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n In July 1674, building work was being carried out atnthe Tower of London, making the White Tower ready to receive papers from thenSix Clerks’ Office, and when creating a staircase into the chapel, bones, whichnhad the proportions of the two little Princes, were found beneath an oldnstaircase.
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| Murdering the Princes in the Tower |
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nKing Charles II had them moved to Henry VII’s Lady Chapel,nWestminster Abbey, where they were placed in an urn with a Latin inscription onnmarble telling how their remains had been discovered one hundred and ninety-onenyears after their secret suffocation and ignominious burial at the orders ofnthe perfidious Richard III.
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| The Bloody Tower |
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nNow, another tower within the Tower of London,nformerly called the Garden Tower during the reign of Henry VIII, was by thenreign of his daughter Elizabeth being popularly called the Bloody Tower, as itnwas here that the Princes were supposedly murdered, but quite how suffocationncan be described as bloody is another matter. But I’ll come back to that later.
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| Louis Aubrey du Maurier – Memoirs pour servir a l’Historie de Hollande – 1680 – 1697 ed. |
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nIn 1680, Memoirs pour servir a l’Histoire de Hollande by Louis Aubrey dunMaurier was published in Paris, in which there is an account of a secretnchamber discovered during the time of Elizabeth I, as part of a search fornextra space in which to house prisoners.
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n“They found in this Chamber, upon anbed, two small bodies, together with two neck collars. These were the skeletonsnof King Edward V and the Duke of York, his brother, whom their Uncle Richardnthe Cruel had strangled to get the Crown to himself, which Henry VII,nGrandfather to Queen Elizabeth, deprived him of, together with his life.”n
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| Louis Aubrey du Maurier – account of the discovery of the skeletons – Memoirs pour servir a l’Historie de Hollande – 1680 – 1697 ed. |
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nThe account then relates how Elizabeth, not wishing to have memories of thencrime revived, ordered the chamber shut up again, only for a later Kingn(presumably Charles II) to have it reopened and the bones transferred to thenAbbey. The first English translation, by Thomas Brown in 1693, omits this storynaltogether, but another work, The History of the Life and Reigne of KingnRichard the Third, by George Buck, of 1647, has a similar story about
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n“…ncertaine bones like to the bones of a Child being found lately in a highndefolate Turret, fuppofed to be the bones of one of thefe Princes – others arenof opinion it was the carcaffe of an Ape kept in the Tower, that in his old agenhad happened into that place to die in.”n
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| George Buck – The History of the Life and Reigne of Richard the Third – 1647 |
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nThere had long been a menagerie innthe Tower (Henry III had a polar bear kept there from 1252), so it is possiblenthat an escaped ape could have climbed into a tower, become trapped and diednthere, but surely even in Elizabethan times someone, somewhere, could have madena positive identification. I’ve mentioned Sir Thomas More’s History of KingnRichard III yesterday, and his (biased and unreliable) text tells us that afternthe Princes had been killed, James Tyrrell
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n“… caused those murtherers tonburye them at the stayre foote, metely depe in the grounde vnder a great heapenof stones.”n
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nBut that wasn’t the end of, as Robert Brakenbury, lieutenant ofnthe Tower, felt that ‘so vile a corner’ was not a fit place for whatnwas, after all, the body of a King of England, and on his orders, an unnamednpriest,
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n“… toke vp the bodyes again, and secretelye entered them in suchnplace, as by the occasion of his deathe, whiche onely knew it, could neuernsynce come to light.”n
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nWhich is just a wee bit convenient, if anyone camenasking any awkward questions. So, More’s initial story conforms to the findingnthe bones beneath a staircase in the White Tower, but the second part, when thenbodies were moved, contradicts this, which leaves us no nearer.
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| E Daniel – Notes and Queries – 1889 |
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nIn a letter to Notesnand Queries (Series 7, Vol VIII, December 21st 1889) Evan Danielnwrites that he has a copy of More’s book, and in a manuscript note on thenfly-leaf, dated August 7th 1647, a Jo. Webb has written,
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n“… whennye Lo: Grey of Wilton and Sir Walter Raleigh were prisoners in ye Tower, thenwall of ye passage to ye King’s Lodgings then sounding hollow, was taken downnand at ye place marked A was found a little roome about 7 or 8 ft square,nwherein there stood a Table and uppon it ye bones of two children supposed of 6nor 8 yeares of age, which by ye aforesaid nobles and all present were crediblynbelieved to bee ye carcasses of Edward ye 5th and his brother the then Duke ofnYork. This gent was also an eye witnesse at ye opening of it with Mr. Palmernand Mr. Henry Cogan, officers of ye mint, and others, with whom having sincendiscoursed hereof they affirmed ye same to me and yt they saw the skeletons.”n
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| Diagram relating to Webb’s note |
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nThe place marked A can be seen on this diagram; the present whereabouts ofnDaniel’s copy of this book are unknown. Jo. Webb was John Webb, the assistantnto Inigo Jones, Surveyor of the King’s Works, although when this note wasnwritten, Jones and Webb had lost their positions during upheavals of the CivilnWar.
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nThen, when later writers become involved, the possibilities get totallynout of hand – the Princes died of natural causes (so why bother hiding thenbodies?), one of them fell off a bridge in the Tower and died, they werenspirited away by persons unknown and lodged safely in Europe, one had hisnthroat cut and the other was smothered and their bodies were thrown overboardnfrom a ship bound for Flanders, and so on and so forth, and the waters becomendecidedly muddier.
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