On 22nd June, Ralph Shaa preached a sermon declaring that Edward IV had already been contracted to marry Lady Eleanor Butler when he married Edward V's mother Elizabeth Woodville, thereby rendering his marriage to Elizabeth invalid and their children together illegitimate. children of Richard's older brother George, Duke of Clarence, were barred from the throne by their father's attainder, and therefore, on 25th June, an assembly of Lords and Commons declared Richard to be the legitimate king. The following day he acceded to the throne as King Richard III.
Following Richard III’s ascendancy, it is reported that Edward and his younger brother Richard were taken into the "inner apartments of the Tower" and then were seen less and less until the end of the summer of 1483, when they disappeared from public view altogether. During this period Dominic Mancini, an Italian who visited England in the 1480s, records that Edward was regularly visited by a doctor, reported that Edward, "...like a victim prepared for sacrifice, sought remission of his sins by daily confession and penance, because he believed that death was facing him."
Edward and Richard's fate after their disappearance remains unknown, but the most widely accepted theory is that they were murdered on the orders of their uncle, Richard III.
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