The Princes in the Tower

Summary

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Podcast Summary: Scams, Money, & Murder – "The Princes in the Tower"

Host: Vanessa Richardson (Crime House)
Episode Date: August 10, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into one of history’s most enduring mysteries: the disappearance (and presumed murder) of the Princes in the Tower—Edward V and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York—in 1483. Vanessa Richardson explores the political turmoil of 15th-century England, outlines the suspects, and describes modern theories, including claims that at least one prince may have survived. The episode expertly examines how facts and myth have blended over centuries, questioning the evidence and motivations behind the 'official story' that has endured for over 500 years.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Stage: Succession and Civil War

• Edward V, a child king: On April 9, 1483, Edward V (age 12) becomes King of England after his father's sudden death.
• Wars of the Roses: Context of decades-long civil war between the Houses of Lancaster (red rose) and York (white rose).
  "Behind that pretty name was about as much betrayal, backstabbing and bloodshed as you can imagine." (Vanessa Richardson, 06:32)
• Tensions at court: Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville angers the nobility, empowering her family (the Woodvilles) and sowing resentment among old-guard nobles.

Rapid Political Moves and Imprisonment

• Richard, Duke of Gloucester (future Richard III): Becomes Lord Protector, seizes Edward V en route to his coronation, arrests and executes Woodvilles (including Anthony Woodville).
• Both princes locked in Tower of London: Richard pressures Elizabeth to release her younger son Richard, then moves both boys to the Tower.
• Allegations of illegitimacy: Richard claims Edward IV’s sons are illegitimate, supported by nobles, paving his way to the throne.
• Richard III crowned: On July 6, 1483, Richard III takes the crown. Both princes vanish from sight soon after.
  "The princes were seen less and less, until by the late summer and fall of 1483, they weren’t seen at all. They had simply vanished." (Vanessa Richardson, 17:44)

Immediate Aftermath: Suspicion and Upheaval

• Public rumors and shifting alliances: By early 1484, rumors of murder swirl. Richard’s refusal to address the disappearance erodes his support and empowers Henry Tudor.
• Battle of Bosworth Field: In 1485, Richard is killed in battle against Henry Tudor’s forces—an event immortalized in Shakespeare’s "Richard III."
  "He could have called for mercy. He didn’t. Richard III died swinging at his enemies in the thick of the fight." (Vanessa Richardson, 22:13)
• Tudor dynasty established: Henry VII marries Elizabeth of York, uniting the rival houses.

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Theories & Suspects: Who Killed the Princes?

1. Richard III

• Motive: Princes remained threats as potential figureheads for rebellion.
• Opportunity: Both boys in his custody, guarded by his supporters.
• Means: Likely assigned the task to a trusted man, possibly Sir James Tyrell, who later allegedly confessed after his arrest—but this confession is only attested decades later by Thomas More, a Tudor loyalist.

  "Almost everything we know about Richard murdering the princes traces back to one source—a man named Sir Thomas More... He served the Tudor dynasty, the very regime that had everything to gain from painting Richard as a child-murdering tyrant." (Vanessa Richardson, 27:45)

2. Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham

• Alternative theory: Buckingham, Richard’s ambitious ally, may have killed the princes without Richard’s knowledge. Portuguese sources blame him directly; new 20th-century evidence hints at his involvement.
• Counterpoint: Richard’s silence on Buckingham’s guilt seems strange if he were innocent, and the logistics of Buckingham acting alone are questionable.

3. Henry VII (Henry Tudor)

• Post-Richard theory: Henry had motive to eliminate rival Yorkist claimants after seizing the throne. He reverses their “illegitimate” status once in power, potentially to reframe his role.
• Evidence against: No direct contemporary accusations of Henry as murderer, despite having many enemies who could have benefitted from such charges.

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The Radical Survival Theory

Did the Princes Escape?

• Perkin Warbeck: In 1491, a young man claims to be Richard, Duke of York, bolstered by European nobles’ support. Ultimately captured and forced to confess he’s not royal, then executed, but the confession is likely coerced.
• Modern research (Philippa Langley and the Missing Princes Project): Argue that both princes survived and lived under false identities; new archival discoveries offer tantalizing but contested clues, such as apparent signatures as 'Richard of England' and odd grants to obscure men bearing Yorkist symbols.

  "The documents her team says it’s found are genuinely startling. They argue there’s a paper trail showing the princes were alive and in contact with European royalty as late as the 1490s." (Vanessa Richardson, 36:32)

• Skepticism: Many historians caution against over-interpreting ambiguous documents; some participating researchers have distanced themselves from Langley’s conclusions.

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The Mystery of the Bones

• 1674 discovery: Bones of two children found beneath a Tower staircase, reburied in Westminster Abbey as the princes—but no proof they are the princes.
• Forensic limitations: 1933 analysis inconclusive; modern DNA testing possible but blocked by Church and royal authorities.

  "Those bones have been waiting under that marble since 1674, and the push to finally examine them is still alive." (Vanessa Richardson, 46:35)

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Thought-Provoking Reflections

• Who gets to write history? The tale carved onto the urn and repeated in Shakespeare’s play comes mostly from Tudor sources who benefitted from blackening Richard III’s name.

  “The version that won, the one carved into that urn, the one Shakespeare made famous, was shaped almost entirely by people who needed Richard to be a monster.” (Vanessa Richardson, 44:08)

• Children as pawns: The princes’ story is a reminder of how the vulnerable become victims of power struggles, echoing across centuries.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

"A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse." (William Shakespeare, quoted by Vanessa Richardson, 22:25)

"So where do I land? Honestly, I think the simplest answer is still the most likely one. Richard III had the motive, the opportunity, and almost certainly the means, even if we’ll never know exactly whose hands did it." (Vanessa Richardson, 45:08)

"But I’ll admit, the survival theory is the version I want to be true. Two boys who escaped the board, slipped the game, and lived quiet lives somewhere far from the throne that nearly killed them." (Vanessa Richardson, 45:35)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction and framing the mystery – 00:51–05:43
• Background: Wars of the Roses and political conflict – 06:17–09:58
• Richard’s coup and the princes’ disappearance – 09:58–17:44
• Public reaction and Henry Tudor’s rise – 20:41–24:40
• Suspect analysis and Richard III's case – 24:40–29:42
• Buckingham and Tudor as suspects – 29:43–32:44
• Survival theory: Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Simnel – 34:16–41:24
• Modern investigations and contested evidence – 41:24–44:50
• Richardson’s personal take and closing remarks – 44:50–47:07

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Conclusion

Vanessa Richardson guides listeners through the complex, often contradictory evidence that surrounds the princes in the tower, ultimately favoring Richard III as the likely killer—but leaves space for hope and skepticism, especially in light of new research and the as-yet untested bones. The story illustrates how “official history” is often written by its victors and how unresolved mysteries continue to fascinate, centuries later. Listeners are invited to weigh in and help keep the conversation alive.

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Have thoughts or a theory? Vanessa prompts you:
"Do you believe Richard III murdered his nephews? Was it Stafford—or Henry Tudor? Or do you buy that the princes survived and history framed a dead king? Head to comments and let me know." (Vanessa Richardson, 46:44)

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Transcript

[Vanessa Richardson]

Hi listeners, it's Vanessa. Are you the type to fall down an Internet rabbit hole and not come up for hours? You'll love Crimes of Reddit, a new Crime House original with Sabrina, Diana Roga and Alexis Linklater. Every week, one host brings real, true crime stories from Reddit while the other reacts completely blind. No prep, no spoilers. Then they swap. It's the feeling of sending your group chat a thread at 2am that starts with you have to see this. Except Sabrina and Alexis are in the chat with you. Follow Crimes of Reddit on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or subscribe@c Crimesofreddit pod on YouTube.

[Professor Lindsay Cormack]

This is crime house.

[Vanessa Richardson]

In a quiet corner of Westminster Abbey, behind a marble wall, there's a small stone urn. It was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul's Cathedral. The urn has an inscription that was written in 1678 on the orders of King Charles II. It says that inside are the bones of Edward V, King of England, and his little brother Richard, Duke of York. And it says exactly how they died. According to the carving, the boys were, quote, unquote, stifled with pillows by the order of their perfidious uncle Richard the usurper. Case closed. The verdict set in stone, signed off by a king. There's just one problem. When that inscription was carved, nobody actually knew whose bones were in the box. And they still don't. Because in all that time, no one has been allowed to run a single DNA test on the children sealed inside. So the most famous murder accusation in English history is carved onto a little urn in Westminster Abbey. And the only evidence that could prove it is sealed inside in a box no one will open. From UFO cults and mass suicides to to secret CIA experiments, presidential assassinations, and murderous doctors, these aren't just theories. They're real stories that blur the line between fact and fiction. I'm Vanessa Richardson and this is Conspiracy Cults and Crimes, a crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I'll explore the real people at the center of the world's most shocking events and nefarious organizations. And remember, these Monday episodes will also be on YouTube with full video. You can find them every Saturday. Just search for conspiracy theories, cults and crimes and be sure to like and subscribe. These cases are wild and I want to hear what you think at the end of each episode. Leave a comment wherever you listen. Be sure to rate, review and follow so we can continue building this community together. And if you want even more, subscribe to Crime House plus and get every episode of this show and the rest of the Crime house lineup at ad free and early, plus at least two bonus episodes every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap try free at the top of the Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes show page. Today I'm digging into one of the oldest and most controversial cold cases in the world. The Princes in the tower in 1483, two boys ages 12 and 9 were walked into the Tower of London. One of them was the King of England. Within months, both had vanished. Their uncle seized the crown, and the official story says he had both boys murdered to keep it. That version has stood for more than 500 years, but there's a growing case that it isn't true that at least one of those boys survived, escaped abroad and came back years later to fight for the throne. If this all sounds familiar, there's a reason George R.R. martin has called the real war behind it a major inspiration for Game of Thrones. Except this isn't fantasy. These were actual children. So who killed the Princes in the Tower? Or did anyone kill them at all? All that and more coming up. What is Toyota Affordability? It all starts with buying smart and your Toyota dealer has great deals available to qualified customers on reliable cars and SUVs, including the redesigned RAV4, spacious Grand Highlander, Sporty Camrys and Corollas. It means driving for less with efficient hybrid and plug in hybrid options available throughout the lineup, extending your overall driving range and delivering great mpgs, saving you money at the pump. And it means trading for more. Toyota's known for building long lasting vehicles and as the best resale value brand. According to Kelley Blue Book, your Toyota can be worth thousands more than average when it's time to trade in. That's Toyota affordability. Buy smart, drive for less and trade for more. Shop toyota.com or your local dealer for deals and details. Vehicles Projected resale value is specific to the 2026 model year. For more information, visit Kelley Blue Books kbb.com toyota brand average resale value is 53% versus the average vehic 45% toyota let's go places.

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[Vanessa Richardson]

On April 9, 1483, a 12 year old boy sits inside Ludlow Castle, a fortified stronghold about 150 miles from London. His name is Edward, and as of today, he is the King of England. His father, King Edward iv, has just died after a short illness. Under English law, the crown automatically passes to the oldest son. So in theory, this should be a moment for celebration. Feasts, jousts, the whole spectacle of a new reign. But nothing about this coronation is going to be a party, because this boy was born into a war. For nearly 30 years, England had been tearing itself apart in a conflict we now call the wars of the Roses. Behind that pretty name was about as much betrayal, backstabbing and bloodshed as you can imagine. It all started because two branches of the same royal family both believed they had the better claim to the English throne. On one side was the House of Lancaster, whose symbol was a red rose. The other side was the House of York, whose symbol was a white rose. The Lancasters had ruled for decades, but the the Yorks were waiting in the wings. And when their chance came in 1455, they were ready to pounce. The reigning Lancastrian, King Henry vi, was weak, easily controlled and had mental health issues that left him unable to rule. So that year, the Yorks made their move. They raised an army, and after years of brutal fighting, they won. The boy kings fought father. Edward IV defeated Henry VI in 1461 and took the crown for the House of York. And three years later, he made a decision that blew everything up. He secretly married a woman named Elizabeth Woodville. Now, Elizabeth wasn't a peasant, she was a noble woman. So no big deal, right? Well, here's the thing. She was a noble, just not a useful one. The powerful lords who'd put Edward on the throne expected him to marry strategically, ideally, into a foreign royal family to lock down an alliance. The Woodvilles weren't anywhere near that league. Even worse, once Elizabeth and Edward got married, he showered the family with titles, land and influence. The old guard at court was furious. It got bad enough that the Earl of Warwick, one of the most powerful men in England and the very ally who'd helped Edward win the crown, flipped sides entirely and joined the Lancasters. And he didn't go alone. He brought Edward's own brother, George with him. Together they pulled off something called the Redeption of 1470. They briefly put the old Lancastrian King Henry VI back on the throne and drove Edward into exile. It was brother against brother and it did not let up. Edward came roaring back from exile, crushed the Lancastrian forces, then methodically hunted down anyone left who could ever challenge him again. As for old Henry vi, he was sent back to the Tower of London and there he died in captivity, around age 49. The official story was that Henry pretty much died of sadness and that he couldn't handle all the losses he'd suffered. But when they prepared his body for burial, a new picture emerged. People noticed blood on him, a sign he might have actually been beaten to death. And centuries later, in 1910, researchers examined what they believed were his remains and found his skull may have been violently broken. No one was ever charged and no one was ever convicted.

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[Vanessa Richardson]

The Tower of London quietly earned a brand new reputation. Now, calling it a tower undersells it. The Tower of London wasn't a single spooky turret. It was a sprawling fortified complex, part royal palace, part armory, part prison, ringed by walls and a moat. It was where the Crown Jewels were kept and it was where the realm's most dangerous enemies were locked away. After Henry VI died inside it, people started seeing the Tower as something darker, the place where the kingdom's most dangerous enemies go in and they don't come out. It was a reputation the Tower would soon live up to in the most haunting way possible. But that was still years off. For now, with his rivals gone, Edward IV settled into a fairly stable reign. From 1471 until his death in. In 1483, the economy held steady. The Crown's finances were in decent shape, and standing right at his side was his youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Remember the other brother, George? The one who betrayed Edward with Warwick? He was eventually executed for treason in 1478. But Richard was a different animal. He was genuinely loyal and genuinely talented. So Edward handed him real power, sending him north to govern the entire northern half of England. And by all accounts, Richard was good at it. He built a council to run the region. He won over the local lords and the town officials, the people who actually kept things running. And he earned their loyalty. In the north, Richard was popular. That popularity made him one of the most important men in the kingdom. But here's the thing about people who are truly gifted at politics. They understand power. Better than anyone, they can see every angle, every weakness, every gap in the wall. And Edward IV had a glaring his wife's family. Even with the wars of the Roses basically won, Edward still ruled over a court full of nobles who resented the Woodvilles and their grand grip on the king. Richard helped hold the peace, acting as a buffer between his brother and the angry old guard. But it was always a ticking clock. And In April of 1483, the clock ran out. Edward IV was dead at 40, taken by an illness that came out of nowhere. He Left behind a 12 year old heir, a queen the whole old guard despised and a throne with no one strong enough to guard it. Just like that, the country went into crisis mode. A child king couldn't rule on his own, so someone would have to guide him. And the obvious choice was his mother's family, the Woodvilles. To the old guard at the court, that was unthinkable. Edward IV had seen it coming. Before he died, he named Richard the Lord Protector, guardian of Bull, both his sons and the man who would run the kingdom until young Edward came of age. So in theory, Richard was now in charge of everything. And he knew it. Here's where it starts to move fast. As young Edward traveled toward London for his coronation, Richard intercepted him on the road. He presented himself as the loyal uncle there to escort the new king safely to the capital. And he warned there were enemies all around them. The next day, Richard arrested every single member of Edward's traveling party that included the boy's own uncle on his mother's side, Anthony Woodville. Richard accused the whole group of plotting against the king. He didn't have much evidence for that, but he was the Lord Protector and nobody was in a position to argue. So Anthony and the others were locked up, which left Richard as the sole guardian of the 12th 12 year old king for the rest of the journey. Back in London, the boy's mother, Elizabeth Woodville, heard what was happening and she panicked. She grabbed her younger son, also named Richard. I know it's a lot of Edwards and Richards. And she fled with him and her daughters into Westminster Abbey, claiming sanctuary under medieval law, sanctuary made them untouchable. Even a king couldn't drag someone out of a church. So for a moment, it was a standoff. Richard arrived in London with young Edward and the coronation was officially still on, although Richard quietly pushed the date back from May to late June. And again, he didn't feel the need to explain himself. Then came his next move. Richard pressured Elizabeth to release her younger son from sanctuary. He argued that young Edward was lonely and needed his little brother to keep him company. Company before the big day. Elizabeth gave in. And so nine year old Richard walked out of the safety of Westminster Abbey and into the royal apartments of the Tower of London to wait out the days before the coronation. With his brother now the only two people standing between Richard and the throne were locked inside his fortress. With both boys in his grasp, Richard suddenly postponed the coronation indefinitely. And this time, he did give a reason. It was a bombshell. According to Richard, there were rumors that the princes were illegitimate. The claim was that before Edward IV ever married Elizabeth Woodville, he'd been secretly promised to another woman. And under the rules of the time, that earlier promise would make his marriage to Elizabeth invalid, which would make their children, including both princes, unable to inherit the throne. But Richard wasn't the only one who stood to gain something from that. If the princes were out, the Woodvilles lost their path to power overnight. And to the powerful families who'd resented that family for years, Richard's claim wasn't a scandal. It was a gift. I On June 25, 1483, a group of nobles endorsed a petition declaring both boys illegitimate and asked Richard to take the crown. That very same day, the boy's uncle, Anthony Woodville, and the others arrested on the road were executed. Richard's most dangerous opponents were now gone. Eleven days later, on July 6, 1483, Richard died. Duke of Gloucester was crowned King Richard III. So what happened to the two boys? At first, things seemed almost normal. The princes were kept in the inner apartments of the Tower and people still spotted them around the grounds. Like any kids, they played outside when they could, trying to build some version of a normal life inside what was increasingly becoming a prison. But they could feel something closing in, especially the older boy. We actually have an eyewitness from this stretch. An Italian visitor named Dominic Mancini was in London through the summer of 1483 and he wrote down what he saw. Not long after he left, according to Mancini, Edward, the deposed boy king, was confessing his sins to a priest day after day, the way people did when they believed death was near. Like the boy already sensed what was coming. And he wasn't the only one. There were several plots to break the boys out of the Tower. Richard crushed every one of them. And after that, the princes were seen less and less, until by the late summer and fall of 1483, they weren't seen at all. They had simply vanished.

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[Vanessa Richardson]

By the end of 1483, rumors were racing through England and across Europe that the princes were dead. And Richard did nothing to stop the gossip. He never produced the boys to prove they were alive. He never opened an investigation. He never addressed the rumors at all. For a man who'd risen to power as the boy's own protector, that silence was damning. And it cost him. His backers had been willing to look past a lot to get rid of the Woodvilles, but murder was a line that they wouldn't cross. The takeover had been so fast, so ruthless, that former allies began peeling away in disgust. A group of Yorkists turned on Richard, members of his own house, and joined forces with the last Lancastrian exiles from the wars of the Roses. And they rallied behind a man named Henry Tudor, a distant Lancastrian relative who'd spent more than a decade in exile on the European continent. Henry wasn't famous, he wasn't especially powerful on his own. But he had two things going for him a claim to the throne and the backing of a lot of people who were done with Richard. They weren't just angry about the boys. They were angry because after becoming king, Richard suddenly reversed course. Instead of building alliances, he closed ranks, hoarded power and. And ruled with an iron fist. He forgot the lesson of his own rise, that a king needs other powerful families on his side. So when Henry Tudor landed in Wales with an army In August of 1485, Richard found himself dangerously short on friends. The two forces met at the Battle of bosworth field on August 22, 1485. And this is where the Game of Thrones of it all really kicks in. Because in the middle of the fight, key noble families switched sides and backed Henry Tudor. As his army started to crumble, Richard spotted one slim chance to save it. Henry Tudor was out across the field with only a small guard around him. So Richard bet everything. He gathered his household knights and charged straight at his rival, gambling the entire war on, cutting Henry down with his own hands. For a few heartbeats, it almost worked. Richard cut down the knight carrying Henry's banner and fought his way to within a sword's length of Henry himself. But the guard held. And then they closed in. Richard's horse went down in the marshy ground and suddenly he was on foot, surrounded, abandoned by the lords who'd just turned on him. He could have called for mercy. He didn't. Richard III died swinging at his enemies in the thick of the fight. Even the chroniclers who despised him admitted it. He went down fighting. He remains the last king of England to die in combat. It's the moment Shakespeare made famous in his play Richard iii. Quote, a horse. A horse. My kingdom for a horse. When the dust settled, Henry Tudor was crowned King Henry vii. And to officially put an end to the wars of the Roses and unite the two warring families, he married Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Edward iv. She was also the older sister of the two missing princes. The Red Rose and the White Rose were joined at last. After 30 years, it seemed like the war was over. But one question still hung in the air over the whole kingdom. The same question that hangs over it today. What actually happened to those two boys in the tower? Over the last 500 years, people have built a case against just about everyone. So let's play detective and go through the suspects. The first and most obvious suspect is Richard III himself. If you're running a murder investigation, you look for three motive, opportunity and means. And Richard checks the first two boxes hard. Start with motive. Even after Parliament declared the princes illegitimate, those boys would always be a threat. We just watched a man with a distant claim, Henry Tudor, raise an army and take the crown. Imagine how dangerous two boys with a direct claim could be if the right people got behind them. And in a war where brothers executed brothers, an uncle killing his nephews to secure the throne is sadly not a stretch. On top of that, remember, Richard never investigated the disappearance. He just let the rumors stand. Then there's opportunity. The Princes were locked inside the Tower of London, guarded by Richard's own men. If the King wanted them dead, there was no one to stop him. So that's two boxes checked. Which leaves the third. The means. And this is where it gets a little murky. When the princes were last seen, Richard wasn't even in London. He was off on a royal tour of the Yorkist heartlands. So if he ordered the killing, he didn't do it with his own hands. Which, honestly, is exactly what you'd expect. Kings don't do their own dirty work. But Richard was. Wouldn't trust a job like this to just any guard. It would have to be someone close, someone completely loyal. Which brings us to our first possible trigger man. Sir James Turrell. Terrell was one of Richard's most trusted men. He'd fought for the House of York in the wars of the Roses. And here's the timing that makes people's ears perk up. In June of 1483, right as the princes were disappearing, Tyrell was rewarded with a string of important royal posts. Even after Richard was killed at Bosworth, Tyrell stayed loyal to the Yorkist cause under the new Tudor king. He was eventually arrested for backing a Yorkist plot against the crown. And that's when the murder allegations surfaced. According to the story, after his arrest, Tyrell confessed to killing the princes on Richard's order. Orders. He was executed for treason in May of 1502. So case closed. Not so fast. It turned out that confession was shakier than it sounds. It wasn't recorded in any official document at the time. In fact, almost everything we know about Richard murdering the princes traces back to one source, a man named Sir Thomas Morgan Moore. Moore was a brilliant lawyer and scholar who later became Lord Chancellor of England. And in the early 1500s, he wrote one of the most detailed early accounts of the murders, including Richard's order, Tyrell's confession, and even the names of the two men who supposedly smothered the boys in their beds. It was vivid, it was compelling, and it became the version of events that stuck the one Shakespeare later turned into a hunchbacked monster on stage. But here's the More was a small child when Richard III was alive. He couldn't have witnessed any of it. And when he grew up, he served the Tudor dynasty, the very regime that had everything to gain from painting Richard as a child murdering tyrant. Modern researchers have shown there's very little hard evidence behind More's account and that his version of the confession appears in no other source. Now, in fact fairness, some historians push back the other way. A recent academic study argues Moore may have had real inside information because he personally knew the families of the men he names as the killers. So it's not crackpot to believe him. It's just that his account is a story written decades after the fact by a loyal servant of Richard's enemies. And we've treated it as fact for centuries. So maybe Tyrrell was guilty, maybe Richard was. Or maybe the most famous murderer in English history has been framed. Which brings us to suspect number two, Henry Stafford, the Duke of Buckingham. Stafford was Richard's right hand man during the takeover, but he may not have been acting purely in Richard's interest. Stafford was married to Elizabeth Woodville's sister, which gave him a foothold near the throne. And some historians think he wanted it for himself and that he had the princes killed. To clear his own path. The evidence is genuinely strange. A contemporary Portuguese document flat out blames Stafford, claiming that Richard handed the boys over to him and that Stafford had them killed without the king ever knowing. And in 1980, a document surfaced in the College of Arms archives in saying that the murders were carried out on the instructions from the Duke of Buckingham. There's even a hint Richard may have found out at the time, because In November of 1483, just a few months after the princes vanished, Stafford was executed for rebellion. But before we lock him up, there are holes here, too. If Stafford had gone behind Richard's back to murder the princes, you'd expect Richard to say so. It would have been the perfect way to clear his own name and rally support. Instead, Richard stayed silent, which again tips the scale back toward him. And pulling off a double murder inside the Tower would have required a whole conspiracy of guards and accomplices, all staying quiet forever. So Stafford may well have been involved, but the idea that he acted entirely alone feels thin. Which brings me to my next question. Who else had something to gain from two dead princes? The most surprising suspect of all is the man history remembers as the hero, the one who freed England from Richard, Henry Tudor. Once Henry took the crown as Henry vii, he started picking off anyone who could seriously challenge him. And two living York princes would have fit that bill perfectly. There's a detail that makes this theory hard to dismiss. One of Henry's very first acts as king was to repeal the law that had branded the princes illegitimate. On the surface, that was an act of justice, restoring the honor of his supposedly murdered young in laws. But here's what it actually if those boys were alive, Henry had just personally made two of his rivals legitimate again. So one theory holds that Henry, not Richard, had the princes killed sometime after he took power. Supporters of this idea point out that the accounts, firmly blaming Richard, really only took off after Henry was in charge. Awfully convenient timing if you wanted to pin it on a dead man. And there's one more thread that keeps pointing back at what happened to the prince's mother. In early 1487, Henry VII took Elizabeth Woodville's property and sent her off to live in an abbey in Bermondsey, where she spent the rest of her days. One way to read this is that Henry was keeping her quiet because she knew the truth, that the Richard story was fake and that the new king was the one who'd killed her sons. But like every theory, in this case, it cuts both ways. Other historians think Elizabeth may have gone To Bermondsey on her own. And here's the strongest point against the Henry none of his many enemies, the people who would have loved to accuse him, ever directly charged him with the boy's murder. So it's still just guesswork. Compelling, sure, but unproven. Which leaves one more possibility. The one that turns this whole story upside down. What if nobody murdered the princes because the princes didn't die? Best thing that's ever happened to you.

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[Vanessa Richardson]

For more than 500 years, the debate has been about who killed the princes in the tower. But what if that's the wrong question entirely. What if at least one of those boys walked out of the tower alive? Okay, I know how that sounds. But stay with me because this is where the modern detectives come in. The theory goes like this. Henry VII didn't stay quiet about what happened to the boys because he killed them. It was because he knew at least one of them was still alive out there in Europe. And a living York prince was the last thing his new dynasty needed. So he buried the secret instead. That might sound far fetched, except in 1491, a young man arrived in Ireland from mainland Europe and announced that he was Prince Richard, Duke of York, the younger of the two missing princes. The Tudors insisted his name was Perkin Warbeck. Warbeck was charming, spoke several languages and was convincing. He claimed he'd been smuggled out of the Tower as a child and hidden in Europe under a false identity. And the wild part is, some of the most powerful people on the continent believed him. Margaret of York, Richard III's own sister and the boy's aunt, publicly accepted Warbeck as her nephew. King James IV of Scotland backed him as the true Prince Richard and even launched an invasion of England on his behalf. This wasn't some conman being humored in a tavern, and heads of state treated Warbeck like he might be the real thing. And for Henry vii, a grown York prince with that kind of backing was a mortal threat. So he set out to destroy him. And it took years. The Scottish invasion fizzled. A landing in Cornwall in 1497 drew thousands of supporters, then collapsed the moment the king's army drew near. Warbeck fled, was hunted down, and finally surrendered. But Henry didn't execute him. Not at first. He paraded his prisoner through the streets and forced him to read out a confession that he was no prince at all, just a commoner, the son of a boatman coached to play a part. Then he locked him in the Tower, the same fortress the princes had banished from. And in 1499, after a supposed escape plot, Henry finally had him hanged. But a confession forced out of a prisoner in Henry's own custody isn't exactly proof. And the bigger question lingered. Because if Warbeck was telling the truth, then at least one of those princes walked out of that tower alive. That argument has gotten a lot louder recently, thanks to one woman, the historian Philippa Langley. If that name rings a bell, it's because in 2012, Langley led the team that found Richard III's actual skeleton. It had been buried under a parking lot in Leicester, England, for centuries. All to say, Langley has serious credibility, and she does not believe Richard killed the princes. Langley now leads something called the Missing Princes Project, which treats the disappearance like a modern police cold case, combing through European archives for evidence that the boys survived. And the documents her team says it's found are genuinely startling. They argue there's a paper trail showing the princes were alive and in contact with European royalty as late as the 1490s. One piece is a 1493 statement they believe was written by young Richard himself, describing his escape to Europe. Another is a document suggesting the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian. I identified a man as Prince Richard by checking three distinctive birthmarks on his body. And Langley goes further. She argues that both princes survived and that the Tudors painted them as common frauds to discredit them. In her telling, Perkin, Warbeck wasn't a boatman's son. He was the Roman real Prince Richard. And a second famous pretender of the era, a young man the Tudors called Lambert Simnel, was actually the older brother, Edward V. Now, that's a big swing. The standard history says Simnel wasn't Edward V at all, that he was impersonating a different Yorkist heir, Edward, Earl of Warwick, a cousin of the princes. So Langley isn't filling in a blank here. She's arguing that the official, official story pinned the wrong name on the boy. Either way, Lambert Simnel wasn't just a footnote. In 1487, an army raised in his name invaded England and fought Henry VII in a battle at Stoke Field, often called the last real battle of the wars of the Roses. The Tudors won. Then did something telling. Instead of executing the boy at the center of it, Henry put him to work in the royal kitchens. Langley argues you don't hand a kitchen job to a dangerous fraud. You do it to quietly stash away someone whose real name you'd rather keep buried. To skeptics, that's a leap. To Langley, it points straight at a hidden prince. And her team didn't stop there. In 2021, the missing princes Project announced that it believed it could trace young Edward's adult life to a tiny Devon village called Coleridge. The story centers on a man named John Evans, who surfaced in Coldridge just after the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and was quickly granted the manor and made keeper of the Royal Deer Park, a prestigious local post for no obvious reason. Researchers note that the grant came from Thomas Gray, Marquess of Dorset, who happened to be Edward V's own half brother. And Years later, around 1511, Evans had a set of Yorkist symbols and a stained glass window of Edward V made for the little village church, symbols that were wildly out of place and out of date for a small Devon parish. Some researchers think these were quiet tributes, a way for a hidden prince to honor the life he'd lost without painting a target on his back. And the discoveries Keep coming. In 2024, a researcher working with Langley's project reported finding charters and letters in the archives at Nuremberg, Germany. Some of them were apparently signed and sealed by a man calling himself Richard of England. In 2020, 5. Langley released an updated edition of her book, declaring the case, in her view, solved. Now, I have to be fair here, because this is exactly the kind of story where it's tempting to get swept away, and a lot of serious historians are not convinced. Critics argue Langley reads too much certainty into ambiguous medieval documents, treating a possibility as a proven fact and then stacking more theories on top of it. Even more tellingly, three members of the Dutch research group that helped find some of her documents publicly backed away from her conclusions. In their words, the documents can be read several different ways, and they don't come close to proving the princes survived. And a Shakespeare scholar at the University of Birmingham put the simplest objection bluntly. Given how power worked back then, Richard would have been taking an enormous risk leaving those boys alive at all. So the survival theory is very much alive, and the new evidence deserves a real look. But it's nowhere near settled. The mystery stays open. Which brings us back to that stone urn in Westminster Abbey and the bones of two children. Here's where they came from. In 1674, almost 200 years after the princes vanished, workmen were renovating the Tower of London when they dug up a wooden box beneath a staircase. Inside were the skeletons of two young children. King Charles II decided these had to be the lost princes and ordered them reburied in Westminster Abbey in that urn with the inscription naming Richard as the killer. That was always just an assumption. The bones were examined once, back in 1933, investigators concluded they belonged to two children roughly the right ages. But they did not and could not prove the bones were the princes. They couldn't even say for sure whether the kids were boys or girls. The forensic tools we now take for granted, DNA analysis, reliable carbon dating, simply didn't exist yet. But they do exist now. We watched it happen with Richard the III himself. His body turned up under a parking lot in 2012, and scientists confirmed it was him by matching his DNA to two of his living relatives. The Princes were Yorks, too, Richard's own nephews, which means the same thing could be done for them. In fact, the Missing Princes Project has been hunting for living descendants of the House of York, whose DNA could be compared against the bones in that urn. And yet, in the 90 years since, every request to test those bones has been refused. The Church of England, with the Crown and the government behind it, will not allow a royal grave to be disturbed. The answer is right there, and we're choosing not to look. But here's what actually gets me about this story. It isn't the whodunit. It's the two kids at the center of it. 12 and 9 years old, dropped into the middle of a power struggle they never chose, surrounded by adults who saw them as either obstacles or assets. Their father was dead. Their mother was shut away in an abbey. The uncle legally sworn to protect them locked them in a fortress. And the man who eventually toppled that uncle saw them, at best, as a complication. These boys had no say, no voice, nobody in their corner who was truly on their side. And that isn't unique to medieval England or to royalty. Children get caught in the crossfire of adult power struggles in every era, in every part of the world, right up to today. There's also something else worth thinking about. How the official story got written in the first place. The version that one, the one carved into that urn, the one Shakespeare made famous, was shaped almost entirely by people who needed Richard to be a monster. The Tudors who replaced him. It wasn't necessarily the true story. It was the story told by whoever held the power to tell it. So where do I land? Honestly, I think the simplest answer is still the most likely one. Richard III had the motive, the opportunity, and almost certainly the means, even if we'll never know exactly whose hands did it. This was a brutal era, especially when it came to family. So even if some of Richard's legendary cruelty was Tudor exaggeration, I think it's very possible he was perfectly willing to let those boys die. But I'll admit, the survival theory is the version I want to be true. Two boys who escaped the board, slipped the game, and lived quiet lives somewhere far from the throne that nearly killed them. Maybe in a little Devon village, putting their own face in a church window where no one would think to look. But that's just me. And with a mystery this old, the real answer is anyone's guess. So I want to know what you think. Do you believe Richard III made murdered his nephews? Was it Stafford or Henry Tudor? Or do you buy the theory that the princes survived and that history framed a dead king to cover it up? Head to the comments wherever you're listening, and let me know, please. I would love to hear. However it shakes out. The heart of this story stays the same. Edward and Richard were silenced in their own time. But more than 500 years later, people are still fighting for the truth on their behalf. And we may not have to wonder forever. Those bones have been waiting under that marble since 1674, and the push to finally examine them is still alive. And maybe someday we'll get it.

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[Vanessa Richardson]

thanks so much for listening. I'm Vanessa Richardson and this is Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes. Come back next time. We'll hear another story about the real people at the center of the world's most notorious cults, conspiracies and criminal acts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House we we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media, Rimehouse on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference and to enhance your Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes listening experience, subscribe to Crime House plus. You'll get every episode of this show, show and the rest of the Crime House lineup ad free and early plus at least two bonus episodes every month. To join go to crimehouse plus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts tap try free at the top of the Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes show page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson and is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios. This episode episode was brought to life by the Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benidon, Natalie Pertzovsky, Lori Marinelli, Alyssa Fox, Roman d' Angelo and Michael Langsner. Thank you for listening.

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