Sarah O'Connell

As a proud Ricardian, historians dedicated to redeeming old Dick's spotted legacy and proving he wasn't such a bad guy after all, Langley launched a huge research mission called the Missing Princess Project.

The project's sole aim was to prove that the commonly held story of big bad uncle Richard killing his nephews in the tower was really just Tudor propaganda designed to smear the last Yorkist king.

A perfect example of history being written by the victors.

And rather than killing the boys, Richard was nice enough to let them go.

So whoever this guy was who was saying he was Edward V, this so-called king stormed into battle against Henry VII's forces at the Battle of Stoke in June 1487.

it would become known as the last ever battle of the War of the Roses.

And once again, the Yorkists lost miserably.

As a disorganised hodgepodge of paid European mercenaries, they were utterly trounced by the Tudor defenders and left like arrow-pricked hedgehogs in the dirt.

The story from there goes that the guy claiming to be Edward was unmasked as a ten-year-old commoner called Lambert Simnel.

After his capture, Henry VII sent him to work in the royal kitchens as punishment.

Don't send him into the palace.

But according to Langley, this was just a bit of fiction.

According to the Missing Princess Project, Henry VII tried to neutralize what had actually been a very legitimate threat by brushing it off as a tweenage poser.

The real Edward V most likely died at the Battle of Stoke.

And the Tudor king covered up just how close a call it had been to protect his shaky rule.

And I guess it sends this message, right, of like, I don't even need to execute you.

You are such a pretender to the throne.

I can put you in my own kitchens, like the peasant you are.

And from there, the mystery of the princes in the tower became ancient history.

Researchers battled around more half-baked theories, like a potential plot by Richard's friend-turned-enemy, the Duke of Buckinghamshire.