Disappearance
After Richard III's accession, the princes were gradually seen less and less within the Tower, and by the end of the summer of 1483 they had disappeared from public view altogether. Their fate remains unknown, but it is generally believed that they were murdered. The five principal suspects are King Richard; his erstwhile ally Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham; Richard's servant James Tyrrell; Margaret Beaufort; and her son Henry Tudor, who defeated Richard at Bosworth Field and took the throne as Henry VII. As king, Henry claimed that Richard was the murderer, and this became the official version of events.
Thomas More wrote that the princes were smothered to death with their pillows, and his account forms the basis of William Shakespeare's play Richard III, in which Tyrrell murders the princes on Richard's orders. Subsequent re-evaluations of Richard III have questioned his guilt, but in 1992 Alison Weir concluded that the ultimate responsibility could only lie with Richard, considering the time line of the events, and what Richard III had done, and more significantly what he had not done, to distance himself from the disappearance of the princes.
Bones were discovered in 1674 by workmen rebuilding a stairway in the Tower, and these were subsequently placed in Westminster Abbey, in an urn bearing the names of Edward and Richard. However it has never been proven that the bones belonged to the princes. In 1789, workmen carrying out repairs in St George's Chapel, Windsor, rediscovered and accidentally broke into the vault of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. Adjoining this was another vault, which was found to contain the coffins of two children. This tomb was inscribed with the names of two of Edward IV's children: George, 1st Duke of Bedford who had died at the age of 2, and Mary of York who had died at the age of 14; both had predeceased the King. However, the remains of these two children were later found elsewhere in the chapel.
In 1486 Edward's sister, Elizabeth, married Henry VII, thereby uniting the Houses of York and Lancaster.
Read more about this topic: Edward V Of England