PRINCES IN THE TOWER

Southland Times, Issue 22215, 6 January 1934, Page 2

PRINCES IN THE TOWER

REMAINS DISINTERRED. PERMISSION OF THE KING. TRADITIONAL STORY CONFIRMED. The revelation that the Dean of Westminster Abbey, the Rev. W Foxley Norris, had, in July last, permitted them to reopen the urn in which the remains of the Princes who were murdered in the Tower of London were placed, was made by Mr. Lawrence E. Tanner, Keeper of the Muniments and sub-librarian at the Abbey, and Dr. William Wright, Professor of Anatomy at the London Hospital Medical School, in the course of recent lectures before the Society of Antiquaries. Dr. Wright said that he had confirmed conclusively, by means of anatomical examination, the traditional account of the Princes’ death, at the order of Richard 111, and he claimed that he had dispelled the theory that Henry VI. was responsible. The president of the Royal College of Surgeons, Lord Moynihan, who was present when the um was opened, said that the bones confirmed the commonly accepted historical account. He was specially impressed by the strong family resemblance between the two, particularly in the skulls. Roman Catholics are indignant at the Protestant burial service being read over the Princes when the remains were reinterred in the Abbey. They contend that the Princes were members of the Roman Catholic Church in pre-Reformation days, and consider tha the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Westminster should have been notified of the Abbey’s intentions, in order to enable him to hold a Requiem Mass at the same time in Westminster Cathedral.

It has been revealed that the King permitted the reopening of the tomb. Dr. Wright sent his Majesty the result of the “inquest” before it wac publicly announced.