The Fate of Princes

In the reign of Henry VII, the lawyer and royal servant Francis Lovell is asked to examine the fate of Edward V and his younger brother Richard, who disappeared from the Tower during the rise of Richard III. The Tudor government has its own need for a convincing account, while surviving Yorkists, former household servants and foreign agents retain dangerous fragments of information.

The investigation revisits the last months of Edward IV’s reign, the protectorate and Richard III’s seizure of the crown. Every testimony is compromised by fear or political interest, and the possibility that one prince survived could threaten the new dynasty. The novel turns the Princes in the Tower into a problem of evidence, memory and legitimacy.