What happened to Edward IV’s two young descendants after their uncle Richard ordered their imprisonment in the Tower of London? No one could ever say for sure. Her fate is shrouded in mystery Queen ElizabethEven though he had the most modern technical systems and the help of science, he would have preferred not to solve it. Perhaps it will be Charles III who finally reveals what happened to the two captured children, possibly victims of a deadly intrigue.
The dethronement of Edward V
Edoardo and Riccardo were not children like everyone else. They were children of King of England, Edward IV (1442-1483). When her father died on April 9, 1483, her ordeal began. The eldest, only 12 years old, ascended the throne under the name Edward V, but remained there only two and a half months, until June 26, 1483. His paternal uncle, Richard of Gloucester, actually ordered that the new ruler and his nine-year-old little brother Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, was captured and taken to the royal apartments of the Tower of London.
It was Edward IV himself who unwittingly paved the way for his son’s dethronement, as he had appointed him before his death Richard of Gloucester (1452-1485) Protector of the kingdom who effectively placed the government of England in his hands. The late ruler hoped to help his young successor by having a strong regency that could protect and advise him. Unfortunately, his plans were thwarted by his brother’s lust for power.
It’s easy to imagine what Riccardo’s goal was. However, in order to seize the throne, hiding his brother’s heirs from the eyes of the world was not enough. It was necessary to publicly delegitimize them. So declared on June 26, 1483, an assembly of the three states that made up the kingdom Edward V and Richard Plantagenet, illegitimate sons of the late ruler. It would not have been a completely fabricated conclusion: it appears that Edward IV signed a marriage contract with Elizabeth Butler, daughter of the Earl of Shrewbury, Lord Talbot, before his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, the mother of his heirs.
This meant, under the law of the time, that the king’s marriage to Woodville was void and their descendants had no right to the succession to the throne. The assembly asked Richard of Gloucester to become the new King of England. He was crowned with the name on July 6 of the same year Richard III. It was not a real coup, at least not in form. However, it was a rather subtle power reversal made all the more dramatic by the fact that two children paid the price.
Detention
With the’coronation of Richard III. began the second and perhaps final act of this tragedy. Contemporary witnesses saw Edward V and Richard Plantagenet playing in the gardens of the Tower of London until August 1483. Then the children vanished into thin air and no one could provide a convincing explanation. There is no official message, not even an attempt to silence the rumors that circulated at court and among the people.
Richard III was famous for his boundless ambition and his equally boundless ruthlessness. It wasn’t long before his contemporaries suspected that he had killed his nephews, even though they were still children. Furthermore, although they are from the line of succession, their existence could still pose a threat to the monarch. However, the doubts never became certainties. It was nearly impossible to find evidence, even minimal.
The 16th-century chronicles recounted the alleged dynamics of little Edward and Richard’s demise: One night the king sent his murderer, James Tyrell Killing children by suffocating them with a pillow. A version that has never been confirmed, but which inspired Shakespeare’s Richard III. To this day we know nothing about the fate of Edward V and his brother: we do not know the cause of death or the date of death. We know that we don’t know, to quote Socrates, but that is no consolation.
A mystery that Elizabeth II did not want to solve
In 1674, during renovation work in the White Tower, a metal box was discovered buried at the bottom of a staircase. Inside were two small skeletons. King Charles II (1630-1685), believing they might be among Edward IV’s children, had them buriedWestminster Abbey. At this point it would be impossible to determine who these remains belonged to. Today, thanks to DNA testing, we may have an answer.
The late Queen Elizabeth would have received a formal request for the exhumation and related investigations of not only the two skeletons, but also the remains of two other unknown children who were buried there Windsor Castle in the eighteenth century. A necessary step since these remains are located in the royal crypts. However, according to the Chron, the monarch refused to grant permission.
With that everything could change Charles III. Tracy Borman, chief curator of the historic royal palaces, said that the current king “takes a different view” and that “he said he wanted the investigation to continue so that we can determine once and for all how the young royals died.” .” .” After all, Carlo studied archeology at Cambridge University and his interest in the subject would have led him, as the Mirror wrote, to be “for” solving the mystery.
Did Richard III. killed his nephews?
Many historians are convinced that Richard III. didn’t kill his nephews. It cannot be ruled out that I Children died a natural death. Edward V, for example, would have been in poor health from birth. Furthermore, it is strange that no one, not even the king, announced his death. If he had really been the one to give the order to eliminate them, he should have at least tried to keep up appearances.
“There is no evidence that the princes were murdered, there is no evidence that the bones belong to the two boys. “We may never know what happened,” Historic Royal Palaces told the Chron. After the coronation, during Richard III. was on a journey through his kingdom, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham and Constable of England, would attempt to free the children in order to return the throne to Edward V.
In July 1483 the sovereign sent his right hand man Duke of Norfolk, on a matter involving arrested men. Maybe the rebels who had tried to break into the tower. Unfortunately, no one knows whether the Duke of Buckingham managed to meet the little prisoners and whether something could have happened at that moment that could change their fate. What is certain is that the Duke of Buckingham paid for the rebellion with his life: he was accused of treason and beheaded on November 2, 1483. But again Richard III was silent. about the fate of his nephews.
A cheater?
In 1490, during the reign of Henry VII Tudor, a boy dared to question the ruler’s legitimacy and claimed it was him Richard Plantagenet, true heir to the throne. He managed to trigger an uprising, but lost it in October 1497. Under torture he was forced to sign a document denying that he was Richard and was executed on November 23, 1499. Most likely the young man was a fraudster.
In 1502 he was also executed for treason James Tyrell. The government spread a rumor that James had admitted on his deathbed that he was the perpetrator of the murder of Edward V and his little brother. An unverifiable theory that may have been cleverly crafted by the English authorities to hide the truth about what really happened at the Tower of London.