For over 500 years, the fate of the "Princes in the Tower" has flummoxed historians—now, a new investigation claims to have cracked the case, reports CBS News. British author Philippa Langley challenges the widely held view that the two young princes were murdered in the Tower of London by their famous uncle, Richard III, so he could ascend to the throne. Instead, she says Edward, 12, and Richard, 9—sons of King Edward IV—lived on. Shakespeare cemented Richard's reputation as a ruthless usurper, but Langley, known for helping discover Richard III's remains under a parking lot in 2012, suggests history may have gotten it wrong.
Central to her theory is documentation suggesting that the princes emerged as "pretenders to the throne" after Richard III was deposed in 1485, reports the Times of London. Both men confessed to being imposters, but Langley says they made false confessions under duress from allies of Henry IV and were, in fact, the princes. Langley's findings are detailed in her new book, The Princes in the Tower: How History's Greatest Cold Case Was Solved. She argues that the burden now falls on skeptics to prove the boys' deaths, asserting that "numerous proofs of life" have emerged.
Case closed? Not even close. Critics, including Shakespeare scholars, argue that leaving the princes alive would have been too risky for Richard III. Langley's interest was piqued by doubts over the Tudor narrative that painted Richard III as a child killer—a story she believes was engineered by his rivals to solidify their own claim to the throne. To investigate, she assembled a team of legal and investigative experts, applied cold case techniques, and launched the decade-long Missing Princes Project that has culminated with the book. (Another historian declared Richard guilty in 2021.)
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