"This programme contains some scenes of violence." "More than 500 years ago, two princes vanished." "In the summer of 1483, the heir to the throne, Edward, and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York, were spotted playing outside the Tower of London." "They were never seen again." "It's the greatest murder mystery in British history." "First, the princes were imprisoned and then it's thought they were killed." "The man who's usually accused of the killing is their uncle." "He seized the throne from Edward and made himself Richard III." "Richard is not a fool." "If you usurp a king, there's only one thing you do with him." "Sooner or later, you kill him." "But was Richard guilty?" "No smoking gun has been found which pins the crime on him." "One of his most passionate supporters is a top Hollywood defence lawyer." "We must convict him beyond a reasonable doubt." "And if we were to put that to an ordinary jury - was Richard guilty beyond a reasonable doubt of killing his nephews in the Tower of London?" "I'm confident that I would get an acquittal every time." "The caricature of this evil hunchback, this dark, bent character who willingly wants these young boys dead, I think that is so far from the truth." "Now Richard's body, found under a Leicester car park in 2012, is finally being laid to rest." "So we've brought together the leading experts and the latest scholarship to answer some key questions." "Was Richard responsible for the murder of his nephews?" "Was he manipulated by someone far more devious?" "Or is there an altogether different explanation for the boys' disappearance?" "It's a story which has intrigued people down the ages." "What really happened to the Princes in the Tower?" "The first man to comprehensively pin the murders of the princes on Richard was the Tudor historian and courtier Thomas More." "According to More, in the summer of 1483, Richard ordered one of his henchmen, James Tyrrell, to organise the killing." ""Keeping down by force the feather bed" ""and pillows hard into their mouths," ""that within a while, smored and stifled," ""their breath failing," ""they gave up to God their innocent souls."" "What made Thomas More's account compelling was his detail." "He even gave the precise time of the murder." "Midnight." "More's history of Richard III is a masterly work, which is why it's lasted and shaped our impression of these events." "Shakespeare simply lifts More." "Shakespeare, you know, is like all the best people, when he sees a good story, what does he do?" "He plagiarises it." "He just lifts the lot." "More and Shakespeare portrayed Richard as a ruthless, power-hungry villain." "But critics of Thomas More believe he created a deliberately distorted caricature." "He has a very clear agenda when he writes about Richard's reign and he's really trying to appeal to the patronage of the Tudor court." "So by damning this character that Henry VII had managed to defeat at Bosworth, he secures himself a long and prosperous career." "If that's the case, then Richard has been wrongly accused and the real killer escaped scot-free." "Nearly 200 years after the disappearance of the princes, bones were found." "But their identity was never established." "They were re-interred and are now beyond reach." "A lack of hard evidence has always bedevilled this case." "But by examining motives and opportunities, we can assess the guilt of each of the leading suspects." "The seeds of the crime were sown with the sudden death of King Edward IV." "He was only 40 years old." "To understand the fate of Edward IV's sons, we must investigate what happened in the 13 weeks between his death and the disappearance of the princes." "During that time, England was plunged into crisis, because the heir to the throne, Prince Edward, was only 12 years old." "Kings had to rule by the sword." "They were supposed to lead their troops into battle, they were supposed to represent God on Earth, and you can't put that onto a 12-year-old child." "Woe to the country with a child at its head." "This idea that a child king will rule is something no country wants." "Edward's passing left a power vacuum." "Bitter factions battled for control." "On one side was the man Edward IV had appointed as Protector to govern England until his son came of age - his younger brother," "Richard, Duke of Gloucester." "Richard is an unhappy Puritan." "He's a nervous man, there's an intensity about him." "He's an uneasy figure." "Contained, impressive, domineering, a fine soldier, but a classic malcontent." "But Richard has always divided historians." "Is he the most malign character in British history, or the most maligned?" "If we look at the history of him as Duke of Gloucester, as servant of his brother Edward IV, that's precisely what he was - he was a loyal servant, he was somebody that Edward IV trusted and somebody" "who served the king absolutely loyally." "He did nothing bad." "There is absolutely no evidence to show that he ever had any ambition to be king." "One powerful nobleman allied himself to Richard." "William, Lord Hastings," "Edward IV's most trusted advisor." "If loyalty looked like being" "Richard of Gloucester's middle name, loyalty absolutely was Hastings' middle name." "Hastings' prime motivation would have been to see that" "Edward IV's son came safely to the throne, and came into his majority with a proper understanding of what it was to rule England in the right way." "Opposing Hastings and Richard was a dangerous foe." "The widowed Queen." "Elizabeth Woodville was an ambitious commoner who'd married Edward IV." "She's an extraordinarily clever, politically aware, well-educated, thoughtful woman who has defended her interests, her family's interests and her children's interests through a very turbulent reign." "What she does when Edward IV dies is also a sign of her ambition, because she's the Queen Dowager, she should simply go into retirement, but no - she wants to make herself Regent." "In the days after Edward IV's death," "Elizabeth Woodville's family seize power." "They took control of the Navy and stockpiled money and weapons." "The idea that it's Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who is instigating a coup after the death of Edward IV is, I think, inaccurate." "I see the coup very much taking place in the Woodville camp." "It's the Woodvilles who seem to act against the guidance of the King on his deathbed and also against the greater good of the country at this point." "Richard viewed Elizabeth Woodville as a threat to his political position." "But he may also have viewed her as a threat to his life." "His middle brother, George, Duke of Clarence, had been executed during Edward's reign, many believed at her behest." "There's a time bomb, a ticking time bomb, and somebody has to come out on top." "It might be the Woodvilles, or is it going to be the uncle?" "Is it going to be Edward's brother, the Protector?" "And all the events that play out is a result of these tensions." "The next evidence we have is that Richard publicly swore an oath, promising to recognise his nephew, Prince Edward, as the successor." "The key to understanding Richard's behaviour in 1483 is that he behaves with total, impeccable, conventional loyalty." "And that is the game that Richard can play." "He doesn't need, at this stage, to do very much at all." ""I am going to be the first defender of my young nephew," ""I will swear an oath of fealty to him, I will make sure that all" ""my multitudinous servants and deputies swear a similar oath."" "But what his motives were, in fact, is anybody's guess." "In those days, people believed, really believed, that if you gave a false oath, you would burn in hell." "He didn't have to have people swear an oath, he didn't have to take the oath himself - he did." "HE PRAYS IN LATIN" "The next crisis would reveal far more about Richard's character." "It centred on the heir to the throne." "Richard and Elizabeth Woodville both needed him." "Whoever controlled Prince Edward would control England." "By late April 1483, the heir to the throne, Prince Edward, was the focus of a deadly power struggle." "His uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, needed him to secure his position as Protector." "His mother, Elizabeth Woodville, needed him to confirm her family's political dominance." "He's an immensely intelligent, highly educated boy with a charming personality." "Royal hereditary is often a rather dreadful thing." "You know, the ugly marries the absolutely repulsive." "If you actually look at Edward, er, it's completely different." "You've two dazzlingly handsome parents and it shows in the children." "Edward's guardian was Earl Rivers, the widowed Queen's brother." "Elizabeth Woodville had ordered him to bring Edward to London for an immediate coronation." "Once he was crowned, Richard's role as Protector would cease, and the Woodvilles would reign supreme." "Edward and Rivers were 70 miles from the capital when Richard intercepted them." "The fact that they had been going to arrive at London before him and had intended to do so, I think, probably fuelled within him the notion that there was a move to oust him from the key post in government, the Protector." "Now, that was immediate danger to him." "They do meet at Northampton, er, at which point Richard is joined by the Duke of Buckingham, of course, who suddenly pops out of nowhere." "For those who believe that Richard is innocent of the murder of the Princes," "Buckingham is a convincing alternative suspect." "He'd been exiled from the political mainstream during Edward IV's reign." "But now he made a dramatic comeback as Richard's right-hand man." "He's the archetypal appalling, medieval nobleman." "Greedy, ambitious, lacking in judgment, unstable." "Richard's weakness is that he has been so loyal to Edward IV, so dependent on Edward IV, that he actually, when left to his own devices, can't manage, and panics." "I think the one thing you can say about Buckingham is that he's got a very, very good eye to the main chance." ""Ah, this is my moment." ""If I just keep whispering in his ear often enough," ""then I will nudge him in the direction" ""in which I would like him to go," ""because I think he is all ready to be nudged in that direction."" "On the day that he intercepted Prince Edward's party," "Richard, Buckingham and Anthony Woodville" " Earl Rivers - had dinner together in Northampton." "Despite the underlying tensions, they ate and drank merrily." "But behind the friendly facade, a plot was taking shape." "The question is - who was masterminding it?" "It is notable that Buckingham has arrived on the scene and is party to the conversation with Rivers, because it's after the conversation, when they go back to their quarters and Buckingham and Richard are left alone in Northampton," "Rivers has disappeared, that's when things dramatically change." "You have to posit the notion that Buckingham influenced Richard at this point." "And he's probably trying to persuade him that, erm, there is a problem." "That Anthony Woodville only needs to set off earlier than they do to get to London and get the King crowned, and then everything changes." "But others claim it was Richard who was orchestrating events." "You can almost imagine, er, Richard drinking watered wine, looking rather cynically as Earl Rivers perhaps has a couple of glasses too many." "Perhaps even a little odd drop of something, and particularly with the chaps who are sleeping around him, and then the following morning, the coup...the arrest." "I think this is the first real sign of what Richard's modus operandi is going to be." "The persistent charge that's made against him is the one of duplicity, of sustained, brilliant duplicity." "You make sure you never have to fight... ..because you put people off their guard." "Was this the first step in a premeditated conspiracy to make himself King?" "Or were the Woodvilles threatening Richard?" "Was it an act of legitimate self-defence?" "There is no evidence that the arrest of Rivers is part of a master plan." "Richard is not undertaking some attack on the throne, some well-developed, well-conceived plot." "He is responding to events." "You can see Rivers is the personification of the Woodville threat, and he is taken into captivity to remove, at least, you know, a figurehead of this conspiracy." "Whatever Richard's motive, the arrest of Rivers put him under enormous pressure." "Because only a few hours later, he was forced to justify his actions." "Richard argued that Rivers was corrupt, that he'd been seized to protect the Prince." "It's at this point, according to contemporary accounts, that Edward confronted his uncle." "You denounce these ministers of mine as evil men, yet my father gave them to me, and upon his prudence, I have relied in every matter." "We have here a boy who is not a cipher, he is an intelligent, opinionated, if you like, er, confident young man, he's been very well educated, erm, and he has a view." "Therefore, I must inform you that I would like my ministers released until I see evil in them." "But Richard refused to release Rivers and, by so doing, he flagrantly disobeyed Edward's command." "Richard must now know that this 12-year-old boy, in very short time, will be King, and there are certain things he will not forget." "The insult to those people he most trusted and their summary arrest, and that this, er, young man will clearly, erm, seek redress and, as King, he can get it." "So was this awkward exchange a decisive moment?" "Having alienated his nephew, did Richard feel compelled to make himself King?" "I think there's absolutely no evidence to show that Richard was planning to take over the throne from May 1483." "And I think that what he actually does shows that that wasn't what he was planning to do because what he actually does is he prepares the coronation of Edward V." "Coins were minted in Edward's name." "Coronation robes were ordered and the Prince was housed in the Tower of London." "The Tower of London assumes its position as this dark place of trial and retribution, only from the Tudor period onwards." "It had originally been an armoury, the Treasury, the Mint and a palace, a Royal residence, a very comfortable Royal residence." "It was the heart of government and he was put in the King's quarters which were glamorous and beautiful." "By mid-May 1483, Richard had been confirmed as Protector." "His enemies were in jail or in hiding." "His arch rival, Elizabeth Woodville, had taken sanctuary in Westminster Abbey with her younger son, Richard, Duke of York." "The crisis seemed to be over." "But behind the scenes, one man was triggering a new emergency." "The one thing that does happen is, from the middle of May," "Woodville lands start getting confiscated, er, without any judgment, so that really is completely illegal." "They go in very large measure to Buckingham." "So Buckingham is doing very, very nicely out of this indeed." "There is every reason, therefore, for him to want to hang onto Richard's coat tails, and to encourage Richard possibly to assume more power." "If Richard was worried about the Woodvilles, still the fact that he'd arrested them, of course, in a sense, made him more vulnerable if they came back into power." "Did Buckingham's greed compel Richard to seize the crown?" "Was it the only way he could protect himself from a Woodville backlash?" "Or was he lusting for power all along?" "The next event would rock the political world, and would offer more clues about who killed the Princes in the Tower." "By June 1483, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, ruled England as Protector." "But with powerful enemies ranged against him, he was vulnerable." "Only by taking the Crown could Richard safeguard his position." "But this would alienate his former ally, William Lord Hastings." "Hastings is so hostile to the Woodvilles that he's prepared to go a very, very, long way with Richard, and, indeed, with Buckingham." "But, equally, what both Richard and Buckingham know is that under no circumstances would Hastings ever countenance a usurpation." "Hastings was a tough, experienced politician who commanded the largest private army in the land." "In the weeks since Edward IV's death, his support for Richard had waned ominously." "Hastings is not rewarded by Richard." "Buckingham is rewarded greatly, Hastings receives nothing." "It's very odd." "And I think Hastings is less of a, er... disinterested loyal servant of Edward than we might imagine." "He is wily, and I think he's probably growing wary of Richard." "Three great power blocs" " Richard, the Woodvilles and Hastings, eyed each other nervously." "It only needs Hastings and the Woodvilles to join, and Richard is finished." "It only needs Richard and Hastings to join and the Woodvilles are finished." "I think the tension, which is already very high, breaks when Richard convinces himself that Hastings is in collusion with the Woodvilles." "For the Tudor historian Thomas More, what happened next is evidence of Richard's volatile and villainous character." "More described how events came to a head at a routine meeting of the Royal Council." "There is this initial wonderful conviviality." "They all turn up relatively early in the morning," "Richard is in a bright and sunny mood." "THEY LAUGH" "I thought it was a bit better..." "After a brief conversation, he left." "And Richard, then, according to More, re-enters as this changed figure, this sort of lightning shift, which, again, of course, is what we see in Shakespeare - these astonishing shifts of Richard's mood." "Suddenly the sun goes out, and the storm and the thunderclouds appear." "What were they worthy to have that imagine the destruction of me?" "Being so near in blood to the King and the protector of his royal person and his realm." "More has Richard representing the fact that he's been enchanted, that a spell has been laid upon him, that his arm has been newly withered." "If they have so heinously done, they'd be worthy of heinous punishment." "And you get Hastings going, "Well, um, well, if, well, perhaps..."" "And Richard's mounting rage - "If, if?" "No ifs!"" "Traitor." "I arrest thee." "What, me, my lord?" "!" "Yea, thee." "By St Paul I'll not to dinner till I see thy head off." "Hastings is dragged out, his head put on a log - no form of trial, it's unique." "It's an act of astonishing calculated violence - and it works." "Hastings was executed without trial, just as Thomas More said, but there may be an altogether different explanation for the dramatic action Richard took." "It's a moment, perhaps, of astonishing fear on the part of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to whom it's been revealed that Hastings was probably planning an armed conflict against him." "Richard struck very rapidly." "And maybe he got some information which confirmed his belief that Hastings was plotting against him - maybe he genuinely went out of the room, got some extraordinary information, came back in again." "It's a little bit like a frightened dog in a corner snapping at the aggressor." "He feels threatened, he feels surrounded and he lashes out." "And there's yet another possibility." "Could the arrest of Hastings be the work, not of Richard, but of his scheming second in command?" "Hastings will lay down his life for Edward IV's son and heir." "And I don't think anybody had any doubt about that at all." "I imagine that Buckingham said, "If you want to be King," ""you have got to get rid of Hastings."" "Three days after the execution came the next dramatic move." "Once again, Buckingham was at the centre of events." "He went to Westminster Abbey to demand that Elizabeth Woodville hand over to Richard her younger son." "If he's going to usurp the throne, he has to have both princes, because if he captures one and says that he's never going to release him, the right to be King just transfers to the next brother." "So what Richard has to do is to get the second one and put them in the Tower together." "Elizabeth Woodville is left with no choice." "The Abbey is surrounded by troops, and it's made very clear to her that if she doesn't surrender him they will break sanctuary." "If he breaks sanctuary and kidnaps the prince, then who's to say that there isn't some kind of armed resistance and the prince gets killed in it?" "So most people think that she hands the prince over to Richard under this sort of duress." "For many experts, the handing over of Richard, Duke of York is a decisive turning point." "STARKEY:" "The very fact that he gets his hands on the younger brother seals the fate of the elder brother." "Richard can kill the elder prince because he's got the younger prince." "Having both of them makes it, in a sense, a cert." "I'm not ready to believe that at this point he said," ""Oh, those kids have to be killed."" "And I don't think there's any real evidence that he thought that." "Er, control, yes - he would want them both there, didn't want them in separate places, but I don't believe that he had decided he has to kill them." "I find it hard to think that he was the kind of man who would have killed his two nephews given the enormous loyalty he felt for his brother." "Richard had both boys in his grasp, but they were still the legitimate heirs to the throne - until a startling allegation transformed the political landscape and allowed Richard to take the Crown." "At one point in June 1483, Bishop Stillington, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, drops a big spanner in the works by making an announcement to the Royal Council that he had married Edward IV to Eleanor, Lady Butler," "daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, several years before Edward had married Elizabeth Woodville." "And that therefore the second marriage is bigamous and that all the children of it are illegitimate." "Therefore it ruled Edward IV's Woodville children out of the succession." "And I think that absolutely floored the Royal Council, and probably floored Richard himself, because I don't think he knew about it beforehand." "For Richard's supporters," "Stillington's revelations are a game changer." "If the princes were illegitimate, he had no incentive to kill them." "But others think Richard cooked up the allegations himself." "It was another treacherous act that would end in murder." "I think Richard had a major problem, and it's one that I don't think historians have sufficiently recognised, which was how to get rid of Edward V." "How do you get rid of an innocent 12-year-old boy?" "And you come up with this litter of charges." "Stillington, a Bishop... presumably a man who has never been engaged in any kind of corruption, at least we don't have evidence of it, comes to Richard and says, "I was there," ""I'm an eyewitness to your brother marrying..."" ""or having a pre-contract with..." "Eleanor Butler."" "Well, why would Richard not believe that?" "People have looked for centuries now for a reward or some way that Stillington was corrupt." "There is none." "Parliament declared Edward illegitimate." "On the 6th of July 1483, Richard was crowned in his place." "But the problem of the Princes in the Tower remained." "So, who solved it?" "Did Richard kill them?" "Was it the Duke of Buckingham?" "Or was there another explanation altogether?" "ALL:" "King Richard, King Richard, King Richard," "King Richard, King Richard," "King Richard." "Richard, Duke of York, was in late June, early July 1483, when they were spotted outside the Tower of London." "The Great Chronicle of London confirms that they're seen shooting and playing in the garden." "They are withdrawn to the inner apartments, erm, and seen less and less frequently." "Remember, the Tower is a hugely complicated structure, there was an open section of palatial apartments towards the river and then, there were these darker, nastier spaces and the boys disappear into these and they're never, ever seen again." "Killing the two boys, even then, in this age of bloodiness and public horror, where, you know, executions for treason are unspeakable exercises of public torture, even that age is shocked by the murder of children." "So, who did kill the princes in the Tower?" "Some historians believe that Bishop Stillington's allegations absolve Richard of the murder of his nephews." "Richard III is absolutely safe on the throne, he's been adjudged King by Parliament, Parliament, or the three estates of the realm, have ruled that Edward IV was legally married to Eleanor Talbot." "He has nothing to fear from any of Edward IV's children." "They have no right to the throne, what possible motive does he have for killing these two bastard nephews?" "But three weeks after his coronation, it became clear that" "Richard wasn't so safe after all." "The plot to rescue the princes, which, it seems, happened sort of sometime leading up to" "July 29th, is almost certainly the catalyst for the murder of the princes." "Because if you look at the previous history of deposed kings," "Richard II, Henry VI, they both get killed when there's a plot or a rebellion." "But Richard wasn't the only who might benefit from the prince's murder." "Buckingham has to be considered a suspect." "His character would be the most likely to have killed those two boys." "He certainly had access to the boys in the Tower of London." "He was Lord Constable of the entire realm, the second highest-ranking man in the Kingdom." "So, he gets into the Tower and he kills them." "Buckingham had profited from the seizure of Woodville lands but he had an even more powerful motive for killing the princes." "In late 1483, he switched sides and joined the man who'd later deposed Richard, Henry Tudor, the future Henry VII." "To become King, Henry needed the princes dead." "Did Buckingham murder the boys to ingratiate himself with his new master?" "If he killed the princes, it may be that he intended to put Henry on the throne and then he'd have a better deal with Henry than he had with Richard." "He could do it and then blame it on Richard because everyone would say, as they did," ""Richard was the guy in charge and Richard had custody of the kids," ""and if they're dead, it must be Richard."" "There's one final extraordinary theory." "What if the princes weren't murdered at all?" "Dr John Argentine was physician to the young Edward V and what Argentine was doing was regularly visiting this young person in the Tower of London." "Now, why do doctors regularly visit patients?" "Isn't it usually because they're ill?" "I suggest that Edward V was ill." "If you look at the list of the children of Edward IV and" "Elizabeth Woodville, four of them died before the age of about 13, so for Edward V to have died at that sort of age would have been nothing unusual." "The Tower is incredibly unhealthy." "There are plague years most hot summers, this is summertime." "Some people think that Edward, er, was unwell anyway with, erm, something that might be bone cancer." "He was complaining of toothache, his physician was in attendance." "COUGHING" "I think it's interesting that nobody ever later claimed to be Edward V." "So I think that, erm, it's probable that Edward V did die in 1483 or soon after." "But a number of characters did emerge who claimed to be" "Richard, Duke of York." "And that's fuelled speculation that the younger prince escaped from the Tower." "The most famous of these pretenders," "Perkin Warbeck, appeared during the reign of Henry VII." "Perkin Warbeck turns up at the courts of Europe and he finally ends up with his aunt, Margaret of York, who is now Duchess of Flanders, and she claims him as her nephew." "One reason why I think one really has got to treat this pretender with a great deal of seriousness is because Henry Tudor spends a fortune trying to capture him." "Henry Tudor is severely plagued by Perkin Warbeck but there's nobody really in, in any doubt, and he certainly isn't, that this is an imposter, no question at all." "Given the conflicting theories and the lack of hard evidence, can we really convict Richard of the murder of the princes?" "The evidence is really equivocal, but to me, the evidence, when weighed carefully, indicates a pretty good argument that if they were killed, Richard didn't do it." "But the one thing I can tell you, as a lawyer, is that you give me a jury and this case and I'll get an acquittal for Richard III." "But new research has turned up which may pin the crime on Richard after all." "James Tyrell was the man Thomas More accused of murdering the princes on Richard's orders." "In 1502, Tyrell was on trial for an unrelated offence." "According to More, it was at this point that he confessed to the murders, although many historians dispute More's claim." "But David Starkey has noticed that Tyrell's trial was attended by some very important visitors." "Henry VII and his wife, Elizabeth." "The sister of the missing princes." "They've just lost their son, they've just lost Prince Arthur, and yet both of them go to the Tower on the days of the trial..." "..and are there until the day before he's taken off for execution." "This simply has not been picked up, it's in the, it's in the Treasurer of the Chamber's accounts and you can actually trace the movements of the King and the Queen, they're there." "He's there." "Now, something is going on." "For David Starkey, the presence of the King and Queen at Tyrell's trial vindicates Thomas More's claim." "It tells me that More is 99% to be right, that there is some sort of confession, that what we have there is probably the nearest that we'll get to the truth." "If Tyrell killed the princes, then it was his master, Richard, who's the real author of the crime." "After 500 years of controversy, we may finally have solved the mystery of the princes in the Tower." "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd"