Edward V (2 November 1470 –c. mid-1483)[1][2] wasKing of England from 9 April to 25 June 1483. He succeeded his father,Edward IV, upon the latter's death. Edward V was never crowned, and his brief reign was dominated by the influence of his uncle andLord Protector, the Duke of Gloucester, who deposed him to reign as KingRichard III; this was confirmed by theTitulus Regius, anAct of Parliament which denounced any further claims through Edward IV's heirs bydelegitimising Edward V and all of his siblings. This was later repealed byHenry VII, who subsequently marriedElizabeth of York, Edward V's eldest sister.
Edward V and his younger brother,Richard of Shrewsbury, are known as thePrinces in the Tower. They disappeared after being sent to heavily guarded royal lodgings in theTower of London. Responsibility for their disappearance (and presumed deaths) is widely attributed to Richard III, who sent them to the Tower, but the lack of conclusive evidence and conflicting contemporary accounts allow for other possibilities.
Prince Edward was placed under the supervision of the queen's brotherAnthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, a noted scholar. In a letter to Rivers, Edward IV set down precise conditions for the upbringing of his son and the management of the prince's household.[4] He was to "arise every morning at a convenient hour, according to his age". His day would begin withmatins and thenMass, which he was to receive uninterrupted. After breakfast, the business of educating the prince began with "virtuous learning". Dinner was served from ten in the morning, and then he was to be read "noble stories ... of virtue, honour, cunning, wisdom, and of deeds of worship" but "of nothing that should move or stir him to vice". Perhaps aware of his own vices, the king was keen to safeguard his son's morals, and instructed Rivers to ensure that no one in the prince's household was a habitual "swearer, brawler, backbiter, common hazarder, adulterer, [or user of] words ofribaldry". After further study, in the afternoon the prince was to engage in sporting activities suitable for his class, before evensong. Supper was served from four, and curtains were to be drawn at eight. Following this, the prince's attendants were to "enforce themselves to make him merry and joyous towards his bed". They would then watch over him as he slept.
In word and deed he gave so many proofs of his liberal education, of polite nay rather scholarly, attainments far beyond his age; ... his special knowledge of literature ... enabled him to discourse elegantly, to understand fully, and to declaim most excellently from any work whether in verse or prose that came into his hands, unless it were from the more abstruse authors. He had such dignity in his whole person, and in his face such charm, that however much they might gaze, he never wearied the eyes of beholders.[5]
As with several of his other children, Edward IV planned a prestigious European marriage for his eldest son, and in 1480 concluded an alliance withFrancis II, Duke of Brittany, whereby Prince Edward was betrothed to the duke's four-year-old daughter and heiress to the duchy,Anne. The two were to be married upon their majority, with their eldest son inheriting England and their second son Brittany.
A late-16th- or early-17th-century imagining of Edward[6]
It was atLudlow that the 12-year-old Edward received the news, on Monday 14 April 1483, of his father's sudden death five days before. Edward IV's will, which has not survived, nominated his trusted brotherRichard, Duke of Gloucester, as Protector during the minority of his son. The new king left Ludlow on 24 April, with Richard leaving York a day earlier, planning to meet atNorthampton and travel to London together. However, when Richard reached Northampton, Edward and his party had already travelled onward toStony Stratford, Buckinghamshire.[7] The Earl Rivers travelled back to Northampton to meet Richard and Buckingham, who had now arrived. On the night of 29 April Richard dined with Rivers and Edward's half-brother,Richard Grey, but the following morning Rivers, Grey and the king's chamberlain,Thomas Vaughan, were arrested and sent north.[8] Despite Richard's assurances, all three were subsequently executed.Dominic Mancini, an Italian who visited England in the 1480s, reports that Edward protested, but the remainder of his entourage was dismissed and Richard escorted him to London. On 19 May 1483, the new king took up residence in theTower of London; on 16 June, his younger brotherRichard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York joined him there.[9]
ThePrivy Council had at first hoped for a speedy coronation, to avoid the need for a protectorate. This had previously happened withRichard II, who had become king at the age of ten. Another precedent wasHenry VI, whose protectorate (which started when he inherited the crown aged 9 months) had ended with his coronation aged seven. Richard, however, repeatedly postponed the coronation.[10]
On 22 June,Ralph Shaa preached a sermon declaring that Edward IV had already been contracted to marryLady Eleanor Butler when he married Elizabeth Woodville, thereby rendering his marriage to Elizabeth invalid and their children together illegitimate.[10] The children of Richard's older brotherGeorge, Duke of Clarence, were barred from the throne by their father'sattainder, and therefore, on 25 June, an assembly of Lords and Commons declared Richard to be the lawful king. This was later confirmed by the act of parliament,Titulus Regius. The following day he acceded to the throne as King Richard III.
King Edward V and the Duke of York in the Tower of London byPaul Delaroche. The theme of innocent children awaiting an uncertain fate was a popular one amongst 19th-century painters.Louvre, Paris
Dominic Mancini recorded that after Richard III seized the throne, Edward and his brother Richard were taken into the "inner apartments of the Tower" and then were seen less and less until the end of the summer to the autumn of 1483, when they disappeared from public view altogether. During this period Mancini records that Edward was regularly visited by a doctor, who reported that Edward, "like a victim prepared for sacrifice, sought remission of his sins by daily confession and penance, because he believed that death was facing him."[11] The Latin reference toArgentinus medicus had previously been translated as "a doctor from Strasbourg", because the Latin name for the city ofStrasbourg,Argentoratum, was still current at the time; however, D. E. Rhodes suggests it may actually refer to "Doctor Argentine", whom Rhodes identifies asJohn Argentine, an English physician who would later serve as provost ofKing's College, Cambridge, and as doctor toArthur, Prince of Wales, eldest son of KingHenry VII of England (Henry Tudor).[9]
The princes' fate after their disappearance remains unknown, but the most widely accepted theory is that they were murdered on the orders of their uncle, King Richard.[12]Thomas More (1478-1535) wrote that they were smothered to death with their pillows, and his account forms the basis ofWilliam Shakespeare's playRichard III, in whichTyrrell murders the princes on Richard's orders. In the absence of hard evidence a number of other theories have been put forward, of which the most widely discussed are that they were murdered on the orders ofHenry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, or by Henry Tudor. However,A. J. Pollard points out that these theories are less plausible than the straightforward one that they were murdered by their uncle[13] who in any case controlled access to them and was therefore regarded as responsible for their welfare.[14] In the period before the boys' disappearance, Edward was regularly being visited by a doctor; historianDavid Baldwin extrapolates that contemporaries may have believed Edward had died of an illness (or as the result of attempts to cure him).[15] An alternative theory is thatPerkin Warbeck, a pretender to the throne, was indeed Richard, Duke of York, as he claimed, having escaped to Flanders after his uncle's defeat at Bosworth to be raised by his aunt,Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy.
In 1486 Edward IV's daughterElizabeth, sister of Edward V, married Henry VII, thereby uniting the Houses of York and Lancaster. In 1516,Dame Margaret Capel bequeathed a chain that had belonged to Edward V to her sonGiles Capel.[16] This is one of the few known references to the personal possessions of the Princes in the Tower.[17]
In 2021, researchers from "The Missing Princes Project"[18] claimed to have found evidence that Edward may have lived out his days in the rural Devon village ofColdridge. They linked the 13-year-old prince with a man named John Evans, who arrived in the village around 1484, and was immediately given an official position and the title of Lord of the Manor.[19] Researcher John Dike noted Yorkist symbols and stained glass windows depicting Edward V in a Coldridge chapel commissioned by Evans and built around 1511, unusual for the location.[20]
Bones belonging to two children were discovered in 1674 by workmen rebuilding a stairway in the Tower. On the orders of KingCharles II, these were subsequently placed in Westminster Abbey, in an urn bearing the names of Edward and Richard.[21] The bones were re-examined in 1933, at which time it was discovered the skeletons were incomplete and had been interred with animal bones. It has never been proven that the bones belonged to the princes, and it is possible that they were buried before the reconstruction of that part of the Tower of London.[22] Permission for a subsequent examination has been refused.
In 1789, workmen carrying out repairs inSt George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, rediscovered and accidentally broke into the vault of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. Adjoining this was another vault, which was found to contain the coffins of two children. This tomb was inscribed with the names of two of Edward IV's children who had predeceased him: George, Duke of Bedford, and Mary. However, the remains of these two children were later found elsewhere in the chapel, leaving the occupants of the children's coffins within the tomb unknown.[23]
In 2022,Philippa Langley led "The Missing Princes Project" to discover the fate of thePrinces in the Tower.[24][25][26] The project began in 2015, following the reburial of Richard III in Leicester and was formally launched in July the following year.[27] In 2023 she claimed to have discovered new evidence that disproved the theory that Richard III was responsible for the deaths of the princes. Along withRob Rinder, she hosted aChannel 4 programme calledPrinces in the Tower: The New Evidence, in which she revealed her own theories and new archival discoveries.[28][29] Although praising Langley's discoveries,The Spectator's reviewer called the programme "a calculated insult to the viewer";[30]The Times called it "compelling" and awarded the documentary its "Critics Choice."[31] The programme achieved a large audience[32] with Richard III and the Princes in the Tower trending on Twitter / X. TheRichard III Society issued a press release stating:
The disappearance of the princes has always been described as a great unsolved mystery. Why? Because there was no evidence of their fate. Their murder was never more than conjecture, but it was put about by the authorities and – for safety’s sake – only the brave dared to think differently. From now on, history must take account of this new breakthrough evidence. No longer can anyone confidently claim the princes were killed by Richard III.[33]
Three leading members of the Dutch Research Group who had assisted in the project subsequently distanced themselves from Langley's documentary and book, arguing that the documents they had discovered "are in our own opinion open to various interpretations and do not constitute irrefutable proof" for the survival of the princes.[34] Langley responded that her conclusions were based on "the totality of evidence thus assembled and the outcomes of a modern policemissing person investigation methodology ... (and not through a traditional historical research method)".[35] HistorianMichael Hicks said that the new documents "do add to knowledge of the Tudor impostors, but they fall short of proof that either Edward V or Richard Duke of York survived beyond their disappearance in the autumn of 1483".[36][37]
As outlined above, on the orders of Charles II, the presumed bones of Edward V and his brother Richard were interred in Westminster Abbey; Edward was thus buried in the place of his birth. The white marble sarcophagus was designed by SirChristopher Wren and made by Joshua Marshall. The sarcophagus can be found in the north aisle of theHenry VII Chapel, nearElizabeth I's tomb.[38]
The Latin inscription on the urn can be translated as follows:
Here lie the relics of Edward V, King of England, and Richard, Duke of York. These brothers being confined in the Tower of London, and there stifled with pillows, were privately and meanly buried, by the order of their perfidious uncle Richard the Usurper; their bones, long enquired after and wished for, after 191 years in the rubbish of the stairs (those lately leading to the Chapel of the White Tower) were on the 17th day of July AD 1674 by undoubted proofs discovered, being buried deep in that place. Charles II, a most compassionate king, pitying their severe fate, ordered these unhappy princes to be laid amongst the monuments of their predecessors, AD 1678, in the 30th year of his reign.[39]
The original Latin text is as follows (original all in capitals):[40]
H.S S Reliquiæ Edwardi Vti Regis Angliæ et Richardi Ducis Eboracensis
Hos, fratres germanos, Turre Londinˢⁱ conclusos iniectisq[ue] culcitris suffocatos, abdite et inhoneste tumulari iussit patruus Richardus perfidus Regni prædo. Ossa desideratorum, diu et multum quæsita, post annos CXC&I~ scalarum in ruderibus (scalæ istæ ad Sacellum Turris Albæ nuper ducebant) alte defossa, indiciis certissimis sunt reperta XVII die Iulii Aº Dⁿⁱ MDCLXXIIII
Carolus II Rex clementissimus acerbam sortem miseratus inter avita monumenta principibus infelicissimis iusta persolvit. anno domⁱ 1678 annoq[ue] regni sui 30
Edward appears as a character in the playRichard III by William Shakespeare. Edward appears alive in only one scene of the play (Act 3 Scene 1), during which he and his brother are portrayed as bright, precocious children who see through their uncle's ambitions. Edward in particular is portrayed as wiser than his years (something his uncle notes) and ambitious about his kingship. Edward and his brother's deaths are described in the play, but occur offstage. Their ghosts return in one more scene (Act 5 Scene 3) to haunt their uncle's dreams and promise success to his rival, Richmond (i.e. King Henry VII). In film and television adaptations of this play, Edward V has been portrayed by the following actors:
Kathleen Yorke in the 1911 silent short dramatising a part of the play.
Edward V is also featured as a mute role in another of Shakespeare's plays,Henry VI, Part 3, where he appears as a newbornbaby in the final scene. His father Edward IV addresses his own brothers thus: "Clarence, and Gloster, [sic] love my lovely queen, And kiss your princely nephew, brothers both." Gloster, the future Richard III, is at the close of this play already encompassing his nephew's demise, as he mutters in anaside, "To say the truth, so Judas kiss'd his master, And cried – All hail! when as he meant – all harm."[46]
^Walker, R. F. (1963). "Princes in the Tower". In Steinberg, S. H.; et al. (eds.).A New Dictionary of British History (1963 ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 286.OCLC398024.OL5886803M.
^abRhodes, D. E. (April 1962). "The Princes in the Tower and Their Doctor".The English Historical Review.77 (303). Oxford University Press:304–306.doi:10.1093/ehr/lxxvii.ccciii.304.
^"The Usurpation of Richard the Third",Dominicus Mancinus ad Angelum Catonem de occupatione regni Anglie per Riccardum Tercium libellus; Translated to English by C. A. J. Armstrong (London, 1936)
^Horrox, Rosemary. "Edward V of England". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 25 August 2013.(subscription required)
^Susan E. James,Women's Voices in Tudor Wills, 1485–1603: Authority, Influence and Material (Ashgate, 2015), p. 88.
^Tim Thornton, "Sir William Capell and A Royal Chain: The Afterlives (and Death) of King Edward V",History: The Journal of the Historical Association, 109:308 (2024), pp. 445–480.doi:10.1111/1468-229X.13430
^1. Chapter Records XXIII to XXVI, The Chapter Library, St. George's Chapel, Windsor (Permission required) 2. William St. John Hope,Windsor Castle: An Architectural History, pages 418–419. (1913). 3.Vetusta Monumenta, Volume III, page 4 (1789).
^abRichardson, Douglas (2011). Everingham, Kimball G. (ed.).Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families. Vol. III (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City: self-published. p. 246.ISBN978-1-4499-6639-3.
^abGeoffrey H. White, ed. (1949), "Rivers",The Complete Peerage, vol. XI, London: The St Catherine Press, pp. 16–19, retrieved10 December 2024
1 Briefly joined the Lancastrians.2 Briefly joined the Yorkists.3 Defected from the Yorkist to the Lancastrian cause.4 Initially a Yorkist who later supported the Tudor claim.5 Initially a Lancastrian who later supported the Tudor claim.
.svg)
.svg)
