Cold Open

It’s July 17th, 1674, at the Tower of London, in England.

A laborer lifts a sledgehammer above his head and brings it down hard on a stone staircase. The impact shakes his entire body, but he barely pauses before lifting the hammer back up and taking another swing.

The Tower of London has stood on this site for more than 600 years, but today’s royal palace bears little resemblance to the original fortress. Almost every English monarch has left his mark on the Tower, constructing new buildings, strengthening the walls, and demolishing old rooms. Today, this laborer is knocking down a flight of stairs to make way for a new chapel.

With another powerful swing of the hammer, part of the staircase collapses. But as the dust clears, the laborer realizes, there’s a hidden void behind the stairs—and near the back of the cavity is a wooden chest.

Curious, the laborer drags the chest out of the rubble. If there’s a long-forgotten royal treasure inside, he might be able to pocket it before anyone notices. He could become rich enough to start a new life—one that doesn’t involve hard, physical labor.

With a last check to make sure he’s alone, the laborer opens the chest… then recoils. There’s no glittering gold inside. Instead, there’s a pile of white bones, and sitting on top, two small human skulls.

Investigations into the bones reveal them to be the remains of two children. Royal historians excitedly proclaim that the skeletons must belong to the deposed 12-year-old King Edward V and his younger brother, who mysteriously disappeared in the Tower of London almost two centuries earlier. This grisly discovery will add to the speculation that the “Princes in the Tower” were murdered by a man they should have been able to trust - their own uncle. But the truth about the identity of the bodies and how they ended up in this box will remain a mystery right up until the present day, centuries after the skeletons were discovered on July 17th, 1674.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is July 17th, 1674: The Discovery of the Princes in the Tower.

Act One

It’s April 10th, 1483, at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire, 191 years before two skeletons are found in the Tower of London.

30-year-old Richard, Duke of Gloucester, holds up a gloved hand as a falcon swoops into land on his fist. Richard offers it a morsel of food, then swings his arm into the air, sending the bird back off to hunt. While the falcon searches for prey, Richard’s eyes are drawn to a horseman galloping across the countryside toward him. Richard recognizes the horseman's uniform as that of a royal messenger—and judging by his speed, he’s carrying an urgent letter for King Edward IV, who resides in London, 240 miles away.

For the past three decades, England has been ravaged by civil war. The Wars of the Roses as they're called, pitted two noble houses against each other as the Lancasters and the Yorks schemed to win the throne. At the moment, Richard’s family, the House of York, has the upper hand. His older brother, King Edward IV, wears the crown. But the House of Lancaster hasn’t given up the fight yet, and Richard knows the war won’t end until their opponents have been completely wiped out.

As the messenger reins in his horse, Richard asks whether he brings news from the king. But the messenger doesn’t answer. Instead, he holds out a shaking hand containing a sealed letter. Richard’s brow furrows as he opens it and reads the contents. The letter doesn’t come from his brother, but from the royal council—it reveals that King Edward IV is dead. The king fell ill suddenly and died a few days later—but before he breathed his last, Edward named Richard as Lord Protector. Now, Richard is regent to Edward’s 12-year-old son and successor, Edward V. This means that Richard will effectively run the country on the new young king’s behalf.

Richard’s hands begin to shake as he folds the letter and places it in his pocket. The ascension of a boy king leaves the House of York suddenly very vulnerable. Richard is sure the Lancasters will make use of the opportunity and try to regain the throne. As Lord Protector, though, it’s now Richard’s job to stop them.

Over the next few days, Richard assembles 600 soldiers and sets out for London. He is determined that the new King Edward be officially crowned in the English capital as quickly as possible. But right now, Edward is far away from London in a castle near the Welsh border. Rather than ride out of his way and waste valuable time, Richard arranges for King Edward to meet him on the road to London.

But Richard is disturbed to learn, and when the young King Edward arrives at the rendezvous, he's escorted by the powerful Earl Rivers and 2,000 of Rivers’ men. Richard sees Earl Rivers’ army as a show of force and suspects that Rivers will try to supplant him as Lord Protector—or even seize the throne for himself. But Richard doesn’t give Rivers the chance to begin an uprising.

He finds excuses to delay Earl Rivers so that he falls behind his army on the road to London. And when he’s lost the protection of his soldiers, Richard’s guards swoop in and arrest Earl Rivers for treason. While his soldiers are stripped of their weapons and told to return home, Rivers is taken in the opposite direction—to Richard’s castle in Middleham.

In the meantime, Richard warns young King Edward that he’s uncovered a treasonous plot. The evidence against Earl Rivers is slim, but Richard uses the weapons confiscated from Rivers’ soldiers as proof that Rivers was planning to rebel. And on the remainder of their journey south, Richard keeps the young king close. When they reach the capital, Richard ushers Edward to the Tower of London and orders him to remain there for his own safety until the coronation. A few weeks later, Edward is joined by his brother, the next-in-line to the throne, a young boy also named Richard, after his uncle.

But whispers soon sweep London about other potential uprisings and rebellions—and one of the people spreading the rumors is King Edward’s own mother, Elizabeth Woodville. She believes there is a plot to seize the throne—only she doesn’t think Earl Rivers is behind it. Elizabeth believes that it’s the Lord Protector Richard who’s working against the young king. Her suspicions are raised further when Richard arrests another powerful noble on flimsy charges of treason. As far as Elizabeth is concerned, Richard is purging the court of anybody who might stand in his way.

Soon, Elizabeth’s suspicions about Richard will prove correct. The young King Edward V will never be crowned. And instead, Richard will betray his nephew and seize the throne—and the Princes in the Tower will be left with no one to protect them.

Act Two

It’s July 6th, 1483, at Westminster Abbey, in London, three months after the death of King Edward IV plunged England into crisis.

Sitting on the ancient coronation throne of England, the Lord Protector Richard stares ahead as the Archbishop of Canterbury lifts a crown and holds it high in the air for the congregation to see. Then, the archbishop places the crown on the head of the new king. From now on, Richard is not the Lord Protector or the Duke of Gloucester. He’s King Richard III.

A little over two weeks ago, London was preparing for a very different coronation. It was the boy king Edward V who was due to be crowned. But just days before the ceremony, a priest picked a spot on the street outside St. Paul’s Cathedral and began preaching to the crowds. He loudly declared that the marriage between the dead King Edward IV and his wife Elizabeth Woodville was invalid. That meant both of their sons were illegitimate - and Edward V was not the rightful king. Richard, as Lord Protector, put the coronation arrangements on hold while the priest’s claims were investigated—but Richard was no neutral observer. If his brother’s marriage was posthumously annulled, Richard would become his legitimate successor and King of England. It was little surprise then that Richard soon declared that the priest was speaking the truth.

Now, it’s Richard leaving Westminster Abbey with the crown on his head. But as he parades in triumph past the lords and ladies of the realm, his thoughts are drawn across the city to the old fortress by the river: the Tower of London. The once King Edward V and his younger brother are still locked inside. And that poses a problem for Richard. Many people suspect that the priest’s claims about the old king’s marriage were merely a convenient excuse engineered by Richard to seize the throne. And the presence of the boys in London makes them a potential rallying point for opposition to Richard's reign. Something has to be done.

Richard’s dilemma takes on a new urgency later that month when a plan to rescue the princes is uncovered by Tower guards. Although the scheme is foiled, Richard is determined to take no more chances. He has the princes moved to apartments deeper inside the Tower of London. The boys are no longer spotted walking along the Tower’s ramparts or playing in its grassy courtyards. In fact, they are never seen in public again—but there is no announcement as to whether the former King Edward and his younger brother are still alive, or dead. They simply seem to vanish.

Whatever’s happened to the two princes, King Richard is right to worry about opposition to his rule. In October 1483, only three months after taking the throne, Richard has to deal with the first full-scale rebellion against his rule. The man behind the uprising comes as a shock, though. The Duke of Buckingham was previously King Richard’s closest friend and ally. But even Buckingham doubts Richard’s claim to the throne and is appalled that he's turned on his own family.

Richard’s army defeats Buckingham’s rebellion, and Buckingham is executed for conspiring against the king. But more than 500 of Buckingham’s soldiers escape to France, where they join up with another rival: Richard’s distant cousin, Henry Tudor.

Two years later, in August 1485, Henry Tudor lands in Wales with an army and marches toward England. His invasion force grows as several prominent lords desert King Richard and pledge loyalty to Henry. By the time King Richard’s soldiers block Henry’s path in Leicestershire, the two armies are closely matched. But there’s one noble who hasn’t yet declared his allegiance. As the fighting begins, the Earl of Derby holds his men back—and both King Richard and Henry Tudor know that whichever side the Earl picks will likely win the day.

So, in an attempt to end the battle early, King Richard spurs his horse and charges directly at Henry. Soon, the two commanders are engaged in hand-to-hand fighting. But just when it seems Richard might triumph, the Earl of Derby chooses this moment to intervene on Henry’s side. Richard’s cavalry is forced to retreat, and Richard himself topples from his horse. On foot and surrounded by enemies, he's soon overwhelmed and killed.

With Richard III dead, the way is clear for Henry Tudor to seize the English crown as King Henry VII. But Richard’s grisly fate proves that it will not be easy for a usurper to stay on the throne—and even the new King Henry will not be able to escape the shadow cast by the two missing Princes in the Tower.

Act Three

It’s November 23rd, 1499, at Tyburn, just outside London, fourteen years after the death in battle of King Richard III.

A huge crowd roars jeeringly as 24-year-old Perkin Warbeck stumbles to his feet on the back of a horse-drawn cart. Perkin finds it difficult to balance. His hands are shackled and his legs tremble after weeks chained up in a prison cell. Perkin's crime is the most serious one of all: treason against the king and he’s about to be executed for claiming to be one of the princes who mysteriously disappeared at the Tower of London during the reign of King Richard III.

Nine years ago, Perkin was told that he bore an uncanny likeness to the younger missing prince, Richard. Perkin was just a merchant’s apprentice living in Belgium but realized that this resemblance could be his ticket to fortune. So, he started traveling the royal courts of Europe claiming he’d escaped the Tower of London and was the true heir to the English throne. Enough people believed him for Perkin to assemble a small army and invade England. But Perkin's tiny force was never enough to defeat King Henry VII. Perkin was captured, put on trial, and sentenced to death.

So today, as the crowd of onlookers quietens, Perkin reads a confession admitting his true identity as a merchant’s apprentice. When he’s finished, Perkin closes his eyes for a moment in prayer before a hangman places a noose around his neck. This is a last, calculated insult by King Henry. Members of nobility are usually beheaded. But Perkin is going to suffer the execution reserved for commoners: a hanging.

Perkin stands trembling on the back of the horse-drawn cart when after a moment’s pause, the hangman then whips the horse’s rump and it lurches forward, pulling the cart out from under Perkin. He falls a short distance but not enough to snap his neck, his feet are left kicking in the air as he slowly suffocates.

Perkin's fate will act as a deterrent to any others who might try to claim the English throne from King Henry VII. But the fate of the real Prince Richard and his older brother, the deposed King Edward V will never be solved. Some will claim that the boys were killed by King Richard III as soon as he seized the throne. Others will insist that they survived Richard’s reign and were killed on the orders of King Henry VII. More fanciful theories suggest the princes escaped and lived out their lives in anonymity—or that Perkin Warbeck really was who he claimed to be. But the answer will never be known, despite the discovery decades later of two skeletons that may have belonged to the Princes in the Tower on July 17th, 1674.

Outro

Next on History Daily. July 18th, 1969. U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy crashes his car into a pond at Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, killing his passenger and sparking a political scandal.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Muhammad Shahzaib.

Sound design by Gabriel Gould.

Music by Thrumm.

This episode is written and researched by Scott Reeves.

Edited by Dorian Merina.

Managing producer, Emily Burke.

Executive Producers are William Simpson for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.