Hello, my name is Matthew Lewis. I'm delighted to be here today at the Tudor Summit. Now, the confession before we start, I'm a Ricardian.

So what am I doing here at the Tudor Summit?

Well there's only one topic for me to be here to talk about and that's the Princes in the Tower,

specifically the survival of the Princes in the Tower.

So who are the boys that we're talking about?

These are the sons of King Edward V and they were Edward V who at his father's death in April 1483 was age 12 and his

younger brother Richard Duke of York who was age nine.

They're called the princes in the tower because these boys are believed to have disappeared

from the Tower of London.

Now the fact that they were there in the beginning is not too surprising.

The Tower of London was the traditional place for a medieval monarch to prepare for his coronation.

When Edward V arrived in London, he was installed at the Bishop of London's palace, and later moved to the Tower of London so that he could prepare for his coronation, which would never take place.

The Tower of London didn't quite possess the same dark and bloody

reputation that it was to acquire under the Tudors during the medieval period. It was a

royal palace, it was a royal armoury and it was used as a prison as well but it

was a busy working royal palace. The prime suspect in the assumed murder of the princes in the tower has always been their uncle, King Richard III, who took the throne after Edward V.

And that has to be fair enough, he has to be the prime suspect. We can ascribe him with the motive, the means and the opportunity that any murder inquiry might look for.

In terms of his motive, the boys were a

potential threat to him. Yes, they'd been declared illegitimate, but that illegitimacy could be

overturned as easily as it had been put in place. He had the means. He was the king. He was the

most powerful man in the country. He only had to give the order. He only had to say the word,

and it would be done. And he had the opportunity.

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