The New Murrey and Blue blog

Another problem for traditionalists is those famous bones in Westminster Abbey. First, they are by no means the only bones to have been found in the Tower. Not by a long chalk.

To give but one example (1) in 1965 a complete skeleton of a youth aged 13-16 was found quite close to where the supposed princes were discovered. The remains were dated to the Iron Age.

Other bones were found on occasions in the 17th Century but were simply discarded. Even if these were the boys, we shall never know as the remains are no longer, as far as we know, extant.

It was Charles II who, in 1674, decided that the remains now lodged in Westminster must be the two boys. He had a strong political motive for this. He wanted to make a point about ‘usurpers’.

The Westminster remains were recovered from under a stone staircase that already existed in 1483, and would therefore have had to be dismantled and rebuilt. That this could be done without a block and tackle and a gang of men beggars belief. They then would have needed to create a grave roughly ten feet deep. To say this is improbable is putting it mildly. It most certainly not have been a secretive process. Half the Tower community would have been aware of such a considerable excavation.

(It is known that Henry VII had the Tower staff questioned. Did no one think to report this disruptive and deeply suspicious event? Would Henry not have been grateful if they had?)

There is also the inconvenient fact that Sir Thomas More states that the boys were removed from their original grave by a priest, who reburied them in a more seemly place. This was surely have been in consecrated ground, the obvious location being in or around the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula. That supposes, of course, that the report is based on truth, and is not just an unsubstantiated rumour. But if you believe in the murder because of what More says, how can you then turn around and dismiss what he says about the burial?

There is now pressure to carbon date and/or DNA test the remains. Whether the King and the Westminster authorities are willing to respond is anyone’s guess. There may well be difficulty in extracting DNA, given that the bones were examined by every Tom, Dick and Harriet while they lay around unburied for 4 years in the 17th Century. Then handled again in 1933. Carbon dating might confirm if they are medieval, but is, I think, more likely to prove that they are from ancient times and that they died centuries before Richard III’s great-grandfather was born.

We shall have to wait and see. Probably we shall be waiting for a very long time.

(1) The Princes in the Tower, Philippa Langley, p153.