The Boy King Who Vanished Inside The Tower

On 3 May 1483 the twelve-year-old King Edward V was taken into custody by his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, while travelling to London for his coronation, and at first it appeared to be a protective move, but within weeks Edward and his younger brother Richard were placed inside the Tower of London, which at the time was still a royal residence, and their coronation was delayed, and then quietly cancelled, and soon after Richard declared that the boys were illegitimate and claimed the throne for himself, becoming King Richard III, and the two princes were seen less and less inside the Tower until they disappeared completely, and no official record was ever made of their deaths, but rumours spread across England that the boys had been murdered in their sleep, and centuries later two small skeletons were discovered buried beneath a staircase in the Tower, and to this day nobody knows exactly what happened to them.

Interesting Fact

The skeletons found in the Tower of London in 1674 were believed to be the princes and were placed in Westminster Abbey, but they have never been definitively identified. Requests for modern DNA testing have been repeatedly denied, so the mystery remains unsolved.

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