Posted on 08/16/2013 6:49:10 AM PDT by xzins
I read a book a couple of years ago which put forth the theory that Margaret Beaufort, Henry VII’s mother was the one who arranged for the the ‘death’ of the two boys. Then, when Richard III was ‘wasted’, there would be no other contenders.
Margaret was in England always plotting for her son (Henry VII) to return from France and battle Richard for the throne.
We will never know the facts or truth!
..she was quite the conniver.
I think it was determined that they were not related and even the wrong ages and from the wrong time. Lots of small children murdered and buried in London.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Two skeletons were discovered buried in urns near the White Tower of the Tower of London in 1674. Charles II (the King at the time) ordered their burial in Westminster Abbey on the assumption that they were probably the bones of Edward V and Prince Richard, Duke of York. In 1933, the bones were disinterred and examined, and were found to be those of two children of approximately the right ages. They were then reinterred. They have remained so ever since.
With modern scientific methods, more information might be gained than was possible in 1933, especially if DNA could be extracted, but so far this has not occurred.
Two bodies of children found buried in the tomb of Edward IV and his Queen in St George's Chapel, Windsor in the late 18th century, have also been identified at times as possibly being the Princes from the Tower (they were after all, the sons of George IV) but the information about these is much more murky.
Source?
The Monastery at Greyfriars had long been identified as the likely burial site for Richard III, but when the monasteries were dissolved by Henry VIII, there were rumours that the body had been disinterred and disposed of in a number of different ways, and the monastery was demolished, and new streets and buildings built on the site and its precise location was lost. It was only in 2007 when a building was demolished that archaeologists were able to dig and began to pin down the location of the monastery again (slightly west of the modern street called Greyfriars which had been the assumed location until then). That lead to the more detailed, more recent archaeological digs, which found the bones, and then worked out where in the old church they had been located.
I’m a history teacher and am pulling this out of my memory - can’t remember where I learned it at this point, but it’s not exactly obscure knowledge - I think any decent encyclopedia with a relevant entry, or any book covering the history will mention it.
The large blue boxed text at the bottom of this page, pretty much gives the same information I gave, about the bodies interred in the Abbey.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.