Richard III Seizes the Throne and Imprisons His Nephews

Richard III’s seizure of the throne and imprisonment of his nephews is presented as a succession crisis whose consequences outlast the transfer of power itself. In Arthur, Prince of Wales’s account, Richard first holds the throne in trust after the death of his brother, Edward IV, then claims it for himself and places Edward’s young sons in the Tower of London, the royal prison. The princes’ disappearance leaves the legitimacy of Richard’s rule shadowed by an unresolved loss.

The Transfer of the Crown

Edward IV dies young, leaving a son to inherit. Richard, his brother, initially holds the throne in trust; he then takes it for himself. Arthur presents this change not as a settled succession but as the beginning of a struggle over who may rightfully rule. The nephews’ confinement makes the displacement of the heir tangible: the claim to the crown is accompanied by the removal of those who stood ahead of Richard in the line of inheritance.

The Princes in the Tower

Richard places his nephews in the Tower of London, the royal prison. They are never seen outside it again, and their fate is not established in Arthur’s account. Their mother and sisters, fearing arrest and the same disappearance, take sanctuary in a church. The princes’ absence becomes both a personal danger to their family and a political uncertainty that no account can resolve.

The Story’s Consequences

Arthur tells Catalina that people turned against Richard and summoned Henry Tudor from France. He links Richard’s rule, the missing princes, and the opposition that gathered around his father to the eventual end of England’s old feud. The episode therefore functions as more than a record of a crown changing hands: the vanished heirs leave a wound in the succession, while the struggle against Richard prepares the ground for a new dynasty and a promised peace.

Uncertainty and Narrative Frame

The episode reaches the reader through Arthur’s conversation with Catalina, as he recounts the familiar story of Richard’s seizure of power and the princes’ disappearance. His account distinguishes what is known—the boys entered the Tower and did not return—from what remains unknowable: what happened to them there. That gap gives the event its continuing force. Richard’s acquisition of the crown is narrated as an action; the princes’ fate remains an unanswered question at the center of the history that follows.