Edward V

Edward V 1470-83?, king of England (1483), elder son of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. His father's death (1483) left the boy king the pawn of the conflicting ambitions of his paternal uncle, the duke of Gloucester (later Richard III ) and his maternal uncle, Earl Rivers. Gloucester had Rivers arrested and confined the king and the king's younger brother, Richard, duke of York, to the Tower of London. The young princes were declared illegitimate, and Gloucester, with a show of reluctance, took the throne. The two children disappeared from the English scene, and it is likely that they were murdered. However, conclusive proof of their exact fate has never been found. One of the oldest and most prevalent theories—that they were smothered in their sleep by order of Richard III—was propagated or even invented by the victorious Tudors after 1485, and it has been suggested that Henry Stafford , 2d duke of Buckingham, or Henry VII, as well as Richard III, could have been responsible for the death of the princes. Skeletons, presumed to be those of the princes, were unearthed in the Tower in 1674. The skeletons were thought to be those of boys aged 12-13 and 10, the ages of the princes in 1483.

Bibliography: See P. Kendall, Richard the Third (1955).

Edward V (1470–83) King of England (1483), the eldest son of EDWARD IV and Elizabeth Woodville. His short reign, which began on 9 April 1483, was little more than a power struggle between the Woodvilles and his paternal uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester. In June, Richard assumed royal dignity as RICHARD III, and it was at some time between then and August of the same year that Edward and his brother were murdered in the Tower of London, probably at the instigation of Richard.

Edward V (1470–83) King of England for 77 days in 1483. He succeeded his father, Edward IV. His uncle, Duke of Gloucester, imprisoned Edward and his younger brother, Richard, in the Tower of London, and assumed the throne as Richard III. The disappearance of ‘the Princes in the Tower’ was attributed to Richard, although some suspect Henry VII.