Princes in the Tower becoming king, Henry married the princes' eldest sister, Elizabeth of York, to reinforce his claim to the throne. Not wanting the legitimacy of his wife or her claim as heiress of Edward IV called into question, prior to the marriage he had repealed the "Titulus Regius" which had previously declared the princes (and Elizabeth) illegitimate. Markham suggests the princes were executed under Henry's orders between 16 June and 16 July 1486, claiming that it was only after this date that orders went out to circulate the story that Richard had killed the princes, and that the princes' mother, Elizabeth Woodville,
Princes in the Tower of the disappearance of the princes, whatever happened to them, is that they were believed to have been murdered and Richard was blamed for their murders. Even if he had not been directly responsible for their deaths, the fact that he had deposed them and kept them under tight guard made him responsible for their welfare in the eyes of contemporaries, and the belief that they had been murdered made him guilty via negligence if not directly. As Baldwin noted in support of his conclusion that Richard would not have murdered the princes, "It seems incredible Richard ever supposed killing