The other prince in the Tower: the tragedy of Edward of Warwick

His execution marked the culmination of years of political instability. For much of the 15th century, England had been embroiled in civil war as the houses of York and Lancaster vied for the throne. After Henry Tudor took the crown from Richard III in 1485, Warwick was taken to the Tower, aged just 10.

He was not the first Yorkist prince to meet this fate, of course. His cousins, the better-known princes in the Tower, had been similarly imprisoned here in 1483 – and their subsequent disappearance remains the most infamous cold case in medieval and early modern English history.

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In comparison, the story of Edward of Warwick has been largely overlooked – perhaps because of the absence of mystery and conspiracy in his tale, which is no less tragic. The “unhappy boy”, as he was called by contemporary Italian scholar and diplomat Polydore Vergil, was one of the longest-standing residents in the Tower’s near-thousand-year history.

So how did this third prince come to be in the Tower? To understand, we must go back to the beginning of his tale – because his execution brought to an end a lifetime of tumult. His story reflects the turbulent times through which he lived, when brother fought brother and cousin met cousin in battle.

Edward of Warwick: early life in the Wars of the Roses

On his birth in February 1475, Warwick was fourth in line to the throne. He was orphaned just days before his third birthday, when his father, George, Duke of Clarence, was executed for treason. Relations between George and his brother, Edward IV, had long been fraught. George had rebelled against the king once already, in 1470; though forgiven, he was never again fully trusted by that monarch.

Following his wife’s death in December 1476, several weeks after giving birth, George became convinced that she had been murdered by one of her ladies-in-waiting, Ankarette Twynho. Next April he had Ankarette abducted, tried and unlawfully executed – thereby infringing upon the rights of the king in exacting justice.

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George’s error was compounded weeks later when one of his retainers, Thomas Burdett, was arrested for necromancy and, despite his denials, was executed. The following day, George burst into the king’s council chamber to protest – which was the last straw in the brothers’ relationship.

Edward was in no mood to forgive George another transgression and, in a grim precursor to his son’s fate, George was arrested and kept in the Tower awaiting trial, at which he was found guilty of high treason. He was executed on 18 February 1478.

An act of attainder against Clarence stripped Warwick of his inheritance, and he was tainted by his father’s crime for the rest of his days, “barred from all right and claim to the crown”.

In 1480, care of the boy was given over to the king’s stepson, Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, who paid £2,000 for Warwick’s wardship. Edward may have lived at the Tower during this time – Dorset was constable there for a period – but, if he did, it was certainly not as a prisoner.

He seems to have been cared for reasonably well despite his father’s treason: Edward IV’s wardrobe accounts show that the boy was given costly gifts. In summer 1481, he received “for his wear and use” nine pairs of shoes – four of the expensive, higher-quality double-soled kind – and a pair of “tawny Spanish leather” boots.

Was Edward of Warwick a threat to Richard III?

However, 15th-century English politics were nothing if not unpredictable. In April 1483, Edward IV died suddenly. His heir was Warwick’s cousin, the 12-year-old prince set to become King Edward V – but the boys’ uncle Richard moved to seize power.

In June, Edward IV’s children were declared illegitimate and, with Warwick also ineligible, Richard was next in line. Edward V, who was at the Tower while ostensibly preparing for his coronation, was joined there by his brother, Richard of York. They were never again seen beyond its walls.

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Though legally invalid, Warwick’s claim to the throne was stronger than his uncle’s, and an act of parliament could easily have reversed George’s attainder. But, rather than joining his cousins in the Tower, Warwick was moved to the royal household. He even attended Richard’s coronation on 6 July 1483.

The new king did not seem to view Warwick as a threat; indeed, Richard even seems to have begun planning for his future. Knighted in York that September, the boy was then moved to Sheriff Hutton in north Yorkshire. This was not a quiet, remote estate where he and other royal children lived in obscurity. On the contrary: in 1484, it was one of two administrative centres for Richard’s Council of the North, a body established to give subjects in that region access to the king’s justice, and one on which Warwick was even given a position.

The castle was essential for the running of the council and, though Warwick’s role was minimal – he was only nine years old – it was no doubt expected that it would increase as he grew older. Richard was clearly setting up his nephew for a position of importance in the north, and for a while Warwick’s future seemed bright.

What happened to Warwick under the Tudors?

That all changed when, in August 1485, Henry Tudor landed at Milford Haven on the Pembrokeshire coast. With an army of mercenaries and Lancastrians at his back, Henry made his way into England, meeting the king in battle at Bosworth Field.

Richard III was killed and, as the sun set on 22 August, the crown that – according to legend – had been found by the victor in a hawthorn bush now belonged to Henry VII.

Though still only 10 years old, Warwick represented one of the most significant threats to the new king. Despite the attainder, with the princes in the Tower missing, presumed dead, Warwick was next in line. He was taken into custody almost immediately and, as London prepared for another coronation, he was incarcerated in the Tower – for no crime save his royal blood.

Little is known about where Warwick was kept in the Tower, but chronicler Edward Hall wrote that he was kept “out of all company of men and sight of beasts”. Whereas the other princes in the Tower had been seen roaming the grounds and “taking the air” during the early stages of their stay in 1483, Warwick was not granted this liberty. Indeed, he would never taste true freedom again.

What did Warwick have to do with Lambert Simnel?

It is testament to the security under which he was kept that the first pretender to Henry VII’s throne initially claimed to be Warwick, escaped from captivity. That boy, later identified as Lambert Simnel, was also about 10 years old, and was guided by Richard Simons, an Oxford priest. Simons took the boy to Ireland, where Yorkist support could still be found and where, in May 1487, Simnel was crowned king at Christchurch Cathedral, Dublin.

Clearly, the real Warwick was so well sequestered that Simnel’s supporters had no trouble believing – or claiming to believe – that he was not imprisoned at all. But the episode also demonstrated that significant support could still be amassed for a Yorkist heir – even one whose claim was void. This was exactly why Warwick was being held in the Tower: even as a child with no legal right to the crown, his very existence threatened Henry VII.

Though still only 10 years old, Warwick represented one of the most significant threats to the new king... He was taken into custody almost immediately and incarcerated in the Tower – for no crime save his royal blood

To put to bed the “foolish notion that the boy was in Ireland”, Henry had the real Warwick paraded through London to St Paul’s Cathedral along a route lined with citizens. After hearing a sermon and – on Henry’s instruction – speaking to several men, Warwick then returned to the Tower.

This demonstration of his real location did not stop Simnel, though, who invaded England, reinforced by prominent Yorkists such as Warwick’s cousin John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln. The matter came to a head in June 1487 at the battle of Stoke Field, where it is thought that as many as 7,000 died, Lincoln among them.

Simnel was captured and, having received a pardon in recognition of his young age, was sent to work in the royal kitchens. Warwick, however, remained in the Tower despite his innocence.

Perkin Warbeck, another princely pretender

In 1490, another pretender to Henry’s throne burst onto the political scene overseas. This was Perkin Warbeck, born in Tournai (today in Belgium), who claimed to be Richard of York, the younger of the princes in the Tower. He was endorsed by Charles VIII of France, James IV of Scotland, and Warwick’s aunt, Margaret of Burgundy.

Like Simnel before him, Warbeck tried to take the crown, invading England several times after 1491 – always unsuccessfully. In 1497, he landed in Cornwall and, though he was declared King Richard IV at Bodmin Moor, he was soon captured by the king’s forces and taken to the Tower.

After confessing that he was not really the son of Edward IV, Warbeck was – like Simnel – treated remarkably fairly by Henry VII. Not only was he moved to the royal household, he was even allowed to attend banquets. It was captivity of a different kind, yet one much more lenient than Warwick’s.

The contrast is stark: the latter had been imprisoned for over a decade, whereas those who had actively attempted to usurp the crown lived far more comfortably. Their lack of royal blood meant that, though Simnel and Warbeck had raised armies and invaded, Warwick remained the biggest threat to Henry’s security.

It was only when Warbeck tried to escape in 1498 that he was taken back to the Tower. Here his story intersects with Warwick’s, putting them both on a path to destruction.

Warbeck was – like Simnel – treated remarkably fairly by Henry VII. Not only was he moved to the royal household, he was even allowed to attend banquets. It was captivity of a different kind, yet one much more lenient than Warwick’s

In a rare glimpse of the latter’s character, he reportedly spoke to Warbeck through a hole in the ceiling, urging him to “be of good cheer and comfort”. In the event, he would have neither; within months, a plot was uncovered to break out both men, involving stealing from the treasury and blowing up the Tower’s gunpowder store.

On trial, Warwick reportedly confessed that he “consented to break prison and depart out of the realm with Perkin” – though, Hall noted, “because of his innocence... many men” doubted Warwick had agreed to the plot “of his own free will”.

Indeed, a life in seclusion may have led to naivety on Warwick’s part, and he may not have understood the full extent of what he was agreeing to when he was “made privy [to] the enterprise”.

Why was Edward of Warwick sentenced to death?

Both men were tried for treason, and Warwick was found guilty on 12 November 1499. The trial records state that he was to be “drawn and hanged” – the most brutal method of execution, reserved for traitors. Warbeck had been similarly sentenced. This did not come as a surprise. Some believed that the scheme had been “the king’s device” – that “Perkin was but his bait to entrap the Earl of Warwick”.

Though there is no evidence that the plot was fabricated, it is not outside the realms of possibility. At the time, Henry was negotiating the marriage of his eldest son, Arthur, to the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon, whose parents were hesitant.

Francis Bacon later claimed that her father, Ferdinand II of Aragon, “had written to the king in plain terms, that he saw no assurance of [Arthur’s] succession as long as the Earl of Warwick lived; and that he was loth to send his daughter to troubles and dangers”. Hall, too, noted that Ferdinand “imagined that as long as any Earl of Warwick lived, England should never be cleansed or purged of civil war”.

To secure the alliance with Spain, Warwick had to die.

Why isn’t Warwick as well remembered as the Princes in the Tower?

On 23 November, Warbeck suffered a traitor’s death at Tyburn, and his head was set on a spike on London Bridge; Warwick’s nobility spared him this grisliest of punishments. Instead, his sentence was commuted to beheading on Tower Hill. Afterwards his body, “with the head laid into a coffin”, was taken for burial at Bisham Priory, the resting place of his Neville ancestors.

“The entire population mourned the death of the handsome youth,” Vergil wrote later, “who was committed to prison not for any fault of his own but because of his family’s offences.”

Despite reported public grief, there were no reprisals for Henry VII. Richard III had been maligned for the alleged murder of the other young royals, but there was no great uproar at the death of this third prince. It is impossible to say why, but perhaps it was because of his age. At 24, his death was tragic – but much less shocking than those of the princes in the Tower who, if they did indeed die in 1483, had been just 12 and 9 years old.

Perhaps, too, it was also because there were few left who could take up the Yorkist mantle. Though John de la Pole’s brothers Edmund (nicknamed the ‘White Rose’) and Richard (the ‘Last White Rose’) both tried, neither succeeded in raising the same kind of Yorkist spirit that tormented Henry VII in the latter years of the 15th century.

And though the Tudor quest for security would spill more Yorkist blood in the years to come, the direct male line of the House of York died with Warwick. In Vergil’s words, “Edward had to perish in this fashion in order that there should be no surviving male heir to his family”.

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A life without freedom

Henry VII had paid for the Spanish alliance with Warwick’s blood – and it proved to be a poor investment. Arthur died in 1502, and in 1509 Catherine of Aragon married Henry VIII. But when Henry’s plan to divorce her was revealed, Catherine “used some words that she had not offended, but it was a judgment of God, for her former marriage was made in blood; meaning that of the Earl of Warwick”.

Though she argued that her marriage remained valid, Warwick’s death clearly lay heavy on her mind. Henry VII had justified the young man’s execution with the accusation of treason, but there remained some – like Catherine – who saw the tragedy in it.

For the sole reason that he was Clarence’s son, Warwick was forced to live a life without freedom – and, just like the thousands who died during the Wars of the Roses, ultimately lost it.

Sarah Norton is a historian specialising in kingship in the late Middle Ages and Tudor period

This article was first published in the November 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine