Did Richard III kill the children? We can't know for sure. If there was a cover-up to protect the real killers, it was done extremely well and so thoroughly that we will never be able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what really happened. Despite what I consider to be very convincing evidence that Richard did not kill the children, there are many very intelligent, very successful and indisputably respectable historical scholars out there who believe they have evidence that the king actually committed the murders and that this evidence they are just as convincing as anything I believe. But since you ask, let me explain my reasons. First, Richard didn't have a strong enough urge to kill the boys or a good enough reason. He appears to have succeeded in having them declared legally bastards – based on evidence of bigamy against his older brother (their late father) Edward IV – before he (Richard) ascended the throne. This action removed the boys from the line of succession to the throne of England. Killing them might therefore free Richard from two people who might later try to prove their right to the inheritance, but killing them might also alienate him from his own supporters as the murderer of his own family. This logic, however, does not save Richard from the charge of secretly having someone else murdered, most commonly believed to be Buckingham. I still don't think this is likely, for reasons I'll explain as I go along. But Richard's successor, the usurper Henry Tudor, had all sorts of good reasons for killing all the Plantagenet heirs to the throne, the chief of which was that Henry intended to establish his own family, the Tudors, as the ruling dynasty. Henry celebrated his success in seizing the throne by hiring his own historian to write an account of how it all came about, and we still rely on this account, even though we know it is pro-Tudor propaganda. Secondly, Richard's family is known to be extremely close to each other in their affection. Richard's older brother, Edward IV, appears to have trusted Richard greatly; when his younger brother was just a teenager, Edward had him command armies in battles for the succession (aka The Wars of the Roses). When Edward made his will, he left Richard as regent to protect the two sons - Edward, Prince of Wales and Richard of York - of the dying king and his wife Elizabeth..