The historian who helped archaeologists to find Richard III’s remains in an unassuming Leicester car park has turned her focus to another major unsolved mystery – what happened to his two nephews after they disappeared from the Tower of London. Philippa Langley launched her “Missing Princes” project around a decade ago, years after playing a pivotal role in the discovery of Richard III’s bones as part of her “Looking for Richard” campaign.
Ms Langley, who received an MBE for her involvement in exhuming the controversial monarch, now believes that she has built up a solid body of evidence to prove that Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, otherwise known as the Princes in the Tower, weren’t killed by their uncle in a bid to seize the throne, as most in her profession assume. It is generally thought that Richard III murdered Edward and Richard after the death of their father to secure power for himself. The two princes, aged 12 and 9, were not seen leaving the tower after 1483 – fitting neatly into the conventional theory, although its proponents have admitted that insufficient historic records make it near-impossible to definitively prove.
Ms Langley, who describes herself as a Ricardian – a defender of the sullied reputation of Richard III – is among those who believe that negative perceptions of the king were magnified by the Tudor propoganda in William Shakespeare’s eponymous play, and has insisted that he didn’t actually murder the two young boys.
After Richard was ousted by Henry Tudor in 1485, several young men claimed to be the Princes in the Tower, with the most prominent of those attempting to take back the throne being Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck.
Both Simnel and Warbeck ultimately confessed to being pretenders, but Ms Langley and her fellow researchers believe that these were false confessions, coerced by Henry VII, and that the two men were in fact Edward and Richard.
Among new evidence uncovered by the historian are receipts supporting a rebellion helmed by “Edward IV’s son” in the same year as Simnel’s challenge to the throne, The Times reports – making him a possible contender for a surviving Edward V.
She also uncovered evidence of Richard’s royal seal being used to sign items in Europe, and correspondences that appear to have been from James IV of Scotland and the Pope.
Critics of the theory have pointed to the slew of false documents thought to have been produced by the pretenders and their supporters, however – and Warbeck’s widely-accepted journey through Europe in a bid to win support for his cause.
Ms Langley believes she has succeeded in arguing her case, however, and suggested the ball is now in the court of her detractors to prove that the Princes in the Tower were in fact murdered.
“I would say that they now have to prove that Richard III murdered the Princes in the Tower,” she said.