Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York
Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York (17 August 1473), was the sixth child and second son of King Edward IV of England and Elizabeth Woodville, born in Shrewsbury. Richard and his older brother, who briefly reigned as King Edward V of England, mysteriously disappeared shortly after their uncle Richard III became king in 1483. Dukedoms Prince Richard was created Duke of York in May 1474 and made a Knight of the Garter the following year. From this time on, it became a tradition for the second son of the English sovereign to be Duke of York. He was created Earl of Nottingham on 12 June 1476. On 15 January 1478, in St Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, when he was 4 years old, he married the 5-year-old Anne de Mowbray, 8th Countess of Norfolk, who had inherited the vast Mowbray estates in 1476. As York's father-in-law's dukedom had become extinct when Anne could not inherit it, he was created Duke of Norfolk and Earl Warenne on 7 February 1477. When Anne de Mowbray died in November 1481 her estates should have passed to William, Viscount Berkeley and to John, Lord Howard. In January 1483, Parliament passed an act that gave the Mowbray estates to Richard, Duke of York and Norfolk, for his lifetime, and at his death to his heirs, if he had any. The rights of the two co-heirs at law were extinguished; Viscount Berkeley had financial difficulties and King Edward IV paid off and forgave those debts. Berkeley then renounced his claims to the Mowbray estate before parliament in 1483. Nothing was done for Lord Howard. Heir presumptive His father died on 9 April 1483. Thus his brother Edward, Prince of Wales, became King of England and was acclaimed as such, and Richard his Heir Presumptive. This was not to last. A priest, now generally believed to have been Robert Stillington, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, testified that Edward IV had agreed to marry Lady Eleanor Talbot in 1461. Lady Eleanor was still alive when Edward married Elizabeth Woodville in 1464. The Regency Council under the late King's brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, concluded that this was a case of bigamy, invalidating the second marriage and the legitimacy of all children of Edward IV by this marriage. Under Gloucester's influence, both Edward and Richard were declared illegitimate and removed from the line of succession on 25 June 1483. The Duke of Gloucester, as the only surviving brother of Edward IV, became King Richard III. Possible fate The Duke of York was sent to the Tower of London, then a royal residence, by King Richard III in mid-1483, where he was held with his brother. They were sometimes seen in the garden of the Tower, but there are no known sightings of them after the summer of 1483. What happened to the two of them—the Princes in the Tower—after their disappearance remains unknown. Tudor History was quick to blame his uncle, Richard. Thomas More wrote that the princes were smothered