out of a ducal coronet or, a plume of ostrich feathers four and three
argent.
Bridget of York, 1480-1513
The tenth and last child of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, she became
a nun at Dartford and died in 1513.
Richard III 1452–1485
By the Grace of God, King of England and France and Lord of Ireland
Richard III was born on the 2 October, 1452 in Fotheringhay Castle during
the tumultuous period known as the Wars of the Roses. His personal motto of
Loyaulte Me Lie was a testament of his unswerving loyalty for his brother,
Edward IV.
In 1461, he was sent to Middleham Castle to begin his knightly training
under his cousin, Richard Neville, known as "The Kingmaker". In 1472, he
married the Lady Anne Neville and they retired to Middleham. As Lord of the
North, Richard spent the next twelve years bringing peace and order to an
otherwise troublesome area of England. Through his hard work and diligence,
he attracted the loyalty and trust of the northern gentry. His
fairmindedness and justice became his byword. He had a good working
reputation of the law, was an able administrator and was militarily
formidable. Under his leadership, he won a brilliant campaign against the
Scots that is diminished by our lack of understanding of the region in his
times.
He enjoyed a special relationship with the city of York and intervened on
its behalf on many occasions. Richard, known to be a pious man, was
instrumental in setting up no less than ten chantries and procured two
licenses to establish two colleges; one at Barnard Castle in County Durham
and the other at Middleham in Yorkshire. It is known that his favorite
castle was Middleham and he was especially generous to the church raising
it to the status of collegiate college. The statutes, written in English
rather than Latin, were drawn up under his supervision.
With the untimely death of his brother, Edward IV in 1483, he was
petitioned by the Lords and Commons of Parliament to accept the kingship of
England. During his brief reign, he passed the most enlightened laws on
record for the Fifteenth Century. He set up a council of advisors that
diplomatically included Lancastrian supporters, administered justice for
the poor as well as the rich, established a series of posting stations for
royal messengers between the North and London. He fostered the importation
of books, commanded laws be written in English instead of Latin so the
common people could understand their own laws. He outlawed benevolences,
started the system of bail and stopped the intimidation of juries. He re-
established the Council of the North in July of 1484 and it lasted for more
than a century and a half. He established the College of Arms that still
exists today. He donated money for the completion of St. George's Chapel at
Windsor and King's College in Cambridge. He modernized Barnard Castle,
built the great hall at Middleham and the great hall at Sudeley Castle. He
undertook extensive work at Windsor Castle and ordered the renovation of
apartments at one of the towers at Nottingham Castle.
In 1484, while Richard and Anne were at Nottingham, they received word
that their beloved son, Edward, who was at Middleham, died suddenly after a
brief illness. His wife, Anne, never recovered from the loss of her son and
died almost a year later. Her body was borne to Westminster Abbey and laid
to rest on the south side of St. Edward's Chapel. Richard wept openly at
her funeral and later shut himself off for three days.
In eighteen months, he lost brother, son and spouse. Throughout these
tragedies, he remained steadfast to his obligations. His reign showed great
promise, but amidst the intrigues and power struggles of his time, he found
himself on Bosworth Field. Richard III was 32 years old when he died at the
Battle of Bosworth and was the last English king to die in battle.
Arms as Duke of Gloucester: France and England modern, over all a 3-
pointed label ermine, on each point a conton gules.
Arms: Quarterly, France modern and England, and his crest on his Great
Seal; on a chapeau gules turned up ermine encircled by a royal coronet, a
lion statant guardant crowned or; special cognisant, a boar rampant argent,
armed and bristled or.
Anne Neville, Queen of England, 1456-1485
Anne Neville was born on 11 June 1456 at Warwick Castle, the younger
daughter of Richard Warwick ("The King Maker") and Anne Beauchamp, heiress
to the large Beauchamp estate. She spent her childhhod at warwick Castle
along with her older sister Isabel. In 1469, her father, no longer in favor
with Edward IV, fled to Calais, bringing his family with him. Shortly
afterwards, Warwick went over to the Lancastrians, and Anne was betrothed
to the Lancastrian Prince Edward, Prince of Wales. Her father and uuncle
John were killed at Barnet in April 1471. Edward of Lancaster died at
Tewkesbury a month later. She married Richard, Duke of Gloucester and they
spent most of their married life at Middleham Castle. They had only one
living child, Edward, Prince of Wales. In 1484, Prince Edward died. Anne
never recovered and died, probably of tuberculosis, in March 1485, just
five months before her husband Richard.
Her arms were: Quarterly, France modern and England, impaling gules, a
saltire argent.
Edward, Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester and Salisbury, 1473–1484
Edward was the only surviving child of Richard III and Queen Anne. He was
born at Middleham Castle, Yorkshire and was created Prince of Wales during
the first year of his father’s reign. Edward suddenly became ill with
abdominal pain in 1484 and quickly died, possibly of appendicitis. His
parents were distraught with grief and his death may have hastened Anne’s
decline.
Arms: Quarterly, France modern and England, a label of three points
argent.
John of Gloucester
John was Richard III’s illegitimate son. His mother is unknown. He was
also called John of Pomfret, his father appointed him Captain of Calais in
1485, calling him ‘our dear son’. After his father’s death, during the
reign of Henry VII, John was beheaded on the pretext of treasonable
activities in Ireland.
Lady Catherine Plantagenet
Katherine was the illegitimate daughter of Richard III. Her mother is
unknown. In 1484, Katherine was married to William Herbert, Earl of
Huntingdon. Richard settled property worth 1,000 marks a year on the
couple. Katherine died young without producing any living children.
Some concrete facts about kings which had come frjm The House of York
Edward IV (1461-70, 1471-83 AD)
[pic]Edward IV, son of Richard, Duke of York and Cicely Neville, was born
in 1442. He married Elizabeth Woodville in 1464, the widow of the
Lancastrian Sir John Grey, who bore him ten children. He also entertained
many mistresses and had at least one illegitimate son.
Edward came to the throne through the efforts of his father; as Henry VI
became increasingly less effective, Richard pressed the claim of the York
family but was killed before he could ascend the throne: Edward deposed his
cousin Henry after defeating the Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross in 1461.
Richard Neville, the Kingmaker, Earl of Warwick proclaimed Henry king once
again in 1470, but less than a year elapsed when Edward reclaimed the crown
and had Henry executed in 1471.
The rest of his reign was fairly uneventful. He revived the English claim
to the French throne and invaded the weakened France, extorting a non-
aggression treaty from Louis XI in 1475 which amounted to a lump payment of
75,000 crowns, and an annuity of 20,000. Edward had his brother, George,
Duke of Clarendon, judicially murdered in 1478 on a charge of treason. His
marriage to Elizabeth Woodville vexed his councilors, and he allowed many
of the great nobles (such as his brother Richard) to build
uncharacteristically large power bases in the provinces in return for their
support.
Edward died suddenly in 1483, leaving behind two sons aged twelve and
nine, five daughters, and a troubled legacy.
Edward began his reign in 1461 and ruled for eight years before Henry's
brief return. His reign is marked by two distinct periods, the first in
which he was chiefly engaged in suppressing the opposition to his throne,
and the second in which he enjoyed a period of relative peace and security.
Both periods were marked also by his extreme licentiousness; it is said
that his sexual excesses were the cause of his death (it may have been
typhoid), but he was praised highly for his military skills and his
charming personality. When Edward married Elizabeth Woodville, a commoner
of great beauty, but regarded as an unfit bride for a king, even Warwick
turned against him. We can understand Warwick's switch to Margaret and to
Edward's young brother, the Duke of Clarence, when we learn that he had
hoped the king would marry one of his own daughters.
Clarence continued his activities against his brother during the second
phase of Edward's reign; his involvement in a plot to depose the king got
him banished to the Tower where he mysteriously died (drowned in his bath).
Edward had meanwhile set up a council with extensive judicial and military
powers to deal with Wales and to govern the Marches. His brother, the Duke
of Gloucester headed a council in the north. He levied few subsidies,
invested his own considerable fortune in improving trade; freed himself
from involvement in France by accepting a pension from the French King; and
all in all, remained a popular monarch. He left two sons, Edward and
Richard, in the protection of Richard of Gloucester, with the results that
have forever blackened their guardian's name in English history.
Edward V (1483 AD)
Edward V, eldest son of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, was born in
1470. He ascended the throne upon his father's death in April 1483, but
reigned only two months before being deposed by his uncle, Richard, Duke of
Gloucester. The entire episode is still shrouded in mystery. The Duke had
Edward and his younger brother, Richard, imprisoned in the Tower and
declared illegitimate and named himself rightful heir to the crown. The two
young boys never emerged from the Tower, apparently murdered by, or at
least on the orders of, their Uncle Richard. During renovations to the
Tower in 1674, the skeletons of two children were found, possibly the
murdered boys.
Richard III (1483-85)
[pic]Richard III, the eleventh child of Richard, Duke of York, and Cecily
Neville, was born in 1452. He was created third Duke of Gloucester at the
coronation of his brother, Edward IV. Richard had three children: one each
of an illegitimate son and daughter, and one son by his first wife, Anne
Neville, widow of Henry IV's son Edward.
Richard's reign gained an importance out of proportion to its length. He
was the last of the Plantagenet dynasty, which had ruled England since
1154; he was the last English king to die on the battlefield; his death in
1485 is generally accepted between the medieval and modern ages in England;
and he is credited with the responsibility for several murders: Henry VI ,
Henry's son Edward, his brother Clarence, and his nephews Edward and
Richard.
Richard's power was immense, and upon the death of Edward IV , he
positioned himself to seize the throne from the young Edward V . He feared
a continuance of internal feuding should Edward V, under the influence of
his mother's Woodville relatives, remain on the throne (most of this feared
conflict would have undoubtedly come from Richard). The old nobility, also
fearful of a strengthened Woodville clan, assembled and declared the
succession of Edward V as illegal, due to weak evidence suggesting that
Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous, thereby rendering
his sons illegitimate and ineligible as heirs to the crown. Edward V and
his younger brother, Richard of York, were imprisoned in the Tower of
London, never to again emerge alive. Richard of Gloucester was crowned
Richard III on July 6, 1483.
Four months into his reign he crushed a rebellion led by his former
assistant Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, who sought the installation
of Henry Tudor , a diluted Lancaster, to the throne. The rebellion was
crushed, but Tudor gathered troops and attacked Richard's forces on August
22, 1485, at the battle of Bosworth Field. The last major battle of the
Wars of the Roses, Bosworth Field became the death place of Richard III.
Historians have been noticeably unkind to Richard, based on purely
circumstantial evidence; Shakespeare portrays him as a complete monster in
his play, Richard III. One thing is for certain, however: Richard's defeat
and the cessation of the Wars of the Roses allowed the stability England
required to heal, consolidate, and push into the modern era.
Richard of Gloucester had grown rich and powerful during the reign of his
brother Edward IV, who had rewarded his loyalty with many northern estates
bordering the city of York. Edward had allowed Richard to govern that part
of the country, where he was known as "Lord of the North." The new king was
a minor and England was divided over whether Richard should govern as
Protector or merely as chief member of a Council. There were also fears
that he may use his influence to avenge the death of his brother Clarence
at the hands of the Queen's supporters. And Richard was supported by the
powerful Duke of Buckingham, who had married into the Woodville family
against his will.
Richard's competence and military ability was a threat to the throne and
the legitimate heir Edward V. After a series of skirmishes with the forces
of the widowed queen, anxious to restore her influence in the north,
Richard had the young prince of Wales placed in the Tower. He was never
seen again though his uncle kept up the pretence that Edward would be
safely guarded until his upcoming coronation. The queen herself took
sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, but Richard had her brother and father
killed.
Edward's coronation was set for June, 1483. Richard planned his coup.
First he divided the ruling Council, convincing his own followers of the
need to have Lord Hastings executed for treason. (It had been Hastings who
had informed him of the late King's death and the ambitions of the Queen's
party). He then had his other young nephew Richard join Edward in the
Tower. One day after that set for Edward's coronation, Richard was able to
pressure the assembled Lords and Commons in Parliament to petition him to
assume the kingship. After his immediate acceptance, he then rode to
Westminster and was duly crowned as Richard III. His rivals had been
defeated and the prospects for a long, stable reign looked promising. Then
it all unraveled for the treacherous King.
It is one thing to kill a rival in battle but it is another matter to
have your brother's children put to death. By being suspected of this evil
deed, Richard condemned himself. Though the new king busied himself
granting amnesty and largesse to all and sundry, he could never cleanse
himself of the suspicion surrounding the murder of the young princes. He
had his own son Edward invested as Prince of Wales, and thus heir to his
throne, but revulsion soon set in to destroy what, for all intents and
purposes, could have been a well-managed, competent royal administration.
It didn't help Richard much that even before he took the throne he had
denounced the Queen "and her blood adherents," impugned the legitimacy of
his own brother and his young nephews and stigmatized Henry Tudor's royal
blood as bastard. The rebellion against him started with the defection of
the Duke of Buckingham whose open support of the Lancastrian claimant
overseas, Henry Tudor, transformed a situation which had previously favored
Richard.
The king was defeated and killed at Bosworth Field in 1485, a battle that
was as momentous for the future of England as had been Hastings in 1066.
The battle ended the Wars of the Roses, and for all intents and purposes,
the victory of Henry Tudor and his accession to the throne conveniently
marks the end of the medieval and the beginning of England's modern period.
Sources:
1. www.britannia.com\history
2. www.numizmat.net
3. http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/Y/York-hou.html
4. http://www.britannia.com/history/monarchs
5. www.hotbot.com
6. www.yahoo.com
