Princes in The Tower - Evidence and Rumours

Evidence and Rumours

The Croyland Chronicle, Dominic Mancini, and Philippe de Commines all state that the rumour of the princes' deaths was current in England by the end of 1483. In his summary of the events of 1483, Commines says quite categorically that Richard was responsible for the murder of the princes; Commines was present at the meeting of the Estates-General of France in January 1484. The other two sources do not suggest who was responsible. Only Mancini's account, written in 1483, is truly contemporary, the other two having been written three and seven years later, respectively. The Great Chronicle, compiled 30 years later from the contemporary London municipal records, says the rumour of the princes' death did not start circulating in London until after Easter of 1484. However, if the princes were not already dead by the end of 1483, this of course removes any possibility that Buckingham, who was executed on 2 November 1483, could have murdered them.

The possibility of Henry Tudor (later Henry VII) being the culprit has been suggested; however, Henry became king in 1485, whereas the Princes went missing in 1483.

Thomas More, a Tudor loyalist (and later Chancellor under Henry VIII), composed his History of King Richard III around the year 1513. He identified Sir James Tyrrell as the murderer, acting on Richard's orders, and told the story of Tyrrell's confession, which took place after he had been arrested for treason against Henry VII. Tyrrell was the loyal servant of Richard III who is said to have confessed to the murder of the princes in 1502. The Great Chronicle of London, written around the year 1512, also identified Tyrrell. Polydore Vergil, in his Anglica Historia (circa 1513), specifies that Tyrrell was the murderer, stating that he "rode sorrowfully to London" and committed the deed with reluctance, upon Richard III's orders, and that Richard himself spread the rumours of the princes' death in the belief that it would discourage rebellion.

In his history of King Richard, More said that the princes were smothered to death in their beds by two agents of Tyrell—Miles Forrest and John Dighton—and were then buried "at the stayre foote, metely depe in the grounde vnder a great heape of stones", but were later disinterred and buried in a secret place. Curiously, under Henry VIII, a documented Miles Forrest was granted King's favours as found in English historical documents: After the Dissolution, the manor of Morborne, with the house and grange of Ogerston in the same parish, lately the property of the Abbey of Crowland, was granted in 1540, with all appurtenances, to Miles Forrest, bailiff of the Abbot of Peterborough at Warmington in 1535. However this was 50 years after the Battle of Bosworth Field, and 52 years after the deed was allegedly done, leading to suspicion that this Miles Forrest was not the one referred to by More, as he would by then have been into his seventies or even eighties and well past retirement. In 1513, Thomas More named Miles Forrest as a murderer. In 1534, More fell out of favour with Henry VIII when More denied that the king was the Supreme Head of the Church of England. Henry had More beheaded in 1535. In the same year or in 1540 (the above history references both dates), Henry awarded the manor to Miles Forrest, the documented bailiff of the Abbot of Peterborough.

In 1674, some workmen remodelling the Tower of London dug up a wooden box containing two small human skeletons. The bones were found in the ground close to the White Tower, consistent with More's description of the original burial place of the princes, but not consistent with More's later claim that the bodies had been subsequently removed and buried elsewhere (under the tower stairs). One anonymous report was that they were found with "pieces of rag and velvet about them", the velvet indicated that the bodies were those of aristocrats. Eventually the bones were gathered up and placed in an urn, which Charles II of England ordered interred in Westminster Abbey in the wall of the Henry VII Lady Chapel. The rags and velvet were not mentioned again and, presumably were not included in the reinterrment. In 1933 the bones were taken out and examined, and then replaced in the urn. They were found to have been interred carelessly along with chicken and other animal bones. There were also 3 very rusty nails. One skeleton was larger than the other, but many of the bones were missing, including part of the smaller jawbone and all of the teeth from the larger one. Many of the bones had been broken by the original workmen. Examination of photographs from this exhumation indicated that the elder child was 11–13 years old and the younger was 7–11 years old. It was not possible at that time to determine the sex of children's skeletons. No further scientific examination has since been conducted on the bones, which remain in Westminster Abbey, and DNA analysis (if DNA could be obtained), which would now determine the sex, has not been attempted.

In 1789, workmen carrying out repairs in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, rediscovered and accidentally broke into the vault of Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth Woodville, discovering in the process what appeared to be a small adjoining vault. This vault was found to contain the coffins of two unidentified children. However, no inspection or examination was carried out and the tomb was resealed. The 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. During the excavation for the royal tomb house for King George III under the Wolsey tomb-house in 1810-1813 two lead coffins clearly labelled as George Plantagenet and Mary Plantagenet were discovered and moved into the adjoining vault of Edward IV's but at the time no effort was made to identify the two lead coffins already in the vault.

In the late 1990s, work was being carried out near and around Edward IV's tomb in St George's Chapel, the floor area was excavated to replace an old boiler and also to add a new repository for the remains of future Deans and Canons of Windsor. A request was forwarded to the Dean and Canons of Windsor to consider a possible examination of the two vaults either by fibre-optic camera or, if possible, a reexamination of the two unidentified lead coffins in the tomb also housing the lead coffins of two of Edward IV's children that were discovered during the building of the Royal Tomb for King George III (1810–1813) and placed in the adjoining vault at that time. Royal consent would be necessary to open any royal tomb, so it was felt best to leave the medieval mystery unsolved for at least the next few generations.