Missing Princes Project

 

Philippa Langley with Harry Lloyd, who plays Richard III in The Lost King

In the middle of composing a blog about "Who Killed the Princes in the Tower," I received an email from Philippa Langley, she of the amazing discovery of Richard III's bones under the Leicester car park. It was perfect timing! 

In the interests of full disclosure, I became acquainted via email with Philippa back in 2011, when I sent money to her Finding Richard project. In 2013, when I started writing Richard's story in This Son of York, I asked Philippa's permission to use several of her passages from the book she co-wrote with Michael K. Jones, The King's Grave, and she graciously gave me permission.

Philippa is as humble about her historic search as Sally Hawkins portrays her in the new film The Lost King. Not satisfied with spending years following her dream to unearth the last Plantagenet king of England, she has spent the last six years delving into "what happened to the Princes," involving dozens of Richard III Society members worldwide and many others in The Missing Princes Project.

The New England chapter of the Richard III Society, in which I was active before moving to Florida, wanted to support her efforts to try and solve the mystery of the missing princes and sent her some money in 2017 to help fund the research. 

The email yesterday was to thank me and her other contact, and let us know the money had finally been put to good use, viz: "The Missing Princes Project has now used your donation to commission a translation of two Latin documents from The National Archives by a leading specialist at York University and to purchase a set of The York House Books (both volumes, out of print) for the project so they can be loaned to one of the researchers in the Low Countries for some key research work they’re currently undertaking."

Philippa also wrote to me for inclusion in this blog: "Please let your readers know that the project began in 2015 at the reburial of the king and was formerly launched at the Richard III Festival at Middleham in North Yorkshire in early July 2016. Hopefully this will give a sense of the years of research work and archival searches thus far."

It's thrilling to imagine scholars and lay people drawn to the project and recruited by Philippa scouring archives, libraries, universities etc. all over the world, because the records and sources of the 15th century have been spread far and wide over five hundred years. Those of us passionate about setting the historical record straight--not just for Richard--are rooting for Philippa to again be successful in her quest.

Next week--finally, the week of the movie's launch, I will focus on suspects/theories in the disappearance of those princes!


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