What Happened To King Edward V?

edward V

On April 9, 1483, 12 year old Edward V ascended the throne after the death of his father King Edward IV.

Born in a sanctuary, Edward V was the oldest son of Edward V and after the sudden death of his father, Edward ascended the throne. Still too young to rule, people appointed his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester regent until he would reach the right age. On a journey, Richard took Edward and his younger brother and brought them to London. He sent the two young boys to stay in the Tower of London. No one ever saw the two boys again.

Rumor says that Richard, their uncle, had them killed to prevent trouble. A few months after Edward ascended the throne, a clergyman stepped forward and provided proof of Edward’s illegitimacy. This made it so that Richard ascended the throne as King Richard III. Killing the two young boys would stop people from uprising in their names as actual heirs to the throne.

What happened to Edward V and his brother? No one knows. Two hundred years later, during modifications of the Tower of London, workers found the bones of two small bodies. Considering them the young princes, the king at that time had the bones placed in an urn and buried with the royalty. Later investigators looked at the bones but could not tell age or sex. To this day no one knows what happened to the two young boys. Were they killed, or whisked away and lived quiet lives?

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