Conflicting ‘Proof’ and the Princes in the Tower
In recent years several pieces of evidence have been discovered relating to the fate of the Princes in the Tower. Most notable are finds by Tim Thornton of the University of Huddersfield and those discovered by Philippa Langley’s Missing Princes Project. Each has offered new insight into the mystery, but they present very conflicting evidence. So what is the current state of evidence in one of history’s most enduring mysteries?
The Research and Researchers
Professor Tim Thornton
Professor Tim Thornton is a Vice Chancellor at the University of Huddersfield. He studied for his doctorate in late medieval history at the University of Oxford and has published extensively on the Wars of the Roses. His research uncovered links between Sir Thomas More, author of an account that suggests that Richard III had the Princes in the Tower murdered, and men who it is claimed carried out the task on Richard’s behalf.
Professor Thornton’s findings and his exploration of the implications can be found in his paper, More on a Murder: The Deaths of the ‘Princes in the Tower’, and Historiographical Implications for the Regimes of Henry VII and Henry VIII
Professor Thornton summarises his findings as follows:
This article explores the identity and experience of those at the heart of the murder story in the context of its creation in the 1510s, especially the man who may well have been the surviving murderer, John Dighton, and Edward and Miles, the prominent royal servant sons of his alleged partner in crime, Miles Forest – and More’s contacts with them. In doing so, it sheds some light, if not on the history’s absolute veracity, then at least on the first decades of its development in the England of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and the implications for historiography and the nature of the contemporary regime.
Philippa Langley and the Missing Princes Project
Philippa Langley is an author and screenwriter. An avid Ricardian, it was Philippa who was the public face of the ‘Looking for Richard’ project which culminated in the discovery, identification, exhumation, and reburial of King Richard III. The Missing Princes Project is a follow up project seeking to establish the facts about what happened to the Princes in the Tower following their disappearance in 1483. The project is ongoing, utilising volunteers of a wide range of backgrounds. Research has been multi-national, incorporating archival searches, document analysis and interpretation, along with exploration of a number of locations said to be tied to the story of the boys after September of 1483.
Details of the Missing Princes Project can be found here. The findings of the project to date have been published as a book, The Princes in the Tower: Solving History’s Greatest Cold Case, and featured in a Channel Four Documentary.
Philippa Langley summarises the findings of the Missing Princes Project on the Revealing Richard website:
Case Solved
Following seven years of investigation and intelligence gathering, including archival searches around the world, Phase One of The Missing Princes Project is complete. We now know that both sons of Edward IV survived to fight for the English throne against Henry VII, the first Tudor monarch. Henry attempted to cast the Yorkist Princes as impostors by giving them false names: Edward V became a 10-year-old boy called ‘Lambert Simnel’, the son of a joiner, tailor, baker or shoemaker, and Richard of York became ‘Perkin Warbeck’ ‘Petyr/Pierrechon/Pierce/Piris Osbek, Uberque, Styenbek or de Werbecque’, the son of a French boatman.
Source: Revealing Richard
The New Sources on the Princes in the Tower
Professor Thornton’s research
Professor Thornton’s paper outlines the various sources from the years after the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower that refer in some way to their fate. There are, he notes, frailties in the documentary evidence. There is no confession from the supposed murderers, are no proven bodies, nor any cast iron link between the authors of any thoughts or theories on the fate of the missing princes and those who are held to be responsible.
That is, until now. Sir Thomas More was the author of the most famous work stating that the princes were killed on the orders of King Richard III. In his work, More had stated that his statements were not based on a confession but rather that he ‘‘learned of them that much knew and litle cause had to lye’. [Noted in page 19 of Professor Thornton’s paper]. In this Sir Thomas More is saying that he found out what happened to the princes from men who knew lots about the matter, and had who no reason to lie about it. The former point needs verification, the latter is a matter of conjecture.
It is on the first of these points, that More heard from men with knowledge, that Professor Thornton focussed his attention. If Sir Thomas did indeed have sources who were ‘insiders’, then his statements in the History of King Richard the Third are backed by witnesses. Of course, this does not make those witnesses entirely reliable, but it shows that his findings are based on research and the words of men who were well placed to know.
The Murderers and Witnesses
Professor Thornton’s paper refers directly to the supposed murderers of the Princes in the Tower. On pages 12 and 13 of his paper he summarises Thomas More’s version of events. In brief:
- John Green was sent to Sir Robert Brackenbury, the Constable of the Tower, by King Richard III with orders to kill Edward V and Richard Duke of York.
- Sir Robert Brackenbury refused to carry out the order, and as a result King Richard III selected Sir James Tyrell to undertake the task.
- Sir James Tyrell employed Miles Forest and John Dighton to carry out the deed.
Evidence linking Sir Thomas More to witnesses with the potential to know the truth about Tyrell, Forest, and Dighton’s alleged deeds.
The whereabouts of Tyrell, Forest, and Dighton after the alleged killing of the Princes in the Tower is therefore of relevance in terms of Sir Thomas More’s ability to hear from them, or those close to them. Their movements are traceable through a variety of sources. These include chronicles, records, and in Sir James Tyrell’s case the his well-recorded imprisonment and execution (1502).
Professor Thornton uses pages 13-17 of his article to examine the varied evidence relating to the movements of the men who are said to have killed the Princes in the Tower. From Page 17 to 22 he then examines the movements of people very closely associated with Tyrell, Forest, and Dighton. Furthermore, the prospects of Sir Thomas More having contact with these associates are examined.
The analysis of the various life stories of Tyrell, Forest, and Dighton along with their relatives opens up, suggests Professor Thornton, a possibility that Sir Thomas More was basing his assertions on statements made by men or women who were well placed to know what had happened or who would at the very least may have heard recounts of events from those who were involved. Professor Thornton’s research into the movements of these people leads him to conclude:
This evidence opens up the strong possibility that Edward and Miles junior were the channel for information about the murders, passed either direct to them from their father Miles Forest, or at just one remove via their mother Joan, or that they represented a very immediate connection to others who had been associated with their father at the time of his activity in the Tower – a milieu of which More himself would have had some understanding, in any case, during his work with the City. [Page 23]
The Missing Princes Project’s research
The Missing Princes Project adopted a slightly different approach to tackling the mystery of the Princes in the Tower. On the Revealing Richard website, the approach is summarised as follows:
The Missing Princes Project is a Cold Case History investigation employing the same principles and practices as a modern police investigation, and this is what is new. It is not an academic study or exercise although it does naturally involve the examination of all contemporary and near contemporary source material, but it is in its intelligence gathering and modern investigative methodology that offers an exciting opportunity and a new 360-degree approach in terms of this abiding mystery.
The approach is therefore forensic in nature rather than academic. This is a reasonably new approach, certainly to the study of the Princes in the Tower, although it has of course been widely used on other subjects (identifying Jack the Ripper, for example). In simple terms such an approach looks at a wide range of possibilities. It explores ‘closed’ options and seeks to find evidence that proves or disproves the possibility of a person being alive, dead, free, imprisoned. Essentially it asks whether or not a crime has been committed and if so, by whom. The basic objective is to find the missing person(s) and in a historic case, identify provable instances of the persons whereabouts.
The key findings of the Missing Princes Project
The Missing Princes Project is an ongoing concern. The findings in the book and TV documentary are the findings of phase one of this project. Therefore, the results to date are incomplete as the project itself states that there is more work to be done. With that in mind, the project states four major discoveries:
Discovery 1: Forensic investigation of all records dating to the reign of Richard III revealed no evidence of the death of Edward V or Richard, Duke of York. Both individuals are referenced as alive in all existing day-to-day accounting and legal records.
Discovery 2: Forensic investigation of all materials relating to the Battle of Bosworth (22 August 1485) revealed that the story of the murder of the Princes originated in England with the arrival of Henry Tudor and his French invasion force. Following the victory of Tudor’s forces (and death of King Richard in battle), and the interrogation of Yorkist/Ricardian prisoners, Henry delayed his march to London in order to conduct searches for the Princes in the north of England.
Discovery 3: Edward V: Proof of Life (aged 17). In May 2020, Albert Jan de Rooij of the Dutch Research Group discovered in the archive of Lille in France a receipt belonging to King Maximilian I dated 16 December 1487 and referencing Margaret of Burgundy (Edward’s aunt). The receipt is signed by three leading members of Maximilian’s court and records the king’s collection of, and payment for, 400 pikes (weapons for elite troops). The weapons had been collected by Maximilian in June of that year. The receipt states that the weapons were: ‘to serve her nephew – son of King Edward, late her brother (may God save his soul), [who was] expelled from his dominion.’ Four details within the receipt confirm the weapons were for Edward V. First, he was the nephew of Margaret of Burgundy, the son of King Edward (IV); second, he was the right age to lead an army and fight in battle (16); third, he had had been ‘expelled from his dominion’ (to the Channel Islands). Finally, the Lille receipt also suggests that Edward V was alive, or thought to be alive, in December 1487 (age 17). This was after the Battle of Stoke on 16 June 1487.
Discovery 4: Richard, Duke of York: Proof of Life (aged 20), 1493. In November 2020, Nathalie Nijman-Bliekendaal of the Dutch Research Group rediscovered a four-page, semi-legal manuscript in the Gelderland archive, in Arnhem in the Netherlands. It is a witness statement written in the first person and records Richard, Duke of York’s story from the point at which he left sanctuary in Westminster in London as a 9-year-old boy in 1483, to his arrival at the court of his aunt, Margaret of York, in Burgundy in 1493. The witness statement provides extensive detail.
Source: Langley, P. Solving the mystery of the Princes in the Tower. The History Press [Press Release for the publication of the book].
The Claims made about the documentary finds
Professor Thornton’s Claims
Professor Thornton states that his findings make it possible that Sir Thomas More’s account was based on evidence provided by people close to Tyrell, Forest, and Dighton. This simply means that there is high probability that Sir Thomas had access to persons who may be useful witnesses. His article, however, does not say that this makes those witnesses reliable, nor that it is proof of anything. Simply that it makes More’s account more plausible and more likely to be based on testimony of people who may have known the truth. Professor Thornton makes no assertion as to the likelihood that such testimony would or would not be reliable. It simply appraises the potential for More to have had potentially credible witnesses.
The Missing Princes Project Claims
Discoveries one and two are not the groundbreaking ‘wow factor’ discoveries revealed by the project. That there is a scarcity of contemporary material is well known, indeed the lack of evidence from the period is precisely why it is a mystery.
Discoveries three and four claim to be proof of life of Edward V and Richard duke of York in the years after their disappearance. Further to this, it states that Edward V was alive after the Battle of Stoke in June 1487, and that Prince Richard was alive in the 1490s. Both are said to be proven through the findings of the Missing Princes Project.
Neither source can be said to the ‘proof of life’ that Langley claims they are. Indeed, recently members of the Dutch Research Group have cautioned (in a letter to the Bulletin, the quarterly magazine of The Richard III Society) against making unwarranted claims for the newly discovered documents’ importance.
Missing Pieces in the search for truth about the Missing Princes
To quote the Missing Princes Project itself…
Accept Nothing. Believe Nobody. Challenge Everything
Sir Thomas More’s sources
Professor Thornton’s work opens up a distinct possibility that Sir Thomas More did have access to family members of Forest and Dighton. That is a simple possibility. It does not mean for certain that he did converse with them. Nor does it mean for certain that if he did engage with them, that they told him the truth, or even knew it.
Testimony such as the Tyrell confession has been challenged and its reliability is suspect given the timing of his statement. A condemned man may wish to confess his sins but equally he may be desperately trying to save his life by saying things that may or may not appeal to elements of the court who could influence things. In short, it’s a confession from an extremely stressful situation in which he may have been coerced or may have been in a mental and physical state that made him delirious. Any confession made under duress must be treated with sceptism and there are few scenarios more likely to place a man in duress than his impending execution.
Sir Thomas More notes that the people that he heard the tale from had no reason to lie. However, that really is hard to prove. This was the Tudor era and in the years after the execution of Perkin Warbeck [or Richard depending on your belief on the boys’ fate] there was a clear political and societal interest in what had happened to the Princes in the Tower. Providing a man with close associations to Court with evidence that the Prince’s had indeed died in 1483 would satisfy a political need for some within court. Put simply, if the invasions of the 1490s were a pretender, then the Tudors had far less to worry about. Yes, this is the ‘Tudor Conspiracy’ theory, but it has some weight. There would be motive for the family of Forest to state that he had killed the Princes. Equally, it has been argued by Joanna Laynesmith that there is also motive for the families not to disclose an act that could bring shame upon them. Disclosure could potentially satisfy a political need and may well have been thought to be a statement that could have benefits for his kin: be that financial, through promotions, or simply through wanting to say the ‘right thing’ in the years after Sir James Tyrell had been executed. It satisfies court gossip, if nothing else, and would be in vogue with gossip of the day.
Furthermore, Sir Thomas More reveals no detail of how he obtained the information. Was it eavesdropping? Was it through interviews? Were Forest’s relatives aware of whom they were talking to and his objectives? Did they receive anything in return for passing on the information? Put in simple terms, there are many questions about how the information was obtained and even if Sir Thomas did have access to these people, it cannot be regarded as being wholly reliable given the lack of substantiating evidence to support the claims. It is effectively gossip, albeit from a source close to those said to have undertaken the task. Their closeness to the alleged perpetrators of the Princes’ killing does not on its own make them reliable. It is essentially heresay which is far from the most reliable of sources and which requires further material to corroborate it as being worthwhile evidence.
In a nutshell, it is very interesting that Sir Thomas More had the potential to have spoken with these people. However, it is only potential, not fact that he did. Secondly, any testimony recorded is not guaranteed to be reliable even if he had, so such evidence has to be treated with a touch of scepticism.
Proof of Life of Edward V and Richard Duke of York
Documents from the period state that Burgundian government (first, Margaret, the dowager duchess of Burgundy and later her son-in-law Maximilian, King of the Romans) is supporting Richard, the Duke of York. Another document is signed by Richard. These are taken as proof that the Prince had survived into the 1490s. Whilst documents can clearly be dated to the period, this is hardly proof that Prince Richard was alive and in the Low Countries at this time. Far from it.
Whilst it is certainly possible that the signature was that of the Prince, and that it was the true Prince that the Burgundians were arming a force for, its equally possible that it wasn’t. And the reasons why that is both possible and plausible are very clear.
If the Yorkists did indeed employ pretenders in the form of Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck to front an invasion aimed at deposing the Tudors, they would do so with a public facing policy of the pretender being a true heir to the Yorkist throne. They would not state ‘it’s a pretend Prince’ as that would gain absolutely no support for their cause whatsoever. In having pretenders they had young men who would illicit sympathy from a wide range of people across Europe. You quite simply would put up a facade and stick to it. It is deception on a grand scale but it would hardly be a unique scenario, deceit has always been a key tool to employ in warfare and subversive forms of diplomacy. Is there anything whatsoever that proves that this is not the case for either of the young men / boys who fronted the various invasions of England? Yes, they may have been the real Princes but without any hard evidence to show otherwise, the documents could as easily be part of the deception required to garner support a pretender.
Moreover, the Missing Princes project conspicuously ignores all evidence that undermines their argument (especially the multiple sources that suggest the rebellion of 1487 was in favour of the duke of Clarence’s son, Edward, earl of Warwick).
In short, a small handful of newly discovered documents prove nothing.
‘Premature and Counter Productive’ Questions raised by researchers
The use of the findings of the Dutch Research Group, who are part of the Missing Princes research team, has been termed ‘premature and counter productive’. This statement comes from members of the DRG, not from any anti-Ricardian critic. In a letter to the Ricardian Bulletin Zoe Maula, Jean Roefstra and William Wiss, former members of the research group, note that their concerns about using the finds in the publication of the book, and documentary.
we considered the making of a documentary and the publishing of a book on the subject premature and possibly counter-productive.
Although we agree that the contemporary documents are genuine and valid, the finds made by the DRG are in our own opinion open to various interpretations and do not constitute irrefutable proof without other genuine and undoubted sources to back up what these documents are telling us – or what we (wish to) believe they are telling us.
‘Dear Bulletin. The Ricardian Bulletin, page 4. June 2024.
A response from Philippa Langley notes the overall methodology:
The conclusion that the sons of Edward IV did not die during the reign of Richard III was based on the totality of evidence thus assembled
P Langley. Dear Bulletin (reply). The Ricardian, page 4. June 2024.
The question then is whether or not there is sufficient additional material to make the Dutch sources irrefutable proof that the Princes did not die in the reign of Richard III. If there already was enough genuine material, why would the project need to continue? Proof, after all, is unquestionable. It is 100% hard fact.
How could it be proven?
The signature of Duke Richard (or ‘Richard of England’) is virtually impossible to verify as having been that of the Prince. You would need to have examples of his writing which given the decade or so between his disappearance and these signatures, would have changed anyway as his signature could have been very different as a young man to its childhood form in the early 1480s. These signatures simply do not exist (or have not yet been discovered and authenticated), so no expert can state that it is or is not the same hand.
With verification of the signature almost impossible to prove, you need therefore to have clear proof that he had travelled to the Low Countries. No hard evidence is presented for this. There is no ships manifest, nor even a manifest that ‘might’ be the Prince(s). Nothing in the timelines constructed by the Project is concrete in terms of illustrating that either boy survived. They are suggestive, or conjecture and seem to be based on a leap of faith as opposed to there being substantiated life events from the summer of 1483 onwards.
The interpretation of the evidence discovered to date by the Missing Princes Project presented in the book and TV documentary has been challenged. Not only by academics such as Professor Michael Hicks but also by the Research Officer of the Richard III Society:
‘that the team’s lack of experience in analysing historical documents have resulted in many places in a certain rashness of interpretation’.
Barnfield, Marie. Reviews. The Ricardian 34 (2024), 168-70.
Links relating to these studies on the Princes in the Tower
Royal History Geeks – detailed review of Solving History’s Greatest Cold Case: The Princes in the Tower.
Aspects of History – The Princes in the Tower: David Pilling on ‘The New Evidence’.
Relevant Chronicles and Contemporary or Near Contemporary Sources
Note, these links are to freely available versions of texts on the Internet Archive Project website. Updated or alternative translations and edits of these books are sometimes available elsewhere.
Ellis, H (ed). Three books of Polydore Vergil’s English history, comprising the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard III. from an early translation, preserved among the mss. of the old royal library in the British museum. Camden society (1844)
Harris / Tyrrell (eds). A chronicle of London, from 1089 to 1483; written in the fifteenth century. Longman (1827)
Ellis, H (ed). The new chronicles of England and France, in two parts : by Robert Fabyan. Named by himself The concordance of histories. Reprinted from Pynson’s edition of 1516. The first part collated with the editions of 1533, 1542, and 1559; and the second with a manuscript of the author’s own time, as well as the subsequent editions: including the different continuations. To which are added a biographical and literary preface, and an index. Rivington (1811)
Hartmann. Nuremberg Chronicle translated in English (Original 1493)
Gairdner (ed). Letters and papers illustrative of the reigns of Richard III and Henry VII. Longman (1861)
Riley, H (ed). Ingulph’s chronicle of the abbey of Croyland with the continuations by Peter of Blois and anonymous writers. G Bell and Son (1906)
{John Rous} Joannis Rossi antiquarii Warwicensis Historia regum Angliae. Oxonii : ‘E Theatro Sheldoniano’, impensis J. Fletcher, Oxford, & J. Pote, Eton (1745)
Sylvester, R. The Complete Works of St. Thomas More. (1963)
Gairdner, James (ed). History of the life and reign of Richard the Third, to which is added the story of Perkin Warbeck : from original documents. Cambridge University Press (1898)
Hanman, Alison. Richard III and his early historians, 1483-1535. Oxford : Clarendon Press (1975)
Articles relating to issues noted in one or both or the studies into the fate of the Princes in the Tower
Gill, Louise. “William Caxton and the Rebellion of 1483.” The English Historical Review, vol. 112, no. 445, 1997, pp. 105–18. JSTOR.
Goodman, Anthony, and Angus MacKay. “A Castilian Report on English Affairs, 1486.” The English Historical Review, vol. 88, no. 346, 1973, pp. 92–99. JSTOR.
Moorhouse, D. DNA and the Princes in the Tower. The Wars of the Roses.