All language subtitles for Lucy.Worsley.Investigates.S01E03.720p.iP.WEBRip.x264-GalaxyTV

Summer 1483,

the Tower of London.

Two young boys are about to become
victims of one of the greatest

unsolved crimes of British history.

King Edward IV is dead.

His 12-year-old son is about to be
crowned, but instead,

the story goes, he and his younger
brother are murdered in their beds.

This mystery will endure.

What really happened to the
Princes in the Tower?

In this series, I'm reinvestigating
some of the most dramatic

and brutal chapters
in British history.

It wasn't just one generation,
it was three generations

losing their lives - bam, bam, bam.

These stories form
part of our national mythology.

They harbour mysteries that have
intrigued us for centuries.

It's chilling to think that this
could actually be

evidence in a murder investigation.

But with the passage of time,
we have new ways to unlock

their secrets, using scientific
advances and a modern perspective.

It's a horrible psychosexual
form of torture. Absolutely.

I'm going to uncover forgotten
witnesses.

I'm going to re-examine old evidence
and follow new clues

to get closer to the truth.

It is one of the great
British mysteries.

It was one of those moments,
I'm afraid, for a historian,

that makes the hair stand
up on the back of your neck.

CROW CAWS

The story of the
Princes in the Tower

is as familiar as a fairy-tale.

Two innocent boys murdered
by their evil Uncle Richard,

so he could seize
the throne for himself.

500 years ago,
it was in this very building

that the two young princes, Edward
and Richard, were last seen alive.

After that, they disappeared
from the historical record.

I'd like to know
if they were murdered,

and if so, who was responsible?

As a historian,
royal history is my home turf.

I'm well aware that
when it comes to the

Princes in the Tower,

Richard III has hogged the
limelight.

Richard III...

Shakespeare portrayed him as the
biggest baddie of British history.

Beyond reasonable doubt,
the individual exhumed in September

2012 is indeed Richard III, the
last Plantagenet King of England.

But the discovery of his remains
under a Leicester car park in 2012

fuelled a passionate campaign to
reclaim his reputation.

He was buried in Leicester Cathedral
with stately ceremony.

Here in a cathedral,
history meets the present...

I find that there's something rather
awkward being glossed over

here in this
celebration of Richard III.

Yes, he was King for two years,

but together, a lot of people would

tell you that he murdered his own

nephews,
and they were just children.

So, although facts about them
are hard to come by,

it's the story of the Princes that
I want to explore

and reclaim.

Edward and Richard
were just 12 and 9

when they were supposedly killed.

To piece together their story,
I think

I need to try to
get beyond my preconceptions and,

like a lot of people,
when you say the words

"the Princes in the Tower", what
comes into my mind is this image.

It's by the Victorian painter
John Everett Millais

and it shows the little boys
in the last moments of their lives,

just before they're going
to be killed.

It's a painting that
tugs at the heartstrings.

But really, it's a
painting about Victorian values

and about the innocence
of childhood.

Millais shows them as archetypes
in a fairy-tale and it really has

very little relationship
to the historical truth.

To discover who these royal
boys really were,

I need to understand the world
in which they lived.

They were born into one of the most
violent periods of British history -

the Wars of the Roses, a
decades-long fight over the English

throne between two factions of the
royal family - Lancaster and York.

It had already taken a bloody toll

when Lancastrian King Henry VI

was killed by Edward IV,

making him the first Yorkist King.

Edward was ruthless.

He murdered his own brother, George,
for betraying him, but Richard

he made Duke of Gloucester, giving
him power in the North of England.

The Princes' father, Edward IV,
was a notorious philanderer.

And on top of that,
nobody liked his wife.

As King, he was supposed to have
married a virginal foreign

princess to forge a new
international alliance for England.

Instead,
he'd married Elizabeth Woodville,

the widow of a Lancastrian.

The English nobility are jealous
that the Woodvilles got riches

and titles.

For her part, Elizabeth Woodville
did keep the bargain -

she gave the King what she was
supposed to do, ten children,

including two all-important
surviving male heirs.

So this is the backdrop
against which the Princes are born,

the Wars of the Roses,
an unpopular, powerful mother.

The stage is
set for scenes of high drama.

From the moment of his birth, the
eldest Prince, Edward, was destined

to inherit the throne and secure
the dynasty of the House of York.

In the cut-throat
climate of the Wars of the Roses,

he offered hope for stability
and healing.

He was extremely valuable,
but equally vulnerable.

This is where young Edward grew up,
in his very own castle.

Most sons of the nobility were
sent away from their families

at the age of seven to learn the
skills required for life at court.

Edward was moved here to
Ludlow in Shropshire at just three.

His whole household was
dedicated to protecting him

and preparing him
one day to rule the kingdom.

Though few records survive,

I've tracked down a document
which demonstrates his worth.

Here are the records of things that

were paid out for his wardrobe.

Here, a payment is
made for the making of a long

gown of crimson velvet.

There's a payment
here for a doublet of black velvet,

furred with a tawny fox.
Ooh! Here, he's had...

I think that's a jacket made
out of cloth of gold.

This is expensive stuff.

This shows that Edward, at least,
is no ordinary child.

In the eyes of the
Church in medieval England,

you were a child
until the age of 14.

At that point,
a girl should be ready to marry

and bear children,
a boy to fight and die in battle.

For Edward,
it meant being ready to be King.

Edward IV entrusted
the task of schooling his son

and successor to the Queen's
brother, Anthony Woodville.

Young master...

I love that feeling of walking where
he must have walked. He was here.

I wonder what it was like for young
Edward, growing up here,

away from his parents
and his younger brother Richard,

destined for a future
he couldn't escape.

Only one historian
has ever attempted

a biography of Edward's short life.

Nice to see you.
Very pleased to meet you.

Got your own book there.
Yes. Fantastic!

Given that Edward was three

when he came to live here
with Anthony Woodville,

is it fair to say that Woodville
was probably more of a father figure

to him than his actual father?

Yes, I think he probably was.

He was not just a distant overseer,

he was always in the household
with the Prince.

And you've been able to recreate
his time here. What was it like?

Well, we know Edward IV wrote a set
of ordinances for the household,

which regulated the
Prince's timetable.

"So he shall arise every
morning at a convenient hour..."

Which was six o'clock. That's not
very convenient, in my view!

It says here that little Edward
is going to have his breakfast

immediately after his mass.

He's going to spend the day
"in virtuous learning",

so this sounds like a very formal...
Yes.

..structured, rigorous way of life.
Sounds like a little King, really.

Yes, and then Edward ordained
that "no person, man or woman,

"may be a customary swearer,

"brawler, backbyter or use
words of rybauldrye in the presence

"of our sayd sonne."
I like it that they explicitly

say, "No swearing in the
Prince's presence."

And then, after lunch,
he has disportes. Disportes.

Now, that doesn't really mean
leisure, does it?

No, it means athletic activity -

riding and hawking and fighting.

And this is training to be
a warrior. Yes.

He had a special set of armour,
which was made for him.

His father was first in battle
at 13, is that right? Mm.

This is clearly not a normal
upbringing, even at the time.

It's just hard to imagine a little
boy having all of this

expectation placed upon him.

He had a dozen years or more
when he mattered

and was politically significant.

He knew what he was going to be.

He was a Prince, expecting to become

a King, and his future was set out.

Michael, what's your view?

Do you think that Richard III
is guilty or not? Yes!

Of course he's guilty!

One of the fascinating things
about this chapter of history is

just how fragmentary
the sources are.

There's very little in the way
of hard evidence, but there is this.

It's an account by Dominic Mancini,

an Italian scholar who was
visiting England.

And this is pretty close to
an eyewitness description

of the events of 1483, the summer
that the Princes disappeared.

Now, the original of Mancini's work

is in a library in France.

It's pretty amazing.

It's also amazing to
think that this document was only

discovered in the 1930s. Imagine
the thrill of coming across that.

This is the original Latin.
It's been written out by a scribe,

and Mancini has put some little
notes of his own in the margin.

Mancini probably met
the 12-year-old Edward.

He clearly saw him
as a King in the making.

"He had such
dignity in his whole person,

"and in his face such charm
that however much they might gaze,

"he never worried
the eyes of beholders."

Because Mancini was a foreigner

and because he wasn't that close
to the main players, I think that he

has a bit of distance upon events
and perhaps therefore some

integrity, and I think it is a

source that's worth taking
seriously.

Mancini recounts the extraordinary
events of the summer of 1483,

when Edward's life is suddenly
thrown into turmoil.

Everything had been
about preparing him for this moment,

but it came sooner, I think, than
anyone was expecting.

Give it to me.

On the 9th of April 1483,

King Edward IV dies suddenly
after a short illness.

God save the King.

Long live the King.

All eyes turn to his eldest son,

who's now King Edward V.

CHURCH BELLS

A few years later, Edward would
have been seen as an adult

and this story would have
been very different,

but he's just 12
when he succeeds to the throne.

Now, in medieval England, the

government is a personal monarchy.

Everything revolves around the King.

I think of him as being
like the sun in a solar system

and all the other
nobles are like the planets,

circling around him,
vying for favours.

But there's a big flaw in this
system of government,

and that's when the King dies and
we have this moment of succession.

A power vacuum opened up.

It's like it's
the moment of the greatest danger.

And when Edward IV dies,
there's a really big problem

because little Edward,
his son, is only 12

and he can be on the throne,
but he can't really make decisions.

Someone's got to advise him.

And into this power vacuum step

all the members of the council,

the late King's advisers.

They're looking around at each
other and sizing each other up

because they know whoever controls
the little King actually

controls the country.

To understand what happens next,

I'm going to rely on Mancini.

Mancini tells us that in the
event of his early death,

"Edward IV appointed
as protector of his children

"and realm his brother,
Richard, Duke of Gloucester."

If Edward appointed his brother
Richard to be

the protector of his children, he
must really have trusted this man.

But not everyone believes Edward is
best protected by Richard alone.

While Richard is in York,
on the 20th of April,

the royal council meet in London.

Those most opposed to Richard having
power over Edward are the

Queen's family, the Woodvilles.

They were afraid that "if Richard
took unto himself the crown,

"or even governed alone,
they would suffer death,

"or at least be
ejected from their high estate."

So, were the Queen and her family,
the Woodvilles, trying to

protect her son from Richard,

or was it the other way around?

Was Richard trying to protect
little Edward, his nephew,

from a Woodville coup?

This real tug-of-war is now
going to begin

and it's going to seal young
Edward's fate.

The Woodvilles win the argument.

The royal council decide that
Richard should not be

the young King's sole protector.

They agree to crown Edward within
a fortnight, on the 4th of May,

a symbolic step that would further
diminish Richard's power.

So, on the 9th of April 1483,

Edward IV dies.

By the 6th of July, Richard III
is on the throne.

So, what I want to know is,

what happened in
those few vital weeks?

On the 24th of April,
two weeks after his father's death,

Edward sets off for London

to prepare for his coronation,

under the protection
of Anthony Woodville.

So, Edward was in limbo.

He was travelling from one role,

being heir in waiting,

to another, being King.
He was stepping into the future.

Next, though, would come
the fork in the road of his life.

A few days later, after learning
of the royal council's decision,

Richard leaves York with an army of
6,000 men to intercept young Edward.

He catches up with him in
Buckinghamshire, at Stony Stratford.

The house I'm looking for used to be
a coaching inn, but not that one.

Edward spent a night here,
in what is now someone's home.

I can see a plaque.
I think it might be this one.

SHE KNOCKS ON DOOR

Hello. Are you Kelly? Yes! You are!
Hello! Hi! Thank you for having me!

Did you know when you came to live
here about it having been where...

We did know. ..Edward V had stayed?
Yes, we did.

We knew some of the history.
We didn't realise quite how

passionate everyone
is about this house.

So, this is such a significant
place in Edward's life,

cos he was brought
here by his tutor, his guardian,

his uncle, and, well,
really, his stand-in father,

Anthony Woodville, on his way to go
to London to be crowned King.

But Anthony Woodville
went off up the road,

in order to spend
the evening with Richard,

and as a result of that
evening together,

Richard decided he was going to
move against Anthony Woodville.

The following morning,
he had him arrested.

So, Edward sat here in this coaching
inn, unaware of what was happening.

Of course,

it's true that his fate had always
been in the hands of other

people, but now this would be made
really clear to him

because that night, he says goodbye
to one uncle,

Uncle Anthony Woodville,

the next morning, his world has
completely changed.

He's now placed in the custody
of his other uncle, Uncle Richard.

There are two ways of reading
this event.

Supporters of Uncle Richard
would say,

"Well,
he's doing the right thing here.

"These Woodvilles are a bad lot.

"He's taking his nephew into custody
for his own protection."

But the other reading of
this is that Richard has

decided that the
Woodvilles are a threat to himself,

an existential threat,
and that he needs to act.

In this period, during
the Wars of the Roses, there's no...

..there's no sort of peaceful
co-existence. It's dog eat dog.

Either you are on the make,

winning power, using violence,

or...you're toast.

Your enemies are going to eat you.

For Edward, it's bad enough
being parted from his uncle,

Anthony Woodville,
but it's going to get worse...

..because Anthony Woodville is now
put in prison and is executed.

Edward will, in fact,
never see him again.

The next day, the 30th of April,

Richard and his army
escort Edward to London.

Fearing for the
safety of her family,

the Queen, Elizabeth Woodville,

takes sanctuary at Westminster Abbey
with her youngest son.

When they arrive in the capital,

Richard takes Edward
directly to the Tower of London.

His coronation, planned
for the 4th of May, is postponed.

So, the Tower of London, in the
15th century, wasn't just a prison

and a place of execution,
like we think of it today.

It was also a fantastic
royal palace, the place where

a King was traditionally got
ready for his coronation,

which was now definitely going to
happen on the 22nd of June.

And there's one piece of evidence,
if it's genuine, which would suggest

that preparations for Edward's
coronation were still on track...

This is all very high-security.

..and the British Museum has
some rare gold coins,

which were long believed to have
been made for Edward V.

Hello, Barrie!
Thank you for having me.

Welcome to the Department
of Coins and Medals.

The Department of Coins and Medals.

Minted in the weeks
while he awaited his coronation,

for some people,
they're proof that Richard had no

intention of murdering his nephew
and stealing the throne.

Ooh!

So, here, we've got all the British
medieval coins. English here.

English, specifically. English.
Edward IV and V.

This is our little case.

The trays... Edward IV, Edward IV...

And here we've got
the Edward V tray.

Can I take it right out?
Yes. Take... Just take...

Pull it carefully in both hands.

Look at that!

Look at them sparkle!

What a beautiful thing!

Are these actually Edward V coins?
Not one of them is Edward V.

Not one of them is Edward V?!
SHE LAUGHS

What's actually going on here, then?

These are coins that were for a long
time thought to be Edward V. Yeah.

They were coins that name a king
called Edward, but they also

have a mint mark that relates to
Richard Duke of Gloucester.

If you look at it, there's a boar's
head... There's something there.

..followed by the letter E
for Edward.

OK, I'm going to have to take your
word, that's the head of the boar.

I promise.

The assumption was that these coins
belonged to the period

when Edward V was regarded as King,
and Gloucester was Lord Protector.

And did the British Museum think
this for a really long time?

Probably for over
a century and a half.

The analysis that made it clear they
aren't only happened in the 1990s.

Yeah. Yeah. So it's my fault these
haven't been changed.

But it's quite useful to have this
group... I know, it's...

..in this way and so one can have
this sort of conversation.

And there has been controversy.

People don't like the fact
that these aren't Edward V coins.

So, why do you think that these
are not Edward V coins?

A very good expert in coins
did a complete

study of Richard III's coinage,

including the Edward V material,
as it was then thought to be,

and he was able to demonstrate

quite clearly that the
coins that name Edward,

but that have the boar's head
mark of Richard, Duke of Gloucester,

were issued at the same time as,
or even after,

some of the coins that name Richard.

So, during those 11 weeks
when Edward had inherited but wasn't

yet crowned, they just kept turning
old Edward IV coins until... Yeah.

..the situation was resolved
and Richard was in charge. Yes.

So, isn't it interesting that people
could have looked at these

coins and thought, "Yes,

"these support the argument that
they did intend to crown Edward V"?

For hundreds of years,

people thought that the coins
told that story.

Yes, it's a question of how you
interpret the information,

how you look at the evidence
and how you reinterpret it.

Mm. And they were not
necessarily fooled...

No, no, there's a good reason
for thinking what they thought.

It's an entirely logical deduction
and inference from the coinage.

Yeah.
It just happens to be a wrong one.

So, this doesn't tell a clear
story, but that's just...

..indicative of this whole slippery,
shape-shifty period of history.

I like the way that nothing
is what it seems.

Barrie, what do you think?

Was Richard III guilty of murdering
the Princes? Oh, absolutely.

"Absolutely," Barrie says.
No question about that.

The coins may not help decipher
Richard's intent to crown Edward,

but I've tracked down
a remarkable letter.

By the middle of June,
tension between Richard

and Edward V's mother,
Elizabeth Woodville -

still in sanctuary at Westminster -
is escalating.

Here it is. Uncle Richard,
the Duke of Gloucester,

writes to ask the York citizens
to assist him against the Queen.

And he says to them,

"We heartily pray you to come
unto us in London with all

"the money that you've got to aid
and assist us against the Queen.

"Her blood, adherents and affinity

"daily do intend to murder
and utterly destroy us

"and the old royal
blood of this realm."

What's actually going on here?

Is Richard doing his job, asking
for help to protect little Edward,

as Lord Protector?

Or is he asking for help to protect

himself and his own ambition?

Within days, Richard convinced
the royal council that Edward

should not be crowned
without his younger brother present,

and, as Mancini tells us,
he makes a decisive move.

"When the Queen saw herself
besieged,

"she surrendered their son,

"trusting that the boy should be
restored after the coronation."

The heir and the spare are now
secure in the Tower,

but the following day,
the coronation is postponed again.

And, goodness me,
the plot is going to thicken!

The next unexpected event is going
to happen in here.

Aha!

"Here stood Paul's Cross".

This was the spot of a famous
preaching place.

It's where people gave
public sermons

and sort of gave out official
information

and crowds of thousands of people
would gather to listen.

On the 22nd of June, a preacher

called Dr Shaw dropped a bombshell.

He says that way back when
Edward IV had got married to

Elizabeth Woodville, he was already

"legally contracted
to another wife,"

and the marriage to Elizabeth
Woodville was null and void,

which meant
"that their entire offspring,"

Mancini says,
"was unworthy of the kingship."

So, young Edward, the King to be...

..he was illegitimate. He was what
they would have called a bastard.

Imagine what young Edward
must have thought

when he heard about this rumour.

He'd gone from about to be King to
being a bastard in a single stroke.

Rumour had it that Richard
was behind Reverend Shaw's

shattering pronouncement,
but we just don't know the truth.

Here's a pass. Thank you.

What's certain is that once
the Princes had

lost their right to the throne,
Richard was next in line.

Some people think this was all
part of Richard's evil masterplan,

others that he had to be
persuaded into it reluctantly,

but either way, on the 6th of July,
it wasn't Edward but his uncle

who went to Westminster Abbey to be
crowned King Richard III.

As Richard took the throne, the two
Princes were still in the Tower.

In 1483, remember, there was
that marvellous royal palace

within the walls of the Tower,
with rich rooms.

And that's where Edward
and Richard were housed.

It also had beautiful gardens, where
the boys were seen playing together.

And then, what happened
next took place in this building,

which the
Victorians renamed the Bloody Tower.

Mancini says that all the attendants

who had waited upon the King

were debarred access to him.

"He and his brother were
withdrawn into the inner apartments

"of the Tower, proper...

"..and day by day, began to be seen
more rarely behind the bars

"and windows,

"till at length they ceased

"to appear altogether."

And despite centuries
of investigation and speculation,

nobody really knows what
happened to them.

There's only one thing we can be
completely sure about, which is

that by the end of the summer,

the beginning of the autumn of 1483,
the Princes were gone.

Richard III's reign was short-lived.

Just two years after taking
the throne,

he was killed by Henry VII

at the Battle of Bosworth.

The Wars of the Roses ended

and the Tudor dynasty began.

Elizabeth Woodville endured.

She engineered a marriage
between one of her daughters

and the new Tudor King,

creating another Woodville Queen.

I get the feeling
that at the dawn of this new era,

the sorry business of the Princes
was part of a painful chapter

that everyone was eager to forget.

Mancini couldn't explain what
had happened to them,

but years later, an account emerged
that appeared to solve the mystery.

Ooh! Look at this!

This is a copy, sent to me by the

British Library, of an early printed

version they've got of Thomas More's
book about Richard III.

It was this piece of writing
that inspired Shakespeare to

write his play about Richard III.

Now, More wasn't
an eyewitness to the events of 1483,

when the Princes disappear.

More's producing his work
in the 1510s

and he draws upon a key
piece of evidence from 1502.

A man called James Tyrrell
was in prison,

and there he confessed that he had
been told by Richard III to

kill the Princes
and he had delegated the job to two

assassins, whose names
were Forrest and Dighton.

Using the detail from Tyrrell's
confession, More puts

together his famous description of
exactly what happened to the boys.

"Sir James Tyrrell devised that they
should be murdered in their beds,

"to the execution whereof he
appointed Miles Forrest."

"A fellow fleshed
in murder before time.

"To him, he joined one John Dighton.

"This Miles Forrest
and John Dighton about midnight,

"the sely children
lying in their beds,

"came into the chamber
and suddenly lapped them up

"among the clothes, so bewrapped
them and entangled them,

"keeping down by force
the feather bed and pillows

"hard unto their mouths...

"..that within a while, smored and
stifled, their breath failing..."

"..They gave up to
God their innocent souls

"into the joys of Heaven,

"leaving to the tormentors
their bodies dead in the bed."

However many times I read that,
it's still quite shocking.

Now, some people would say that
More only wrote this as a piece of

propaganda for the Tudors,
to please Henry VIII,

whose family had got
rid of Richard III.

Other people argue that it's not
about Richard III at all and it's

purely a sort of technical
exercise in essay writing,

a sort of argument against tyranny.

But the degree
of circumstantial detail

he gives about the murder convinces
some people that this could be

a genuine source of information.

Thomas More tells us
the murderers buried the boys'

bodies at the foot
of a staircase in the Tower.

In 1674, 200 years later,

builders excavating near the same
stairs discovered a wooden box,

containing two small skeletons.

The then King, Charles II,
believed these were the Princes

and had them interred, with proper

ceremony, here in Westminster Abbey.

This is where coronations
actually happen.

Politicians, Prime Ministers...

..Edward I...

Now we're getting to the really
special bits.

I think it's in here.

So, here they are.

Possibly!

It's really tempting to
believe it's them

because it says
so here on the stone.

"Edward V, King of England,
and Richard, Duke of York,

"confined in the Tower of London
and suffocated."

And it seems really fitting that

this is about as deep
into the abbey as you can get.

I've come through doors and arches
and corridors and layers and I've

gone past all the great kings and
the great queens and the statesmen,

and the Princes are concealed
here at the back.

Like the truth about their story,

the remains of the Princes,

if indeed these are the remains
of the Princes,

are hidden.

In 300 years,

royal permission has only once been
granted for the urn to be opened.

In the 1930s,
before radiocarbon dating

or DNA profiling,

two scientists examined the bones.

This is their report.

It's fascinating.

Could these be
the bones of the little boys?

It's chilling to think that this
could actually be

evidence in a murder investigation.

I'm not sure what to make of it,

but one of the scientists
who examined Richard III's remains,

after they were found under the
car park, might be able to help.

Hello! Hello. How are you?

Thanks for helping us
out with this piece of work.

I've got some serious
reservations about this report,

so do you want me
to take you through...

Yes. ..some of the issues?
Yes, yes, yes. OK.

The first several pages are all
about Richard III killing

the Princes in the Tower.

They don't actually come
to examining the remains

until page 15. So, this is the
lower jaw of the younger child,

"whom I shall now presume
to call Richard."

And then they go
and call the other one Edward.

So, within a few paragraphs,
they've decided they're going to

start calling these Edward
and Richard,

so it feels very much like
they've got an idea of what

they want the answer to be and then
they're kind of making it fit.

Do you think it's fair to say that
these are the bones of two

youngish people?
That's completely fair.

They are convinced there's
evidence of suffocation.

They're saying there's bloodstain
on the bones of one of the skulls.

Yes. The interesting thing
about the stain is they do

talk about how in the urn are three
sets of iron nails. Oh!

They could have caused the stains.
Really quite easily. Disappointing.

But he says here, "I have no doubt
it was a bloodstain!"

And they draw on Shakespeare, not a
well-known forensic specialist,

as the reason why
they believe this is true.

"See how the blood is settled
in his face," and a little later,

"but see his face is black
and full of blood."

It must be true.
I read it in a poem!

That's right. So, if these bones
came into your laboratory today,

what would you do with them?
Where would you start?

Let's radiocarbon date them,

because for all we know,
these are Roman, Anglo-Saxon...

They could be completely
the wrong period.

And then one of the things you can
do is you can use DNA analysis.

We have Richard III's whole genome
now. Of course, you do!

Richard III is their uncle,

so we could look for what looks
like a 25%... Match. ..sharing. Oh!

I mean,
would you actually like to do that?

Personally, I feel reservations.

I don't like the idea of messing
with people who are at rest.

There's huge ethical considerations
because I think to actually go and

disturb a set of remains, you have
to have a decent research question.

We'd have to be absolutely
clear with ourselves why

we wanted to know. Mm.
Yeah, why do you want to know?

And curiosity's not enough.
It's not.

And if you were able to
prove that they were

the remains of the Princes in the
Tower, where would that leave us?

It would show that they
hadn't left the Tower -

that would imply that what
Thomas More says about Richard III

was true,
but it wouldn't prove it, would it?

It doesn't tell you who killed them.
Do you find it all a bit slippery?

It is, and frustratingly slippery.

And this is not the only
story about what might have

happened to the Princes.

Yes. I've got something to show
you in my office. OK.

KNOCKS ON DOOR

Right, let me show you something.
It's a box of...

Bones. A box of bones!

What else would you
have in your office?! Of course!

Well, normally,
they're kept in the bone lab,

but they're about to go back to
Sudeley Castle. Oh, yes?

So, they say, "Bones discovered in
the 1980s near the Dungeon Tower."

So, Richard III
owned Sudeley Castle.

Bones have been discovered
and so people start to think, "Ooh!"

"Are these the Princes?"
"Are these the Princes?"

Hello! Loads of them.

So, there were four
sets of remains that we

sent off for radiocarbon dating.

And? 18th and 19th century.
Oh... So...yeah.

Well, we can say for sure these are
not the lost Princes of the Tower.

These are NOT the lost
Princes of the Tower.

I think the reason you get sent
random bones is because people look

at this in terms of a
murder mystery and that someone,

someday will solve the crime.

I don't think that's the right
way to look at it.

I think of the little
Princes as being like the Romanovs

in the 20th century, people who were
killed for political reasons

and whose fate remained unknown,
cos it was

better for the people in power that
that's the way it fell out.

It's much better to let
sleeping dogs lie.

It's really tempting to look at
that urn in Westminster Abbey

and think, "Yes! That must contain
the remains of the Princes,"

but it's a question that's
wide open, really.

In terms of their actual
physical human remains,

all that we can say about the
Princes is that they're missing.

They're not necessarily murdered.
They're missing persons.

I know, for some people,
this lack of definitive proof means

there just aren't grounds to condemn
Richard III as a child-killer.

The Richard III Society is
dedicated to reclaiming

the reputation of a
much-maligned King.

Matthew Lewis. Hello, Lucy.
You look very studious, there.

Now, then. Let me
ask you a question, Matt.

You don't believe that
Richard III was guilty, do you?

What's your argument?

I think simply that the case for the
prosecution isn't watertight.

You can't prove that
Richard III did it.

What we have is two boys who
disappear from view in 1483.

We don't really have any strong

record that they were killed.

I don't believe
the bodies in Westminster Abbey,

if they were tested, would turn out
to be the Princes in the Tower.

And I think we have other potential
suspects, if we believe they were

murdered, but I think we also have
really compelling theories that they

may well have survived beyond 1485
and beyond Richard III's reign.

So, if this is a murder and if your
guy didn't do it, Richard III,

who are the other suspects
you'd like to bring to the table?

There are several individuals
that we can point directly at,

but the first of them, and perhaps
the most widely accepted, is

Henry Stafford,
the Duke of Buckingham.

Henry Stafford appears
at the right-hand side of Richard

as he moves to become
King Richard III,

but by October 1483
he's instigating rebellion against

Richard III, I think, to pursue his
own claim to the throne of England.

So, does Henry Stafford do away
with the Princes

as part of his efforts to discredit
Richard and dislodge him?

There are several sources
that point to him.

So, this was found as part
of a collection of documents

as late as the 1980s,
written probably in the early 1500s.

It says that the sons of Edward IV
were put to death

"by the vise of the Duke
of Buckingham."

"Vise" is a strange medieval word
that can be used to mean

"the advice", but it can also mean

"the device" of Henry Stafford,
so it could

have been his plot, his plan to do
away with the Princes in the Tower.

Nobody had really looked at that
till the 1980s?

It's in a collection of random
documents to do with heraldry,

here at the College of Arms,
and someone just came across it.

It's a really good example of how
some of these key pieces of evidence

can just be lying around somewhere
hidden, not yet being turned up.

Interesting.

So, we've looked at the Duke
of Buckingham. This is...

Well, this is Henry...
Henry VII, isn't it?

So, believing that he's in any way
involved means that they were

alive in 1485, and when he becomes
King, he finds them alive.

Right, so in this case,
the Princes survive into the reign

of Richard III,
and Henry Tudor does them in later.

He does, because he has to, to be
able to take the throne himself.

What's interesting is almost
anyone who is in power

and in London in the early
to mid 1480s could have had

an interest in doing away
with the Princes.

Now, you personally don't believe
that they were even killed, do you?

I don't. What do you think happened
to them, Matt?

I think that there's a strong
likelihood that at least

one of them
was moved to the North of England,

into one of Richard's castles,
packed with men loyal to him

and who he could trust to look after
these Princes, to keep them

secret and keep them out of the way,

so they couldn't be used
against Richard.

We do have two pretenders who
come along to threaten Henry VII,

the first Tudor King.

The first one that
comes along in 1487 is known to

history as Lambert Simnel.

So, this would be the actual
Prince having survived?

He's the right age, he's 16 at this
point, good age to be crowned

and to lead an army.

So, if this was the older boy coming
back as the pretender,

Lambert Simnel, what possibly
happened to his younger brother?

The second pretender, who arrives in
the early 1490s, is Perkin Warbeck.

And he comes to a sorry end,
doesn't he? He does.

He has this kind of glittering
career in the early 1490s,

convincing the crowned
heads of Europe that he's really

Prince Richard, that he should be
King Richard IV,

but he ends up being captured

as part of an invasion of England,

he's executed in 1499. So, it's your
belief that the boys survived...

I believe that they survived
beyond 1485 and went on to challenge

Henry VII and that he dealt with
that challenge by covering it up.

You see, I believe that you've
done your research,

I just worry that you've been
attracted to an exciting

story with a heroic narrator
and an unexpected ending.

That's my fear for you, Matt.

It's definitely an interesting
story, if it's true,

but I think the key here
is following the evidence.

What I just worry about is the idea

that you and a lot of other people

still treat
this as a detective story

and we want somebody to hang
a "guilty" label on.

And that's human nature.

It isn't necessarily the way that
history works, though.

But it's so interesting because the
sources say such ambiguous things.

You and I could pick up the same
piece of original source material

and come to a completely
different conclusion. Yeah.

There are few stories where things
are that ambiguous and have that

much space in them
to investigate further

and to feel like there
must be more to learn.

One thing I agree with Matt about
is the ambiguity of the evidence.

"Sir James Tyrrell devised that they
should be murdered in their beds."

Maybe new clues will come to light,

but until then, I think
the key to this mystery is to

interrogate the sources we have.

"To the execution
whereof he appointed Miles Forrest,

"to him he joined one John Dighton."

Thomas More's account
includes such specific

detail about the night
of the Princes' murder.

I want to know if what he tells us
can be verified

and if More can be trusted.

So, this is Buckfast Abbey.
It's my first visit.

Hello. Can I go on in?

Thank you.

I'm here to find out about some

exciting new research into More's

text, but first, I want to see

an extraordinary religious relic.

Thomas More was a devout Catholic.

Henry VIII had him

executed for opposing his plan
to reform the Church.

Hello. May I come in?
You may, indeed.

And as an act of religious devotion,
he often wore,

concealed beneath his clothes,
a painfully coarse goat-hair shirt.

Is this really it?
This is really it.

I just feel a huge in-built
scepticism about the exact

nature, not just of holy relics,
but of all, you know,

secular relics,
anything that is said to be

the hat of Henry VIII,
the hat of Cardinal Wolsey....

This is the most remarkable object
because it's highly possible...

In fact, it's certain,
in your eyes, that that touched

the skin of a man who was
alive 500 years ago.

What happened was he was
beheaded on the 6th of July 1535,

and the day before,

he gave this hair shirt
to his adopted daughter,

Margaret Giggs, and it then passed
to the Diocese of Plymouth.

The Diocese of Plymouth then asked

us to have it here
for public veneration.

These are all verifiable
historical events.

Mm. And that makes it a very
significant relic, I think.

What sort of a person does his

hair shirt say that he was, then?

This is something that he
chose to wear,

because he identifies with Christ,

and Christ suffered on the cross.

Wearing this every day is a very
close connection with

the sufferings of Christ.

That's a really different
world view, isn't it?

A lot of people would say that
Thomas More's

book about the rise of Richard III
is pro-Tudor propaganda.

I suppose if he's someone
as committed to his faith as to

do something like this
on a regular basis,

he's not going to be bullied by
worldly authority in any way, is he?

I think the fact that he would not
go along with Henry VIII becoming

the head of the Church in this
country would certainly

indicate that. He was willing to put
his life on the line.

I think that's a massive
argument against him

having been purely a propagandist.

Yes, I think his character,
his life, his writings

all indicate that he was interested
in what is fair, what is just.

So, if Thomas More was
interested in the truth,

he must have trusted his sources.

One historian has taken a new
approach to verify

information More claimed to have
got from James Tyrrell's confession.

Hello. Hello, Lucy.
I'm excited to meet you.

It's good to meet you, too. This is
a really splendid library, isn't it?

Yeah, I love libraries,

but this just has a fantastic
atmosphere, doesn't it?

Tim, how on Earth is it possible
that you've managed to find

a new avenue of investigation?
What was your approach?

Well, this is the most investigated

mystery of the late Middle Ages.

For most people,

the summer or the autumn of 1483
is where the story ends,

but I think, in truth,

the summer or the autumn of 1483
is where the story begins,

and if we're really
going to understand what happened,

we need to look at what
happened next.

And I think one of the fascinating
things about More's account

is that central to
it are several people

who are survivors into the period

when he was writing, in the 1510s,
and what I wanted to explore

was the possibility that More had
direct access to those individuals.

So, you wanted to put More
and his sources in the same place,

at the same time, or at least

in close contact with each other.
Indeed.

So, if we look at the text of More,
you can see that he's providing us

with the names of the murderers -
Miles Forrest and John Dighton.

Are they real?
Is there evidence for them?

What have you been able to uncover?
So, these are real people.

John Dighton, and also the two sons
of Miles Forrest, Edward and Miles.

They were active at the court
of Henry VIII in the 1510s,

just as More was active at court.

So, what I was doing was
looking for all the evidence

I could for More's
activities in the 1510s,

when he was writing
the History of King Richard III,

and his connections to John Dighton

and also the
two sons of Miles Forrest.

And what established the connection
between More doing his research

and these people who were witnesses?

It was a bit of a eureka moment,
really.

I came across this letter from 1515,

when More was on embassy in Bruges,

in the Low Countries,

and the embassy are exchanging
messages back and forth

from England,

and so you can see in this letter
More's signature at the foot.

Mm. Thomas More, he was there.
Fascinating.

But the messenger,

who is referred to in the second
line, is one M Forrest.

So, this is one of the sons

of the man that More says killed

the Princes in the Tower.
Miles Forrest.

It was one of those moments, I'm
afraid, for a historian, that makes

the hairs stand up on the back
of your neck because it puts him

in the same place at the same
time as one of his key witnesses.

Where were you when this happened?

Were you in the reading room,
where you have to be quiet,

and you went, "Yes!"?
I did restrain myself,

but, yes, I came across it among the
records in the National Archives.

And I think it increases

the credibility of More's account
significantly.

So, this letter proves that
just at the time that More was

writing his history,
he was personally in contact,

face-to-face, with the son of one
of the murderers... Indeed.

..from 1483. Indeed.

So, it's perfectly possible that
he said, "Well, my dad did it.

"He did the deed."

There's a lot of ifs and buts here,

but what you have done is

make it more comprehensible that

More is in fact telling the truth.
You've sort of built up

the foundations of his
credibility a bit more.

I think we've demonstrated very
clearly where the sources

potentially lay for what's
previously been considered

a potentially speculative, or even
deliberately deceptive account. Mm.

You know, I've been really convinced
by Tim that Thomas More was a

truth-teller, one of the first
people to try to find out what had

happened to the Princes.

I'm persuaded that Richard III did
have them murdered, but I think we

get much too caught up in the guilt,
or not, of wicked Uncle Richard.

It seems to me to be much more
interesting to look at the deaths of

these boys as part of the
cut-throat, kill-or-be-killed,

game-of-thrones political culture of

the 15th century.

If you were an heir to the throne,

you were nothing more than
a pawn in the game of power.

And being a child made no
difference at all.

This is still an active
case for historians.

So many of us are out there,
still looking for evidence.

And maybe new clues will surface
that settle the matter

once and for all, but it's the
nature of history

that it's never fixed.

It speaks to us in different ways,
at different times,

and that's why I think this story
is set to run and run.

The madness of King George.

How did one woman's attempt

to kill the King inspire a change

in attitudes towards mental health?

It caused a scandal.

People were offended by this
idea of a double standard

for rich and for poor.