. The following morning, Monday, 7 April, the mayor informed the City Council and a dirge for the deceased king was organised at the Minster for noon that day.23 As no service was offered for the king on the Sunday, it seems that York Minster received the news very late that day, possibly at night.
Chronology suggests that Edward may have died in the early hours of the morning. General travel times to York from London were approximately four or five days. The messenger arrived within three days. We do not know who this messenger was, or why someone at court sent the news north, or indeed, if this had been the dying king’s command. It seems, at this remove, to have been the only message sent at this time (see p. 46), other than the earlier letter to Howard. It seems probable that the message was also destined for the king’s brother in the north, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. As the chronicler Mancini informs us, later communications were despatched to Gloucester by William, Lord Hastings, the King’s Chamberlain and close confidant in London. It is therefore possible that the message which reached York on 6 April may have been delivered at his command.24
On Wednesday, 9 April, John Howard arrived in London and headed to Westminster.25 The king’s death was now announced in the capital.26 On Thursday, 17 April, the second week’s anniversary of King Edward’s death, the solemn rituals for the king’s burial at Windsor began and Edward’s coffin was moved from St Stephen’s, the king’s private chapel at Westminster Palace, to Westminster Abbey.
Howard carried the king’s personal banner of arms. Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, did not take part in the ceremonies. We do not know why, but he was old and possibly quite frail.27 After a night vigil in the abbey, the cortège set out for Windsor the following day. Edward IV was buried at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, on Friday, 18 April.28
Having recently received a palatinate kingdom in the north (including parts of Scotland),29 it seems Gloucester may have been somewhere in the northwest or Scottish borders when news was received in York of the king’s death. By 14 April, he had received news of the king’s death.30 His first act was to write to the queen (and King’s Council) in London, conveying his condolences, assurances of loyalty and acknowledgement of his rightful position in the future government of the young king.31 He also wrote to the new king, Edward V, at Ludlow on the Welsh border to ascertain where to rendezvous for the journey to London.32
On or around Thursday, 17 April, the second week’s anniversary, Gloucester attended a funeral ceremony and Requiem Mass for the king at York Minster, the mother church of the northern province. Here, ‘full of tears’, he led the north in mourning but also in swearing fealty to the new king, Edward’s son and heir, Edward V.33
Before 24 April,34 Gloucester and a delegation of 200 or 300 gentlemen35 left York to journey south to meet the young king at Northampton. Northampton was a major conurbation and key staging post on the Great North Road, with its own abbey, castle and town walls. In earlier reigns it had also hosted Parliaments.36 Here, it seems reasonable to suggest that Gloucester and the northern retinue would join the town’s mayor, civic and church leaders, burghers and other dignitaries for the new king’s Royal Entry and official welcome. The welcome would have been doubly important for Northampton as it lay in close proximity to the seat of the young king’s maternal relatives at Grafton Woodville (later renamed Grafton Regis).37
Following the rendezvous at Northampton, Gloucester and the men of the north would accompany the young King Edward to London. The journey from York to Northampton appears to have been slow and respectful; the duke’s contingent dressed in the deepest black of mourning for the recently departed king. By Saturday, 26 April, Gloucester and the men of the north had reached Nottingham.38
Meanwhile, Edward V was travelling to Northampton from the Welsh borders. As the new monarch, his mourning colour was blue. As Prince of Wales, Edward had lived with his own household at Ludlow from about the age of 3. Here, Edward was under the guidance and tutelage of his ‘governor and ruler’ and ‘Prince’s master’, his maternal uncle, Anthony Woodville, Earl Rivers.39 Also travelling with the young king was his Chamberlain (as Prince of Wales), Sir Thomas Vaughan, and the rest of his household. It has previously been assumed that Edward’s maternal half-brother, Sir Richard Grey (aged about 26) also travelled from Ludlow but Mancini reveals this was not the case (see p. 49).
It is not known where or when Earl Rivers received the news of Edward IV’s death, but it is presumed to have been at Ludlow. However, it is known that Rivers was on his estates in Norfolk at Middleton near Lynn on Thursday, 20 March, and then further east towards the coast at Walsingham on Tuesday, 25 March, the medieval New Year. On both occasions, Rivers met with a neighbouring landowner in an attempt to settle a long-running dispute. They ‘agreed to put some of their conflicting claims before the Duke of Gloucester’s council for arbitration’.40 Walsingham was the famous Shrine of Our Lady and place of pilgrimage.
