Princes in the Tower act stated that Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville's marriage was invalid because of Edward's pre-contract of marriage with Lady Eleanor Butler. Gloucester was crowned King Richard III of England on 3 July. The declaration of the boys' illegitimacy has been described by Rosemary Horrox as an ex post facto justification for Richard's accession. Dominic Mancini, an Italian friar who visited England in the 1480s and who was in London in the spring and summer of 1483, recorded that after Richard III seized the throne, Edward and his younger brother Richard were taken into the "inner apartments of the Tower" and
Princes in the Tower More's account was actually written by Archbishop Morton and that Tyrrell was induced to do the deed by Henry VII between June 16 and July 16, 1486, the dates of two general pardons that he received from the king. Richard's guilt was widely accepted by contemporaries. George Cely, Dominic Mancini, John Rous, Fabyan’s Chronicle, the Crowland Chronicler and the London Chronicle all noted the disappearance of the Princes, and all bar Mancini (who noted that he had no knowledge of what had happened) repeated rumours naming Richard as the murderer. Guillaume de Rochefort, Chancellor of France, named Richard as the