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the legitimacy of his wife or her claim as heiress of Edward IV called into question, prior to the marriage he had repealed the "Titulus Regius" which had previously declared the princes (and Elizabeth) illegitimate.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 royal tomb, so it was felt best to leave the medieval mystery unsolved for at least the next few generations. The 2012 Leicester archaeological dig has prompted renewed interest in re-excavating the skeletons of the "two princes", but Queen Elizabeth II has not granted the approval required for any such testing of an interred royal. The absence of hard evidence of what happened to the Princes has led to a number of theories being put forward. The most common theory is that they were murdered close to the time that they disappeared, and among historians and authors who accept the