A Medieval Murder Mystery

Tale as old as time, the king dies, his brother kills his nephews to take the throne and is then killed himself. This is a story that has fascinated me for years. If you don’t know what I’m referring to, I’m referencing the disappearance of the princes of York who were sons of Edward IV in England. They were imprisoned in the Tower of London by their uncle after their father died. They were slowly seen less and less until they ceased to be seen at all. No one knows what happened to them.

For context, the War of the Roses started because Henry VI had a habit of falling in and out of catatonic states. He was also considered a weak ruler for what was required in medieval England. His cousin, also named Richard, fought with Henry’s wife Margaret for power. This resulted in battles across the country. Eventually, Margaret is caught and imprisoned in a monastery. Henry VI died mysteriously in the Tower of London. Rumor has it he was drowned in a vat of wine but no one knows for sure. Richard II ended up being killed in a battle and his eldest son took over the claim to the throne, who was Edward IV. Edward ended up being kicked out of the country and then ended up returning and ruling until his death. His death was inconvenient because no one expected him to die at such a young age. I think everyone should’ve expected his death because it was the 1400s and sanitation was shit. Everything started going to hell in a handbasket once he died.

Edward IV married a woman named Elizabeth Woodville. Many people didn’t like her because she was not a part of the aristocracy and used her power to ensure her own family was entrenched in wealth. Upon the death of Edward, his brother, Richard III was supposed to rule for the underage prince. The problem is that the Woodvilles had custody of the two princes, who were also named Richard and Edward. Let us recap. Edward IV is dead. Their mother’s family, the Woodvilles, are using the fact that they have the princes to their advantage and are hoping to gain the upper hand. Richard III gets angry and confronts the procession of Woodville and Co on their way to London to crown Edward V. Richard III ends up with custody of the princes and has them placed in the tower “in preparation of the coronation”. Richard III then declares his nephews illegitimate by saying that their father was technically married to a woman before he married their mother. Seeing as Edward IV was a known womanizer, I wouldn’t put anything past him but it was a bit too convenient that Richard III discovered this when he did. 

Now we come to the part of the story that has puzzled generations of history mystery sleuths. Who is responsible for the disappearance of the princes? I’m not going to explore whether or not the bodies found in the Tower of London are the princes because the British royal family refuses to allow DNA testing to be done on the remains so we will never know. The first suspect I’m going to discuss is the Duke of Buckingham. He had control of the Tower of London. My personal opinion is that if he did kill the princes, he did it on the orders of Richard III. He could’ve acted independently but it’s unlikely. The second suspect is Richard III himself. Some groups are dedicated to proving that Richard III wasn’t a bad dude. They will fight to the death the accusation that he killed his nephews. I will never meet Richard, Duke of Gloucester so I have no way of knowing if he was a nice person. All that matters in this discussion is that he had the motive, means, and opportunity to commit the crime. The motive was to become king and wrestle power from those pesky Woodvilles. The means would’ve been all the henchmen at his disposal. The opportunity was that Richard was in power and imprisoned the princes, to begin with. A third suspect floated is Margaret Beaufort, the mother of Henry VII. I find this ridiculous because women had very little power at that time and they didn’t retain any power until their son became king.

For those worrying that the most likely suspect got away with murder, Richard was only in power for three years before his death at the Battle of Bosworth. Henry VI took the throne and the drama ended until his son, Henry VIII came to power.