Wednesday, September 12, 2012

What Happened to the Princes in the Tower?

After so many years there is still speculation.
In 1483, the date of the last incontrovertible sighting of the princes, we are faced with two conflicting accounts, those of the French spy Dominic Mancini and the Great Chronicle of London. According to the latter the boys were seen ‘shotyng and playying in the Gardyn of the Tower by sundry tymys’ during the mayoralty of Sir Edmund Shaa which ran until 28 October, while according to Mancini they were simultaneously ‘seen more rarely behind the bars and windows, till at length they ceased to appear altogether’. If both reports are to be believed, the ‘sundry tymys’ would have had to be between 16 June, when young Richard of York joined his brother in the Tower, and the early days of July when Mancini left England. In fact the phrase ‘sundry times’ implies a longer period than about three weeks and one may well doubt the accuracy of Mancini’s informant(s). The fact that there were already rumours about the probable death of one or both of the boys need surprise no one. Imagination tends to run riot where rumours about royal personages are concerned, and the journalistic mind certainly pre-dated the media. (Read entire article.)
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