March 1, 2022 • 47 mins
In 1483, the two sons of the late King Edward IV went into the Tower of London, preparing for the older son's coronation. Instead, their uncle, Richard III was crowned, and the two boys were never seen again. The truth of what happened to the "princes" in the tower is one of history's greatest mysteries, and writers have imagined answers for centuries.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised.
In the BBC's History magazine, History Extra ran a poll
(00:22):
online asking readers to vote for their favorite historical mystery.
There were twenty choices, ranging from the purpose of Stonehenge
to the translation of the Voytage manuscript to the final
resting place of Jesus Christ's body. With twenty choices, they
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probably anticipated that it was going to be a close race,
one where perhaps a few front runners emerged. One of
the mysteries wiped the floor with the other choices. More
than one in three readers voted for the Exact Say mystery,
which ended up at a final percentage more than double
(01:04):
the votes of the mystery that came in second place.
The first place winner for the History Extra poll. The
historical mystery that captivated and compelled readers beyond wanting to
know what happened to the actual Jesus Christ. Was this
what happened to the Princes in the Tower. In fourteen
(01:29):
eighty three, two boys, the sons and heirs of the
late King Edward the Fourth, were put into the Tower
of London, ostensibly to prepare and keep safe before the
older boy, King Edward the Fifth coronation. But while they
were safely behind the walls of the castle fortress, their
(01:50):
uncle and the regent, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, announced that
new information had emerged that the boys were actually legitimate.
That summer, the man coronated was actually Richard himself, who
became King Richard the Third. He reigned briefly until Henry
(02:12):
Tudor bested him in battle and claimed the throne, beginning
the Tudor dynasty and more or less ending the civil
war that had raged for decades over the English throne
known as the War of the Roses. People had seen
the two princes, they weren't quite princes, but we'll get
(02:33):
to that later, playing outside on the lawns of the
Tower of London that summer in but then their servants
were dismissed. The princes were moved deeper within the grounds
of the castle to the towers inner apartments, and then
one day no one ever saw them again. The two
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doomed princes have come famous over the centuries through depictions
in art. Perhaps the most iconic painting of the boys
was done in eighteen seventy eight by Sir John Everett Millay,
and it features the boys dressed in all black. They
look younger than they would have actually been twelve and nine,
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and in the painting they're almost cherubic under halos of
blonde hair, as the painter portrays them their innocence, martyrs
of the cruel ambitions of the grown men around them.
Most people probably learned the story of the Princess through Shakespeare.
In his play Richard the Third, Shakespeare portrays the king
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as a scheming, villainous hunchback who lurks in the shadows,
waiting for his moment to claim power and eventually to
murder his own nephews in order to secure the crown.
The Lord Chancellor Thomas Moore perhaps wrote the most famous
historical account of Richard the Third, similarly portraying him as
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a murderous tyrant. It was More who first named names
when it came to the Prince's alleged murderers, and he
added the compelling details that their young bodies were buried
under a staircase in the Tower of London. But it's
important to remember that both of those men. More and
Shakespeare were writing under the Tutor dynasty. History is told
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by the victors, after all, and Richard the Third was
the end of his family's line. When Henry Tutor defeated
him in battle and became King Henry the Seventh, his
claim was pretty weak. There were other older families that really,
arguably should have gotten the crown ahead of him, and
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his claim was really predicated on the fact that his
victory over Richard the Third in the Battle of bosworth
Field was God's will anointing him king. His power relied
then on Richard the Third being a villainous usurper. Otherwise
he Henry the seventh, would be the usurper. And so
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did Richard the Third actually order the death of his
own nephews in order to secure his crown. Or was
he manipulated after death into a villain by the Tutor
pr machine when the boys might have been killed by
them the Tutors all along, or did the boys survive
and run away to live peaceful lives as park rangers
(05:33):
in pastoral England. Over the years, the question of the
Princes in the Tower has baffled and fascinated historians and
casual hobbyists alike, to the point where factions have formed
and become deeply entrenched, another smaller scale war of the
roses happening among the history set. Here are the facts
(05:57):
as we know them, that two boys came into the
Tower of London, the sons of a king who should
have been protected and powerful. But power is only as
meaningful as one's ability to wield it, and kings are
only kings so long as those around them choose to
obey them. Whether you believe in murder or tutor plots
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or daring escapes, the heart of the matter is a
reminder that the divine right to rule is fragile. Kings
can be toppled by rumors as well as swords. Sometimes
they're toppled by both. We will likely never find a
definite answer to the question of what happened to the
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princes in the tower. Let me get that out of
the way upfront, lest you listen to this whole episode
hoping that I'm going to be the one to crack
this thing wide open. Of course, I do have my
own theory as to what happened, but I also believe
that the killing of the two boys was a little
less pat and a little less villainous than Shakespeare made
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it seem it was an era of kill or be killed,
and with the walls closing in on him, Richard the
Third had a decision to make I'm Dana Schwartz, and
this is noble blood. When the man we now know
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as Richard the Third was born in fourteen fifty two,
he was almost an afterthought. He was his parents fourth
child and third son. They already had their air and
their spare. In a family chronicle published when Richard was
a child, their only note on the young Richard was
that he quote liveth Yet Richard's father was also confusingly
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named Richard the d of York, also known as Richard Plantagenet.
He was an incredibly important nobleman at the time, inheriting
a claim to the throne through his own mother, which
made him a key figure in the War of the Roses,
which began unfolding in earnest during Richard the Third's childhood.
(08:18):
Entire books can be and have been written about the
War of the Roses, but I'm going to do an
incredibly brief cursory overview just to give you an idea
of how complicated the seemingly simple question of who the
rightful King of England was so here are the crib notes.
We begin with King Edward the Third, who reigned until
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thirteen seventy seven. He had eight sons and five daughters,
so as you might imagine, there's plenty of legitimate and
illegitimate royal blood swirling around in people ready to claim
royal ancestry. His oldest son is his heir, Edward the
Black Prince, and the Black Prince has his own son
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the next in line. But then Edward the Black Prince dies,
and so when King Edward the Third dies, the throne
goes to his grandchild, Richard the Second. The problem is
Richard the Second is a ten year old boy at
this point, and when there's a child in charge, especially
a child like Richard the Second, who was speculated to
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be later either insane or suffering from a personality disorder,
other people tend to want to move into that power vacuum.
The War of the Roses becomes so called by future
generations because the two families involved, the Yorks and the Lancasters,
both had roses for their family symbols, the white rose
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of York and the red of Lancaster. Both families were
descended from cadet branches of King Edward the Third cadet branches,
meaning descended from his younger sons. Personally, I'm a very
visual thinker, and I realize how challenging this is to
communicate through audio. But bear with me if you can.
(10:08):
King Edward the Third basically has four surviving sons that
matter to the story right now, Edward the Black Prince,
Lionel of Antwerp, John of Gaunt, and Edmund of Langley.
Edward the Black Prince dies and he has the sickly
son who's technically the king, but whose fairly disastrous reign
sets up this power vacuum that allows the War of
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the Roses to happen. So now there are two main
family lines vying for the throne. The Lancaster claim comes
through son number three, John of Gaunt. The Yorkist claim
is a little more complicated. Their heirs of son number two,
Lionel of Antwerp, but through his female descendants head of
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the York family was Richard the Third's dad, Richard of York.
On his mother's side, he's a descendant of Lionel Vantwerp,
son number two, but on his father's side he's the
grandson of Edmund of Langley, son number four, So it's
two claims from sons too and four, which you know
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combined is arguably better than the Lancaster line from son three,
arguably hence the war. The House of Lancaster has a
successful early start. Henry the Fourth overthrows the weak, unpopular
Richard the Second in his son Henry five, is also king,
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but makes the mistake of dying when his only son,
Henry the sixth, is just an infant. Once again, we
have a power vacuum, especially as Henry the sixth that
gets older and begins suffering from mental illness, so the
time is ripe for the Yorks to reclaim their throne.
Richard the Third grows up in this period watching his
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father and older brother Edward leading a rebellion against the
Lancaster King Henry the sixth. When Richard's father dies in
battle in fourteen sixty, it's Richard the third older brother
who becomes Edward the Fourth, who inherits the Yorkist claim
to the throne and who ultimately wins. Richard's older brother
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Edward is crowned King Edward the Fourth and bearing one
brief period ten years in where Henry the sixth and
his supporters fight back and briefly get him back on
the throne. Edward remains King Our Richard the third was
a child through all of that. He was eight when
his father was killed in battle, and he was sent
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away for low countries the Netherlands for his own safety.
After that, only returning the next year when his older brother,
Edward the fourth was crowned king. As the loyal younger
brother of the new king, Richard was given a shiny
new title, Duke of Gloucester. He's maid a Knight of
the Garter and Knight of the Bath, and he remains loyal,
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looking up to his brother and eagerly fighting for his causes.
When Richard is eleven, he's made Commissioner of Array. At seventeen,
Richard has given independent command in the military. Aside from
the brief hiccup when Henry the sixth returned to the
throne for less than six months, things are going swimmingly
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for the York family. As Shakespeare put it immortally, quote,
now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer
by this son of York. By four seventy three, Edward
the fourth was comfortably king and not just king, a
king with two sons, the all important air and spare
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by his wife Elizabeth Woodville. The King's marriage was actually
pretty controversial, put it mild. It was actually Edward the
fourth choice of bride that pretty much caused that six
month pickup where he lost the crown. You see, Elizabeth
Woodville was from fairly middle rank. She had already been
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married to a supporter of the House of Lancaster, the
enemy house, with whom she had two sons. Her last
husband had died in battle fighting for the Lancasters. People
saw the Woodvilles as a scheming, social climbing bunch, and
when Edward the Fourth chose to marry one of them,
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his powerful cousin, the Earl of Warwick, defected to the
other side and helped Henry the sixth with that brief restoration.
All of that was probably a little awkward for young
Richard the Third, who had grown up under the tutelage
of Warwick. It was work who had trained him as
a knight and provided for his education. After Warwick's betrayal
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and death in battle, Richard married his daughter, which Shakespeare
positioned as a pretty cruel and insidious form of revenge,
but which a more charitable interpretation to Richard the Third
would point out also gave him a pretty massive inheritance.
At the end of the day. For Richard, loyalty to
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his brother the king was the most important thing. One
of his other brothers had actually chosen the opposite side
during the rebellion and was executed for treason when Edward
the Fourth came back to the throne, But Richard the
Third had always been loyal, and so he continued to
grow in power and prestige at his brother's side, loyal
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protector of the York Family dynasty. It was fourteen eighty three.
After decades of war and thousands of lives lost in
bloody conflicts up and down the country, England was finally
at peace under King Edward the Four, but that piece
was about to be shattered. On April nine, King Edward
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the Fourth died suddenly at age forty. We don't know
what he died of, whether the illness might have been
a sudden case of pneumonia or even malaria, or internal hemorrhaging,
whatever it was. It was assumed at the time that
the king's excessive lifestyle of eating and drinking to the
extreme didn't help. But whatever the cause, he was dead
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and his twelve year old son was now King Edward
the five. Young Edward was living at Ludlow Castle, the
seat of power in Wales at the time. His guardian
and tutor was his maternal uncle, a man named Lord Rivers.
Lord Rivers had practically raised Edward from the time that
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he was a toddler. It was he Lord Rivers, the
Queen's brother a Woodville, who taught Edward how to fight
with the sword, who secured his tutors, and who became
the strongest paternal present in his life. And it was
he Lord Rivers who received the letter a few days
after the king's death, who then had to inform Young
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Edward that his father had died and that he was
now the king. Word of the king's death had also
traveled to the north of England, where the dead King's brother,
the future Richard the Third, had his estates. He immediately
returned to his home and changed into black, attending a
memorial service for his brother and weeping for his loss.
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Richard also got noticed that the late king's final wishes
were to appoint him as protector of the realm, in
effect de facto king until the twelve year old boy
came of age. Richard, now thirty years old, was the
logical choice. He was the most senior royal in the family,
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and after all, he had spent a lifetime in military service.
He was considered an English hero for his leadership in
putting down rebellions for his brother. He was loyal and
adept at making quick decisions, even when those decisions were hard,
and so he began to prepare to head down to
London to uphold his brother's final wishes. But then another
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letter came. This one was from a man named Lord Hastings.
Hastings was an old career nobleman, so to speak, one
of the dead king's closest friends. He warned Richard that
he needed to get down to London as quickly as possible,
that the Woodvilles, the Queen's family, were closing their claws
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around power. The Woodvilles, once a middling noble family, had
had a meteoric rise when their daughter Elizabeth had married
Edward the Fourth, the type of rise that only happens
because you're married to the king. They all knew well
enough that if Richard had any real power, even temporarily,
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their stars would be falling, and so the Woodvills, who
dominated the council in London, announced that the coronation for
young Edward the Five would be immediate. It was a
move designed to cut Richard out, and no doubt it's stung.
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After all, he was the King's loyal brother and a
celebrated soldier. He had royal blood, and it was the
late king's final wishes that he be Lord Protector until
Edward the Five came of age. Who should be making
decisions now a twelve year old boy a family that
was basically middle class. By making the coronation immediate, the
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Woodvills were in effect dismissing Richard's position, deciding that Edward
the Five was already fine to rule with the ice
and guidance of his mother and her family. Of course,
whatever Richard was thinking at this moment, we can't be sure.
I don't really believe the Shakespearean portrayal that he was
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already plotting his own assent to the throne. But I
can't imagine that he figured, probably correctly, that he was
the one who should rightfully be in power at the moment.
Richard wrote to Lord Rivers, the guardian of the new King,
and said, let's all meet up on the way down
to London for the coronation in Northampton, so we can
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enter London together as a sign of unity and strength.
Lord Rivers had no reason to doubt Richard, and so
he readily agreed with the new uncoornated King Edward the Five.
Staying nearby at Stony Stratford, Richard went to meet Lord Rivers. Recall,
Lord Rivers is a Woodville, the brother of the Queen,
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and so by this point Richard sees him as one
of the bowl, wrestling rightful power away from him. And
it's here that Richard the Third makes a fateful decision,
one that will be the first domino that leads to
his own destruction. After the men spend the evening cordially
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enough discussing travel arrangements and plans for the coronation, Richard
the Third has his guards arrest Rivers for treason. The
next morning, Richard goes to see his nephew, the new King. Alone,
Richard informs the new King that unfortunately his beloved uncle
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Rivers was a trader. The charge against him was, if
you'll forgive me in my opinion a little flimsy. Richard
claims that Lord Rivers was responsible for speeding up the
death of the late King Edward the Fourth by encouraging
his heavy drinking. Young King Edward the five is shocked, angry,
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and maybe a little scared. Though Richard is the boy's uncle,
they barely know each other. Edward grew up in London
and at Ludlow and Richard's the states were mostly in
the North of England. It was Lord Rivers who basically
raised him. There was one uncle that he trusted and
one uncle that he really didn't, but what choice did
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he have. At that point, Richard informed the boy that
it was time to go down to London for his coronation.
I'm sure Edward was thinking something along the lines of, well,
I'm going to become king and it's nothing I won't
be able to straighten out with the rest of my
family when I get to London. But now the power
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has shifted in Richard's favor. When he arrives in London
with the young King and word of the Woodville Lord
Rivers supposed treason, Richard is finally able to be officially
appointed Lord Protector, at least until Edward the Fifth coronation,
which is set for June twenty second, seven weeks away.
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Those seven weeks become a ticking clock. Richard has raised
the stakes, and if he wants to hold onto power,
he needs to work quickly. It's at this point that
Richard has the Young King Edward the Fifth placed in
the Tower of London. Now that sounds a little bit
more sinister than it was. The Tower of London now
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is most famous for being a prison, but it was
also a royal residence, and it was tradition for a
king to stay there the night before his coronation. But
from this point on Edward is more or less under
house arrest by his uncle Richard. Edward will never leave
the grounds of the Tower of London again. Edward's mother,
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Elizabeth Woodville, the Dowager Queen, flees to Westminster Abbey Sanctuary
with her other children, her daughters, and her other son,
a nine year old boy named Richard. Meanwhile, the elder
Richard the third is trying to shore up his power.
He knows full well that the second that the Young
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King Edward the Fifth is coronated, he's going to revert
back to full Woodville control. Richard grows increasingly paranoid, feeling
trapped into a corner as the Royal Council, still dominated
by Woodvilles, keeps blocking his moves. Richard attempts to put
Lord Rivers, still imprisoned, on trial for treason, and he
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also tries to get the young Richard the second quote
unquote Prince into the Tower of London for quote unquote
safe keeping. Richard the Third fears that even his once
close ally, Lord Hastings, has betrayed him and has begun
working with the Woodvilles to undermine his power. With just
nine days left until Edward the fifth Coronation, Richard calls
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a small council meeting at the Power of London, and
to everyone's surprise, he has Lord Hastings arrested. Lord Hastings
is brought outside and executed in the yard that afternoon
on a makeshift chopping block, killed illegally without a trial.
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For staunch defenders of Richard. This killing of Lord Hastings is,
at least the way I see it, one of those
real sticking points that looks bad. It was a move
made almost certainly out of fear and paranoia and desperation,
but it was also an illegal execution without a trial
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of one of the most respected noblemen in the country,
one of the late King's closest friends. Richard just gave
his enemies the fuel that they'll need later on when
they'll try to paint him as an outright villain. But
for now, Richard has made his power and is ruthlessness known,
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and through the Archbishop, he more or less forces Elizabeth
Woodville to release her younger son into Richard's custody in
the Tower of London, still at this point under the
pretense of preparing for his older brother's coronation. Now Richard
has both princes in his custody in the Tower. I
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think now is as good a time as any just
to clear something up. Technically, neither of them were actually
princes when they were in the tower. One of them
was a king even though he was not coronated yet,
he was still King Edward the five, and the other
was a duke, young Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York.
But people call them the Princess the Princess in the Tower,
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so for clarity, that's sometimes how I'll refer to them.
But whatever their titles, now that they were in Richard's control.
The pieces were in place for him to make a
big move. Seemingly out of nowhere, a bishop comes forward
and announces that actually the late King Edward the Fourth's
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marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid because he had already
been pre contracted to another woman, and by law at
that time, pre contracts with witnesses were as good as marriage.
The bishop who came forward claimed that he had been
the one who performed the earlier ceremony, back before he
was a bishop. He was promoted under Edward the Fourth,
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which some people see as a sign that his claim
was true. Maybe Edward the Fourth promoted him to keep
him quiet, and he only felt safe coming forward after
the king's death. But unfortunately we have no real tangible
proof on either side. The woman Edward the fourth had
allegedly been contracted to Eleanor Butler had already passed away.
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The streets of London were buzzing with the gossip, and
true or not, the timing could not have been more
convenient for Richard. If the king's marriage was invalid, his
children were illegitimate and ineligible to become king. Well, then
who should rule instead? I think then it has to
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be the late king's brother, Richard. A petition arrives for him,
nobles and commoners asking Richard to be king, and he
dramatically hesitates for a moment theatrically before humbly agreeing to
do his duty. On July six three, Richard, Duke of Gloucester,
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is crowned King Richard the Third. Richard's nephews, the quote
unquote princes were seen playing on the lawns later that summer,
but then their servants were dismissed. They were moved to
apartments deeper within the castle's compound, and though some claimed
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to see them at the windows gazing out, by autumn
of free nobody ever sees young Edward or Young Richard again.
King Richard the Third has a short reign, although not
as enemies retroactively portray it, not an unsuccessful or unpopular reign.
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Contemporaries actually seemed to approve of him, but support grew
both in England and abroad for the exiled Henry Tudor,
who had a claim to the throne through his mother,
Margaret Beaufort, who was a Lancastrian, the great granddaughter of
John Gaunt, that third surviving son of Edward the third.
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Henry Tudor faced Richard in combat during the Battle of
bosworth Field, and though they say that Richard got within
a sword's length of Henry Tudor, eventually Richard was surrounded
and knocked to the ground. It's here that Shakespeare imagined
that Richard uttered the immortal line my Kingdom for a horse.
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Richard was killed, according to legend, by a Welshman who
delivered such a violent blow with a polex that Richard's
helmet was driven through his skull. In actuality, Richard probably
just lost his helmet in battle, but we'll get to
that a little bit later. Richard was dead and Henry
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was crowned King Henry the seventh. As a sign of
unity and to strengthen his claim to the throne, Henry
married the young Elizabeth of York, the sister of those
princes in the Tower. Because Henry's claim was through the
Lancastrian side and Elizabeth was a York he was symbolically
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uniting the feuding houses of the War of the Roses,
and he established a new house the Tutors, with the
symbol of a combined white and red rose. It was
during the tudorign that the stories really began to emerge
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about the evil, scheming Richard the Third, who killed his
own innocent little nephews to take the crown for himself.
The truth that Henry and his supporters wouldn't really like
to admit out loud is that it was pretty convenient
for him too that those princes were gone. If they
were alive, he would basically have no claim to the throne.
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Even centuries later, we can't help but be fascinated and
compelled by the image of the would be king and
his younger brother, these angelic blond boys gazing out of
a window like ghosts, innocent who are victims of ambition
or who maybe went on to live a life that
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we can only speculate about. Because the mystery of the
disappearance of the princes is still unanswered, and because there
were so many layers of gossip and propaganda on both sides,
and a seemingly infinite number of people who benefited from
the boy's deaths, it's ripe for conspiracy theories. Not even
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conspiracy theories necessarily, just theories, and all of them sort
of plausible if you squint. So let's get to some
of those possible answers, the most commonly accepted answer is
that Richard was responsible for the death of his nephews,
not personally, mind you, he wasn't a cartoon villain who
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went and strangled two children himself while twirling his mustache,
but that the deaths were done on his orders. Thomas Moore,
who you have to remember, was writing under the Tutors,
wrote that the murder itself was done by James Terrell,
Richard's master of the horse, and that he was aided
by two men named Miles Forrest and John Dighton. According
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to Moore's account, the two boys were suffocated and buried
at the bottom of a flight of stairs, and then
later moved. It's also possible that the murders were done
by someone loyal to Richard, but not on his exact orders.
Maybe a will no one rid me of this meddlesome
priest situation. Unfortunately, I know it's not exciting, but I
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personally do think that this is a situation where the
most boring answer is probably the right one. After Richard
was crowned, he went on a tour of the country
as a show of strength to show the people that
there was a solid king in charge. While he was away,
his guards thwarted an attempt to spring the princes from
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the tower. The conspirators were going to set fires around
the tower and escape with the boys in the chaos.
The plan, as I said, was thwarted, but probably made
it very clear to Richard that as long as the
two boys were alive, and even though they had been
officially declared illegitimate, they were still a threat. There were
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always going to be people who thought that they were
the rightful kings, and there were always going to be
enemies of Richard's who would want to use them as ponds. Plus,
of course, even twelve year old boys eventually grow up
to be men, men who can gather supporters and fight
for a rightful claim to the throne. Even if Richard
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did order the death of his nephews, I think it's
worth realizing that he probably didn't see himself as a monster.
Richard had grown up during the War of the Roses,
and he saw firsthand how bloody and deadly it was
when the claim to the crown was contested, or when
a weak child king was in charge. Tens of thousands
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of people died in battle and civil war made England
and the monarchy vulnerable. If Richard did order the murders
of his nephews, he probably would have seen it as
a necessary evil to protect the peace and stability in
the country and to protect his own son's claimed the throne.
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These were incredibly bloody times, and the stakes were life
and death. Could the princes have died of natural causes, maybe,
but they were two pretty young, healthy boys who mysteriously
went missing at exactly the same time. Also, if they
had died of natural causes, Richard probably would have wanted
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that known so people wouldn't rally behind them, and so
people would stop accusing him of the nephew murder. A
lot of Richard's defenders make the case that it was
actually the tutors who killed the two princes in the tower.
When Henry the seventh overthrew Richard three, Henry would have
rightfully recognized that Edward the fifth and his brother being alive,
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were a major major threat to his rule, and because
he had just overthrown Richard the third, he needed a
way to make Richard look as evil as possible. It
makes sense that if the princess had still been alive
in four five, when Henry the seventh took the throne,
(36:20):
killing them and framing Richard would be the ultimate two
birds one stone. It's a really interesting theory and definitely
one that I understand why people believe, but there's not
a lot of factual evidence, and I think that there
would have been some record, some sightings, anything, if the
(36:41):
princess had still been alive by five, which I just
don't think on the merit of evidence that they were.
Thanks to historical fiction, particularly the incredibly popular work of
Philippa Gregory, there's also a very popular theory that the
deaths were actually the work of Henry the Seventh's powerful mother,
(37:03):
Margaret Beaufort, who manipulated the situation while Richard was still king. Again.
It's a fantastic story that this woman saw the opportunity
to frame Richard and rally the cause around her own son,
while at the same time eliminating the people who would
be in line for the throne ahead of him. But
(37:23):
we don't really have any actual evidence of this beyond
a good story. It's fun, but you know, the princes
under Richard were heavily heavily guarded, and though Margaret Beaufort
could have in theory bribed the very loyal guards. It's
almost impossible to believe that she could have offered anything
(37:46):
that the sitting king couldn't have offered. No one could
have predicted that Henry the seven would have been the
one to best Richard the three and become king himself. Personally,
I think this is a question of hindsight being able
to show us things that Margaret couldn't possibly have known
at the time. You would have to believe that this
woman was playing four dimensional chess with things playing out
(38:10):
in an incredibly unpredictable way. And you also have to
believe that she was incredibly ruthless, even though contemporary sources
actually paint her as a pretty pious lady. But again,
I will never knock someone for wanting to believe a
good story. Okay, that's not true. There is one story
(38:31):
that I do just have to debunk a little bit
out of hand. In recent months, a story has gone
around the Internet saying that actually the Princess survived and
that a series of quote Da Vinci code like clues
reveal that Edward the Fifth escaped the tower to live
a private, secret life as a park ranger named John Evans.
(38:52):
In rural devon. Those da Vinci code like clues include
an effigy of John Evans having a small scar on
his chin that young Edward also might have had, and
that Evans on one of the shields in the church
is written as e V A S, which could stand
for e V get it like Edward the Five, and
(39:16):
then a S, which they think might refer to the
Latin word spelled a s A, which means sanctuary assa.
The church also has a lot of Yorkist symbols throughout,
including a stained glass window depicting the young King Edward
the Five with a bunch of deer nearby, which some
(39:36):
see as a clue because John Evans was a park
ranger on a deer estate. It's cool and fun in theory,
but again there is no actual proof. The Yorkist symbols
in the church are actually from early in the reign
of Henry the Eighth, when there was a moment of
Yorkist reconciliation for the sake of unity. I guess for
(39:58):
me it's a question of which is more likely, one
that the princes managed to escape with no one writing
or talking about it, or that Richard or Henry had
had them safely moved away somewhere where they would have
been free to raise their own army or rally supporters
behind them, and that they left behind a series of
elaborate riddles about it, or two that a guy named
(40:21):
John Evans got a job as a parker and also
a church had some Yorkist symbols during a period of reconciliation.
But fundamentally the mystery and all of the theories all
get to the heart of why the missing princes have
spawned such passionate debate. Because there are so many unknowns,
(40:41):
people love coming up with stories, and because it's such
a dramatic and bloody saga with so many suspects. With
these compelling innocent victims, people are going to keep coming
up with stories and will probably never be able to
prove anyone right or wrong with any absolute certainty. In
(41:06):
sixteen seventy four, when King Charles the Second was having
some renovations done to the Tower of London, two workmen
digging under a staircase found a wooden box which contained
two small human skeletons. Because of the history written by More,
it became widely assumed that the bodies were those of
(41:27):
the princes buried under the staircase, even though Moore's account
did say that the bodies were later moved after they
were buried there, still Charles the Second had the remains
interred in a white marble sarcophagus in Westminster Abbey, giving
them the proper royal burial to which they were entitled.
(41:47):
Transcribed from the Latin, the inscription on their grave reads,
here lie the relics of Edward, the fifth, King of
England and Richard, Duke of York. These brothers, being confined
mind in the Tower of London, and they're stifled with pillows,
were privately and meanly buried by the order of their
perfidious uncle, Richard the Usurper, whose bones long inquired after
(42:12):
and wished for after one hundred and ninety one years,
in the rubbish of the stairs those lately leading to
the chapel of the White Tower, were on the seventeenth
day of July six seventy four, by undoubted proofs discovered
being buried deep in that place. Charles the Second, a
(42:33):
most compassionate prince, pitying their severe fate, ordered these unhappy
princes to be laid amongst the monuments of their predecessors
sixteen seventy eight, in the thirtieth year of his reign.
A little dramatic, but it communicates the message. In nineteen
(42:53):
thirty three, those remains were exhumed and re examined, and
studies confirmed that the bone ones within the tomb were
in fact the remains of two children of appropriate ages.
But that was three. The scientific methods used were shaky
at best, and there was of course no DNA testing.
(43:17):
The Church and Queen Elizabeth the Second have both made
their wishes clear that the bodies not be re exhumed
for DNA testing, imagining that it might be difficult to
come up with anything conclusive, that it would be destructive
to the bodies in Westminster Abbey, and that it would
set a bad precedence. Personally, I'm hoping that when Charles
(43:39):
becomes king he insists upon it, just out of sheer curiosity.
The truth is, the question of the murder of the
princes in the Tower has become such a contentious debate,
with so many people so deeply entrenched in their beliefs,
that I think even if the testing came back saying
those bodies were the princes, even if we had a
(44:00):
handwritten confession from someone found. I doubt the case would
actually be settled. There are stories to be told and
mysteries still to be explored. That's the story of Richard
the Third's rise to power. But keep listening after a
(44:23):
brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about
Richard's more recent history. On September twelve, and incredible discovery
(44:45):
was made. The University of Lester, working with the amateur
historian Philippa Langley, announced that a skeleton that they had
found in a dig underneath a parking lot was quite
possibly the remains of Richard the Third. Subsequent DNA tests
confirmed it after hundreds of years, they had found Richard
(45:07):
the Third in a parking lot. Richard had been defeated
in battle and so his corpse was paraded around by
his enemies until he was finally buried quickly and without
a shroud or marker, near the choir of Greyfriars Church
in Leicester in four in a place of honor near
(45:28):
the front of the church, but with no pomp or ceremony.
During the dissolution of the monasteries under King Henry the Eighth,
Greyfriars Church was demolished and the sight of it became
lost over time until it wasn't. Through analysis of the skeleton,
they found that Richard the Third did have scoliosis, although
(45:51):
he wasn't the hunchback that Shakespeare made him out to be,
and they found out that he was most likely killed
by a violent halberd wounded to the exposed base of
his neck in battle that probably left his brain visible.
Richard the Third was reburied in Leicester Cathedral. Benedict Cumberbatch,
(46:12):
the actor who had played Richard in the television show
The Hollow Crown, was there to read a poem, It's
wild to imagine that a man can be a king
and still somehow get lost and end up beneath a
parking lot. They found him under an actual parking spot.
Richard the Third was under a spot that was reserved
(46:35):
and it had been painted just a few years earlier
with the letter are Noble Blood is a production of
I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky.
(46:57):
The show was written and hosted by Dana Schwartz. Executive
producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The
show is produced by rema Ill Kali, and Trevor Young.
Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales,
and you can learn more about the show over at
Noble blood Tales dot com. For more podcasts from I
(47:17):
Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M
Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio
and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky. Listener discretion is advised.
In the BBC's History magazine, History Extra ran a poll
(00:22):
online asking readers to vote for their favorite historical mystery.
There were twenty choices, ranging from the purpose of Stonehenge
to the translation of the Voytage manuscript to the final
resting place of Jesus Christ's body. With twenty choices, they
(00:42):
probably anticipated that it was going to be a close race,
one where perhaps a few front runners emerged. One of
the mysteries wiped the floor with the other choices. More
than one in three readers voted for the Exact Say mystery,
which ended up at a final percentage more than double
(01:04):
the votes of the mystery that came in second place.
The first place winner for the History Extra poll. The
historical mystery that captivated and compelled readers beyond wanting to
know what happened to the actual Jesus Christ. Was this
what happened to the Princes in the Tower. In fourteen
(01:29):
eighty three, two boys, the sons and heirs of the
late King Edward the Fourth, were put into the Tower
of London, ostensibly to prepare and keep safe before the
older boy, King Edward the Fifth coronation. But while they
were safely behind the walls of the castle fortress, their
(01:50):
uncle and the regent, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, announced that
new information had emerged that the boys were actually legitimate.
That summer, the man coronated was actually Richard himself, who
became King Richard the Third. He reigned briefly until Henry
(02:12):
Tudor bested him in battle and claimed the throne, beginning
the Tudor dynasty and more or less ending the civil
war that had raged for decades over the English throne
known as the War of the Roses. People had seen
the two princes, they weren't quite princes, but we'll get
(02:33):
to that later, playing outside on the lawns of the
Tower of London that summer in but then their servants
were dismissed. The princes were moved deeper within the grounds
of the castle to the towers inner apartments, and then
one day no one ever saw them again. The two
(02:58):
doomed princes have come famous over the centuries through depictions
in art. Perhaps the most iconic painting of the boys
was done in eighteen seventy eight by Sir John Everett Millay,
and it features the boys dressed in all black. They
look younger than they would have actually been twelve and nine,
(03:19):
and in the painting they're almost cherubic under halos of
blonde hair, as the painter portrays them their innocence, martyrs
of the cruel ambitions of the grown men around them.
Most people probably learned the story of the Princess through Shakespeare.
In his play Richard the Third, Shakespeare portrays the king
(03:43):
as a scheming, villainous hunchback who lurks in the shadows,
waiting for his moment to claim power and eventually to
murder his own nephews in order to secure the crown.
The Lord Chancellor Thomas Moore perhaps wrote the most famous
historical account of Richard the Third, similarly portraying him as
(04:05):
a murderous tyrant. It was More who first named names
when it came to the Prince's alleged murderers, and he
added the compelling details that their young bodies were buried
under a staircase in the Tower of London. But it's
important to remember that both of those men. More and
Shakespeare were writing under the Tutor dynasty. History is told
(04:30):
by the victors, after all, and Richard the Third was
the end of his family's line. When Henry Tutor defeated
him in battle and became King Henry the Seventh, his
claim was pretty weak. There were other older families that really,
arguably should have gotten the crown ahead of him, and
(04:50):
his claim was really predicated on the fact that his
victory over Richard the Third in the Battle of bosworth
Field was God's will anointing him king. His power relied
then on Richard the Third being a villainous usurper. Otherwise
he Henry the seventh, would be the usurper. And so
(05:10):
did Richard the Third actually order the death of his
own nephews in order to secure his crown. Or was
he manipulated after death into a villain by the Tutor
pr machine when the boys might have been killed by
them the Tutors all along, or did the boys survive
and run away to live peaceful lives as park rangers
(05:33):
in pastoral England. Over the years, the question of the
Princes in the Tower has baffled and fascinated historians and
casual hobbyists alike, to the point where factions have formed
and become deeply entrenched, another smaller scale war of the
roses happening among the history set. Here are the facts
(05:57):
as we know them, that two boys came into the
Tower of London, the sons of a king who should
have been protected and powerful. But power is only as
meaningful as one's ability to wield it, and kings are
only kings so long as those around them choose to
obey them. Whether you believe in murder or tutor plots
(06:22):
or daring escapes, the heart of the matter is a
reminder that the divine right to rule is fragile. Kings
can be toppled by rumors as well as swords. Sometimes
they're toppled by both. We will likely never find a
definite answer to the question of what happened to the
(06:42):
princes in the tower. Let me get that out of
the way upfront, lest you listen to this whole episode
hoping that I'm going to be the one to crack
this thing wide open. Of course, I do have my
own theory as to what happened, but I also believe
that the killing of the two boys was a little
less pat and a little less villainous than Shakespeare made
(07:04):
it seem it was an era of kill or be killed,
and with the walls closing in on him, Richard the
Third had a decision to make I'm Dana Schwartz, and
this is noble blood. When the man we now know
(07:34):
as Richard the Third was born in fourteen fifty two,
he was almost an afterthought. He was his parents fourth
child and third son. They already had their air and
their spare. In a family chronicle published when Richard was
a child, their only note on the young Richard was
that he quote liveth Yet Richard's father was also confusingly
(07:58):
named Richard the d of York, also known as Richard Plantagenet.
He was an incredibly important nobleman at the time, inheriting
a claim to the throne through his own mother, which
made him a key figure in the War of the Roses,
which began unfolding in earnest during Richard the Third's childhood.
(08:18):
Entire books can be and have been written about the
War of the Roses, but I'm going to do an
incredibly brief cursory overview just to give you an idea
of how complicated the seemingly simple question of who the
rightful King of England was so here are the crib notes.
We begin with King Edward the Third, who reigned until
(08:41):
thirteen seventy seven. He had eight sons and five daughters,
so as you might imagine, there's plenty of legitimate and
illegitimate royal blood swirling around in people ready to claim
royal ancestry. His oldest son is his heir, Edward the
Black Prince, and the Black Prince has his own son
(09:02):
the next in line. But then Edward the Black Prince dies,
and so when King Edward the Third dies, the throne
goes to his grandchild, Richard the Second. The problem is
Richard the Second is a ten year old boy at
this point, and when there's a child in charge, especially
a child like Richard the Second, who was speculated to
(09:25):
be later either insane or suffering from a personality disorder,
other people tend to want to move into that power vacuum.
The War of the Roses becomes so called by future
generations because the two families involved, the Yorks and the Lancasters,
both had roses for their family symbols, the white rose
(09:47):
of York and the red of Lancaster. Both families were
descended from cadet branches of King Edward the Third cadet branches,
meaning descended from his younger sons. Personally, I'm a very
visual thinker, and I realize how challenging this is to
communicate through audio. But bear with me if you can.
(10:08):
King Edward the Third basically has four surviving sons that
matter to the story right now, Edward the Black Prince,
Lionel of Antwerp, John of Gaunt, and Edmund of Langley.
Edward the Black Prince dies and he has the sickly
son who's technically the king, but whose fairly disastrous reign
sets up this power vacuum that allows the War of
(10:29):
the Roses to happen. So now there are two main
family lines vying for the throne. The Lancaster claim comes
through son number three, John of Gaunt. The Yorkist claim
is a little more complicated. Their heirs of son number two,
Lionel of Antwerp, but through his female descendants head of
(10:53):
the York family was Richard the Third's dad, Richard of York.
On his mother's side, he's a descendant of Lionel Vantwerp,
son number two, but on his father's side he's the
grandson of Edmund of Langley, son number four, So it's
two claims from sons too and four, which you know
(11:13):
combined is arguably better than the Lancaster line from son three,
arguably hence the war. The House of Lancaster has a
successful early start. Henry the Fourth overthrows the weak, unpopular
Richard the Second in his son Henry five, is also king,
(11:36):
but makes the mistake of dying when his only son,
Henry the sixth, is just an infant. Once again, we
have a power vacuum, especially as Henry the sixth that
gets older and begins suffering from mental illness, so the
time is ripe for the Yorks to reclaim their throne.
Richard the Third grows up in this period watching his
(11:59):
father and older brother Edward leading a rebellion against the
Lancaster King Henry the sixth. When Richard's father dies in
battle in fourteen sixty, it's Richard the third older brother
who becomes Edward the Fourth, who inherits the Yorkist claim
to the throne and who ultimately wins. Richard's older brother
(12:21):
Edward is crowned King Edward the Fourth and bearing one
brief period ten years in where Henry the sixth and
his supporters fight back and briefly get him back on
the throne. Edward remains King Our Richard the third was
a child through all of that. He was eight when
his father was killed in battle, and he was sent
(12:41):
away for low countries the Netherlands for his own safety.
After that, only returning the next year when his older brother,
Edward the fourth was crowned king. As the loyal younger
brother of the new king, Richard was given a shiny
new title, Duke of Gloucester. He's maid a Knight of
the Garter and Knight of the Bath, and he remains loyal,
(13:04):
looking up to his brother and eagerly fighting for his causes.
When Richard is eleven, he's made Commissioner of Array. At seventeen,
Richard has given independent command in the military. Aside from
the brief hiccup when Henry the sixth returned to the
throne for less than six months, things are going swimmingly
(13:26):
for the York family. As Shakespeare put it immortally, quote,
now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer
by this son of York. By four seventy three, Edward
the fourth was comfortably king and not just king, a
king with two sons, the all important air and spare
(13:50):
by his wife Elizabeth Woodville. The King's marriage was actually
pretty controversial, put it mild. It was actually Edward the
fourth choice of bride that pretty much caused that six
month pickup where he lost the crown. You see, Elizabeth
Woodville was from fairly middle rank. She had already been
(14:14):
married to a supporter of the House of Lancaster, the
enemy house, with whom she had two sons. Her last
husband had died in battle fighting for the Lancasters. People
saw the Woodvilles as a scheming, social climbing bunch, and
when Edward the Fourth chose to marry one of them,
(14:35):
his powerful cousin, the Earl of Warwick, defected to the
other side and helped Henry the sixth with that brief restoration.
All of that was probably a little awkward for young
Richard the Third, who had grown up under the tutelage
of Warwick. It was work who had trained him as
a knight and provided for his education. After Warwick's betrayal
(14:59):
and death in battle, Richard married his daughter, which Shakespeare
positioned as a pretty cruel and insidious form of revenge,
but which a more charitable interpretation to Richard the Third
would point out also gave him a pretty massive inheritance.
At the end of the day. For Richard, loyalty to
(15:20):
his brother the king was the most important thing. One
of his other brothers had actually chosen the opposite side
during the rebellion and was executed for treason when Edward
the Fourth came back to the throne, But Richard the
Third had always been loyal, and so he continued to
grow in power and prestige at his brother's side, loyal
(15:42):
protector of the York Family dynasty. It was fourteen eighty three.
After decades of war and thousands of lives lost in
bloody conflicts up and down the country, England was finally
at peace under King Edward the Four, but that piece
was about to be shattered. On April nine, King Edward
(16:08):
the Fourth died suddenly at age forty. We don't know
what he died of, whether the illness might have been
a sudden case of pneumonia or even malaria, or internal hemorrhaging,
whatever it was. It was assumed at the time that
the king's excessive lifestyle of eating and drinking to the
extreme didn't help. But whatever the cause, he was dead
(16:33):
and his twelve year old son was now King Edward
the five. Young Edward was living at Ludlow Castle, the
seat of power in Wales at the time. His guardian
and tutor was his maternal uncle, a man named Lord Rivers.
Lord Rivers had practically raised Edward from the time that
(16:54):
he was a toddler. It was he Lord Rivers, the
Queen's brother a Woodville, who taught Edward how to fight
with the sword, who secured his tutors, and who became
the strongest paternal present in his life. And it was
he Lord Rivers who received the letter a few days
after the king's death, who then had to inform Young
(17:17):
Edward that his father had died and that he was
now the king. Word of the king's death had also
traveled to the north of England, where the dead King's brother,
the future Richard the Third, had his estates. He immediately
returned to his home and changed into black, attending a
memorial service for his brother and weeping for his loss.
(17:41):
Richard also got noticed that the late king's final wishes
were to appoint him as protector of the realm, in
effect de facto king until the twelve year old boy
came of age. Richard, now thirty years old, was the
logical choice. He was the most senior royal in the family,
(18:01):
and after all, he had spent a lifetime in military service.
He was considered an English hero for his leadership in
putting down rebellions for his brother. He was loyal and
adept at making quick decisions, even when those decisions were hard,
and so he began to prepare to head down to
London to uphold his brother's final wishes. But then another
(18:25):
letter came. This one was from a man named Lord Hastings.
Hastings was an old career nobleman, so to speak, one
of the dead king's closest friends. He warned Richard that
he needed to get down to London as quickly as possible,
that the Woodvilles, the Queen's family, were closing their claws
(18:47):
around power. The Woodvilles, once a middling noble family, had
had a meteoric rise when their daughter Elizabeth had married
Edward the Fourth, the type of rise that only happens
because you're married to the king. They all knew well
enough that if Richard had any real power, even temporarily,
(19:08):
their stars would be falling, and so the Woodvills, who
dominated the council in London, announced that the coronation for
young Edward the Five would be immediate. It was a
move designed to cut Richard out, and no doubt it's stung.
(19:29):
After all, he was the King's loyal brother and a
celebrated soldier. He had royal blood, and it was the
late king's final wishes that he be Lord Protector until
Edward the Five came of age. Who should be making
decisions now a twelve year old boy a family that
was basically middle class. By making the coronation immediate, the
(19:52):
Woodvills were in effect dismissing Richard's position, deciding that Edward
the Five was already fine to rule with the ice
and guidance of his mother and her family. Of course,
whatever Richard was thinking at this moment, we can't be sure.
I don't really believe the Shakespearean portrayal that he was
(20:12):
already plotting his own assent to the throne. But I
can't imagine that he figured, probably correctly, that he was
the one who should rightfully be in power at the moment.
Richard wrote to Lord Rivers, the guardian of the new King,
and said, let's all meet up on the way down
to London for the coronation in Northampton, so we can
(20:33):
enter London together as a sign of unity and strength.
Lord Rivers had no reason to doubt Richard, and so
he readily agreed with the new uncoornated King Edward the Five.
Staying nearby at Stony Stratford, Richard went to meet Lord Rivers. Recall,
Lord Rivers is a Woodville, the brother of the Queen,
(20:55):
and so by this point Richard sees him as one
of the bowl, wrestling rightful power away from him. And
it's here that Richard the Third makes a fateful decision,
one that will be the first domino that leads to
his own destruction. After the men spend the evening cordially
(21:18):
enough discussing travel arrangements and plans for the coronation, Richard
the Third has his guards arrest Rivers for treason. The
next morning, Richard goes to see his nephew, the new King. Alone,
Richard informs the new King that unfortunately his beloved uncle
(21:39):
Rivers was a trader. The charge against him was, if
you'll forgive me in my opinion a little flimsy. Richard
claims that Lord Rivers was responsible for speeding up the
death of the late King Edward the Fourth by encouraging
his heavy drinking. Young King Edward the five is shocked, angry,
(22:02):
and maybe a little scared. Though Richard is the boy's uncle,
they barely know each other. Edward grew up in London
and at Ludlow and Richard's the states were mostly in
the North of England. It was Lord Rivers who basically
raised him. There was one uncle that he trusted and
one uncle that he really didn't, but what choice did
(22:24):
he have. At that point, Richard informed the boy that
it was time to go down to London for his coronation.
I'm sure Edward was thinking something along the lines of, well,
I'm going to become king and it's nothing I won't
be able to straighten out with the rest of my
family when I get to London. But now the power
(22:44):
has shifted in Richard's favor. When he arrives in London
with the young King and word of the Woodville Lord
Rivers supposed treason, Richard is finally able to be officially
appointed Lord Protector, at least until Edward the Fifth coronation,
which is set for June twenty second, seven weeks away.
(23:06):
Those seven weeks become a ticking clock. Richard has raised
the stakes, and if he wants to hold onto power,
he needs to work quickly. It's at this point that
Richard has the Young King Edward the Fifth placed in
the Tower of London. Now that sounds a little bit
more sinister than it was. The Tower of London now
(23:29):
is most famous for being a prison, but it was
also a royal residence, and it was tradition for a
king to stay there the night before his coronation. But
from this point on Edward is more or less under
house arrest by his uncle Richard. Edward will never leave
the grounds of the Tower of London again. Edward's mother,
(23:51):
Elizabeth Woodville, the Dowager Queen, flees to Westminster Abbey Sanctuary
with her other children, her daughters, and her other son,
a nine year old boy named Richard. Meanwhile, the elder
Richard the third is trying to shore up his power.
He knows full well that the second that the Young
(24:12):
King Edward the Fifth is coronated, he's going to revert
back to full Woodville control. Richard grows increasingly paranoid, feeling
trapped into a corner as the Royal Council, still dominated
by Woodvilles, keeps blocking his moves. Richard attempts to put
Lord Rivers, still imprisoned, on trial for treason, and he
(24:34):
also tries to get the young Richard the second quote
unquote Prince into the Tower of London for quote unquote
safe keeping. Richard the Third fears that even his once
close ally, Lord Hastings, has betrayed him and has begun
working with the Woodvilles to undermine his power. With just
nine days left until Edward the fifth Coronation, Richard calls
(24:58):
a small council meeting at the Power of London, and
to everyone's surprise, he has Lord Hastings arrested. Lord Hastings
is brought outside and executed in the yard that afternoon
on a makeshift chopping block, killed illegally without a trial.
(25:21):
For staunch defenders of Richard. This killing of Lord Hastings is,
at least the way I see it, one of those
real sticking points that looks bad. It was a move
made almost certainly out of fear and paranoia and desperation,
but it was also an illegal execution without a trial
(25:41):
of one of the most respected noblemen in the country,
one of the late King's closest friends. Richard just gave
his enemies the fuel that they'll need later on when
they'll try to paint him as an outright villain. But
for now, Richard has made his power and is ruthlessness known,
(26:01):
and through the Archbishop, he more or less forces Elizabeth
Woodville to release her younger son into Richard's custody in
the Tower of London, still at this point under the
pretense of preparing for his older brother's coronation. Now Richard
has both princes in his custody in the Tower. I
(26:23):
think now is as good a time as any just
to clear something up. Technically, neither of them were actually
princes when they were in the tower. One of them
was a king even though he was not coronated yet,
he was still King Edward the five, and the other
was a duke, young Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York.
But people call them the Princess the Princess in the Tower,
(26:45):
so for clarity, that's sometimes how I'll refer to them.
But whatever their titles, now that they were in Richard's control.
The pieces were in place for him to make a
big move. Seemingly out of nowhere, a bishop comes forward
and announces that actually the late King Edward the Fourth's
(27:06):
marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid because he had already
been pre contracted to another woman, and by law at
that time, pre contracts with witnesses were as good as marriage.
The bishop who came forward claimed that he had been
the one who performed the earlier ceremony, back before he
was a bishop. He was promoted under Edward the Fourth,
(27:30):
which some people see as a sign that his claim
was true. Maybe Edward the Fourth promoted him to keep
him quiet, and he only felt safe coming forward after
the king's death. But unfortunately we have no real tangible
proof on either side. The woman Edward the fourth had
allegedly been contracted to Eleanor Butler had already passed away.
(27:55):
The streets of London were buzzing with the gossip, and
true or not, the timing could not have been more
convenient for Richard. If the king's marriage was invalid, his
children were illegitimate and ineligible to become king. Well, then
who should rule instead? I think then it has to
(28:17):
be the late king's brother, Richard. A petition arrives for him,
nobles and commoners asking Richard to be king, and he
dramatically hesitates for a moment theatrically before humbly agreeing to
do his duty. On July six three, Richard, Duke of Gloucester,
(28:41):
is crowned King Richard the Third. Richard's nephews, the quote
unquote princes were seen playing on the lawns later that summer,
but then their servants were dismissed. They were moved to
apartments deeper within the castle's compound, and though some claimed
(29:05):
to see them at the windows gazing out, by autumn
of free nobody ever sees young Edward or Young Richard again.
King Richard the Third has a short reign, although not
as enemies retroactively portray it, not an unsuccessful or unpopular reign.
(29:28):
Contemporaries actually seemed to approve of him, but support grew
both in England and abroad for the exiled Henry Tudor,
who had a claim to the throne through his mother,
Margaret Beaufort, who was a Lancastrian, the great granddaughter of
John Gaunt, that third surviving son of Edward the third.
(29:48):
Henry Tudor faced Richard in combat during the Battle of
bosworth Field, and though they say that Richard got within
a sword's length of Henry Tudor, eventually Richard was surrounded
and knocked to the ground. It's here that Shakespeare imagined
that Richard uttered the immortal line my Kingdom for a horse.
(30:11):
Richard was killed, according to legend, by a Welshman who
delivered such a violent blow with a polex that Richard's
helmet was driven through his skull. In actuality, Richard probably
just lost his helmet in battle, but we'll get to
that a little bit later. Richard was dead and Henry
(30:32):
was crowned King Henry the seventh. As a sign of
unity and to strengthen his claim to the throne, Henry
married the young Elizabeth of York, the sister of those
princes in the Tower. Because Henry's claim was through the
Lancastrian side and Elizabeth was a York he was symbolically
(30:52):
uniting the feuding houses of the War of the Roses,
and he established a new house the Tutors, with the
symbol of a combined white and red rose. It was
during the tudorign that the stories really began to emerge
(31:14):
about the evil, scheming Richard the Third, who killed his
own innocent little nephews to take the crown for himself.
The truth that Henry and his supporters wouldn't really like
to admit out loud is that it was pretty convenient
for him too that those princes were gone. If they
were alive, he would basically have no claim to the throne.
(31:36):
Even centuries later, we can't help but be fascinated and
compelled by the image of the would be king and
his younger brother, these angelic blond boys gazing out of
a window like ghosts, innocent who are victims of ambition
or who maybe went on to live a life that
(31:57):
we can only speculate about. Because the mystery of the
disappearance of the princes is still unanswered, and because there
were so many layers of gossip and propaganda on both sides,
and a seemingly infinite number of people who benefited from
the boy's deaths, it's ripe for conspiracy theories. Not even
(32:19):
conspiracy theories necessarily, just theories, and all of them sort
of plausible if you squint. So let's get to some
of those possible answers, the most commonly accepted answer is
that Richard was responsible for the death of his nephews,
not personally, mind you, he wasn't a cartoon villain who
(32:41):
went and strangled two children himself while twirling his mustache,
but that the deaths were done on his orders. Thomas Moore,
who you have to remember, was writing under the Tutors,
wrote that the murder itself was done by James Terrell,
Richard's master of the horse, and that he was aided
by two men named Miles Forrest and John Dighton. According
(33:03):
to Moore's account, the two boys were suffocated and buried
at the bottom of a flight of stairs, and then
later moved. It's also possible that the murders were done
by someone loyal to Richard, but not on his exact orders.
Maybe a will no one rid me of this meddlesome
priest situation. Unfortunately, I know it's not exciting, but I
(33:28):
personally do think that this is a situation where the
most boring answer is probably the right one. After Richard
was crowned, he went on a tour of the country
as a show of strength to show the people that
there was a solid king in charge. While he was away,
his guards thwarted an attempt to spring the princes from
(33:48):
the tower. The conspirators were going to set fires around
the tower and escape with the boys in the chaos.
The plan, as I said, was thwarted, but probably made
it very clear to Richard that as long as the
two boys were alive, and even though they had been
officially declared illegitimate, they were still a threat. There were
(34:10):
always going to be people who thought that they were
the rightful kings, and there were always going to be
enemies of Richard's who would want to use them as ponds. Plus,
of course, even twelve year old boys eventually grow up
to be men, men who can gather supporters and fight
for a rightful claim to the throne. Even if Richard
(34:32):
did order the death of his nephews, I think it's
worth realizing that he probably didn't see himself as a monster.
Richard had grown up during the War of the Roses,
and he saw firsthand how bloody and deadly it was
when the claim to the crown was contested, or when
a weak child king was in charge. Tens of thousands
(34:55):
of people died in battle and civil war made England
and the monarchy vulnerable. If Richard did order the murders
of his nephews, he probably would have seen it as
a necessary evil to protect the peace and stability in
the country and to protect his own son's claimed the throne.
(35:15):
These were incredibly bloody times, and the stakes were life
and death. Could the princes have died of natural causes, maybe,
but they were two pretty young, healthy boys who mysteriously
went missing at exactly the same time. Also, if they
had died of natural causes, Richard probably would have wanted
(35:36):
that known so people wouldn't rally behind them, and so
people would stop accusing him of the nephew murder. A
lot of Richard's defenders make the case that it was
actually the tutors who killed the two princes in the tower.
When Henry the seventh overthrew Richard three, Henry would have
rightfully recognized that Edward the fifth and his brother being alive,
(35:59):
were a major major threat to his rule, and because
he had just overthrown Richard the third, he needed a
way to make Richard look as evil as possible. It
makes sense that if the princess had still been alive
in four five, when Henry the seventh took the throne,
(36:20):
killing them and framing Richard would be the ultimate two
birds one stone. It's a really interesting theory and definitely
one that I understand why people believe, but there's not
a lot of factual evidence, and I think that there
would have been some record, some sightings, anything, if the
(36:41):
princess had still been alive by five, which I just
don't think on the merit of evidence that they were.
Thanks to historical fiction, particularly the incredibly popular work of
Philippa Gregory, there's also a very popular theory that the
deaths were actually the work of Henry the Seventh's powerful mother,
(37:03):
Margaret Beaufort, who manipulated the situation while Richard was still king. Again.
It's a fantastic story that this woman saw the opportunity
to frame Richard and rally the cause around her own son,
while at the same time eliminating the people who would
be in line for the throne ahead of him. But
(37:23):
we don't really have any actual evidence of this beyond
a good story. It's fun, but you know, the princes
under Richard were heavily heavily guarded, and though Margaret Beaufort
could have in theory bribed the very loyal guards. It's
almost impossible to believe that she could have offered anything
(37:46):
that the sitting king couldn't have offered. No one could
have predicted that Henry the seven would have been the
one to best Richard the three and become king himself. Personally,
I think this is a question of hindsight being able
to show us things that Margaret couldn't possibly have known
at the time. You would have to believe that this
woman was playing four dimensional chess with things playing out
(38:10):
in an incredibly unpredictable way. And you also have to
believe that she was incredibly ruthless, even though contemporary sources
actually paint her as a pretty pious lady. But again,
I will never knock someone for wanting to believe a
good story. Okay, that's not true. There is one story
(38:31):
that I do just have to debunk a little bit
out of hand. In recent months, a story has gone
around the Internet saying that actually the Princess survived and
that a series of quote Da Vinci code like clues
reveal that Edward the Fifth escaped the tower to live
a private, secret life as a park ranger named John Evans.
(38:52):
In rural devon. Those da Vinci code like clues include
an effigy of John Evans having a small scar on
his chin that young Edward also might have had, and
that Evans on one of the shields in the church
is written as e V A S, which could stand
for e V get it like Edward the Five, and
(39:16):
then a S, which they think might refer to the
Latin word spelled a s A, which means sanctuary assa.
The church also has a lot of Yorkist symbols throughout,
including a stained glass window depicting the young King Edward
the Five with a bunch of deer nearby, which some
(39:36):
see as a clue because John Evans was a park
ranger on a deer estate. It's cool and fun in theory,
but again there is no actual proof. The Yorkist symbols
in the church are actually from early in the reign
of Henry the Eighth, when there was a moment of
Yorkist reconciliation for the sake of unity. I guess for
(39:58):
me it's a question of which is more likely, one
that the princes managed to escape with no one writing
or talking about it, or that Richard or Henry had
had them safely moved away somewhere where they would have
been free to raise their own army or rally supporters
behind them, and that they left behind a series of
elaborate riddles about it, or two that a guy named
(40:21):
John Evans got a job as a parker and also
a church had some Yorkist symbols during a period of reconciliation.
But fundamentally the mystery and all of the theories all
get to the heart of why the missing princes have
spawned such passionate debate. Because there are so many unknowns,
(40:41):
people love coming up with stories, and because it's such
a dramatic and bloody saga with so many suspects. With
these compelling innocent victims, people are going to keep coming
up with stories and will probably never be able to
prove anyone right or wrong with any absolute certainty. In
(41:06):
sixteen seventy four, when King Charles the Second was having
some renovations done to the Tower of London, two workmen
digging under a staircase found a wooden box which contained
two small human skeletons. Because of the history written by More,
it became widely assumed that the bodies were those of
(41:27):
the princes buried under the staircase, even though Moore's account
did say that the bodies were later moved after they
were buried there, still Charles the Second had the remains
interred in a white marble sarcophagus in Westminster Abbey, giving
them the proper royal burial to which they were entitled.
(41:47):
Transcribed from the Latin, the inscription on their grave reads,
here lie the relics of Edward, the fifth, King of
England and Richard, Duke of York. These brothers, being confined
mind in the Tower of London, and they're stifled with pillows,
were privately and meanly buried by the order of their
perfidious uncle, Richard the Usurper, whose bones long inquired after
(42:12):
and wished for after one hundred and ninety one years,
in the rubbish of the stairs those lately leading to
the chapel of the White Tower, were on the seventeenth
day of July six seventy four, by undoubted proofs discovered
being buried deep in that place. Charles the Second, a
(42:33):
most compassionate prince, pitying their severe fate, ordered these unhappy
princes to be laid amongst the monuments of their predecessors
sixteen seventy eight, in the thirtieth year of his reign.
A little dramatic, but it communicates the message. In nineteen
(42:53):
thirty three, those remains were exhumed and re examined, and
studies confirmed that the bone ones within the tomb were
in fact the remains of two children of appropriate ages.
But that was three. The scientific methods used were shaky
at best, and there was of course no DNA testing.
(43:17):
The Church and Queen Elizabeth the Second have both made
their wishes clear that the bodies not be re exhumed
for DNA testing, imagining that it might be difficult to
come up with anything conclusive, that it would be destructive
to the bodies in Westminster Abbey, and that it would
set a bad precedence. Personally, I'm hoping that when Charles
(43:39):
becomes king he insists upon it, just out of sheer curiosity.
The truth is, the question of the murder of the
princes in the Tower has become such a contentious debate,
with so many people so deeply entrenched in their beliefs,
that I think even if the testing came back saying
those bodies were the princes, even if we had a
(44:00):
handwritten confession from someone found. I doubt the case would
actually be settled. There are stories to be told and
mysteries still to be explored. That's the story of Richard
the Third's rise to power. But keep listening after a
(44:23):
brief sponsor break to hear a little bit more about
Richard's more recent history. On September twelve, and incredible discovery
(44:45):
was made. The University of Lester, working with the amateur
historian Philippa Langley, announced that a skeleton that they had
found in a dig underneath a parking lot was quite
possibly the remains of Richard the Third. Subsequent DNA tests
confirmed it after hundreds of years, they had found Richard
(45:07):
the Third in a parking lot. Richard had been defeated
in battle and so his corpse was paraded around by
his enemies until he was finally buried quickly and without
a shroud or marker, near the choir of Greyfriars Church
in Leicester in four in a place of honor near
(45:28):
the front of the church, but with no pomp or ceremony.
During the dissolution of the monasteries under King Henry the Eighth,
Greyfriars Church was demolished and the sight of it became
lost over time until it wasn't. Through analysis of the skeleton,
they found that Richard the Third did have scoliosis, although
(45:51):
he wasn't the hunchback that Shakespeare made him out to be,
and they found out that he was most likely killed
by a violent halberd wounded to the exposed base of
his neck in battle that probably left his brain visible.
Richard the Third was reburied in Leicester Cathedral. Benedict Cumberbatch,
(46:12):
the actor who had played Richard in the television show
The Hollow Crown, was there to read a poem, It's
wild to imagine that a man can be a king
and still somehow get lost and end up beneath a
parking lot. They found him under an actual parking spot.
Richard the Third was under a spot that was reserved
(46:35):
and it had been painted just a few years earlier
with the letter are Noble Blood is a production of
I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild from Aaron Minky.
(46:57):
The show was written and hosted by Dana Schwartz. Executive
producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and Matt Frederick. The
show is produced by rema Ill Kali, and Trevor Young.
Noble Blood is on social media at Noble Blood Tales,
and you can learn more about the show over at
Noble blood Tales dot com. For more podcasts from I
(47:17):
Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M
Host
Dana Schwartz
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