The Survival of the Princes in the Tower: Murder, Mystery and Myth

By Matthew Lewis

The murder of the Princes in the Tower is the most famous cold case in British history. Traditionally considered victims of a ruthless uncle, there are other suspects too often and too easily discounted. There may be no definitive answer, but by delving into the context of their disappearance and the characters of the suspects Matthew Lewis examines the motives and opportunities afresh as well as asking a crucial but often overlooked question: what if there was no murder? What if Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York survived their uncle’s reign and even that of their brother-in-law Henry VII? There are glimpses of their possible survival and compelling evidence to give weight to those glimpses, which is considered alongside the possibility of their deaths to provide a rounded and complete assessment of the most fascinating mystery in history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The History Press
• Release date: Sep 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9780750985284

Matthew Lewis

Dr Matthew Lewis is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Centre for the History of Violence at the University of Newcastle, Australia. Until September 2013, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Centre for War Studies at University College Dublin. He completed his PhD at Queen's University Belfast in 2011.

Reviews for The Survival of the Princes in the Tower

[n.w.moors-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Survival of the Princes in the Tower is an intriguing book that posits a different view of the question: who murdered the Princes in the Tower? Rather than listing the various reasons Richard III, Henry VII, Margaret Beaufort, Buckingham, or others might be guilty, Mr. Lewis contends that either one or probably both survived the reign of Richard III. He lists the possibilities of what might have happened to them, relying on what he calls the 'black hole effect'. The absence of real information creates a black hole, but the actions of the people around them make a 'gravitational pull' of data showing their possible presence still in those people's lives. Edward V may have survived (and he shows how this might be) to either die at Stokes Field or maybe survive to live under an assumed name. Richard of York might have initiated his rebellion to be captured and then executed as Perkin Warbeck or he might have also survived under an assumed identity.There's an interesting theory espoused by Leslau who takes some of Holbein's portraits and deconstructs the clues hidden within to show how both princes survived well into the reign of Henry VIII. This is a well-written and logical supposition that explains what has always been my biggest stumbling block with the murder of the princes: why would Elizabeth Woodville allow her daughters back to court if Richard III murdered her sons? There's no real proof here, but I found it a very interesting read.

[waltzmn · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

At least one person believes it.This book is a sort of alternate history: Suppose that the children of Edward III (who died in 1483) had not been murdered by Richard III, and then not been murdered by Henry VII (yeah, right -- I might believe the first, but the second?), and then had turned up as Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbek.There have been a lot of people who have tried to scrape up evidence that Richard III did not kill his nephews, and I'll admit to being tempted by some of it -- e.g. by the hypothesis that the Duke of Buckingham killed the boys to embarrass Richard, or that Edward V died of an infection caused by a damaged jaw and that Richard had to cover it up because everyone would think he was guilty anyway. But this book isn't just a list of alternatives to "Richard Did It!" It takes as its operating assumption that Richard Didn't Do It, Because It Didn't Happen -- and proceeds to run from there. Seeking out the faintest of faint hints, author Lewis tries to reconstruct this other history in which the boys survived.The level of thought and research involved is astonishing. There is data here that other historians have completely overlooked, and which is worth considering. Unfortunately, it still runs up against a very big rock: There is no evidence that the boys were alive after 1483, and there was eventually reason for Richard to produce them, and he didn't -- and if by some chance they were still alive in 1485 when Henry Tudor took charge, they would have been dead the moment he reached London. No question about that. They had to be dead, for Henry, since (although he would never admit it) he had no right to the throne, and his only claim was by right of his wife, the sister of the Princes in the Tower. If Lewis wants us to believe that the Princes lived, he really needs to come up with some piece of actual direct evidence -- and he has none.At the start, there are a few sentences that admit that, and say that the book is a "what-if." But that all disappears faster than you can say "Frame story in The Hunting of the Shrew." It seems pretty clear that author Lewis believes the story he is reconstructing.I wish I could. But I can't. And the fact that Lewis spends most of the book not acknowledging the problems with his initial hypothesis made it very hard for me to continue the book. (The fact that he's a rather dense writer probably made matters worse.) If you are an extreme pro-Ricardian (which I am not; I don't believe for a moment that he was the monster Henry Tudor and Shakespeare made him -- in fact, I think he was a mostly good man who tried to be a good king -- but I try to face the actual facts), you may enjoy this book. But keep in mind that, if it has any value at all, it is to kick up suggestions for the person who can study this question a little more objectively.