Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham

Henry Stafford (1454-1483), 2nd Duke of Buckingham, is one of the primary suspects in the disappearance (and presumed murder) of the Princes in the Tower.

Buckingham was related to the royal family so many different ways that he was his own cousin many times over, but his connections were all through women or youngest sons, so he never had a ghost of a chance at the throne. Of his four grandparents, for example, three were descended from Edward III of England:

• Buckingham's father's father was a grandson of Thomas of Woodstock, youngest son of Edward III.
• Buckingham's father's mother was a granddaughter of Edward III's son John of Gaunt through his daughter Joan Beaufort.
• Buckingham's mother's father was a grandson of John of Gaunt, the youngest son of his son John Beaufort.
• Buckingham's mother's mother was descended from a daughter of William Marshal but not from Edward III.
• Buckingham's father was a first cousin of Edward IV and Richard III, because his mother Anne Neville (~1411-1480) was their mother's sister, and the Anne Neville (1456-1485) who married Richard III was their first cousin, too, the daughter of the two women's brother.
• Buckingham's mother was Margaret Beaufort (~1427-1474), who was a first-cousin of the Margaret Beaufort (1443-1509) who was Henry VII's mother, Buckingham's mother being the daughter of the youngest son and Henry Tudor's mother being the daughter of the elder.

His father died while Buckingham was an infant, and he became a ward of Queen Elizabeth Woodville, consort of Edward IV of England. He was recognized as Duke of Buckingham in 1465 and married the next year to the queen's sister Catherine (or Katherine) Woodville -- she was 24, and he was 12. He never forgave Elizabeth for forcing him into that marriage, and he resented his wife and the other Woodvilles, too. So when Edward IV died in 1483, and the showdown came between the Woodvilles and Edward's brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, over who was going to be in charge of Edward V until he came of age, Buckingham was on Richard's side at first.

Then Parliament declared Edward V illegitimate and offered Richard the throne, and he accepted it and became Richard III. After dithering between them for a short while, Buckingham started working with John Morton, Bishop of Ely, in the interests of Buckingham's second-cousin Henry Tudor and against those of King Richard, even though it meant being on the same side with his in-laws, the Woodvilles.

When Henry Tudor tried to invade England to take the throne from Richard in October 1483, Buckingham raised an army in Wales and started marching east to support Henry. By a combination of luck and skill, Richard put down the rebellion: Henry's ships ran into a storm and had to go back to Brittany, and Buckingham's army deserted when Richard's forces came against them. Buckingham tried to escape in disguise but was turned in for the bounty Richard had put on his head, and he was convicted of treason and beheaded in Salisbury on 2 November.

The evidence from which it is possible to conclude that Buckingham killed the Princes in the Tower is all circumstantial, but there is a lot of it, and none of it is contradictory. He had the opportunity, he had several possible motives, and there was nothing in his character that would put it beyond him. So until there are more facts in evidence, Buckingham must remain one of the likeliest suspects for the crime of murdering the two young princes.