It is very clear that true crime documentaries grasp the attention of nearly everyone around the world. Call it a natural instinct to gather all information to protect yourselves/family or call it morbid curiosity. Some cases stick with you for much longer and the Princes in the Tower mystery is no exception. It has been accepted for hundreds of years that the princes (Edward V and Richard, Duke of York) were murdered by their uncle and former king, Richard III. There were also perceived pretenders of both Edward and Richard during their time. But now, it seems, they may not have been pretending after all?
From the word go, the documentary felt like this was going to be another attempt to make Richard III look like a saint. To be clear, he still doesn’t look like a saint but to be even clearer, no royalty in history has been a saint. At the heart of the research and documentary is Phillipa Langley was the beating heart of the research and nothing has changed about her passion and dedication to the history of Richard III and the end of the Wars of the Roses. Quite frankly, it is inspirational. What did confuse me was the need for a judge to be involved. Specifically, Rob Rinder (as in THE Judge Rinder). Rob does have first-class honours in Politics and Modern History which is relevant to the premise of the documentary. From my understanding, he was there to add an official and professional voice and this was to play out more like a murder trial or a “cold case”, in Phillipa’s words.
Over 300 people have joined Phillipa’s ‘The Missing Princes Project’ in which many people have been involved in the concoction of criminal investigation and historical research. Maybe it is fair to dub them internet sleuths, to an extent. But the research, clearly, goes deeper.
Rob and Phillipa travel across the continent to bask in findings from hundreds of years ago. The first was a 1487 receipt from King Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire for an order of pikes to help the Yorkist invasion of England. The ‘Madame de Dowager’ or Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy (the Princes’ aunt and Richard's sister) had sent the men along with these pikes in battle. This evidence corresponds to the first invasion in May 1487 by a supposed impostor of Edward V- Lambert Simnel. Dr Janina Ramirez believes this document is quite compelling and I am inclined to agree. As she says, documents like witness statements, letters, diaries, and accounts of events can be forged or faked but receipts are straightforward and precise. Receipts are not usually something that anyone would bother to fake. It was clear that Margaret had paid money for the pikes and the men. It raises the question of why these princes' aunt would pay so much money to support this random boy if she did not believe that he was not her nephew.
Information had been discovered about a coronation that had taken place in Dublin, attended by John de la Pole, in which the supposed Edward V was crowned. Or at least, this is what Matt Lewis (the chairman of the Richard III Society) believes is the correct account. Another historian, Nathen Amen contradicts this and believes this was the coronation of the princes’ cousin, Edward Earl of Warwick. From further research, this was more of a political statement as not one sovereign had been crowned before (or since) in Ireland and was a “remarkable show of defiance by the Anglo-Irish”, according to the historian/archaeologist Christiaan Corlett for Coles Lane Heritage. There is seemingly no doubt that a political event, like a coronation, took place, but to say that it involved Edward is a very large stretch. There is no physical evidence in the documentary to suggest this is the case, either. It is hard to rely on Lewis as a source due to the bias there is towards Richard III and evidence like this would exonerate Richard in the murder of his nephews as it would prove they were still alive. This was probably their weakest argument in the documentary.
Margaret of Burgundy had a retirement palace in Belgium which she had altered through renovations in 1496. Account books from this period showed that there was a new room added and labelled “Richard’s Room” on an arch. Rob Rinder asks “Which Richard?” to which Phillipa exclaims “The younger Prince in the tower”. There is no proof of the younger Richard being this particular prince that is shown or discussed in the episode and this leaves it open to interpretation; could the room have been named after Margaret’s brother, King Richard III, instead?
A discovery made by Nathalie Nijman-Bliekendaal of the Dutch Research Group of a document written by Richard, the younger prince, seemed to really grasp the attention of Phillipa Langley and Rob Rinder. This whole document is approximately ten years of this boy’s life squeezed into four pages. It is in Middle Dutch and, according to Nijman-Bliekendaal, has possibly been translated from French or Latin. The account discusses the involvement of Thomas and Henry Percy in the movement of the princes to and in the Tower. According to the experts, it is true that Henry and Thomas Percy were there and that they were in Richard III’s inner circle. However, using this as an argument to say that this statement was certainly written by one of the princes is a little bit of a leap. It would have been widely known that the Percy brothers were part of Richard III’s inner circle to anyone alive at the time, anyone involved in politics, and a position of power during his reign. The discussion of the document’s original dialect also made it more questionable. Perkin Warbeck was originally from Belgium, a country known for speaking Flemish and French, so for the document to have been written in Middle Dutch but translated from French provides evidence that this was written by Warbeck as an impostor rather than one of the real princes. Understandably, this could be similar to a witness report of what he had experienced from imprisonment to freedom. However, there are too many possible explanations concerning the document that its credibility is limited. Rob Rinder also displays the document to Dr Janina Ramirez who believes the document needs further investigation and that it is very convenient considering the circumstances surrounding it. With it being four pages that supposedly discuss ten years of this person’s life takes away from its legitimacy further as this is almost too condensed.
Other documents are discussed in the documentary such as one held in Dresden, Germany. Professor Henricke Lahemann presents a document from 1493 of a pledge of support to ‘Prince Richard’ to regain the throne of England but to also repay Albert of Saxony’s 30,000 florins within three months of becoming King. The document has seals attached which are royal in origin and contain the ‘R’ standing for ‘Rex’. The document is also signed. The only evidence the document gives to this document legitimately being signed by the real Prince Richard is “it says at the beginning of the document that the signature is on”. It was also written and signed by someone with a confident hand and someone who speaks and writes English. The document clearly holds more weight than that of the previous one found by Nijman-Bliekendaal. Ramirez also views the document and exclaims the seals are “of the time”. Again, there is no further evidence to suggest this was written by the real Prince Richard and there is no handwriting known by Richard that can be compared to this document to add to its credibility.
The last document to be highlighted in this review is the account of the Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I and Prince Richard's meeting, written by Maximilian’s French scribe in 1492. Maximilian decided to give his support to Richard’s campaign as Richard had shown signs in the form of marks on his body which people who knew him knew he had. These marks were on his eye, his lip, and his thigh. The Austrian state archive holds this document which is rational as Maximilian was born in Austria and remained there until his death. This was probably the most compelling of the evidence presented. It can also be pulled apart, only slightly. Did they have their ways of faking these marks or could people have just said these marks existed when they did not, just to have a compelling story?
It is hard to accept any of the evidence at face value. What is not in doubt is that the documents originate from the correct period (the 15th century) and this is confirmed by experts in the field. However, they come from a period with so much colluding and deceit that there are several different possible reasons for their existence. The research conducted by Phillipa Langley and Rob Rinder is thorough and vast, spreading across the European continent. It involved many experts and a large collective of individuals invested in the project. But I can’t help but feel the bias of a lot of experts in the documentary, not to mention the bias that Langley herself has, considering her part in the Richard III society. The documentary and research could have benefited from being presented and run by an impartial expert to give more credibility. Despite this, it was interesting and did raise a lot more questions on the supposed murder of the Princes in the Tower.
You can catch The Princes in the Tower: The New Evidence on Channel 4 and Philippa Langley’s Book, The Princes in the Tower: Solving History's Greatest Cold Case, is available wherever you get your books/ebooks/audiobooks.