Thursday, June 26, 2014

The Princes in the Tower that Disappeared Forever

There names were Edward and Richard and they were set for life to be important royal figures until...they disappeared. They were the only sons of Edward IV of England, the king, to survive unto adulthood. Their father died in April 1483, the eldest Edward mentioned above was now king.

The King is Dead, Long Live the King! 
A somewhat contradictory chant used when a king dies in England and another is crowned.

The young brothers arrived in London, to have Edward's coronation. The children were oblivious to their uncle's plan to be king, their uncle's name was Richard. Meanwhile, the young brothers were kept in the Tower of London before the coronation, it wasn't unusual for monarchs to be kept there.  Eventually, the coronation was postponed, though...indefinitely by their Uncle Richard.
Richard seized the throne and declared the boys illegitimate. Richard then had a coronation crowning himself Richard III.
Imagined Representation of the Princes
 by Sir John Everett Millais
But it is time, Richard may have thought to himself, to get rid of those boys once and for all. For the boys "were seen less and less [playing outside the tower] until they disappeared altogether."(Wikipedia)

We may never know what happened to those boys. In William Shakespeare's Richard III, the children were murdered by being suffocated with a pillow.  Edward was 13 around the time of his disappearance and his brother, Richard, was 9. It is sad to think such innocent children had to be "gotten rid of."

Their bodies may be the ones that were found in 1674 by workmen when remodeling the Tower of London. They were way underneath the stairs that were leading to the White Chapel in a wooden box. Supposing that these may be the Princes, King Charles II (the party king) ordered that these bones be interred in an urn in Westminster Abbey. In 1933, these bones were examined and found to be two childrens' and found to be the correct age to be the Princes'. But no carbon dating has been used on the bones and we do not know if the bones are even both of male children so they still are not totally confirmed to be Princes'.

]

No comments :

Post a Comment