Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York in the context of "Richard III"

Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the Plantagenet dynasty and its cadet branch the House of York. His defeat and death at the Battle of Bosworth Field marked the end of the Middle Ages in England.

Richard was created Duke of Gloucester in 1461 after the accession to the throne of his older brother Edward IV. This was during the period known as the Wars of the Roses, an era when two branches of the royal family contested the throne; Edward and Richard were Yorkists, and their side of the family faced off against their Lancastrian cousins. In 1472, Richard married Anne Neville, daughter of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, and widow of Edward of Lancaster, son of Henry VI, a Lancastrian. He governed northern England during Edward's reign, and played a role in the invasion of Scotland in 1482. When Edward IV died in April 1483, Richard was named Lord Protector of the realm for Edward's eldest son and successor, the 12-year-old Edward V. Before arrangements were complete for Edward V's coronation, scheduled for 22 June 1483, the marriage of his parents was declared bigamous and therefore invalid. Now officially illegitimate, Edward and his siblings were barred from inheriting the throne. On 25 June, an assembly of lords and commoners endorsed a declaration to this effect, and proclaimed Richard as the rightful king. He was crowned on 6 July 1483. Edward and his younger brother Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, called the "Princes in the Tower", disappeared from the Tower of London around August 1483.

The Princes in the Tower refers to the mystery of the fate of the deposed King Edward V of England and his younger brother Prince Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, heirs to the throne of King Edward IV of England. The brothers were the only sons of the king by his queen, Elizabeth Woodville, living at the time of their father's death in 1483. Aged 12 and 9 years old, respectively, they were lodged in the Tower of London by their paternal uncle and England's regent, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in preparation for Edward V's forthcoming coronation. Before the young king's coronation, however, he and his brother were declared illegitimate by Parliament. Gloucester ascended the throne as Richard III.

It is unclear what happened to the two princes after the last recorded sighting of them in the tower. It is generally assumed that they were murdered; a common hypothesis is that the murder was commissioned by Richard III in an attempt to secure his hold on the throne. Their deaths may have occurred sometime in 1483, but apart from their disappearance, the only evidence is circumstantial. As a result, several other theories about their fates have been proposed, including the suggestion that they were murdered by their kinsman the Duke of Buckingham, their future brother-in-law King Henry VII, or his mother Lady Margaret Beaufort, among others. It has also been suggested that one or both princes may have escaped assassination. In 1487, Lambert Simnel initially was crowned in Dublin as "King Edward", but later claimed by others to be York's cousin the Earl of Warwick. And again several years later, from 1491 until his capture in 1497, Perkin Warbeck claimed to be the Duke of York, having supposedly escaped to Flanders. Warbeck's claim was supported by some contemporaries, including York's aunt the Duchess of Burgundy.

Edward V (2 November 1470 – presumably July 1483) was King of England from 9 April to 25 June 1483. He succeeded his father, Edward IV, upon the latter's death. Edward V was never crowned, and his brief reign was dominated by the influence of his uncle and Lord Protector, the Duke of Gloucester, who deposed him to reign as King Richard III; this was confirmed by the Titulus Regius, an Act of Parliament which denounced any further claims through Edward IV's heirs by delegitimising Edward V and all of his siblings. This was later repealed by Henry VII, who subsequently married Elizabeth of York, Edward V's eldest sister.

Edward V and his younger brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, are known as the Princes in the Tower. They disappeared after being sent to heavily guarded royal lodgings in the Tower of London. Responsibility for their disappearance (and presumed deaths) is widely attributed to Richard III, who sent them to the Tower, but the lack of conclusive evidence and conflicting contemporary accounts allow for other possibilities.