Two Mysterious Children Are Buried
With Edward IV
The story which follows is a real medieval mystery. It surrounds the enigma of two mysterious children who, when Edward IV's tomb was accidentally broken into centuries after his death, were found to be reposing with him.
As every Ricardian is aware, King Edward IV, Richard's beloved brother, died on the 9th April 1483. Later that month he was laid to rest in a splendid, newly-built marble vault beside the North Quire aisle in St. George's Chapel, Windsor.
Nearly two hundred years later, in 1674, workmen carrying out repairs in the Tower of London were working under the stone staircase of the Bloody Tower, which in Edward IV's days had been called the Garden Tower, when the partial skeletons of two children were discovered. These were immediately believed to be the mortal remains of the two sons of Edward IV, the famous "Princes in the Tower", Edward V and his young brother Richard, Duke of York.
The remains were removed to Westminster Abbey, where to this day they rest in a small marble urn in a corner of Henry VII's Chapel.
However despite an extensive (though apparently badly flawed) examination of these remains by Professor Wright 1933,* no proof has ever been established that these remains are indeed those of the Princes; Charles II, the king reigning at the time of their discovery, himself expressed the gravest personal doubts on the matter.
Meanwhile the mortal remains of Edward IV and his wife Elizabeth Wydevill reposed in their vault at Windsor.
In 1643, during the English Civil War, the vault suffered some damage and despoilation, before subsequently becoming lost as the Chapel became involved in one speight of alteration work after another.
Almost 150 years passed. Then, in 1789, some workmen were working on the re-paving of the North Quire aisle in the Chapel, when an ancient vault was accidentally broken into. It proved to be none other than the vault of Edward IV and Elizabeth Wydevill. And there, laying before the workmen, were the actual coffins of the King and Queen themselves.
At this point, the vault having already been broken open, for better or for worse it was decided by the appropriate authorities to open the coffins too and submit them to a thorough examination.
Shortly after this, however, when the dark interior of the vault was being examined prior to its resealing, a second, smaller, adjacent vault was discovered.
This vault was found to contain the lead-lined medieval coffins of two mysterious children.
Unlike the coffins of the King and Queen these coffins were not opened, nor was there anything written upon them, or in their vault, to offer any clue as to just who these strange children were.
Again without any evidence, Henry Emlyn, the Architect of the Chapter, believed the remains to be those of Edward IV's second daughter Mary Plantagenet, who had died in 1482 aged sixteen, and a little-known third son of Edward IV, George Plantagenet, full brother of the Princes, who had died in 1479 aged just two. Despite the lack of evidence Emlyn's opinion appears to have been generally accepted, and with that the case was essentially allowed to rest.
Another 23 years passed. Then, in 1812, elsewhere in the Chapel, workmen were engaged in constructing a new vault for the king then reigning, George III, when, under the floor of what used to be the Nave of the old Chapel, two further coffins were discovered. This time, there was evidence of who was reposing in them-- they were none other than George and Mary Plantagenet. These two coffins were subsequently removed to a new location in the North Quire aisle, for the children to be closer to their parents.
And thus the mystery arose, and the question begged itself: if these two latter coffins contain as they do the remains of George and Mary Plantagenet, then who on earth is resting in the two coffins found in the vault adjoining Edward IV's ?
Moreover, if George and Mary were found so far from the vault of their parents, then just how important must these other two children have been to Edward IV and Elizabeth Wydevill, that they should be buried so close in an adjacent vault of their own?
Strangely, however, this in turn begs another question: if these two children were so important to Edward IV and Elizabeth Wydevill, then why is there no evidence upon their coffins or their vault as to just who they are??
At this point, as if to draw a veil over the mystery, Fate intervened in the proceedings. Just as the mystery was on the threshold of coming to the ears of researchers and scholars, it was suddenly and spectacularly eclipsed by the discovery, several yards away, of yet another lost vault, containing this time the remains of no less than King Henry VIII, Queen Jane Seymour, the decapitated King Charles I and a small child of Queen Anne's.
And so, having been thus eclipsed, this most enigmatic of mysteries has, to this day, been quietly allowed to slumber.
-- Michael Alan Marshall
* To the surprise
of all present, many of the bones in the urn were found to be those of animals,
notably of chicken, sheep, fish, duck, rabbit, ox and
pig. The original bones discovered in 1674 had been first spotted laying in a
heap of spoil excavated by the workmen, after which they were separated from
the rubbish in the presence of Dr John Knight, Principal Surgeon to Charles II.
However their whereabouts during the next 4 years is
the subject of some controversy. It is difficult to imagine that Charles II's
Principal Surgeon would not have been able to tell animal bones from human ones
and therefore by the time the interment was finally made in
Westminster Abbey in 1678 the original bones appear to have been almost
completely replaced.
Further Research
Anyone wishing to
research this matter further may find the following sources of interest:
Chapter Records
XXIII to XXVI, The Chapter Library, St. George's Chapel, Windsor (Permission
required)
William St. John
Hope: "Windsor Castle: An Architectural History", pages 418-419.
(1913).
Vetusta Monumenta,
Volume III, page 4 (1789)