2B - The coup d’état by Richard of Gloucester: the issue of the Princes in the Tower and Richard III’s position as a usurper
Understand how Richard of Gloucester moved from protecting Edward V to taking his throne, and why the disputed succession and disappearance of the princes damaged Richard III’s authority.
Control of the young king
Edward IV’s death on 9 April 1483 left the crown to his twelve-year-old son, Edward V. A child could inherit the throne, but could not yet exercise the personal authority on which Edward IV’s government had depended. The immediate struggle concerned who would control the king, his council and the distribution of offices. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was the dead king’s brother, an experienced military leader and the intended Protector. The young king’s maternal relatives, the Woodvilles, already possessed influence over him at Ludlow. These positions made both sides powerful; neither was simply an outsider attacking an established government.
Richard’s alliance with Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, supplied additional support as he travelled south. At the end of April he intercepted the royal party near Stony Stratford and arrested Earl Rivers, Edward V’s maternal uncle, and Richard Grey, the king’s half-brother. Their removal separated Edward from the men who had managed his household. Richard took Edward to London and placed him in the Tower, a royal residence traditionally used before a coronation. That location alone did not prove an intention to murder or depose him. It mattered because Richard now controlled access to the king.
Elizabeth Woodville sought sanctuary at Westminster with her other children. Sanctuary offered religious protection from arrest, but also removed her from the central decisions about Edward’s government. Richard could present his actions as protecting the young king from an overmighty family. Yet protection and factional exclusion were already difficult to separate: opponents could see the arrests as a seizure of power rather than neutral guardianship.
From protection to deposition
The decisive change came when Richard stopped acting as the guardian of Edward’s kingship and asserted that Edward had no lawful title. Lord Hastings, a powerful supporter of Edward IV who had opposed Woodville predominance, was executed without a normal trial on 13 June. His fate shows why the struggle cannot be reduced to Richard versus the Woodvilles: someone who disliked the queen’s family could still oppose the removal of Edward IV’s son. Rivers and Grey were executed later that month. These killings removed experienced figures around whom resistance might gather and made the council’s freedom to disagree with Richard doubtful.
The younger prince, Richard, Duke of York, was brought out of sanctuary and joined Edward in the Tower. Richard then promoted the claim that Edward IV had entered an earlier marriage contract with Eleanor Butler. If that claim was valid, Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid and their children could be treated as illegitimate. The descendants of Richard’s deceased brother George, Duke of Clarence, were barred by Clarence’s attainder. This argument left Gloucester as the lawful Yorkist heir.
Usurper
A person who takes sovereign power in place of the ruler or heir regarded as entitled to hold it. Calling someone a usurper expresses a judgement about legitimacy; holding the crown successfully does not settle that judgement.
On 26 June Richard accepted the crown after an assembly requested that he become king; he was crowned on 6 July. This was not a normal Parliament freely choosing between rival claims. His Parliament of January–February 1484 later confirmed the title in Titulus Regius. The act gave legal form to the result, but could not make the events of June uncontroversial. The precontract allegation remains disputed, and the public legal argument should be distinguished from proof that it was true.
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