Forensic Evidence Shines New Light On Old Royal Family Mystery

It's the greatest tragedy and mystery in British History — the deaths of two young princes, 12-year-old Edward V, and his 9-year-old brother Richard, Duke of York. Locked away in the Tower of London, the two Princes were never seen alive again. Centuries after his brutal demise in battle, their uncle Richard III was blamed for the boys' murder with no concrete proof, but previously unknown evidence has finally settled the debate.

Changing the story

At first glance, King Richard III seems obviously guilty. William Shakespeare depicted him as an evil, conniving villain, but that just might have been political bias. Historian and writer Philippa Langley is at the head of her own investigation today, which has already made incredible discoveries about the life of Richard III.

Missing royalty

Langley spearheaded her own project Looking For Richard, which sought to find the missing body of the late King. It was said that when his people revolted against him, they paraded his naked body around the town and tossed it into a river, after which it was never seen again. If experts could recover Richard's remains, then they could reexamine some of the infamous events surrounding his final years.

A King's remains

Incredibly, in 2012 Langley and her colleagues hit the jackpot. Their research team successfully pinpointed the location of Richard's body to a church parking lot in Leicester, England. His bones might have sat under the asphalt for centuries, but once they were discovered, they revealed some shocking truths. Langley dug into the conventional story about Richard's greed and ruthlessness.

War of the Roses

Richard III was not the only one after the throne, as two rival families fought a bloody war. This was the War of the Roses, a large-scale conflict between the Houses of Lancaster (with the emblem of a red rose) and York (with the emblem of a white rose) to succeed the gravely ill King Henry VI. It pitted his French widow, Margaret of Anjou, against Edward IV of York — the older brother of Richard III and the father of the two princes.