BOSWORTH: ‘A MOST SAVAGE BATTLE’

The battle lasted around two hours, it was all over before noon. So ferocious was the fighting that in that short time around a thousand men had died. One man of note lay lifeless on the bloodied ground, he had been dismounted, his helmet removed then hacked about around the back of the head: the King was dead. 

The Fate of the King
The body of King Richard was found in the “thick of the fight, and not in the act of flight. King Richard fell in the field, struck by many mortal wounds, as a bold and most valiant prince.” [The Continuation of the Crowland Chronicle]

At least eleven injuries have been identified on the body of Richard III. The king suffered multiple blows to the head from a number of different bladed weapons which inflicted wounds to his skull, right cheek, lower jaw, with further injuries to his pelvis and rib. The order in which the injuries were inflicted has not been determined yet there is no indication of healing on any of these wounds, it is therefore certain that they happened at the time of death. It is also likely that the King suffered additional injuries such as flesh wounds, that have left no trace. 

The interpretation of the wounds has been determined by experts with knowledge of medieval weapons and armour. The trauma suggests he was attacked from all sides, the injuries inflicted certainly by more than one person, with two fatal wounds to the back of the skull being the cause of death. Contemporary sources credit the men who dealt the fatal blows as a group of Welsh foot soldiers armed with halberds. A halberd is a two-handed polearm, essentially an axe blade topped with a spike with a hook on the back mounted on a 6ft long shaft, typically used by foot soldiers against mounted warriors.

The dagger wound to the cheek was delivered from above suggesting the King was kneeling, perhaps inflicted in a rushed effort to cut the chinstrap of his helmet. It seems likely Richard was kneeling down with his head bent forward as the time he was struck with the halberd, a single massive blow to the base of the skull. He would not have survived this strike. The man said to have dealt the death blow was Rhys ap Thomas, a Welsh lord, master of Carew Castle in Pembrokeshire, later knighted on the battlefield that day by Henry Tudor as a reward.

It has been determined that none of the skull injuries could have been inflicted if Richard had been wearing a helmet, he either lost it, or as seems more likely it was forcibly removed during the battle. The head injuries are consistent with near-contemporary accounts of the battle, which suggest that Richard abandoned his horse when it became stuck in the marsh.1

Prelude to Disaster
On 22nd August 1485 the armies of Henry Tudor and King Richard III met between Atherstone and Leicester in the penultimate battle of the Wars of the Roses, a series of engagements that had witnessed a dynastic conflict between the houses of Lancaster and York for thirty years. The Battle of Bosworth was the last time an English King was killed on the battlefield, ended three hundred years of Plantagenet rule and heralded the beginning of the Tudor dynasty.

Alongside the battles of Hastings and Naseby, Bosworth had a decisive outcome that resulted in a turning point in the history of England. The death of Richard III was a significant event; it is considered to mark the end of the Middle Ages and saw the beginning of the Tudor period and the expansion of British territories culminating in colonies in the New World.

From the Yorkist victory at the Battle of Towton in March 1461, said to have been the bloodiest battle on English soil, Edward IV reigned until 1483, but for a six month spell from October 1470 to March 1471. Following his unexpected death in April 1483 his young son Edward V was due to inherit the throne. He was escorted to London and held in the Tower by his uncle Richard Duke of Gloucester in preparation for his coronation but disappeared along with his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury, and Gloucester was crowned Richard III on 6th July. The disappearance of the so-called Princes in the Tower led to widespread suspicion that Richard had been complicit in their murder. He never denied this or produced the Two Princes to prove they were still alive.

Henry, the Second Duke of Buckingham had been a close ally of Richard and instrumental in putting him on the throne but something made him turn against the king. Buckingham led a rebellion against Richard in October 1483 but the rebellion collapsed and he was captured and executed. This rebellion started as an attempt to restore Edward V to the throne but it seemed to be accepted that the Two Princes were dead and it soon turned into a rebellion to oust Richard with the intention to install Henry Tudor, the Earl of Richmond on the throne.

Halberd

Following the apparent death of the Two Princes, Henry Tudor’s mother Margaret Beaufort was promoting her son as an alternative to Richard III, despite her being married to the Yorkist Lord Stanley. Henry Tudor was born in Pembroke Castle in 1457. His mother, Margaret Beaufort, was a descendant of John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III, and founder of the House of Lancaster. Henry had been living in Brittany since 1471 when Edward IV regained the throne.

By now Elizabeth Woodville must have accepted that her two sons, Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, the so-called Princes in the Tower, were now dead which made her daughter Elizabeth of York the heir to Edward IV. Beaufort and Woodville were in agreement that Henry Tudor should marry Elizabeth of York when he became king and unite the houses of York and Lancaster which would of course also validate Henry’s tenuous claim to the throne. Indeed, in September 1483 the Duke of Buckingham, on behalf of both Yorkist and Lancastrian supporters of the rebellion, wrote to Henry Tudor inviting him to invade England and deliver the realm from tyranny, on condition that he married Elizabeth of York and together take possession of the throne. 

In October 1483, Henry set sail for south England to link up with the Duke of Buckingham’s rebellion. He had taken out a loan from the Duke of Brittany sufficient to fund 5,000 mercenaries and fit out ships for an invasion force. However the weather was particularly bad in the south-west of England and the Channel. The River Severn was high and burst its banks, destroying buildings and bridges preventing Buckingham, who was based at his castle at Brecknock (Brecon), from crossing into England with his army and joining the rebels in the south. Henry Tudor was delayed owing to the storms in the Channel, and finally sailed on 18th October but by time he arrived in England the rebellion had collapsed.

Even though the rebellion had crumbled by this time, Henry kept his word and swore an oath on Christmas Day 1483 at Rennes Cathedral to marry Elizabeth of York when he became King of England, he clearly had plans to return and oust Richard III.

The following January, Richard’s parliament named over a hundred rebel nobles in Acts of Attainder but only the ringleaders of Buckingham’s rebellion were executed. Margaret Beaufort had lands and property confiscated and placed under house arrest with her husband Thomas, Lord Stanley.

Many of the survivors of the Buckingham rebellion made their way to join Henry Tudor across the Channel. Two years later Henry Tudor had regrouped and assembled another invasion force and set sail for Wales. On 1st August 1485, Henry, accompanied by 2,000 French mercenaries, landed in Milford Haven in south Wales, where his family held influence and he hoped to raise support. The rebel army rapidly advanced through Wales picking up further support on the way. 

Henry was anxious to meet with his stepfather, Thomas, Lord Stanley, whose support was not guaranteed but would be critical to the rebellion’s success. However, King Richard had taken Lord Stanley’s son Lord Strange, hostage and demanded Stanley’s support for his son’s life.

Lord Stanley’s brother William had fought on the Yorkist side in many battles during he Wars of the Roses. However, Lord Stanley had swapped sides on several occasions; he raised troops for the Lancastrians at the battle of Blore Heath in 1459 then failed to commit his troops to battle, then he fought for the Yorkists in 1461 at Towton. Ten years later after the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471, he captured Margaret of Anjou, the Lancastrian Queen and wife of Henry VI. Tudor desperately needed the support of the Stanley’s as he was severely outnumbered without them.

After marching through Wales Henry’s rebel army arrived at Shrewsbury on 15th August. He then met with William Stanley at Stafford. By 19th August he had reached Lichfield marching south-easterly along Watling Street. King Richard’s scouts had been tracking Tudor’s progress. Richard and the Royalist army left his base at Nottingham and marched toward Leicester to intercept the rebels.

The Battle
On 21st August the opposing armies advanced towards each other and camped that night only a few miles apart.  Henry had 5,000 men with him, Richard between 10,000 and 15,000.  The Stanley’s were also in the vicinity with around 6,000 men from Lancashire and Cheshire but they were uncommitted and neither side could be certain of their support. 

Richard’s army divided into three groups (or "battles" from Old French “bataille”). The van guard commanded by the Duke of Norfolk, Richard held the main group, while the Earl of Northumberland commanded the rear guard. Henry placed his army under the command of the experienced Earl of Oxford who kept most of his force together.

Norfolk’s van guard was no match for Oxford, seeing the fight going against them some of Royalist troops fled the field. According to Polydore Vergil the Royalist van was composed of a large number of archers. Oxford was also facing an artillery barrage.The Ballad of Bosworth Field claims Richard had 140 cannon, this may have forced Oxford to attack Norfolk’s flank which appears to have been the decisive manoeuvre in the outcome of the battle.

For reasons unknown Northumberland failed to engage the rear guard when commanded to do so. Richard, seeing the battle was going against him, then decided to mount a charge with his knights across the battlefield directly at Henry; if he could kill the rebel leader he could bring the battle to a rapid conclusion. At some point Richard became dismounted, his horse possibly stuck in the marsh. He was offered another horse and advised to flee this battle and live to fight another day. But he refused and continued fighting on foot. Richard’s charge toward Henry’s position stirred the Stanley’s into action, Sir William brought his men to Henry’s aid cutting down Richard and his knights. After the battle, Henry was crowned King by one of the Stanley brothers on a spot today called ‘Crown Hill’.

It was a battle that the Yorkist army of Richard III should have won comfortably; the king’s forces outnumbered Henry’s rebel army by at least 2-1 (sources vary on the exact numbers); he had firepower of over a hundred canon; he had selected the site of the battle and surveyed the terrain the day before. Yet, the king was dead within a few short hours of the battle starting, with key commanders and troops deserting him at his greatest moment of need.

As noted above, examination of Richard’s skeleton revealed 11 perimortem injuries, consistent with the types of weapons from the late medieval period that would have been used in the battle, likely representing an attack by several assailants. At least three of the injuries could have killed Richard  quickly, the most likely fatal injuries are the two to the base of the skull. One post-mortem injury was noted to the pelvis, caused by a fine-bladed weapon that penetrated the right buttock and traversed the right side of the pelvic cavity. The angle of the injury to the pelvis is highly consistent with contemporary accounts which describe Richard's body as being stripped and slung over the back of a horse and suffering insults after the battle.2

“And thus by great fortune and grace upon the 22 August won this noble prince [Henry VII] possession of this land, and then was he conveyed to Leicester the same night, and there received with all honour and gladness. And Richard late King as gloriously as he by the morning departed from that town, so as irreverently was he that afternoon brought into that town, for his body despoiled to the skin, and nought being left about him, so much as would cover his privy member, he was trussed behind a pursuivant called Norroy as an hog or another vile beast, and so all besprung with mire and filth was brought to a church in Leicester for all men to wonder upon, and there lastly irreverently buried.” [The Great Chronicle of London]3

Notes & References:
1. Perimortem trauma in King Richard III: A Skeletal Analysis – The Lancet, Volume 385, Issue 9964, pp.253-259, January, 2015.
2. Ibid.
3. The earliest accounts of the Battle Bosworth can be found in Michael Bennett, The Battle of Bosworth, Sutton paperback edition 1993, pp.155-175.

Works Consulted:
David Baldwin, Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower, The History Press, Reprint edition 2017.
Michael Bennett, The Battle of Bosworth, Sutton paperback edition 1993.
David Cohen, Battles of the Wars of the Roses, Pen & Sword, 2022.
Peter Hammond, Richard II and the Bosworth Campaign, Pen & Sword, 2013.
Michael Jones, Bosworth: Psychology of a Battle, John Murray publishers, 2014.
Alison Weir, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower, Vintage, 2014.

* * *

Two Princes, Two Programs, Two Perspectives

Recently two television documentaries have been screened on National television in the UK, both claiming to reveal new evidence in the fate of the “Princes in the Tower” Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York, the young sons and heirs of King Edward IV. 

The Tower of London

The young princes disappeared without trace while aged 12 and 9 after their uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was appointed Lord Protector and took the boys into his care and confined them in the Tower of London in 1483. Within three months of the death of Edward IV in April, his brother the Duke of Gloucester claimed the throne and was crowned Richard III the following July and the young princes were never seen again.

The popular perception of Richard III is that he was responsible for the death of the two young princes, after all, as Lord Protector he alone was accountable for their well-being. They were under his care when they disappeared, and he surely had the most to gain by eliminating them from the line of succession. 

The fate of the two young princes is one of the greatest mysteries of British history. Today, over 540 years later, argument continues as to whether their uncle King Richard III was responsible for the boys’ murders or if they escaped the tower and lived on. Does the received wisdom portray a faithful record of events or is Richard III an innocent victim of malicious ‘Tudor propaganda’?

The UK Channel 5 documentary Princes in the Tower: A Damning Discovery, (first screened 3rd December 2024) and The Princes in the Tower: The New Evidence (UK Channel 4, first screened 18th November, 2023) both claimed to present new evidence]for either side of the argument.

The newspapers reported the documentary as uncovering evidence that may finally solve the mystery of the Princes in the Tower after 500 years.1

The Damning Discovery: The Chain
The ‘bombshell’ evidence of the C5 documentary Princes in the Tower: A Damning Discovery presented jointly by Tracy Borman, Chief Historian at Historic Royal Palaces and Jason Watkins, actor and narrator of the television series Inside The Tower of London, was the discovery of a reference to an item belonging to one of the Princes. The disappearance of the two Princes was so complete and clean that not a trace of their existence since their confinement in the Tower in the summer of 1483 has been found. Until now. 

Tim Thornton, Jason Watkins and Tracy Borman

Tim Thornton, Professor of History and Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Huddersfield, has found reference to a chain belonging to Edward V bequeathed in the Will of Margaret, Lady Capell. This is a significant find because it is the first reference in 500 years to the discovery of any physical item belonging to one of the ‘Princes in the Tower’. However, the documentary lost some credibility when this chain was suddenly elevated to Edward V’s ‘chain of office’. Now that would be quite damning but in Lady Capell’s Will it was described as simply a chain. 

The Will, found in the Register of Wills held at the National Archives entry of 1516, detailed a chain that belonged to Edward V that Lady Capell bequeathed to her son Giles. It is unclear how Edward’s chain came into the possession of Lady Capell. Yet the Will of her late husband Sir William Capell, the two-time lord mayor of London, refers to business dealings with the Tyrell family. Indeed  Sir William is known to have exchanged jewelry with Sir James Tyrell, his brother-in-law, and trusted servant of Richard III.2

Professor Thornton said, “'…… while there is a clear possibility that the chain came to the Capell family in some neutral way, as the king’s property was distributed in the aftermath of Edward’s disappearance, there is also the possibility that it came as a result of his murder– and through the Capells’ connection with the alleged murderer, Sir James Tyrell.”

The discovery of the reference to a chain of Edward V suggests that Sir Thomas More's account of the murder of the Princes in the Tower contained within his History of King Richard III, much discredited by Ricardians, may not simply be Tudor propaganda.

Thomas More and James Tyrell
Tyrell was named by by Sir Thomas More as the man who hired two men to carry out the killing of the young Princes Edward and Richard. More appears to have had contact with the son of one of those men claimed to have been responsible for the death of the Princes, which Thornton claims is a possible source from where he heard the murder story.3

More used a courier to transport his letters to the English court, one is named as 'M Forest', the son of one of the men he named as the murderer of the Princes. Did More get his account of the Princes's killers direct from this M Forest?

However, sympathisers of Richard III accuse More of bias as he was educated in the house of the Tudor loyalist Cardinal Morton, a staunch enemy of Richard III, and fabricated his accounts to favour the Tudors. More was much closer to these events than modern historians and perhaps his account should not be dismissed so lightly. More was a man who went to his death for his beliefs; he refused to acknowledge the annulment of Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon and refused to sign the 1534 Oath of Succession making Henry supreme head of the Church of England. More was charged with treason and executed on 6 July 1535 at Tower Hill. Ironically, 50 years to the day when Richard III was crowned.

Richard III

Even if we accept More’s account that Tyrell was involved with the disappearance of the Princes this chain doesn't help us determine if they died in the Tower or escaped and survived. Tyrell’s henchmen may have taken the chain from the dead body of Edward V, or he may have been given the chain by Edward for helping him escape the Tower or other services unknown; we really have no idea how the family of James Tyrell came by this chain, or its whereabouts today.

After Richard III died at the battle of Bosworth in 1485, Tyrell started working for the first Tudor king Henry VII, but their relationship turned sour and he was imprisoned. More claims that when at the Tower, Tyrell confessed to the murder of the Princes.

The C5 documentary examined the ‘King’s Itinerary’ and found that from 27 April - 2 May 1502  Henry VII was at the Tower, the only time that year, the same time as Tyrell is said to have confessed. Henry VII is known to have personally attended several confessions of his enemies. A record of the confession has not survived, but according to More, Tyrell claimed that two men named Dighton and Forest killed the boys. The same time that Tyrell was there in the Tower. Elizabeth of York, Henry VII's wife and sister to the two princes, visited the Tower. Immediately after visiting the tower Elizabeth went to visit her aunt, Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk and sister to Edward IV and Richard III, as if bearing some important news; the documentary speculates that it may have been Tyrell’s confession that revealed the fate of the two young princes. 

On the Otherside
The day after its first screening (03/12/24) The Daily Mail reported, "Row breaks out over Princes in the Tower murder evidence as Richard III's defenders pour cold water on new 'smoking gun' document.”4

The newspaper states “Philippa Langley, the amateur-turned-professional historian who played a key role in the discovery of Richard III's remains beneath a Leicester car park in 2012 claimed the evidence is 'conjecture at best'.”

The Richard III Society, which says it works to 'secure a more balanced assessment of the king', issued a five-point rebuttal of the findings. Richard III Society 'Statement On The Chain' arguing that the discovery of a reference to Edward V’s chain that Thornton claims supports the theory that the Princes in the Tower were murdered 'cannot be deemed as evidence but conjecture'.5 

Ms Langley, a staunch defender of the maligned king Richard III, said, “When Sir William Stanley was executed in 1495 a gold chain was found amongst his belongings. This is said to have been his chain as Steward of Edward V (when Prince of Wales). No one has ever suggested that Sir William Stanley murdered Edward V because he kept his gold chain.”

She added, “Historians have to be very careful about what they present as ‘evidence’”.6

In 2023 Ms Langley revealed the discovery of documents that she claims proved both of the Princes, Edward and Richard, the sons of Edward IV, survived their imprisonment in the Tower of London and went on to assume the identities of two usurpers who challenged Henry VII for the crown. It follows that if the Princes survived the Tower then Richard III is therefore exonerated of their deaths.
Case solved: Quod Erat Demonstrandum. 

Ms Langley assembled a team of researchers, The Missing Princes Project in 2016, which last year uncovered documents that she claims proves that both Edward V and his younger brother Richard, the Duke of York, fled to Europe and assumed the identities of Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck, who are long known to have launched failed attempts to depose Henry VII in the late 15th century. However, the documents were dismissed as unverified evidence at the time by some academic historians.

The New Evidence: Proofs Of Life
Whereas the Channel 5 television documentary presented the record of a ‘chain’ that belonged to Edward V that somehow came into the possession of the family of James Tyrell, the man named by Thomas More7 as being responsible for the murder of the Princes at the instructions of Richard III, a year earlier Channel 4 screened a documentary presenting ‘New Evidence’ claiming that the two sons of Edward IV, ‘the alleged victims of an alleged murder’, actually survived and did not die in the Tower. The well known TV barrister Rob Rinder was provided to sift through the evidence to deliver his expert verdict as if to add some legal weight to these claims.

NO, Richard III did not order the killing of the two princes. Ricardians dismiss that as just Tudor propaganda. It was disappointing to see the respected historian Janina Ramirez just brush off anti-Richard literature as such. True, some later accounts such as Polydore Vergil certainly were produced to bolster the claims of Henry VII to the throne and in doing so malign the Plantagenets. But not all documents from the late-15th century can be considered as such.

Since finding the remains of Richard III under a car park in Leicester in 2012, supporters of the last Plantagenet king have switched their attention to the alternative theory that claims both Princes, the young sons of Edward IV, survived the Tower, and escaped to Europe. They returned to Britain to fight against the first Tudor king Henry VII to, unsuccessfully, restore the Yorkist claim to the throne. If the Princes escaped the Tower and lived on to fight another day then Richard III must be totally exonerated of the 500 year accusation that he had them killed. And that, we may suspect, is the real purpose of the Missing Princes Project led by Philippa Langley who is emotionally attached to Richard III.

The 2024 Channel 4 documentary was based on Langley’s book, ‘The Princes in the Tower: Solving History's Greatest Cold Case’ (The History Press, November 2023) which claimed the Princes survived the tower. Case solved?

Langley is well known for the discovery of the remains of Richard III under a car park in Leicester in 2012. She was as the public face of the ‘Looking for Richard’ project which, following seven years of investigation, culminated in the discovery, exhumation, positive identification and re-interment of King Richard III in Leicester Cathedral. 

Langley is an avid Ricardian and believes the bad reputation of Richard III as portrayed by Shakespeare’s play based on Sir Thomas More’s account which has endured for the last five hundred years as totally undeserved and largely due to Tudor propaganda. She is adamant that Richard was not the evil uncle that the sources depicted.

Accordingly, Langley and fellow Ricardians see no supporting evidence for the Princes’ death at the hands of Richard III. Richard was absent from London when rumours started circulating about the disappearance of the Princes and he was in York in early September 1483 when the Prices were seen at the Tower. 

But where did the Princes go; they are not seen after Richard placed them in the Tower. To solve this perennial mystery Langley was instrumental in launching the ‘Missing Princes Project’ in 2016 as a follow up to ‘Looking for Richard’, with the objective of establishing the facts of what happened to the two Princes following their disappearance in 1483. 

Using the same methodology as a modern police investigation, ‘Accept nothing – Believe nobody – Challenge everything’ Langley admits The Missing Princes Project is not an academic study but an intelligence gathering exercise requiring the examination of all contemporary and near contemporary source material. After a seven year search concluding the first phase of the Project, Langley believes she has solved the 540 year old mystery of the missing princes. 

Langley argues that all records dating to the reign of Richard III revealed no evidence of the death of the two Princes. Both Edward V and Richard, Duke of York are referenced as alive in all existing day-to-day accounting and legal records during the reign of Richard III. Stories of the murder of the two Princes, she claims, originated in England with the arrival of Henry Tudor and his French invasion force on 14 August 1485.

Langley cites four ‘Proofs’ that show the two young Princes survived the Tower:

• Edward V: Proof of Life: The Lille receipt, dated 16 December 1487, discovered by the Dutch Research Group in May 2020, records payment by King Maximilian I for 400 long pikes. The receipt is signed by three leading members of Maximilian’s court and references Edward’s aunt Margaret of York in Burgundy. Langley argues that the Lille receipt suggests that Edward V was alive, or thought to be alive, in December 1487, then 17 years of age.
  
  
• Richard, Duke of York: Proof of Life: The Gelderland document, rediscovered by the Dutch Research Group in November 2020, in the Gelderland archive, in Arnhem, Netherlands. The Gelderland document is a record of what happened to Richard, Duke of York over the ten years from when he left sanctuary at Westminster in 1483, age 9, up to his arrival at the court of his aunt, Margaret of York, in Burgundy in 1493. It is a witness statement, Richard’s biography, written in the first person, undated and unsigned.

• A document in the Dresden archive in Germany recorded a receipt and pledge of payment of 30,000 florins by ‘Richard of England’ to Duke Albert of Saxony dated 4 October 1493. The document is signed by ‘Richard of England’ with his royal monogram and seal. 
  
  
• From the Austrian archives is a letter from King Maximilian to Henry VII of England, dated 1493, in which Maximilian declares that Henry will know that this Richard, Duke of York, is the true son of King Edward (IV) because he can be recognised by three marks on his body

These documents appear to be genuine documents of the time, indeed the Gelderland document has been dated by Andrew Dunning at Oxford and authenticated as late 15th century. However, Langley’s conclusions, and particularly her scrutiny of the sources, has not been without criticism.8  She accepts these as genuine proofs that Edward and Richard escaped the Tower without scrutiny of their origin or verification by external sources.

The Dresden document promising payment of 30K florins, dated 1493, displays the signature of ‘Richard of England’ and the associated seal has the appearance of being authentic. However, they do not provide proof of Richard’s survival: how do we know it is Richard’s signature, what are we comparing it to, is there a genuine signature from Richard on record? Similarly, what are we comparing the seal to? And the claimed ‘marks’ on Richard’s body, where are the original accounts of these marks on Prince Richard’s body, prior to his disappearance? And how would Henry VII know these marks?

Surely, to maximise support for a Yorkist rebellion against Henry VII the conspirators would want to convince people that the figurehead was Edward V or his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, the rightful heirs to the throne who survived the tower. 

From these unverified sources Langley has accepted that the Two Princes escaped the Tower and reappeared under the names Lambert Simnel, and later as Perkin Warbeck: Edward and Richard respectively. Supported by their aunt Margaret of Burgundy, ‘the diabolical duchess’, they made separate, unsuccessful Yorkist attempts to retake the throne. Edward was said to be Simnel, who was the central figure in the 1487 Yorkist invasion of England ending in the Battle of Stoke Field. Warbeck, who had initially claimed to be Richard, failed in a 1497 bid to claim the throne and then before his execution signed a confession admitting he was a boatman's son. 

Indeed these are exactly the type of documents you expect to be produced by Yorkist challengers to Henry VII claiming to be legitimate heirs to the Yorkist line. If one were pretending to be Edward V to raise an army and challenge the king you would not be using your real name. 

Simnel and Warbeck would hardly sign documents in their real names but we could expect them to use a pseudonym such as Edward V or Richard of England. The Gelderland document would have also been constructed for the purpose of showing Richard as the ‘genuine article’ and maximising support. Forgeries of this kind were not uncommon in the Medieval period when documents were altered to support the claims of Kings.9

Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, sister to Edward IV and Richard III, is associated with many of these so-called ‘Proofs’. Margaret was only too willing to support anyone prepared to challenge Henry VII and restore the Yorkist line. She provided financial backing for weapons and mercenaries to both the Yorkist pretenders Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck. She even claimed Warbeck was her nephew Richard, the youngest son of Edward IV.

With regard to Philippa Langley’s four proofs historian Michael Hicks specialising in the Wars of the Roses writes:

“. . .  for the survival of the two Princes in the Tower after 1485. Neither the Lille document nor supporting evidences prove that Lambert Simnel was really Edward V rather than Edward, earl of Warwick. The Gelderland manifesto recounting the escape of Richard, duke of York and the pretender’s pledge to Duke Albert of Saxony were propaganda as necessary for the imposter Perkin Warbeck as for the real prince. The blemishes of Warbeck’s body cannot be shown to identify him as the younger prince. While useful additions to the continental plots against Henry VII, these new evidences do not prove that either prince lived beyond the reign of Richard III.”10

Langley set out her investigation to “accept nothing, believe nobody and challenge everything” but she fails to adhere to her own criteria and accepts the “proofs” without further scrutiny or verification by other external sources. In comparison, Thomas More is virtually demonised as a blatant liar by Ricardians but Langley all too readily accepts these ‘Proofs’ as the genuine article without challenge, a methodology which has raised concerns among her own researchers.

The use of the findings of the Dutch Research Group (DRG), who are part of the Missing Princes research team, has been termed ‘premature and counter productive’. This statement comes from members of the DRG, not from any anti-Ricardian critic. In a letter to the Ricardian Bulletin Zoe Maula, Jean Roefstra and William Wiss, former members of the research group, note that their concerns about using the finds in the publication of the book, and documentary.

“Although we agree that the contemporary documents are genuine and valid, the finds made by the DRG are in our own opinion open to various interpretations and do not constitute irrefutable proof without other genuine and undoubted sources to back up what these documents are telling us – or what we (wish to) believe they are telling us.” 11

As Ms Langley told the Daily Mail, “Historians have to be very careful about what they present as ‘evidence’”.12

In conclusion, two television programs both claiming new evidence to solve the mystery of the Princes in the Tower but neither completely convincing, both relying on conjecture - we are left thinking, perhaps, maybe. The TV programs, and Langley's book, represent the two sides of the argument; was Richard III responsible for the disappearance of the two Princes, or not, and display bias accordingly. Any new evidence is welcome but we need something more positive before we can claim to have solved the 500 year mystery of the Princes in the Tower.

Notes & References
1. What The Papers said:
a. The Telegraph (02/12/24) reported "The ‘smoking gun’ evidence that could finally prove Princes in the Tower were murdered. Discovery of a will shines new light on the centuries-old unsolved case."
b. The Mirror (02/12/24) was much the same: "Princes in the Tower mystery could finally be solved after 500 years in new documentary."
c. The Daily Mail (02/12/24) heralded the program as "The 'murder' of the Princes in the Tower 'solved at last': New evidence links their 'killer to gold chain of 12-year old Edward V".
2. Tim Thornton, Sir William Capell and A Royal Chain: The Afterlives (and Death) of King Edward V,, Volume 109, Issue 388, December 2024, pp.445-460. Open Access. 
3. Tim Thornton, More on a Murder: The Deaths of the ‘Princes in the Tower’, and Historiographical Implications for the Regimes of Henry VII and Henry VIII,  History: The Journal of the Historical Association, Volume106, Issue369, January 2021, pp.4-25. Open Access.
4. The Daily Mail (03/12/24) : "Row breaks out over Princes in the Tower murder evidence as Richard III's defenders pour cold water on new 'smoking gun' document.”
5. Richard III Society Statement On The Chain 
6. The Daily Mail (03/12/24) : "Row breaks out over Princes in the Tower....”
7. Thomas More, The History of King Richard the Third, 1513, pp.85-86. [PDF}
8. What the historians say:
a. Conflicting ‘Proof’ and the Princes in the Tower – Dan Moorhouse, (Wars of The Roses)
b. Sourcing the truth: the fatal flaws of Langley’s quest - Gareth Streeter (Royal History Geeks)

9. The Princes in the Tower: David Pilling on ‘The New Evidence’ (Aspects of History)

10. Michael Hicks, Historic doubts about the survival of the Princes in the Tower after 1485, Historical Research, Volume 97, Issue 277, August 2024, Pages 437–442.
11. The Ricardian Bulletin, page 4. June 2024.
12. The Daily Mail (03/12/24) : "Row breaks out over Princes in the Tower......”

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