Following a hunch..
Historian says Richard III did not kill princes in the Tower
THE historian who discovered Richard III’s remains under a car park in Leicester reckons she has proof he did not murder his nephews – the princes in the Tower.
Why would he [be searching for them] if they were known to be dead? I think they survived PHILIPPA LANGLEY ON HENRY VII’S SEARCH FOR THE MISSING PRINCES
Philippa Langley and a 300-strong team of citizen historians uncovered four documents she claims show brothers Edward and Richard, aged 12 and nine when they vanished in 1483, were not killed but exiled.
In a feature-length documentary, she now tells how each of the princes later launched failed invasions to take back the English throne.
She believes the skeletons of two children found buried beneath the Tower of London in 1674 are likely to have been there since the Romans and are “probably a foundation burial from the Iron Age”.
Richard III’s brother, Edward IV, died suddenly in 1483, leaving his son Edward V as king. Edward’s brother Richard was next in line.
But the boys were put in the Tower by their uncle Richard, who declared them illegitimate. They subsequently disappeared and their uncle, depicted as a hunchbacked villain by Shakespeare, became Richard III.
Langley has spent the past seven years writing a book on the mystery.
In her programme, which airs tomorrow, she tries to convince criminal barrister Robert Rinder the documents she unearthed show the princes were exiled, not killed. And she thinks they point to two people who went down in history as imposters – Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck – as actually having been the princes.
The first document, from archives at Lilles, France, is a receipt for weapons used in the 1487 Yorkist invasion of England. It says the arms were for the son of Edward IV, apparently referring to the elder prince, briefly Edward V, who was “expelled from England”. It has been suggested the battle of Stoke involved a 10-year-old called Lambert Simnel who was possibly being used to impersonate the elder prince. Philippa believes the imposter story was made up by Henry VII to cover up the fact Edward V had returned to reclaim the throne.
Another document, from the Gelders Archive in Holland, is in the first person and appears to detail the last 10 years of the life of Richard, Duke of York – the younger prince – starting with an account of his escape from the Tower. The next piece of evidence, from Austria, is a 1493 document outlining why the French monarch believed Warbeck was Richard, based on birthmarks. And a fourth document, in Dresden, Germany, pledges 30,000 florins from an adult Richard to Duke Albert of Saxony for help in invading England to seize the throne.
It is impossible to know who wrote each document but Rinder admits: “On the face of it, they’re a slam-dunk.”
Langley also notes Henry VII was searching for the princes, adding: “Why do that if they were known to be dead? I think they survived.”
■ The Princes in the Tower: The New Evidence, Channel 4, Saturday, 8pm