Cold Case Reopened: The Princes in the Tower (11 page)

And yourself Henry Tudor. It takes a man with extreme confidence to legitimise two boys who are ahead of you in the line of succession. Could that confidence have come by the fact you knew the boys were dead because you had arranged it yourself? If this were the case, then the murder would almost certainly have been carried out by Sir Robert Willoughby when he arrived at the Tower of London with the Earl of Warwick just days after Bosworth. Willoughby would have been ordered to make a complete search of the Tower, and if the boys were there then he was to kill them and dispose of the bodies. Blame could simply have been put on your predecessor who was already suspected of their deaths.

Yet this brings us back to the point as to why the Earl of Warwick had been allowed to live. However, this is simple to answer in your case. The people of England knew Warwick was alive at the time of Bosworth. If he suddenly
died
then the people would have known that you, Henry Tudor, had your hand in the matter. You had no choice but to let him live. On the other hand, the princes had not been seen for three years; most of the population believed them to be already dead. The murder of two boys, already believed to be dead, would not cause problem, would it?

As much as I like the theory that you, Elizabeth of York, murdered your brothers, I cannot quite see how you would achieve it. The only way I can see it happening was if you plotted with your uncle Richard III and persuaded him to order it. Yes, you may have managed to arrange a visit to see the boys with your uncle's permission, but would you have the means to kill them during that visit?

It would not surprise me in the slightest if you, Elizabeth of York, were one day found to be the murderer of your brothers. However, unlike your husband, the opportunity to commit the act doesn't seem to be there.

So, with Elizabeth of York in the clear, the only suspect that remains is you, Henry Tudor, King of England.

You had your plan in mind. You would claim the crown of England as your own by right of conquest. Then, after papal dispensation had been granted, you would marry Elizabeth of York, unite the rival royal houses and end the wars of the roses at the altar, not the battlefield. With your marriage any persons who claimed that you did not have the right to the throne in your own regard could hardly deny your right as husband of Elizabeth of York. It was simple and it was brilliant.

However, for this plan to work, the princes had to be dead. You knew you would have to repeal Titulus Regis in order to legitimise your future wife. If the Princes were alive then they two would be legitimised in the process and your crown would disappear at a stroke. You probably hoped that the princes would be dead, killed by their uncle's orders. You would have hoped that you could have found the bodies and displayed them, thus proving at a stroke that Richard III murdered them and Elizabeth of York was the heir of Edward IV.

But we have seen that this is hardly likely to have been the case, Richard was secure on the throne and did not kill the Earl of Warwick so it stands to reason he did not kill the princes either.

Sir Robert Willoughby was given this most important task. He found the princes, imprisoned, probably in an awful state, on his search of the Tower of London. He completed the awful deed that you commanded of him.

This would explain why you refused to undertake a major search for the bodies of the princes. You knew that the only bodies that could be found and displayed would be fresh, and would clearly implicate yourself as the murderer. Instead, you mounted a “show” search, quietly and with zero intention of finding anything of worth. But at least it could be said that you did search.

You decided the simplest cause of action would be to not mention the princes and let them disappear from memory. After all, most people believed that Richard III had killed them some years before, although it is interesting that you never accused Richard III of murder yourself. You aided the process of wiping the boys from history by hunting down every single copy of Titulus Regis and destroying it. You hoped that by destroying the documentation you could destroy your own guilt.

This left you with a problem when the pretender Warbeck appeared on the scene. You knew that the man wasn't Richard, Duke of York because you had killed him. Yet you obviously could not declare this. As a result you could not prove that he was not the younger of the two boys until he confessed on his capture some years later.

You did a fine job of hiding your guilt. You probably never even told your wife what had happened, but by the simple act of repealing Richard's Titulus Regis you confirmed you were one hundred percent sure that the two boys were dead, and as a result you confirmed your own guilt.

After researching and writing this book it is clear why the case has remain unsolved for so long. The evidence is a series of complex webs that all seem to lead to events that could be perceived in a number of different ways.

I have simply made my determinations the way I see the key evidence. I have no doubt that others might see things differently. Further forensic tests on the bones in the Abbey could at least eliminate either Richard, Anne and Buckingham, or Henry Tudor from the list of suspects. Elizabeth of York and Margaret Beaufort spanned both regimes; ages at death would not eliminate either woman from the enquiry. Of course, if the bones are proven not to be those of the princes, then we are back to square one.

Undertaking the research for this book brought up a number of very interesting mysteries, the most interesting of which is those unidentified coffins in Edward IV's vault in Windsor. Who lies inside them?
 

I hope you enjoyed the book and the approach I took to come to my conclusion. I hope you are not disappointed in the fact I was not searching boxes of long lost documents to make my case. As I said on the opening page, I am not an historian, I am a solver of crime. This is my first book and it probably will be my last. I enjoyed the process, but it is not something I would like to do every day.
 

I'm sure you will come to your personal conclusions about the fate of the princes. One day we may be able to say with certainty what happened to them, but until then I hope the boys are at peace.

Harold! The blood Normans have landed!
 

New author Barclay Redfern hits the shelves with his slightly screwed up take on the Norman era. Good if you like a laugh, not so good if you are after serious history!

What people have said about the book.
 

“
Wasn't really sure what to expect with this book when I purchased it. Was it going to be historical or comedy? Well, after reading the first page, my attention was grabbed, and the smile on my face grew, as this modern take on history made me laugh out loud. A brilliant book that's well worth getting if you like British history, completely funny and very well written.Very happy to give this five stars :-)”
 
- Barry Hilton.
 

“Very original and creative version of history! I am still laughing at it. Hope there's an update to it's operating system!”
- Judy Workman.
 

Fifty Shades of Lady Catherine Grey

Fifty Shades of Lady Mary Grey

Teenage author T.S Wiseman has had a couple of hits on her hands with these
 
fun little
 
history books looking at Tudor sex scandals. Expect more from Wiseman soon.
 

What people have said about the books

“I love Tudor history and these short tales of what feels like court gossip are fun and easy to read. A nice relaxing read with a hint of scandal! Fantastic!” - Debbie Maxwell

Quick fix of light history. Sometimes you don't want the politics, policies and important but mundane decisions you just want sex.” Zoie Lambert