Cold Case Reopened: The Princes in the Tower (10 page)

Richard's previous character up to the abduction of Edward V on the road suggests there would be no chance that he would be a child killer. He was intensely loyal to his brother, and no-one had any reason to doubt that he would be loyal to his nephew as well.

Would Elizabeth Woodville really have surrendered the Duke of York so readily to Richard if she truly believed that his life was in danger? Would she not have forced Richard's hand and forced him to storm Westminster Abbey and break sanctuary in front of the population of London? This is a city with a population that had no love for Richard. A major event like the forcible seizure of the Duke of York could have been enough to cause an uprising. Surely Elizabeth Woodville would have seen the benefits of forcing Richard's hand, especially if she truly believed her son was in mortal danger?
 
Later still, after Richard had claimed the throne, would Woodville and her daughters have agreed to emerge from the Abbey on the basis of an oath alone? If they had suspected that Richard had murdered the princes would they not have assumed that they would have been next on the king's hit list? Would Elizabeth of York have offered her affections so readily to Richard III if she believed he had murdered her brothers? It seems that either the Woodvilles did not believe that Richard could, would or had committed the unthinkable, or they were so cold-hearted that they did not care and took whatever course of action they could at the time to further their own cause.

We need to remember the key fact that Richard did not need to kill the boys to take the crown. The children had been declared bastards and Richard was already king. The boys' deaths would have served no further benefit to him, other than remove a potential threat some years down the line.

Finally, Richard's treatment of Warwick seems to indicate that he did not have the soul of a ruthless killer who would remove anything that might stand between him and the retention of his crown.

There can be a case presented against Richard. Indeed, a strong case can be presented. However, for the all the facts that point towards Richard being the murderer a skilled lawyer would be able to point to many others that would suggest otherwise.

Is there a piece of evidence against Richard that can seal this case?

So who is the murderer of the Princes in the Tower?

Like Hercule Poirot I have gathered everyone together to pass my judgement on the matter. I'm sure they are all awaiting nervously, wondering who will be revealed to be the murderer and who will be led away in handcuffs to their eternal prison cell.
 

As I stated at the start of this book there is normally one piece of evidence that proves to be fundamental in determining where the guilt should lie. And this case is no different. At present I believe there is simply just one piece of evidence that is indisputable.

Of course, if forensic tests were undertaken on the bones in Westminster Abbey we could bring further evidence to the table and at that point my judgement might change. But in the absence of this further evidence I can only base my case on what I have at my disposal.

No party can be completely confirmed to be innocent, but the evidence points me in a certain direction.

Firstly, I have to say that I hold little credence to any suggestion that the boys were allowed to live and died a natural death, either in the tower or out in the wider world. The boys were clearly murdered, the question simply remains as to who did the deed.

Dying people can do strange things, however it is extremely unlikely that Anne Neville had any hand in the boys' murder. Richard III's queen was no Elizabeth Woodville and never had the influence at court to arrange the murder of the princes on her own initiative. Any person committing the act would have wanted full confirmation that Richard III supported the move. If the matter had been discussed with her by her husband she may well have supported the move in order to protect the throne for her own son. However, Richard was not in the habit of discussing matters of state with his wife, and therefore it is extremely unlikely that any such conversation took place. Despite fictional representations there is no evidence pointing towards her, and therefore it is safe to assume that she is not the guilty party.

The same could be said for Elizabeth Woodville. It is clear that Woodville is not a likeable individual. She may have been a power hungry, manipulative woman with a desire for self-preservation, but this does not make her the killer of her children. No evidence can be found to point the finger at her. Elizabeth Woodville, you are free to leave.

Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, it is time consider your guilt. You are one of the more likely suspects to have committed the crime. You were effectively the second man of the country and had power beyond all others. Indeed, many historians have you down as the most likely of the suspects to have committed the crime. But other than the fact that you were Richard's right hand man, his kingmaker who then had a great fall-out with him, there is nothing against you. Many people insist that the falling out with Richard could only have been because of the king's order to kill the princes. An order that you carried out, but then quickly regretted.

But that is a very large leap to make. You can see the sense in making the leap but we need to have a sense of perspective on the matter. The fall-out could have been over any number of matters: a perceived lack of reward; Richard's pursuit of Elizabeth of York; his failure to name you a potential heir; or an unknown woman that both men were sleeping with. Men fall out over many matters; it does not matter if they are the village baker and the blacksmith or the King of England and the leading nobleman in the land.

The murder of the princes could have been an extremely clever plan that you desired with which to blacken Richard's name and cause a revolt in England. You may have hoped to be made king if Richard were overthrown. However, there would have had to have been such a link in fortunate circumstances for this to occur that you would have thought the event highly unlikely.

There would also have been the issue of access to the princes. Sir Roger Brackenbury was in charge of the Tower by this point, and it is not clear if access would have been given even to you without written authority from the king.

In fact, the indications are that the princes were still firmly alive at the point of the rebellion. If they were dead, then Richard would have surely seized the opportunity to publicly accuse you of the murders of the boys as well as high treason.

Henry Stafford, in my mind there is nothing but speculation that points against you. I can see no fundamental, hard evidence. The absence of which means it is impossible to say that you are the killer.

So we turn to the most vilified king in English history. The man that Thomas More and William Shakespeare and hundreds of others tell us is the murderer of his nephews - Richard III. And to be honest Your Majesty, things do not look good for you. You indisputably imprisoned not only your brother's sons, but a child who was your king. You then successfully plotted to rob young Edward V of his crown. However, it may be the case that you truly believed in the pre-contract story and you thought yourself the rightful king. You may well have believed that you were acting in good faith. It is probably true that the government of the country was in better hands with you as monarch, but was this reason enough to depose the young king of his throne?
 

However, none of these matters make you a murderer, but even if I clear you of the murder now, you will still be seen as an usurper.

Nevertheless, it is not a given that you are going to be cleared of murder, because the most serious and compelling evidence against you has yet to be mentioned.

The fact that a book was published, some years after your death, that says one of your leading servants confessed to the murder of the princes before his death is highly damning. When you add that the book also described the resting place of the bodies of two children, and then over one hundred years later the bodies of two children were discovered in that very location, it almost seals the case against you… almost.

And yet there is still something that troubles me. The confession of James Tyrell was highly likely to have been extracted under torture and there is now no written evidence that it ever happened. The time difference between the publication of More's book containing details of the supposed grave of the princes and the discovery of the bodies under the stairs could have meant that anyone might have thought it would be a fantastic practical joke to bury two bodies there. It is not without possibility that someone within the heart of the Tudor regime had a hand it, purely to blacken the name of Richard III if the bodies were ever discovered. When you also add into the equation that More's book states that Tyrell's confession goes on to say that the bodies were subsequently moved, but he does not know where, the credibility of the confession begins to suffer.

We also have to factor in your treatment of the daughters of Edward IV, your nieces. After their emergence from the Abbey no-one can say anything other than the fact you treated them well and there was never any suggestion of a danger to their lives. These girls technically possessed as much of a threat to your throne as the boys would ever have done. However, your actions with your eldest niece did little to enhance your historical reputation.

One can probably assume that sexual activity did occur between yourself and Elizabeth of York. Such sexual activity would not be received well today; however, we do have to consider that we lived in a different time. Lust-filled visits to your young niece do not make you a murderer. They do however make you extremely callous, especially when we consider your queen lay dying.

If you did murder the princes then I simply cannot understand why the same fate did not befall the Earl of Warwick. If you murder two out of three male children, why spare one? It is simply irrational. So, I am drawn to looking at this the other way around. We know that one of the three male children was cared for by Richard, hence this probably means that the other two were as well.

There just isn't one piece of evidence that confirms that you are killer. Of course, this may change at some point in the future.

So if the killer of the boys is not Anne Neville, Elizabeth Woodville, Henry Stafford or Richard III, then the killer must be either Margaret Beaufort, Elizabeth of York or Henry Tudor.

The crucial piece of evidence that points me in this direction is the only piece of evidence that truly cannot be disputed or debated in this case. You can argue until you are blue in the face over whether the bodies under the stairs are those of the princes, the reasons why Buckingham and Richard III fell out, the character of Richard III or if Thomas More's book is more fiction than fact. But no-one can hide or dispute that fact that just two months after his victory at Bosworth, Henry VII repealed Titulis Regis.

It seems almost irrelevant in the scheme of bodies under the stairs, rebellions and confessions, but the repealing of Titulis Regis is critical to the solving of this case. Just two months after finally winning his crown, something Henry Tudor had waited years in exile for, the new king basically made a massive statement and said that he knew the princes were dead. Yes, we all understand that his aim in repealing Titulis Regis was to legitimise his bride to be, Elizabeth of York. Yet if Henry Tudor did not know the princes were indeed dead, then he was taking a massive risk. The crown that had been on his head for just a matter of weeks could have been prised off his head by either of the boys. It is simply not plausible that this risk would have been taken.

The only way that Henry Tudor could have known for certain that the boys were dead was if either his mother, Margaret Beaufort, or Elizabeth of York told him. The other possibility was that he had killed the princes himself.

So which of the three suspects and principal players in the Tudor court is guilty? Margaret Beaufort, you were at the heart of the Yorkist court when the princes were taken into Richard's “care.” Your motive to killing the boys is that there would be two males with a greater claim than your son to the throne. You clearly have form on the scheming front; you lost your fortune because of it and very nearly your head. Yes, you may well claim that you are extremely pious and murder would not be your style, but all know that people regularly kill if they believe it is God's will. It is often their principle driving force.

But despite this, I cannot quite see how you would have achieved this aim. You were involved in one botched plot to rescue the boys. After this point the opportunity would not have arisen again without your husband's help. Such was the cautious nature of Lord Stanley that help would not have been forthcoming. Until your son became king you would not have had the opportunity. By that stage there would have been no need; Henry Tudor would have committed the deed himself.

So, My Lady the King's Mother, it seems that you are in the clear.

So, Henry Tudor, King of England and your wife, Elizabeth of York, the murderer must be one of you. But which one? No-one has ever seriously suggested that Elizabeth of York murdered her brothers, but why on Earth not? Is it so shocking a thing to consider that a young and beautiful girl would commit such a crime against her young brothers?

We cannot alter the fact that you, Elizabeth of York, had the most to gain from your brothers' deaths. On their deaths you would become your father's heir and have your own claim to the throne of England. This claim was stronger than that of your uncle or the man who became your husband. The person with the most to gain from a person's death is always high on a list of suspects.

You were also schooled by a mother whose actions illustrated that women could be highly influential at a royal court. You probably rightly believed that one day a woman could rule a country and probably dreamed that you would be that woman (although it was your granddaughters who eventually achieved this). You clearly wanted a crown, and if it was not yours to wear in your own right, then you would be queen to the man that did wear it. It did not matter if that man was your uncle or Henry Tudor. Of course, if your brothers were still alive then your claim would not exist and your value as a bride would plummet. In order to achieve your ambitions then, your brothers had to be dead. Did you order their deaths?