Princes in the Tower under the staircase in the Tower of London. The bones were widely accepted at the time as those of the princes, but this has not been proven and is far from certain. King Charles II had the bones buried in Westminster Abbey, where they remain. On 9 April 1483, Edward IV of England died unexpectedly after an illness lasting around three weeks. At the time, Edward's son, the new King Edward V, was at Ludlow Castle, and the dead king's brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire. The news reached Gloucester around 15 April, although he
Princes in the Tower to speculate when or by whose hand." During the reign of Henry VII, two individuals claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, who had somehow escaped death. Lambert Simnel initially claimed to be Richard, before changing his story and claiming to be Edward Plantagenet, 17th Earl of Warwick. Perkin Warbeck later claimed to be Richard, appearing in Ireland and calling himself king Richard IV. Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, formally recognised Warbeck as Richard. Margaret, Richard III's sister, an unrelenting opponent of Henry VII, had previously recognised Simnel as Warwick. Warbeck was also accepted as Richard by James IV