The Princes in the Tower by John Everett Millais, 1878, Royal Holloway collection
The “Princes in the Tower” refers to English King Edward V (1470-c. 1483) and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York (1473-c.1483). After the defeat and death of their father, Edward IV, Edward V should have acceded to the throne. But instead, their uncle, Richard III, placed them in the Tower of London, and after a few months they “disappeared” — as in, no-one ever saw them again. This has led to a HUGE historical mystery — what happened to the princes in the tower? The leading theory is that Richard III had them murdered so he could take over as king (which he did). Historian Philippa Langley (who found the body of Richard III, which is fictionalized in The Lost King) recently came out with a book and TV doc in which she argues that the two brothers survived and were in fact the “pretenders” who later claimed to be them — but having read the book, her theories don’t hold water (I think she found some interesting sources, but there’s nothing to say they don’t document pretenders rather than the real deal).
Side note, there are some bones in an urn in Westminster Abbey that were found centuries later in the Tower of London, which were claimed to be those of the two boys. They’re very unlikely to be so, but nonetheless, EXHUME ALL THE BODIES is my mantra. Let’s get those bones tested so we can find out whose they are, and what stories they tell! Have I mentioned that I’m a huge fan of shows like History Cold Case? I ADORE using scientific testing to find out what someone ate as a child or how they died or…!
Let’s look at the princes on screen, minus these which I can’t find images of:
- Richard III (1911): Kathleen Yorke (Edward)
- Richard III (1912): Howard Stuart (Edward)
- An Age of Kings (1960): Hugh Janes (Edward)/Michael Lewis (Richard)
- König Richard III (1964) Nicolaus Haenel (Edward)
- BBC Shakespeare: “Richard III” (1983): Dorian Ford (Edward)/Jeremy Dimmick (Richard)
Ronald Sinclair & John Herbert-Bond in The Tower of London (1939)
A fictional take on Richard III, his ascent to power, and those pesky princes.
Paul Huson & Andy Shine in Richard III (1955)
The feature film adaptation of Shakespeare’s play starring Laurence Olivier.
Eugene Mazzola & Donald Losby in Tower of London (1962)
Vincent Price’s remake of the 1939 film.
Brian Blessed (Edward) in The Black Adder (1983)
Okay, so in the first of the Blackadder TV series, things actually take place in an alternate reality in which Richard III won the Battle of Bosworth (y’know, the one Henry Tudor won), is accidentally killed by his nephew Edmund, and then succeeded by Richard, Duke of York, as king. Not sure what happened to Edward in this version?
Marco Williamson & Matthew Groom in Richard III (1995)
The 1930s-set feature film adaptation of the Shakespeare play.
?? in Princes in the Tower (2005)
Per Wikipedia, a TV movie “about the interrogation of [pretender] Perkin Warbeck, in which Warbeck almost convinces Henry VII that he really is Richard, Duke of York. The real Princes are shown … to be still alive, but insane after many years imprisoned in chains in a cell.”
Sonny Ashbourne Serkis & Ted Allpress The White Queen (2013)
The TV miniseries adaptation of the Philippa Fucking Gregory book about Elizabeth Woodville.
Edward Bracey (Edward) & ?? in Richard III: The Princes in the Tower (2015)
A docudrama about the missing princes.
Luc Webb & Ned Elliott The White Princess (2017)
The TV miniseries adaptation of the Philippa Fucking Gregory novel about Elizabeth of York.
Caspar Morley & Isaac Andrews The Hollow Crown (2012-16)
The BBC Shakespeare adaptation series.
Patrick Gibson (Richard) in The Spanish Princess (2019-20) The White Princess (2017)
Okay, somehow I forgot this, but in the Philippa Fucking Gregory adaptation about Catherine of Aragon, apparently Richard, Duke of York, shows up as a teen? I think maybe instead of the pretender, Perkin Warbeck. Out of order because I mis-attributed this!
Lucy Worsley Investigates: “The Princes in the Tower” (2022)
Another docudrama about the princes.
Which is your favorite depiction of the Princes in the Tower on screen?
Patrick Gibson as Richard of York/Perkin Warbeck is from later episodes of The White Princess ^^
Thanks for clarifying! Will edit.
I’m partial to the Lucy Worsley program, although I quite like Richard III with Ian McKellen. BTW, there’s a new PFG book coming out called Boleyn Traitor, about Jane Boleyn. It looks just as bad as her other works. :)
The fact that she sells millions of books is so discouraging, because so many people then go on to argue that they know all about the Tudors. There’s very little direct evidence of Jane’s life, but that won’t stop Gregory from writing 400 pages on her subject.
And thank you, Kendra, for referring to Gregory by her full name.
She’s like the TikTok of literature. :)
Yes, please, to a MCM about Brian Blessed (though it seems I chiefly remember him as Augustus in I_Claudius.)
Would a MCM include Mr. Blessed as Prince Vultan? Please???
Sadly no, because isn’t Flash Gordon set in the future?
Space/then-present day Earth (so 1980 going by when the film was released).
Could it count as palaeofuturism? (50s/60s idea of the future)
While I do enjoy this series, one cannot help but think the title quite inappropriate for the present subjects (both being underage and tragically dead at an early age to boot): not sure what the most apt alternate title might have been though – ‘Frocking through the years’? ‘History Boy Mondays’? ‘The Many Phases of – INSERT CHARACTER NAME HERE -‘?
MAN CRUSH MONDAYS works very neatly for most actorly subjects, but there really should be a third option between ‘Man Crush’ and ‘Man sick’ to cover those who don’t quite fit under either umbrella.
Also, I’ve said it before and will say it again: the Shakespeare plays were written by William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon and he was RIGHT on the money about Richard III killing off his nephews.
I second and third this.
YES! Brian Blessed FTW, the best of the princes in the tower, especially all the shouty bits!
Much as I’d love to see GORDON”S ALIVE!! included in the forthcoming MCM, I will reluctantly concede its only historical aspect is as a recreation of a 1930s pulp serial. But the MCM will still be incredible – wow, what a prolific actor, the Shakespeare productions alone will fill the page.
There exists a clip of him as Banquo in the notoriously awful Peter O’Toole Macbeth at the Old Vic in the very early 80s – proof that even a great acor can be dire if poorly directed.
Blessed is like a blissfully happy child who has no idea how charmingly vain he is. I heard him tell a story about a relationship with a dog (I forget whether the dog was a film dog or a pet), but he went on to say how terrific the dog was, and that “he adored me!” Most of us would say, “I adored him!” but not Brian Blessed!
Philippa Langley did not find the body of Richard III. A decade or more before, the historian Audrey Strange pinpointed his resting place. And his body was found by a team of people, some of which are suing the makers of the movie for defamation.
The Victorian painting above, the artist used his daughter as the model for the figure on the right. And in the stills, all those side partings! Not a thing until the 20th century.
There’s a lot of spandex/lycra in those shiny leggings in the final pic from the Lucy Worsley show.
Definitely you ought to do a special on Brian Blessed. He’s an old hand at period films, and has been in some dandies. (Also many that aren’t so good, but I guess a chap has to eat.)
The first series of Blackadder is generally considered the least good, but Blessed was terrific in it. And for a guy who is generally known as a big ham, his quiet death scene in I, Claudius is maybe the greatest of all time.
That’s because it’s not quite as laugh-out-loud funny the way the other seasons are, but it’s still brilliant. When it aired for the first time in the US, my partner was in the other room watching it, and yelled at me to come and see, because he had no idea what he was watching, but couldn’t stop laughing. I got there just as Peter Cook’s ghostly Richard appears at the banquet to accuse Edmund of killing him. I had no idea what I was watching, either, but I figured that if Peter Cook was involved, it was worth seeing. I was right.
Re the second Hollow Crown pic: granted that crown looks exactly as tacky and flimsy as the gold-paper ones they put around Twelfth Night cakes in France (whoever finds the bean in their slice of cake gets to be king of the feast, and wears it), it would still look more convincing if it was placed properly on the top of his head instead of being parked casually to the back. I do wish directors would be fussier about proper placement of headgear: even 100% authentic-styled hats, bonnets and caps look fake and tacky when not worn right.
Somewhat OT: Coincidentallly, I’m writing from Leicester, England, where I was attending a Richard III Society members’ meeting. I don’t remember Langley’s claiming to have discovered R3’s original burial site, but she and the late John Ashdown-Hill and several others were instrumental in finding archaeologists, funding, and city permits, plus DNA proof of the skeleton’s identity. That took years of work, and I admire their dedication.
Langley’s book provides interesting new circumstantial evidence of the boys’ survival, but not absolute proof. I think it likely Richard sent them across the Channel to his sister, the Duchess of Burgundy, but their ultimate end will probably never be known for certain.
That’s “coincidentally” with only two ls! (Train typing…)
On the costumes: all those obviously modern tights look very unconvincing to me, as someone who’s made both short hose and long hose for boys and short hose for myself.
Remember the only fabrics you can use are wool, linen, or silk, and the only stretch you can get is by cutting them on the bias. And also that the narrowest you can make the ankle is the width it has to be to get over your foot. Even allowing for there being finer wools back then than we have available now, I don’t think you’ll get that close a fit until knitting gets to this country and you can make hose out of knitted silk thread – but I don’t think it has by the late 1400s. There was a Dutchwoman employed to knit silk stockings for Elizabeth I, but she took literally years over it….
This is an excellent comment, thank you. This is the sort of expertise I appreciate from the Flickers!