Princes in the Tower murder twist as new suspect emerges in 15th century mystery

The disappearance of the princes in the Tower in 1483 is one of the great mysteries in British history.

Edward V and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York, were locked up and murdered by their uncle King Richard III, according to William Shakespeare and some historians, despite a lack of conclusive evidence.

Now an unlikely suspect has emerged from the shadows after 500 years: the royal physician. “The doctor did it,” according to detective work by Mei Trow, an historian and crime writer.

He belives that Dr John Argentine murdered not only the young sons of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, who were just 12 and nine respectively when they disappeared in 1483, but Prince Arthur, heir apparent and brother of the future Henry VIII, who was just 15 at his death in 1502.

All three were patients of Dr Argentine.

Mr Trow told the Sunday Telegraph: “That has got to be more than a coincidence. In every cop drama, there’ll be somebody who says ‘I don’t believe in coincidences’. I don’t believe in coincidences. Three young boys die suddenly.

"It doesn’t make sense, unless you factor in their doctor.

"He had access to umpteen poisons, which no-one other than a doctor would have understood. He was able to administer it very simply indeed, particularly in the case of the princes in the Tower.

"There were only three other men looking after them.”

Watch: An extensive timeline of the British Royal Family

A contemporary account records that Henry VII’s eldest boy, Arthur, fell victim to a “most pitiful disease”, that had “driven in the singular parts of him inward”.

Noting that historians have come up with various diagnoses, Mr Trow said: “What could cause his ‘singular parts’ to turn inwards? Liver complications. What can cause liver complications? Arsenic.”

He singled out another contemporary account, believed to have come indirectly from Argentine, which records that Edward had seemed depressed.

Mr Trow said: “Depression is a symptom of mercury poisoning.”

Having extensively investigated poisons as a means of murder as well as rogue doctors who have administered them, Mr Trow likens Argentine to Harold Shipman, who was convicted in 1999 of murdering 15 of his patients, having exercised the ultimate power of controlling life and death.

Unlike most rogue doctors, neither committed crimes for financial gain, he said: “It’s what I would refer to as the ‘God complex’. They kill because they can. They have supreme power. The further back in time you go, the greater that power was because there were no forensics.”

His research will appear in his forthcoming book, titled The Killer of the Princes in the Tower: A New Suspect Revealed, to be published by Pen & Sword this month.

Mr Trow, a military historian by training, said: “Most of my writing career has been involved in either true crime or crime fiction. So I approached this from a crime writer’s point of view… The traditional view is that the most likely murderer was Richard III because the boys stood in his way to the throne.

"Other suspects have included Henry VII or the Duke of Buckingham, who also stood to gain by removing the princes. But those theories assume that the crime is political. My standpoint was, what if there’s another motive?”

Between 1513 and 1518, the statesman and philosopher Sir Thomas More wrote his History of King Richard III, describing the monarch as a “malicious” ruler who had ascended the throne by ordering the murder of the rightful heirs, his nephews.

More named Miles Forest and John Dighton as murderers recruited by Sir James Tyrell, a servant of Richard III, on his orders.

In Shakespeare’s play, that servant says: “Dighton and [Forest], whom I did suborn/ To do this ruthless piece of butchery.”

Mr Trow argues that Richard did not need to murder his nephews: “By law, the princes were no longer a threat.

"Edward IV had undergone a ‘pre-contract’, a marriage ceremony to Eleanor Butler before his wedding to Elizabeth Woodville in 1464. That meant that, according to canon and civil law, all Edward’s children were illegitimate.

"The princes could never become kings.”

Earlier this year, Professor Tim Thornton of the University of Huddersfield published a study supporting More’s account, having unearthed evidence that More could have had insider knowledge as two fellow courtiers under Henry VIII were the sons of Forest.

Of Trow’s research, he said: “This new book highlights the continuing and growing fascination with the mystery of the princes in the Tower - it's all the more exciting that we now have my own new insights into some of the major accounts of 1483 and Richard III’s seizure of the throne.”

He added: “Argentine is a fairly well-established figure in this mystery. It’s long been known that he was probably the last recorded witness to the princes’ presence in the Tower. To make him the prime suspect is an interesting idea.

"There’s a question as to why Argentine would have been seeing Edward in the Tower in the first place.”

Tracy Borman, the author and historian, said: “It’s always interesting when a new theory on a much-debated historical question comes to light.

"This is one of the most intriguing unsolved mysteries in history. So anything that sheds new light or perhaps makes us look at it from a different perspective is all to the good.”

But she voiced some scepticism: “On Arthur, there’s evidence to suggest a lingering disease, not a sudden kind of poisoning.”

Of the princes in the Tower, she added: “Arguably the boys had been declared illegitimate and Richard was king. But there were already plots to rescue them from the Tower, to put them back on the throne.”

Alison Weir, author of two books on the Princes in the Tower, described the Argentine theory as “unlikely”.

She argued that Prince Arthur had tuberculosis, according to the testimony of Katherine of Aragon’s doctor and that the young royal had been unhealthy from birth.

But Mr Trow said: “You’ll forgive me if I don’t take the word of any contemporary physician. They were all, by our standards, talking mumbo-jumbo.

"None of the boys’ symptoms fit tuberculosis whatsoever. There’s no evidence of Arthur’s earlier ill-health.”

He added: “Whether the court of history will judge Argentine guilty, we shall have to wait and see.”

Watch: Today in History for April 26th