Philippa Langley took the world by storm when, against all the odds and a seven-year investigation, she discovered the grave of King Richard III (1452-1485) in a Leicester car park. A king finally laid to rest, the rediscovery and reburial of Richard III was watched by an estimated global audience of over 366 million.
Now, Langley reveals the findings of a remarkable new research initiative: ‘The Missing Princes Project'. In the summer of 1483, Edward V (aged 12) and his brother Richard Duke of York (aged 9), disappeared from the Tower of London. For over 500 years, history has judged that they were murdered on the orders of their uncle Richard III.
Following years of intensive research in UK, American and European archives, astonishing new archival discoveries have been uncovered that change what we know about the fate of the Princes in the Tower. Established by Langley in 2016, ‘The Missing Princes Project' employed the methods of a cold-case police enquiry. Using investigative methodology, it aimed to place this most enduring of mysteries under a forensic microscope for the first time.
In The Princes in the Tower: Solving History's Greatest Cold Case, Langley records the painstaking investigative work and research of the project. By questioning received wisdom, she and her team shed light upon one of history's greatest miscarriages of justice, revealing a phenomenal untold story.
The official inside story of the life, death, and remarkable discovery of history's most controversial monarch.
On 22 August 1485, Richard III was killed at Bosworth Field, the last king of England to die in battle. His victorious opponent, Henry Tudor (the future Henry VII), went on to found one of our most famous ruling dynasties. Richard's body was displayed in undignified fashion for two days in nearby Leicester and then hurriedly buried in the church of the Greyfriars. Fifty years later, at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, the king's grave was lost—its contents believed to be emptied into the river Soar—and Richard III's reputation buried under a mound of Tudor propaganda. Its culmination was Shakespeare's compelling portrayal of a deformed and murderous villain, written over a hundred years after Richard's death. Now—in an incredible find—Richard III's remains have been uncovered beneath a car park in Leicester. The King's Grave traces this remarkable journey. In alternate chapters, Philippa Langley, whose years of research and belief that she would find Richard in this exact spot inspired the project, reveals the inside story of the search for the king's grave, and historian Michael Jones tells of Richard's fifteenth-century life and death. The result is a compelling portrayal of one of our greatest archaeological discoveries, allowing a complete re-evaluation of our most controversial monarch—one that discards the distortions of later Tudor histories and puts the man firmly back into the context of his times.
