O, those darling Little Princes!

    


   Just look at these paintings! Doesn’t your heart break for these brothers, “imprisoned” in the Tower of London and unaware of their fate? One of the paintings (Victorian, granted) shows the “murderers” hovering over those adorable boys. 
    What really happened to them? After July 1483, they were never seen again — or were they? This is probably the most intriguing mystery of English history after who was Jack the Ripper. It has gripped me for most of my adult life, too. 
    All I know, in my heart of hearts, is that Richard III was not the killer, although history loves to say he was! 
    So who were they, and why were they important? Edward, 13, and Richard, 11, were the only sons of King Edward IV and when Edward died suddenly at age 42, young Edward--I'll call him Ned to avoid confusion with his Dad--was named (but not crowned) King Edward V. In medieval times, it was never a good idea to have a boy king, too much of a temptation for greedy people to take power and use the child. One of those was their mother, Queen Elizabeth Woodville.
    In this case, however, on his deathbed in April 1483 the late king had decreed that his brother, Richard of Gloucester, be named young Ned's Protector until the lad came of age. Trouble was, Richard was many hundreds of miles away from London in the North of England, where he had been governing for many years in the name of Edward IV (in those days the north was almost another country--wild and sparsely populated).
    In Ludlow, close to Wales, the young prince was being raised and tutored in his own household with his uncle, Anthony Woodville, as was the custom in those days.
    The queen, fearing her loss of power if Richard of Gloucester was in charge of her son, quickly persuaded the befuddled council still in shock to stand behind her wish to be regent, and as such demanded her brother bring the young king to London complete with a small army and weapons so that they would beat Richard to London and to defend themselves from him. 
    From Yorkshire, Richard had also instructed Anthony to leave Ludlow with Ned and meet him in Northampton en route to London. Who was in the right here? Elizabeth, the mother not wanting to give up her status as the tempting power behind her son, or Richard, who was doing his duty by returning to London to take up his responsibilities as Protector? 
    Thus it was a surprised Richard who arrived at the proscribed meeting place on April 29 only to find the young king's party had already moved on south to Stony Stratford. By this time, Richard had heard that the queen was attempting to deny him the Protectorship and he acted swiftly: he took a few knights with him and rode after Anthony. His first action was to dismount in the square at Stony Stratford, where the Ludlow entourage was already on horseback and preparing to ride off to London, and kneel in front of the young king, publicly declaring his allegiance and vowing to be his Protector. 
    He now suspected treason on behalf of the Woodvilles and their adherents to overturn his Protectorate. And he wasn't wrong. Not showing his hand, he invited Anthony to return to to Northampton and dine with him, which the unsuspecting Woodville did. Richard did not want to upset his young nephew by arresting his beloved Uncle Tony in front of the boy, so took him into custody after dinner.
     Then he joined Ned the next day and they made the journey to London together, where they would prepare for Ned's coronation on June 24th. Things proceeded fairly smoothly at this time.
    (I always felt it spoke volumes for Elizabeth's guilt that she rushed into sanctuary at Westminster Abbey--taking her other son with her--before Richard arrived in London and did not come out until 1484.)
     But Ned's coronation never took place, and it was the conundrum that arose in those weeks following King Edward's untimely death that ultimately led to the disappearance of the two princes in the Tower and our fascination with the mystery to this day.
     So what happened???? 
     You can read my take on the reason Ned was never crowned in my latest book This Son of York or hang on until next week's blog in my series leading up to the US release of the movie The Lost King!
                                          Until then.......
    
 
 

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