The Princes in the Tower: How History's Greatest Cold Case Was Solved

by Philippa Langley

In 1483, Edward V (age twelve) and his brother Richard, Duke of York (age nine), disappeared from the Tower of London. History has judged they were murdered on the orders of Richard III. This new book reveals the truth behind the greatest unsolved mystery in English history.

Philippa Langley took the world by storm when, against all the odds and after a seven-year investigation, she discovered the grave of King Richard III (1452-1485) in a Leicester car park. A king finally laid to rest, the rediscovery and reburial of Richard III was watched by a global audience of over 366 million.

Now, in The Princes in the Tower, Langley reveals the findings of a remarkable new research "The Missing Princes Project." In the summer of 1483, Edward V (age 12) and his brother Richard Duke of York (age 9), disappeared from the Tower of London. For over five hundred years, history has judged that they were murdered on the orders of their uncle, Richard III.

Following years of intensive research in British, American, and European archives, Philippa has uncovered astonishing new archival discoveries that radically change what we know about the fate of the princes in the Tower. Established by Langley in 2016, "The Missing Princes Project" employs the methods of a cold-case police inquiry. Using investigative methodology, it aims to place this most enduring of mysteries under a forensic microscope for the very first time.

In The Princes in the Tower, Langley narrates the painstaking investigative work and research of the project. By questioning received wisdom, she and her international team of researchers shed light upon one of history's greatest miscarriages of justice, in turn revealing a surprising and phenomenal untold story.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, True Crime, British Literature, Medieval, Audiobook, Royalty

496 pages, Hardcover

First published November 23, 2023

Reviews

[Eva · Rating 1 out of 5]

Appalling hackish pseudo history. Langley can't even keep her own claims straight and contradicts herself in nearly every chapter. Originally uses Mancini to lay the scene of the events of spring of 1483, then goes on to accuse of being a French agent (?) once he veers into saying things she doesn't like. Accuses Henry VII of "destroying documents" baselessly, and keeps repeating this. Complete dishonestly on what those who disagree with her actually believe. Outright lies about what sources say even when it's on the page, completely driven by her own conspiracy addled brain instead of anything close to an honest historic account. Langley's childish, obsessive, contempt for those who disagree with her discredits her immensely, it drips off the page, yet she is equally demanding for official recognition of her "findings", she is clearly enamored with the idea she is is in the centre of a conspiracy rather that her research and conclusions are lacking and extremely biased.
Oh and I find something inherently ghoulish about claiming to open up a search for two children who were very likely murdered with the specific goal of whitewashing their murderer. Despite it's title this book has nothing to two with the two princes (actually a king and a prince) this is all about Richard III and always will be.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listen, I’d love it to be true, but Langley is led by her Ricardian sentiment.

[A book by the Fire · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll begin by saying you should buy a physical copy of this book even if you're planning on listening to its audiobook. I really enjoyed the audiobook but wished I had a copy to follow it because of the number of historical dates and characters involved in this story. Even though I know a bit about this historical episode, I was sometimes totally lost and had to take a moment to remember who we were talking about.

I love history and so am naturally intrigued by whatever mysteries I'm presented with. When I saw this book available on NetGalley I jumped on the opportunity to read it and was so pleased to see my request accepted! Phillippa Langley presents here the recent discoveries made during a project she launched on the case of the disappearance of the two princes. While reading this book, you realise the sheer amount of people, work, and academic disciplines a project of this size can involve. I really enjoyed the research method which was to treat this historical episode as a cold case and conduct a criminal investigation on it.

I think that thanks to this method, the book is accessible to a wide audience and that you don't have to be a scholar or obsessed with this time of history to be gripped by what Philippa Langley and her team discovered. She really takes the time to put the case in its context and to present all the facts and people involved. I also liked the respect she has for these people, even if they've been dead for centuries. Finally, the post-scriptum (half) surprised me but I appreciate that Philippa Langley is taking the time to encourage young historians to think outside the box and not let themselves be intimidated into following traditional thinking or views on the period they're studying. To be honest, I believe that's the only way advances in this discipline will be made, even if they're not convenient for some.

In brief: This book presented fascinating advances on a famous episode of history, unresolved to this day. I was totally convinced by the elements and arguments presented by Philippa Langley and can't wait for new documents and facts to be discovered and tell us more about the disappearance of these two young princes.

My rating: 5/5

[Jodie Paull · Rating 3 out of 5]

As much as I appreciate the incredible work that Philippa Langley has done, I found this work to be unconvincing in the outcome that she is trying so desperately to achieve. I found some of her points interesting, but in a ‘Dan Brown’ fashion, rather than anything that is actually believable.

[Lord Bathcanoe of Snark · Rating 1 out of 5]

What this reminds me of is the hoax audio tape that the Police received during the Yorkshire Ripper investigation. That was perceived as genuine without any substantial evidence that it actually was so. It turned out to be fake.
The documents produced in this case do not provide any real evidence of the existence of the sons of Edward IV. They may just as easily have been manufactured at the time in an attempt to authenticate the identity of a pretender to the throne of England. In the case of Margaret of Burgundy she would have backed anyone genuine or false if it brought about the downfall of the despised Henry Tudor and restored the fortunes of the House of York. Any pretender placed on the throne would have been a puppet controlled by powerful Yorkists like John de la Pole Earl of Lincoln.
And what of the skeletons discovered concealed beneath a staircase in the Tower of London. What are the odds that these are two random young boys and not the Princes.
Case definitely not proven, just a mountain of speculation.
MY ANALYSIS OF THIS HISTORICAL MYSTERY IS BASED ON THE VIEWING OF THE TV DOCUMENTARY PRESENTED BY THE AUTHOR.
I'M SURE THE BOOK IS A FASCINATING READ ALTHOUGH I BELIEVE THAT THE CASE PUT FORWARD IS FLAWED.
I WOULD HOWEVER LIKE TO PRAISE PHILIPPA LANGLEY FOR HER BRILLIANT WORK IN LOCATING THE FINAL RESTING PLACE OF RICHARD III, AND HER UNDOUBTED PASSION FOR OUR WONDERFUL HISTORY.
25 November. I have now read the book and I am still not convinced by the evidence presented.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

1.5 stars rounded to 2.

I was so excited to read a new evidenced-based book with extensive and new research about what might have happened to the famed "Princes in the Tower." I was unfortunately let down. This book is not based on any new evidence whatsoever, as this case has been heavily researched by many historians for many years. I understand why Philippa Langley wrote this book and why her opinion would be trusted - she found Richard III's body after all. Her enthusiasm and desire to prove Richard III was not the monster the Tudors wanted to prove him to be is understandable and even commendable. The Tudor court had every reason to continue with anti-York and anti-Plantagenet propeganda, and Shakespeare was known for his dramatic retellings of British history. I will also say that despite the lack of evidence, I think it was far more likely that the two princes died of natural causes rather than at the hands of their uncle. I am very doubtful they survived, however, and I have not been convinced by Langley's argument. That being said, there is no substantial evidence to prove what happened to the boys, aside from two small skeletons found in the tower to later be buried in Westminster Abbey, and conjecture. Statements and rumors written down decades after the incident, and reimagined to fit a hypothesis do not constitute definitive proof, nor does stained glass. The fact is, all we have is conjecture, and conjecture is not provable. While she does use some contemporary and near contemporary documents, Langley's argument doesn't have a solid foundation or additional evidence above what has already been poured over and argued by many generations of historians, and Langley's deep desire to prove her own beliefs. In short, this is based entirely on opinion with evidence that has been largley cherry-picked and maneuvered to fit into Langley's ideas and assumptions, from a heavily biased perspective. While entertaining, I do not consider this to be a definitive answer to what happened to the two princes.

[David Warner · Rating 1 out of 5]

If there was a prize for Bad History, this terrible, unscholarly book would be a leading contender, being a work of conjecture and supposition that misuses historical evidence to produce a conclusion the author intends, while ignoring, under-using, and willfully misinterpreting documents which do not support her opinions, and is a prime example of confirmation bias, circular arguments, and non sequiturs.
Philippa Langley asserts as fact throughout that both Edward V and Richard, duke of York, were illegitimate through the pre-contract of their father with Eleanor Talbot before his marriage in 1464 to their mother, Elizabeth Woodville, as enshrined in statute by Titulus Regulus in Richard III's Parliament of 1484, but she fails to mention that according to Dominic Mancini, two days before using the illegitimacy of the princes as the reason for setting aside Edward V, the first reason provided was the illegitimacy of their father, Edward IV, who it was claimed had been conceived through the adultery of their mother, Cecily Neville, duchess of York, with a longbowman in Rouen. It was only once this claim of Edward IV's bastardy, first put forward in 1469-70 by Richard Neville, earl of Warwick 'the Kingmaker', and the king's brother, George, duke of Clarence, during their rebellion aimed at putting the latter on the throne, had failed to gain traction that precontract was used as the reason for setting aside Edward V.
Extraordinarily, after accepting Richard's claim of his nephews' illegitimacy, Langley then switches to claiming that not only had the princes survived, but that they were legitimate and the rightful heirs to the kingdom of England once Titulus Regulus had been repealed by the first parliament of Henry VII in January 1486. She cannot have it both ways. Either the boys were illegitimate or not, and if they were then it matters not whether they survived, as both Richard III by inheritance and Henry VII by challenge were rightfully kings of England.
But, why would Henry re-legitimise Edward IV's children if he knew that by so doing he would restore Edward and Richard's superior claim to the throne over that of their eldest sister, his wife, Elizabeth of York, if he knew the boys were alive? Both the marriage to Elizabeth, as Edward IV's heiress apparent, and the repeal of Titulus Regulus only make sense if Henry VII knew that Edward and Richard were dead, and he wanted to restore his wife's legitimacy as a bolster to his own claim to the throne. He certainly would not have intended by his actions in his first parliament to create two rivals with superior claims to his throne.
Langley further suggests the reason why Elizabeth Woodville allows her daughters to leave sanctuary and attend the court of Richard III and his Queen Anne Neville, is that she did so in the knowledge that her sons were safe abroad. However, a more sensible reason for her action is that she recognised her boys were dead, and, accepting the new dispensation, it was in the interests of her daughters for her to reconcile with Richard III at a time when he looked secure on the throne. When originally Elizabeth had fled to sanctuary with her daughters, she had been joined by her eldest son by her first marriage, Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, and her younger brother, Sir Edward Woodville, who had subsequently fled to the exile court of Henry Tudor, once she had at the threat of force surrendered Richard of York to Gloucester. If the object of Dorset and Woodville was to seek the restoration of Edward V again it made no sense to flee to Henry of Richmond, who as the senior male heir of the House of Lancaster had no intention of invading England just to restore the House of York. The reason both men joined Henry can only be that they knew that the princes were dead, and that the best means now of restoring the Woodville family to power was by supporting the Tudor claim and Henry's marriage to Elizabeth of York.
Subsequently, queen Elizabeth wrote to her son and brother calling on them to reconcile with Richard III. Dorset chose to seek Richard's pardon, but Edward remained loyal to Tudor, revealing different strategies within the Woodville family as to how to deal with Richard III once it was clear that the princes were dead. Similarly, in October, Richard Woodville attempted to raise Berkshire during the duke of Buckingham's rebellion, but when this failed, he too fled to Henry Tudor, and fought on his side at Bosworth, again suggesting that he believed his nephews were dead, and along with many members of Edward IV's Household who were loyal to his sons, supporting after their deaths, firstly, the senior, adult male Yorkist, Buckingham, and after his execution, the senior male Lancastrian, Richmond, against Richard III. Why would they seek to put Henry Stafford and then Henry Tudor on a throne that rightfully Edward V's? Meanwhile queen Elizabeth, through Lady Margaret Beaufort, had agreed with the latter's son, Henry Tudor, that he would marry her eldest daughter, Elizabeth, should he defeat Richard and take the throne, again an action which only makes sense if both parties agreed the princes were dead, as why would Elizabeth want to put aside her sons' superior claim to the throne in favour of her daughter's husband?
Langley dubiously contends that as Constable, Gloucester could punish whomsoever he deemed to be traitors, so that the arrest and execution of Edward V's maternal uncle, Anthony, earl Rivers and half-brother Sir Richard Grey, and later of William, Lord Hastings, chamberlain to Edward IV and Edward V, all without trial, were lawful, but she can show no proof of treason, only political and personal difference (Gloucester disliked the Woodvilles and Hastings ), and fails to consider the context. Gloucester moved against Rivers and Grey because he wanted to remove the Woodvilles as potential threats to his rule in the north through their dominance of the king, and then he destroyed Hastings, no friend of the Woodvilles, who had supported the action at Stony Stratford, as he too feared a government of the boy king's maternal family, because Hastings, loyal friend of Edward IV, and determined to ensure his son's succession, was a threat not to Gloucester's protectorate, which he supported over any alternative regency of the queen mother and government by her family, but because he would have opposed totally any attempt by Gloucester to usurp his nephew's crown, which is what Gloucester now intended, regardless of whether that had been his original plan when he seized the boy king on his way south to Westminster and his supposed coronation, which Gloucester twice delayed, before claiming the throne himself.
Langley also fails to deal adequately with the actions of Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham. At first, Buckingham, who had been excluded from government under Edward IV after his poor conduct during the king's 1475 French expedition, joined Gloucester, and was with him at the capture of Edward V at Stony Stratford, where he assisted in the arrest of Rivers, Grey, and the king's chamberlain as prince of Wales, Sir Richard Vaughan, but had then in October 1483 incompetently rebelled against Richard III, before being easily defeated in the Welsh Marches and executed. It has been suggested that Buckingham's change of heart was related to his disgust at the murders of the princes, to whom he was an uncle through marriage to their mother's sister, however, a more likely explanation is that it was the deaths of Edward V and Richard of York, which spurred his rebellion because, with Edward, earl of Warwick barred from the throne through his father, George, duke of Clarence's, attainder, he was now the senior Yorkist heir to the throne after Richard III and his young son. Whatever the reason, Buckingham's rebellion only makes sense if he too believed or knew the Yorkist princes to be dead. He did not rebel to restore Edward V, but to make himself king.
In her conclusion, Langley notes that the only document the pretender, whose forces were defeated at Stoke Field the following year, issued in Dublin as King Edward in 1486, has that as his first regnal year, that is 1485-6, indicating he was dating the beginning of his reign from the death of Richard III at Bosworth. However, if this was Edward V, as Langley contends, why did he not date his rule from the death of his father, Edward IV, on 4 March 1483? If he was the rightful king, who had been usurped by both Richard III and Henry VII, the boy who had been recognised as king and entered London as such in spring 1483, then 1486 would have marked until 4 March the third and after that date the fourth year of his reign. That 1486 was the first year of the reign of the'Dublin King', makes it far more likely the pretender purporting to be King Edward (with no regnal number) was indeed claiming to be Edward, earl of Warwick, the son of the attainted duke of Clarance, brother of Edward IV and Richard III, and that as the supposed last male heir in the male line of Richard, duke of York (d.1460), he was claiming the throne by right, despite the attainder, as direct 'heir' of Richard III. However, as the real Warwick was prisoner of Henry VIII, who displayed him as such, there is no doubt that this so-called King Edward, was an imposter, identified in Tudor sources as Lambert Simnel.
Along with her continental research colleagues, Langley makes much play of documents in the Dutch archives dealing with the two campaigns of 1487 in the name of either Edward V or Edward, earl of Warwick, and of 1495-97 by a purported Richard, duke of York, to overthrow Henry VII, but fails to admit that the named Dutch officials, who provisioned the expeditionary forces had never met the two pretenders and were acting under orders of the imperial-Burgundian government, which had its own reasons for destabilising Henry VII, while those that did know them as children, such as Sir Robert Clifford, who joined the 1495-7 rebellion and claimed to recognise the York pretender as Prince Richard, had not seen the two princes for years and only when they were young children, this particularly being the case with Margaret of York, dowager duchess of Burgundy, who had only met her nephews, aged nine and six respectively, on a brief visit of three months to England in 1480, fifteen years before she claimed to recognise her adult nephew Richard, who had suddenly emerged in 1491, eight years after the real York's disappearance. None of those who were intimate with Edward and Richard were active participants in the two pretender campaigns, when legitimacy was sought from amongst opponents of Henry VII who had no previous contact with the two princes, such as Irish lords and disappointed northerners, many of whom had supported and prospered under Richard III, but had suffered under Henry VII, although partly this was because many of those who had known the princes had been killed or died during the reigns of Richard III and his successor. It, therefore, remains most likely that the expedition that culminated in Yorkist defeat at the Battle of Stoke Field in 1487 was indeed that of Lambert Simnel and that the Irish-Yorkist campaign ten years later was that of Perkin Warbeck, masquerading as Richard, duke of York, for the very good reason that by the autumn of 1483 the princes were dead and after 1485, Edward of Warwick was the prisoner of Henry VII, as the only surviving male heir of the House of York, who could conceivably prove a dynastic threat. That Warbeck could pass himself off successfully as Richard of York was because he never met Elizabeth Woodville or her daughters, including the eldest, who was married to Henry VII, and Katherine, married to the Tudor king's uncle, Jasper, duke of Bedford, and that the claims he made to be York were based on matters of common knowledge and information provided by those who were opponents of Henry VII and had reason to favour a pretender against the Tudor king.
The role of John Howard, created duke of Norfolk soon after Richard III became king, is also dealt with tendentiously, since Howard was the biggest noble winner from Richard's taking the throne, and had much to lose were Edward V and Richard of York still alive after 1483, particularly Richard, who had been created duke of Norfolk jure uxoris (by right of his wife), when aged four he had married the five year-old Anne Mowbray, daughter and heiress of the last Mowbray duke, and who had subsequently retained the dukedom, administered by his father, the king, contrary to legal custom, when she died, thus disinheriting John Howard, who was married to the senior of the three co-heiresses to the Mowbray lands. However, after Gloucester seized the throne, Howard received not only the dukedom, but the vast majority of the Mowbray lands in right of his wife, disinheriting the other two heiresses. So, not only did Howard have an interest in the removal of his predecessor as duke of Norfolk, but he absolutely could not benefit from young Richard's survival, or that of his elder brother, for were either to gain the throne, he would no doubt have lost much if not all of the lands Richard III had granted him for supporting the usurpation. It is beyond the bounds of common sense that, as this book suggests, rather than being associated with the princes' deaths, by word if not deed, he would have abetted their escape from the Tower of London. Yes, as Langley says, Howard was a Yorkist, but the crisis of 1483 split the supporters of the House of York between the Household men and Woodvilles, who wanted Edward V to succeed, and those other Yorkists, such as the northern men around Gloucester and John Howard, who feared what would happen if he did during his minority. Howard was not loyal so much to the House of York as to Richard, duke of Gloucester personally, from whom he expected and received much.
And just as Howard profited from Richard III's usurpation, so did Robert Stillington, bishop of Bath and Wells, hope to do, who Langley proffers as an unbiased witness, and who claimed to have witnessed the pre-contract of Edward IV with Eleanor Talbot. However, Stillington, who had been keeper of the Privy Seal from 1460 until 1467 and then chancellor in Edward IV's first reign, reappointed after the Readeption of Henry V in 1470-1, had been dismissed by the king in 1473, before being associated with George, duke of Clarence's rebellion against his brother in 1477, during which the story of the precontract was first put abroad, after which he had been imprisoned and then excluded from government. However, he was a member of Edward V's council in 1483, but decided, just as he had backed Clarence, that his interests were served by supporting Gloucester, again using the precontract as a means of usurping the recognised king, and it was he who drew up the petition calling upon Gloucester to take the throne due to the illegitimacy of Edward IV's children. However, he received no tangible rewards from Richard III, perhaps because he was deemed unreliable, was imprisoned and pardoned by Henry VII, and after taking part in the 1487 Lambert Simnel rebellion, was imprisoned again. If it was Stillington who was the origin of the precontract story, especially if he had been a witness, then it seems highly unlikely that he would inform both Clarence and Gloucester of their nephews' illegitimacy, making each uncle in term heir apparent, and in 1483 take the lead in disbarring Edward V from the throne, only four years later to seek to restore him to it, after Henry VII had overturned Titus Regulus, which was based upon Stillington's petition of 1483. It is far more likely that he supported the pretender in 1487, believing him, or claiming to believe him, to be Edward, earl of Warwick, than the Edward V he had twice sought to declare illegitimate and whose usurpation in the year he succeeded he had closely abetted.
Langley strenuously seeks to undermine the claim in Sir Thomas More's 'History of Richard III' that Sir James Tyrell had confessed under examination before his execution for treason in 1502 that he had been responsible for the murder of the two princes, rightly pointing out that the work was a drama, often amended after its 1513 original composition, unpublished during More's lifetime, and only published two decades after his death. However, she cannot explain why More, a distinguished humanist scholar with a reputation for moral rectitude would make up such a claim without evidence or at least common knowledge, and a detailed one at that, and ignores that in 1502 not only was More called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn, and resident in London, but his father Sir John was a prominent barrister himself, who a year later would become a sergeant-at-law, and so was not only close to the proceedings surrounding this sensational trial, but would have had access indirectly at the very least to members of the legal community who were involved in proceedings and knew of Tyrell. Langley cannot explain why More would make these claims in a private manuscript if they were unfounded when he had no reason to falsify such.
Langley in her introduction to this specious investigation writes she will be governed by Ockham's Razor, and its principle of the simplest explanation being the most likely, but then refuses to accept the most likely explanation for the fates of the Princes in the Tower: Richard, duke of Gloucester, his paternal uncle, gained custody of Edward V at Stony Stratford, and arrested and executed the king's maternal uncle and governor, Rivers, and his half-brother, Richard Grey; he then took the boy king to the Tower of London and established his protectorate, excluding the Woodvilles from power and executing the loyal Hastings; then after the dowager queen had fled to sanctuary in Westminster with her second son, Gloucester surrounded the Abbey with his troops, and forced Elizabeth to surrender Richard of York to him; shortly thereafter he had the princes declared illegitimate and took the throne by right of being the last surviving son of Richard, duke of York (d.1460); and then, while his prisoners, the two princes disappeared from view, and were soon assumed to be dead, including by their family, who along with members of Edward IV's Household, subsequently were involved in rebellions against Richard III to put, firstly, the duke of Buckingham, and then, the earl of Richmond on the throne, rebellions that only made sense if the princes were dead. From this the simplest explanation for what happened to the Princes in the Tower is that Richard III had them killed, as he had motive, means, and opportunity, and had most to gain from their deaths: the throne of England.
Philippa Langley has done disservice to history by this shoddy work of misinterpretation and misinformation, which almost totally ignores the work of trained, academic historians, who know how to properly interrogate documents, and how to construct historical explanations from the evidence, and is merely the partial, unscholarly excrescence of Langley and her associates' obsession with making of Richard III an admirable king that real history tells he was not. The evidence strongly suggests the Princes in the Tower died in the late summer of 1483 and that Richard III was responsible, whoever the actual perpetrators were and whoever advised the king, as Edward V and Richard, duke of York, were in his custody when they disappeared forever, although the details will never be known, particularly as child murderers tend to cover their traces and dissemble the truth, even in the fifteenth century. There is no mystery to solve. It was Richard III whodunnit.

[Gail Amendt · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading Philippa Langley's book about the discovery and identification of the remains of Richard III, I knew I had to read about her latest project, an investigation into the true fate of Richard's two nephews, commonly referred to as The Princes In The Tower. History books and William Shakespeare tell us that they were murdered under orders from Richard III, but all we know for certain is that they disappeared from the public record. Philippa Langley decided to approach the question using modern police investigative methods, examining primary source documents from the time and ignoring hearsay and hindsight. This book is the first report on this investigation and it doesn't yield any definitive answers, but it does shed considerable doubt on what we have all been taught. There is a lot of information in this book and it is not organized very well. I'm not sure how it could have been arranged better and presented more clearly given the volume of material and the varied threads of investigation. I hope this investigation keeps moving forward and is able to answer this centuries old question some day.

[Alisha · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an extremely detailed review of a still-ongoing research project into what happened to The Princes in the Tower. It assumes an already strong knowledge of events and people in the late 1400s/early 1500s in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Europe. It's not the easiest of reads, especially for someone with only a casual interest in the subject (like me).
Ultimately, the case that Philippa Langley puts forward is not as convincing as she wants it to be, although the whole mystery is still intriguing enough that I will await further developments with interest. At this remove, though, the only convincing things would be remains and DNA. Still, it's interesting that there's yet archival material on the continent to be discovered or re-discovered.

[Paul McCarthy · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up.
Nothing solved but more doubt on Richard's guilt uncovered. No real analysis done on whether new docs are forgeries from the time to distort that pretenders were being supported.
Most compelling piece of evidence underplayed and left to appendix in the main (appendix 3- Devon link).
Wish I hadn't seen the Ch4 documentary at weekend which was poor and unbalanced and probably coloured my view of the book.
However more light on this great subject and hopefully more to come.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Princes in the Tower: Solving History's Greatest Cold Case is a follow-up to author-television producer Philippa Langley's previous release, the bestselling The Lost King: The Search for Richard III (previously published as The King's Grave: The Discovery of Richard III’s Lost Burial Place and the Clues it Holds), in which she detailed her role in the 2012 discovery of Richard III's remains beneath a carpark in Leicester.

Langley has now shifted her attention to one of the most enduring historical mysteries of Europe - the fate of the teenaged Edward V of England and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York, the so-called "Princes in the Tower". Edward V ascended the throne in April 1493 at the age of 12, following the sudden death of his father, Edward IV. However, the boy king was never crowned and both he and his younger brother disappeared from the Royal Apartments at the Tower of London at some point during mid-late 1483. Were they murdered on the orders of their uncle, who became Richard III, much maligned as a psychopathic hunchback by Sir Thomas More and Shakespeare in the years after his death at the Battle of Bosworth? Or were the princes dispatched later by agents of the usurper Henry Tudor, who ruled as Henry VII? Or did one or both of the princes escape to continental Europe, each biding their time to make a triumphant return as the rightful king of England?

Philippa Langley's background in television, rather than as an historian, is evident from the outset. The Princes in the Tower: Solving History's Greatest Cold Case could most charitably be described as "popular history", rather than any sort of robust academic exercise. Langley is clear from the start that she aims to re-examine the mystery as though it were a criminal cold case, albeit with no living witnesses, scant forensic material and copious amounts of misinformation and gossip. On the first page of chapter 1, she states, "I am a Ricardian and a revisionist." (i.e. she supports the rehabilitation of Richard III's legacy), which is hardly a great platform for an objective analysis of the known facts, but at least she's upfront about her bias.

The book is verbose, oddly structured, frequently (and needlessly) repetitive, riddled with confirmation bias and internal contradictions and, at 488 pages, at least 100 pages too long. A more judiciously-edited manuscript would have produced a punchier and far more readable book for Langley's intended audience of interested non-historians. Personally, my rating for a 250-300 page condensed version of the book would have been a higher 3-4 stars. I did appreciate the inclusion of relevant family trees and maps at the start, and the full (translated and modernised) text of some of Langley's source documents contained in appendices also added interest. However, I would have really valued a concise “who's who" list of all the historical characters referred to (or just the top 100!), as even for a reader with a reasonably conversant existing knowledge of British history, it became quite bamboozling to keep track of who was who. I found the information of this type contained in chapters 16 (The Family of Edward V and Richard, Duke of York) and 17 (Case Connections) both too cumbersome and appearing too late in the book to be particularly useful.

The book has prompted me to go down the rabbit hole of royal genealogy a little. I was aware that Elizabeth of York (1466-1503) has the unique distinction of being the 4 x great-granddaughter (Edward III), daughter (Edward IV), sister (Edward V), niece (Richard III), wife (Henry VII), mother (Henry VIII) grandmother (Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I) and great-great-grandmother (James I) of British monarchs. What I hadn't realised is that she's also the 17x great-grandmother of the present monarch, Charles III! (potentially he has in excess of 260,000 17x great-grandmothers, but given the tendency of European aristocracy to intermarry, the actual number would inevitably be much smaller as family lines repeatedly converge). Interestingly, the current royal family are direct descendants of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587), but not of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. I think Mary would derive some posthumous satisfaction from that fact!

Meanwhile, if and when Prince William becomes king, he will carry more Plantagenet blood than any monarch in over 300 years, since both of Princess Diana's paternal grandparents were also direct descendants of Elizabeth of York, albeit via two different branches arising from illegitimate issue in the Stuart line. To add to the saga even further, a future King George VII would carry still more Plantagenet ancestry, as the Princess of Wales, formerly Kate Middleton, is directly descended from an illegitimate daughter of Edward IV (the father of the princes in the tower)!

Sad to say, but I can really recommend The Princes in the Tower: Solving History's Greatest Cold Case only to readers with a lot of spare time on their hands or those with a particular interest in the theories surrounding the possible survival of Edward V and Richard of York beyond the ascension of Henry VII. There are superior books available regarding both the supposed murder of the princes and the efforts to rehabilitate the reputation of Richard III.

[Martha Tuohey · Rating 3 out of 5]

First of all the fact that we will probably never know what happened to the Princes in the Tower genuinely keeps me up at night.

The cold case style premise of this book was interesting and definitely helped to keep the flow of the book. However, the information is a bit all over the place with lots of signposting to other parts of the book. This does make for a slightly confusing read. And of course there’s that massive Ricardian sentiment underlying the entire book…

Whilst I personally didn’t agree with a lot of the claims regarding the fates of the princes, I do acknowledge that the teaching of the story is not as clear cut as we have been led to believe. There is obviously some serious doubt as to how and when the princes died and this is something which isn’t that clearly conveyed in mainstream information about the topic. Additionally, this book presents too many conflicting narratives for it to be seen as convincing. A lot of the evidence for the younger of the princes surviving and actually being Warbeck is incredibly circumstantial and is not treated as rigorously as other sources. Overall, I just can’t accept that one or both of the princes survived and were pretenders to Henry VII’s kingdom.

[Jodie Payne · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5*

I liked the concept of a cold case style approach to the subject. However, I thought that there were a lot of convenient ssumptions, particularly with language translation and conjecture to fit the authors own narrative and perception of history. The book was driven by Ricardian sentiment rather than based on historical fact.

The book does offer an alternative, if not entirely, believable or plausible theory surrounding the mystery of 'The Princes In the Tower.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unconvincing and completely biased.

Though I applaud Langley and her team for seeking out new sources of information, I think she too absorbed in her belief of Richard III’s innocence to interpret the sources accurately.

One of the first issues I had was Langley’s statement that Richard III had scoliosis and therefore could not have had a hump back. I felt it was odd that she would mention this at all, but also wanted to state that this is inaccurate. Scoliosis is a lateral curvature of the spine so it doesn’t cause the typical humpback of kyphosis but it does cause a hump. Depending on the degree of curvature, would determine the severity of the humpback. But as I said I found it quite odd she’d mention this as it’s not what we came for.

Another issue I had was her constant contradictions of her own evidence. She states one source isn’t credible so we can’t him and then uses the very same person to back up her reasoning.

As for the actual evidence presented:

The receipt for arms and weapons signed by Maximilian for the use of Edward V is not proof of life as she claims but only proof of support for someone claiming to be Edward V. The same applies to the Gelders document (story of Richard, Duke of York’s escape from the Tower). It is a story that could have been written by anyone; so it does not prove Richard was alive, nor that he escaped from the Tower.

As for the documentation for marks on Richard’s body. We have no previous documentation of marks to compare it with, so again the point is moot.

And as for the 30,000 Florins given; again it’s only a sign that it was given for someone who’d claimed to be one of the princes.

[Jacqui Ney · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took everything in me to finish this book. I will start by saying, I did keep going because I did learn a good amount of history from his book and figures in history I knew nothing about. Now the bad... Phillippa Langley from the get-go makes it clear that she doesn't believe the common assumption about the princes' fate: that they were killed by their uncle, Richard III. I have to assume this is because she has some kind of fondness for Richard III because of her previous project/book on him. The problem is, this bias leads every part of research she does--nothing is neutral. She sees only what she wants to see in every historical discovery. I was incredibly irritated by the way that she reached conclusions ("Well, there was never an announcement about the princes' deaths, so that means they must not have died!" Are you kidding me?) and the way she took unproven historical articles as facts. A document found in the 1940s gives proof without a doubt that Richard of York survived to manhood? I was astounded at the leaps she took. Anyway, Phillippa is no historian and a questionable investigator, and unfortunately her writing is really, really dry. I wished I'd looked elsewhere for information on the princes in the tower.

[Sherrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has to get at least 4 stars for the extensive and detailed research that has gone into this book, and its still ongoing. I'm not convinced that Richard murdered his nephews, and despite this evidence, I'm not sure that the princes did survive. I don't think we'll ever know the truth but glad the search for proof continues.

[Nicola Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the story of the princes in the tower. Surrounded by mystery and rife with speculation, this book (or audiobook in my case) sheds light on this most famous event in history.

This is the first five year report focused on the princes, from 2016-2021. A cold case investigation run like a modern day investigation and detective case, it makes for such great reading. The ultimate medieval whodunnit and the most famous historical murder mystery, could new evidence unravel the case?

Picture this: Two boys, Edward 5th and Richard duke of York, ages 12 and 9, disappear without a trace in history. Rumours are rife, murder speculated. What happened? Who saw them last? What were the motives for potential murder? The Sons of Edward fourth seem to face an untimely end but what could really have happened?

I love history. It made this one a no brainier must read for me as I’ve always been intrigued by this topic. I also love evidence based history and history research and the chance to be privy to new reveals and all collated in one neat book. Perfect!

Dismantling myths and reporting on evidence, we go from Richard the third, to the princes family and early early lives. What did they look like? From genetic testing of Richard lll, we can speculate. Venturing into archives, reports and accounts, it was greatly compiled.

Narrated by the author, the information and writing itself was outstanding. It can be a little overwhelming at times in an audiobook format as there is an awful lot of information and can be hard to retain all the threads. I would definitely want to relisten to this again to draw out some more of the information I didn’t retain first time round.

There’s a lot of historical figures, names and historical backgrounds which would make having a physical copy of this book a distinct advantage! Both formats would be a great parallel and the book a fantastic edition to any history lovers bookshelf. I can’t wait to see this project develop and eagerly await more historical uncoverings. I feel truly invested in this now! I sincerely hope there will be a book 2 to update us on the next stage of this wonderfully ambitious project.

Thank you to the author and publisher for this audiobook on NetGalley in return for my honest thoughts and review.

[talia ♡]

let's see what langley could possibly show as evidence of richard III innocence...

that man killed those little boys, but change my mind!

[Jessica Purdy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some interesting documents discovered but an almost complete lack of critical analysis thereof, meaning many of the conclusions drawn do not necessarily amount to the 'proof of life' of the Princes claimed by the author. Confirmation bias runs rife. Confusing and repetitive in style.

[Scott Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has long been believed that King Richard III of England had his nephews murdered to clear the way to the throne. Or at least that is what Shakespeare and most historians tell us and most accept it as true. Well apparently some people including Philippa Langley believe that Richard did not murder his nephews and she has written a book exploring the ultimate cold case.

I don't totally trust what I'm told by the news about events that happened yesterday so its really hard to be 100% sure of anything 550 years ago. I came to this book believing that it was very likely the historians and Shakespeare are correct that Richard did it but this book has definitely given me pause.

The book is impressively researched and she has convinced me the boys may have been sent into hiding and lived into adulthood. Either way I thought it was a very interesting premise for a book.

[Kay Wahrsager · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fanciful and tedious- a poor combination

[George · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of the time I was almost accidentally indoctrinated into a Ricardian cult (emphasis on almost because I have critical thinking skills)

[Justine Olawsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Character of this Prince [Richard III] has been in general very severely treated by Historians, but as he was a York, I am rather inclined to suppose him a very respectable Man."
- Jane Austen, The History of England

I have had a soft spot for Richard III of England since I read Shakespeare's eponymous play about this ruined monarch in an undergrad Literature class. Writing someone so delightfully wicked - so "determined to play the villain" - must have been been an act of political subversion of the highest order from a playwright who always seemed comfortable in those very human shades of gray, I decided. Then, Austen's hilarious and opinionated short juvenile work, The History of England, reinforced my doubts about the established Tudor record of the last Plantagenet king. And Josephine Tey's highly Ricardian read of the bare historical facts in The Daughter of Time further cemented my skepticism. I was not Ricardian enough to make it a hobby or obsession, but I was certainly primed to receive and consider new information, new research, and new insights into this tumultuous period of English history in the late 15th century.

Enter Philippa Langley and her team of determined archivists, antiquarians, historians, and archaeologists. I read her amazing story of finding the burial place of Richard III in The King's Grave, and was impressed not only by her scholarship and dogged determination, but by the deep love she has for this long ago deposed monarch, whose reign was brief and whose legacy was tainted, and the desire she had to right his name in the historical records.

All this is a long way of saying that I was eager to read the work she and her far-flung team have put into unraveling the riddle of what happened to the sons of Edward IV - Edward V and Richard of York - the Princes in the Tower. I was eager to see, from a quasi-Ricardian standpoint, whether the evidence exists for his name to be cleared of having murdered his nephews early in his reign. I was also intrigued to see how his great champion in the 21st century could piece the puzzle together to solve the the mystery and right the injustices done to Richard III.

Truly, the work in this book is inconclusive. I had hoped for an answer as definitive as "look under the carpark and you will find the king" had been earlier this century. As I read through this book, a few thoughts kept coming to mind:

1. I am learning far more about the political players of the late 15th and early 16th century - not only in England, but across the European continent and into Ireland - then I ever thought I would need to for a study of this kind. It was a definitive reminder of how intertwined the ruling classes in these nations were.

2. I kept thinking, "This book would make a wonderful resource for the person who would write the book I want to read." It really reads more like a bio-bibliography of sources and encyclopedia of snippets than a coherent narrative.*

3. How much evidence surrounding this mystery of the Princes in the Tower was suppressed or destroyed by Henry VII and his agents in order to secure his tenuous claim to the crown? How dangerous it is to have access to information so concentrated and under the control of the few.

When I reached the "Summary and Conclusion," I was really on tenterhooks, wondering how on earth Langley, et al., were going to gather all of this scattered and oftentimes contradictory information into the narrative I so craved. And, spoiler alert (but not really), they don't even attempt it. It turns out, this book should really be labeled Volume I. It is exactly what I had increasingly come to see it as - a place to gather, organize, and leave tantalizing gaps for this team and others to continue this work. It is a resource book and a valuable one. It leaves no discovered or hinted at stone unturned, and it encourages the investigation to continue. I really think the purpose of publishing this work was to spur more interest in the research and gather more people into the mix. Perhaps, anticipated book sales also played into this calculation, providing ongoing funding for the work to continue.

All in all, a worthwhile - if occasionally tedious - read. Philippa Langley is that rare breed of celebrity instigator. She really seems less to care about who gets the credit than that the truth be unearthed at last. The answers on the Princes in the Tower are still lost in the fogs of time, but the work goes on.

*That said, each chapter does start out with a narrative portion before heading into the lists and snippets. And, one of my favorite parts of the book was the narrative thriller Appendix 3 - "An Ideal Place to Hide a Prince" which needs to be turned into a movie posthaste.

[Laurel Bradshaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 red stars.

I have been fascinated by the story of "The Princes in the Tower" since I was a teenager spending hours after school every day researching the genealogies of the royal families of Europe. I have never believed that Richard III murdered the boys, though this has been the prevailing story ever since Henry VII assumed the throne. So put me firmly in the Ricardian camp. Nor did I believe that Henry VII would have done such a thing. I poured over those genealogies trying to figure out who might benefit. Now we have the benefit of Philippa Langley's extensive research into all of the principals involved. The book was a slog at times, just because of the volume of information presented, but also the fact that it was organized like a cold case report, so it was difficult to keep track of the overall timeline. It would be nice to have more of a narrative report, but I'm sure this was aimed at historians and serious researchers, not the general public. The idea that the boys survived and were smuggled out of England is not a new theory, but what Philippa does is to present all of the available evidence and reinterpret it in a different way. Nothing here provides definitive proof, and the research continues to look for new evidence. I'm sure there will be plenty of people who will scoff at her ideas. The most interesting bit of speculation was buried in one of the appendices - the evidence pointing to the idea that Edward V survived the battle of Stoke, and was taken to Coldridge in Devon where he was given a new name, John Evans, and lived out his life in secret as the deer parker. Can we hope that Philippa might be able to find DNA evidence to support this theory?

Description: In the summer of 1483, Edward V (age 12) and his brother Richard Duke of York (age 9), disappeared from the Tower of London. For over five hundred years, history has judged that they were murdered on the orders of their uncle, Richard III. Following years of intensive research in British, American, and European archives, Philippa Langley has uncovered astonishing new archival discoveries that radically change what we know about the fate of the princes in the Tower. Established by Langley in 2016, "The Missing Princes Project" employs the methods of a cold-case police inquiry. Using investigative methodology, it aims to place this most enduring of mysteries under a forensic microscope for the very first time.

[Elena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual rating: 2.75 stars.

The premise of this book was super interesting, and, casually, I had read Matthew Lewis's work earlier this year and so I was quite open to the possibility of the Princes' survival. While I now definitely think that their survival might have been as possible as their death, I didn't find Philippa Langley's work as groundbreaking as she presents it.

Langley bases her thesis of the princes' survival on two main documents. The first is a receipt of weapons given to the so-called Dublin King, who attempted to overthrow Henry VII in 1487, and who is identified in the receipt as Edward V. The second is a letter allegedly written by Richard of York to other monarchs, where he recounts what happened to him after escaping the Tower of London. While these are definitely fascinating historical documents, she presents them as undisputed proof of the Princes' survival and doesn't contemplate that they could have easily been manufactured, or been incorrect. In the first case, the receipt might prove that the people involved believed that the pretender to the throne was Edward V, but it's not proof that he really was. And, in the second case, obviously the person who wrote it had every interest in presenting himself as the true Richard.

That being said, Langley's work was definitely impressive and meticulously researched, to the point that it is quite dense at times and not an easy read if you don't already know the subject very well. I also liked how she treated the disappearance of the Princes as a cold case investigation, it was definitely a fresh and original idea.

All in all, however, I wasn't as convinced as I was hoping.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hard to read and not clear in terms of the timeline. Gave up and watched the TV documentary. I would love to believe in it but the evidence seems weak.

ETA: It seems like all she did was confirm that the famous pretenders Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck existed and had financial support. The only persuasive evidence would be correspondence confirming they were alive and well after Richard's death and without any agenda related to reclaiming the throne.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although interesting in principle this was very difficult to read. Despite claiming to be forensic and objective the evidence was interpreted to fit the case that the princes survived. I am happy to go along with this as I’d like it to be true. However I don’t think it’s a style that would convince everyone. The new sources are great discoveries though and hopefully will lead to other historians re-examining the accepted version of events.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not bad…and an interesting set of arguments. Sure it is biased…but Langley never hides that fact. Do I think the Princes survived? Probably not…do I want to believe that Richard III was the culprit? No…but the fact remains that he is still extremely high on the list of suspects, and unfortunately this book did not change that status.

Looking forward to the time when more evidence, if there is any to be found, will come to light to hopefully exonerate the late king.

3/5 stars

[Netty Leistra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting, but a hard read to me. I lost track with all the names, and that doesn't happen too often. Maybe the real book is easier to read than the e-book.

[Andrew Balog · Rating 1 out of 5]

This author wants you to believe that:

1) All of the surviving sources written during Richard III's reign are absolutely not biased
2) All of the surviving sources written after Richard III's reign (Tudor era) are biased
3) The survival of 6 written sources, which we are supposed to interpret at face value and take as 100% truth, establishes that Richard III acquired the throne by legal means and that, therefore, he would have had no motive to murder his nephews.

The last of these is by far the most idiotic. Of course Richard III became king through "legal" means - as a usurper, he had to find a way THROUGH PARLIAMENT to legalize his accession. Henry IV did this to his cousin Richard II when he usurped him in 1399, Edward IV did the same to Henry VI, and Henry VII did the same to Richard III. Just this time, declaring his nephews as bastards was Richard III's golden ticket. So yes, Richard took the throne in a legal manner - but he was essentially required to or else his legitimacy would have been doubted. In what way does this mean that he would have had no motive to kill Edward V and his brother? Does Langley not realize how much more secure Richard's rule would have been without his nephews being around as sources for uprisings and rebellions? The mental gymnastics you have to go through to reach that conclusion are convoluted.

All of this also totally ignores the fact that any medieval historian worth anything will tell you that you cannot interpret such sources at face value. Accurate recordings of events are a more recent invention that we'd like to believe. Langley makes the assumption throughout her entire investigation that all written sources can be trusted and interpreted quite literally. There are myriad issues with this - what if a scribe lied? What if a scribe was misinformed, or the true facts of a situation got mixed up like a game of telephone? What if there are other documents out there that did not survive? What if all plots were handled verbally, so no written evidence remains? Most importantly, what if the surviving sources she quotes are biased and pro-Richard? This possibility does not seem to enter her mind.

Langley also tells us at the beginning of the book that we will have to make use of Occam's razor, and then conveniently neglects to consistently use it, and only applies it where it suits her preconceived notions.

I understand that, when trying to go against the tide of 500 years of assumed history, you are going to be unpopular and ruffle some feathers. But while this claims to be a criminal investigation-like report, it is a shoddy one at best. So many logical fallacies, and so many holes in her argument that cannot be explained and are ignored. This entire investigation rests upon a very few select number of sources, which don't even agree with each other on many details!