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 survival would be Richard and that Edward may have died of a malady. Baldwin argues that it is "impossible" that no one knew what happened to the Princes after they entered the Tower; he believes Richard III and Henry VII, leading courtiers and their mother would all have known the boys' whereabouts and welfare. Baldwin argues that had this been the case, Henry VII would have had the choice of keeping quiet about the survival of Richard, or having him executed, and concluded, "He [Henry] would have been happy to let people "think" the boys had been murdered, but not