John Everett Millais, The Princes in the Tower, 1878

The two princes who vanished without trace from their confinement in the Tower made an impression even on Shakespeare. He told the story of Edward V and his younger brother Richard in the history play "Richard III".

Edward V is one of the uncrowned monarchs of England. He was in his thirteenth year when his father Edward IV died. The boy was never crowned: his father's younger brother Richard of Gloucester, appointed protector, shut the young Edward and his brother up in the Tower, removed their mother's relatives from them by trickery, executed their patrons, and declared the children illegitimate. After that, nothing more is known of them. Thomas More wrote that the boys were smothered with pillows in their sleep, and Shakespeare took this version as his basis.

The fate of the princes found a great response in literature and art. Many paintings depict the last stage of their lives, and even one of the shades of pink was named in memory of their fate: "Edward's children" colour.

As for Millais's picture, does it not recall the pages Olya and Yalo from the film "The Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors"?