by Alison Weir
7. Mancini
8. CSP Milan
9. Mancini
10. Ibid.
11. Calendar of Patent Rolls: Edward IV, 1467–77
12. HVIIPPE
13. Cotton MSS. Vespasian, f. XIII
14. Pietro Carmeliano, cited in Anglo: Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy
15. An example is in Cotton MSS. Vespasian, f. III, p. 15, and probably comes from a book Cecily owned.
16. CSP Spain
17. CSP Venice; CSP Milan
18. Collection of Ordinances
19. In 1477 priests holding fellowships at Queens’ College, Cambridge, were instructed to offer daily prayers for “our sovereign lady, Queen Elizabeth, foundress of the College, the Prince, and all the King’s childer.” The college was founded by Andrew Dockett, a local rector, in 1446. Margaret of Anjou had become its patron in 1448.
20. Sutton and Visscher-Fuchs: “A ‘Most Benevolent Queen’ ”; Women and the Book
21. Stonyhurst MS. 37; Tudor-Craig
22. Royal MS. 14, EIII; Wilkins; McKendrick, Lowden and Doyle
23. Garrett MS. 168; Quaritch; Okerlund: Elizabeth of York
24. Hinde
25. Paston Letters; Additional MS. 6113
26. Croyland Chronicle
27. Only some masonry and the vaulted undercroft, which housed the domestic offices, survives of Edward III’s palace.
28. Hedley
29. “Narratives of the Arrival of Louis of Bruges”; Kingsford: English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century
30. Green
31. Brigden
32. Mancini
33. Rous
34. More
35. Calendar of Patent Rolls: Edward IV, 1467–77; B.L. Additional MS. 14289, f. 12; Lowe
36. Shears
37. Hicks: Edward V; Exchequer Records E.101/412/9-11; Harleian MS. 158, ff. 119v, 120v; Additional MS. 6113, ff. 97–98v, 111–12
38. Foedera
39. Commines; Foedera
40. Commines
41. Cotton MSS.
42. Commines
43. Additional MS. 6113
44. Calendar of Close Rolls: Edward IV. This infant was possibly named for her aunt, Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter, or for her great-grandmother, Anne Mortimer, Countess of Cambridge, through whom the House of York claimed its senior descent from Edward III. Edward IV also professed a special devotion to St. Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary.
45. Cokayne
46. Leland: Itinerary
47. Croyland Chronicle
48. A detailed account of the proceedings by Thomas Whiting, Chester Herald, is in Excerpta Historica. See also Sutton and Visscher-Fuchs: Reburial
49. At the Reformation the college was dissolved and half the church dismantled. Visiting the ruined choir in 1573, Elizabeth I was appalled to see that the tombs were much decayed, and ordered that new Renaissance-style monuments be built in the church to house the remains of Edward, Duke of York; Richard, Duke of York; Cecily Neville (who had been buried at Fotheringhay in 1495); and Edmund, Earl of Rutland. These are the sepulchres that can be seen today in the sanctuary. The once splendid castle where Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed in 1587, was pulled down in 1627, and all that remain are the twelfth-century earthworks, and a fragment of masonry.
50. Plowden: Tudor Women. Holinshed, writing of Edward’s later plan of 1483 to marry Elizabeth to Henry Tudor, states the marriage had been suggested some years earlier, but Elizabeth was betrothed to the Dauphin at the time.
51. André
52. Commines
53. CSP Milan
54. He was born at Windsor—Edward IV refers to him as “our son, George of Windsor” (Calendar of Close Rolls: Edward IV)—not, as is sometimes stated, at the Dominican friary in Shrewsbury where his brother Richard had been born. The first mention of him is in a document of July 6, 1477, appointing him Lieutenant of Ireland.
55. Calendar of Close Rolls: Edward IV
56. The Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter
57. Hedley
58. Croyland Chronicle
59. Ibid.
60. Anne Mowbray was reburied in the Poor Clares’ convent at Stepney. Her coffin was found during excavations in 1965, and after examination her remains were reburied later that year as close as possible to her original burial place in Westminster Abbey. A photograph of her remarkably preserved hair is in the Museum of London.
61. The Narrative of the Marriage of Richard, Duke of York; Illustrations of Ancient State and Chivalry
62. Rotuli Parliamentorum
63. Mancini
64. Hicks: False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence
65. Mancini; Great Chronicle of London; Commines, Molinet, Roye, Vergil; Stow: Annals
66. Calendar of Patent Rolls: Edward IV, 1467–77
67. Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the Fourth, in PPE
68. Hicks: False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence
69. Cited Jones: Psychology of a Battle: Bosworth, 1485
70. Westervelt; Hicks: Richard III; Hicks: False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence; Crawford: The Yorkists
71. Croyland Chronicle; Vergil; More
72. Vergil
73. Ibid.
74. Ross: Edward IV
75. Calendar of Close Rolls: Edward IV
76. Ibid.
77. CSP Milan
78. CSP Venice
79. Harleian MS. 336, in Leland: Collectanea
80. Warner
81. Harleian MS. 336, in Leland: Collectanea
82. Harleian MS. 4780
83. Green; Platt
84. Account of Garter King of Arms, in Additional MS. 6113, ff. 49, 74–74v; PPE
85. Foedera
86. Hall
87. Foedera
88. College of Arms MS. I, 11, f.21r-v; Sandford.
89. Jones, in Women of the Cousins’ Wars; André
90. Rous
91. Foedera
92. Kendall: Louis XI
93. Croyland Chronicle
94. Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the Fourth, in PPE
95. Croyland Chronicle
96. Ibid.
3: “THIS ACT OF USURPATION”
1. More
2. Croyland Chronicle
3. Vergil
4. Commines
5. Excerpta Historica
6. McKelvey
7. Calendar of Papal Registers
8. Cotton MS. Cleopatra
9. Mancini; Vergil
10. Mancini
11. Croyland Chronicle; Mancini
12. Mancini
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid.
15. Vergil
16. Mancini
17. Ibid.
18. More
19. Mancini
20. Dockray: Richard III: A Source Book
21. Crawford: The Yorkists
22. Mancini
23. Vergil
24. Croyland Chronicle
25. Shears
26. Mancini
27. More
28. Mancini
29. More
30. Mancini
31. Fabyan
32. Croyland Chronicle; Great Chronicle of London; Fabyan; More; Vergil
33. Vergil
34. More; Hall
35. Antiquarian Repertory
36. Hall
37. More
38. Stonor Letters
39. Mancini
40. More; Hall. More relates a detailed conversation between the Queen and the Archbishop, but he almost certainly invented the speeches, basing them on what he knew had passed between them. This was a common practice in historical writing at that time.
41. More
42. Mancini
43. André
44. Rous
45. Croyland Chronicle
46. Registrum Thome Bourgchier
47. Paston Letters; McSheffrey
48. Warkworth
49. This Sir John Mortimer married, after 1485, Marg
aret, daughter of John Neville, Viscount Montagu, and sister of the George Neville, who had at one time been affianced to Elizabeth; Margaret Neville later married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.
50. Tudor-Craig; Catalogue of Western Manuscripts and Miniatures. The manuscript was in the collection of Colonel Bradfer-Lawrence, but was sold at Sotheby’s in 1983.
51. Croyland Chronicle
52. Guildhall MSS.
53. York Civic Records
54. Croyland Chronicle
55. Ibid.
56. Mancini
57. Ibid.; Croyland Chronicle
58. Fabyan
59. André
60. Mancini
61. Buck, ed. Kincaid; Kendall: Richard the Third; Black; Edwards: “The ‘Second’ Continuation of the Crowland Chronicle”
62. Mancini
63. Croyland Chronicle
64. Commines
65. Okerlund: Elizabeth Wydeville
66. Ashdown-Hill: “The Fate of Edward IV’s Uncrowned Queen, the Lady Eleanor Talbot, Lady Butler”; Hampton; Mowat; Calendar of Patent Rolls: Edward IV, 1467–77; Rotuli Parliamentorum; Okerlund: Elizabeth Wydeville; Okerlund: Elizabeth of York. Ashdown-Hill argues that the story was true and that Edward did make a valid marriage with Eleanor Butler.
67. Helmholz. I am grateful to Professor Anthony Goodman for sending me this reference.
68. Croyland Chronicle
69. Ashdown-Hill: Eleanor, the Secret Queen
70. The Croyland Chronicle is the only source correctly to report Edward’s supposed precontract with Eleanor Butler.
71. Crawford: The Yorkists
72. Arrivall
73. Excerpta Historica
74. Hicks: Robert Stillington
75. Mancini
76. Fabyan
77. Mancini
78. Rous
79. Fabyan
80. Croyland Chronicle
81. Ibid.
82. Mancini
83. Croyland Chronicle
84. Loades: The Tudors
85. Myers: “The Princes in the Tower”
86. Brigden
4: “THE WHOLE DESIGN OF THIS PLOT”
1. Croyland Chronicle
2. Ibid.
3. Cely Letters; Smyth
4. Croyland Chronicle
5. Ibid.
6. Dockray: Richard III: A Source Book
7. More
8. Mancini
9. More
10. Rawcliffe, citing D. 1721/1/11, f. 5–9, Staffordshire Record Office
11. Ross: Richard III
12. Rotuli Parliamentorum
13. Croyland Chronicle
14. The matter is discussed extensively, and the sources evaluated, in my book The Princes in the Tower (1992); although my conclusions are substantially the same, I have revised some aspects in this book.
15. More; Great Chronicle of London; Vergil. For a balanced, academic view, see Hicks: Edward V, who points out that three sources are usually sufficient evidence for academic historians. For More’s sources, see The Princes in the Tower.
16. The basis of the British Library.
17. For a full discussion of Buck’s sources, see A. N. Kincaid’s edition of his work.
18. Cited by Kincaid, in his edition of Buck.
19. Chambers; Markham
20. Hicks: Edward V
21. Ibid.
22. Cotton MS. Vitellius A XVI
23. Croyland Chronicle
24. Rowse: Bosworth Field
25. Hall
26. Jones, in Women of the Cousins’ Wars
27. Vergil
28. Calendar of Papal Registers
29. Vergil
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid.
32. Croyland Chronicle
33. André
34. Caxton; The Caxton Project; Gill
35. Dictionary of National Biography
36. Croyland Chronicle
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Baldwin: Elizabeth Woodville
40. Croyland Chronicle
41. Vergil
42. Stonyhurst MS. 37; Tudor-Craig
43. Vergil
44. Hicks: Edward V
45. Vergil
46. Croyland Chronicle. The original Parliament Roll was destroyed in 1485, but a transcript of the act survives in the Croyland Chronicle.
47. Herlihy
48. Peter Clarke; Hicks: Anne Neville
49. Croyland Chronicle
50. St. Aubyn. I can find no contemporary evidence to support this statement.
51. Harleian MS. 433, f. 308; Original Letters Illustrative of English History
52. Cheetham
53. Croyland Chronicle
54. Rotuli Parliamentorum
55. Smyth
56. Baldwin: Lost Prince; Harleian MS. 433; Smyth
57. Mcmahon; Pevsner; Wiltshire Community History
58. Victoria County History: North Yorkshire
59. PPE
60. Smyth
61. Baldwin: Lost Prince; Victoria County History: North Yorkshire; Smyth. John Nesfield had died by April 1488, when his widow, Margaret Assheton, was granted letters of administration.
62. Calendar of Patent Rolls: Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III
63. For example, Kendall in Richard the Third
64. Harleian MS. 433, III
65. Ibid.
66. Pierce
67. Richard III: Crown and People
68. For example, Myers in “The Princes in the Tower” and Kendall in Richard the Third
69. Pierce
70. Commines
71. Buck; Strickland
72. Croyland Chronicle. An empty tomb bearing the worn effigy of a boy in Sheriff Hutton Church, Yorkshire, has long been claimed to be Edward of Middleham’s. It once bore the Neville arms (as Anne Neville is shown wearing in the contemporary Salisbury Roll) and the royal arms differenced, so the identification may be correct. Hicks: Anne Neville.
73. Croyland Chronicle
74. Great Chronicle of London
75. Gristwood
76. Croyland Chronicle
5: “HER ONLY JOY AND MAKER”
1. Croyland Chronicle
2. Ibid.
3. Rous
4. Croyland Chronicle
5. The passage has also been translated to read that Queen Anne and Elizabeth were of similar coloring and shape, but that would hardly have given rise to such comments and speculation.
6. Hicks: Anne Neville
7. Letter of Thomas Langton, Bishop of St. David’s, cited by Ross: Richard III
8. Pollard
9. Dockray: Richard III: A Source Book
10. Croyland Chronicle. The words “gratify an incestuous passion” can also be translated as “gratify his incestuous passion” or “complete his incestuous association.”
11. Peter Clarke: “English Royal Marriages and the Papal Penitentiary in the Fifteenth Century”
12. Cited by Baldwin in Richard III
13. Baldwin: Richard III
14. Hicks: Anne Neville
15. Buck
16. Stow: Annals
17. Croyland Chronicle
18. Helmholz; Sheppard-Routh
19. Croyland Chronicle
20. Acts of Court of the Mercers’ Company
21. Croyland Chronicle
22. Ibid.
23. Lopes
24. Warrants for Issues, E. 404/78/3/47
25. For the Portuguese negotiations, see Wilkins; Sanceau; Barrie Williams: “The Portuguese Connection and the Significance of the ‘Holy Princess’ ”; Lopes; Santos; Marques; Ashdown-Hill: The Last Days of Richard III; Baldwin: Richard III. Joana was canonized in 1693.
26. Lamb, citing Harleian MS. 433, states that Elizabeth was proposed as a bride for James FitzGerald, Earl of Desmond (1459–87). Harley 433 does contain a letter sent in September 1484 by Richard III to the earl, offering to find a suitable bride for Desmond if he ceased
conducting himself violently in Munster, adopted English attire, and returned to his allegiance—but Elizabeth is not mentioned. I am indebted to the historian Josephine Wilkinson, who double-checked this for me and confirmed that there is no reference at all to her in connection with Desmond.
27. Cited by Vergil’s editor, Dennis Hay, from Vergil’s unpublished manuscript. Buck’s editor, A. N. Kincaid, suggests that the reason why this was omitted from Vergil’s published history was that it reflected Elizabeth’s views on marrying Henry Tudor rather than Richard III, but Vergil wasn’t writing in reference to Henry VII, and it is more likely that he left out this passage because he knew his master was sensitive about the matter.
28. Reproduced by Kincaid in “Buck and the Elizabeth of York Letter: A Reply to Dr. Hanham.”
29. Egerton MS. 2216; Bodleian MS. Malone 1; Fisher MS., University of Toronto; Additional MS. 27422
30. For a full discussion of these texts, see A. N. Kincaid, in Buck.
31. Kincaid: “Buck and the Elizabeth of York Letter: A Reply to Dr. Hanham”; Horrox
32. Buck, ed. Kincaid
33. Ibid.
34. Hicks: Anne Neville
35. Kincaid, in Buck
36. Hervey; Kincaid’s edition of Buck; Ricci
37. Kincaid, in Buck
38. Memoir in PPE
39. Gairdner
40. For the debate see Kincaid, in Buck; Horrox; and the articles by Hanham and Kincaid in The Ricardian.
41. See also Okerlund: Elizabeth of York
42. Ashdown-Hill: The Last Days of Richard III; Ashdown-Hill: Richard III’s “Beloved Cousyn”
43. Kincaid: “Buck and the Elizabeth of York Letter: A Reply to Dr. Hanham”
44. Baldwin: Elizabeth Woodville
45. Baldwin: Richard III
46. For example, by me in The Princes in the Tower, although I have now revised that view in light of further research.
47. Croyland Chronicle
48. Royal MS. 20, A, f. XIX
49. Harleian MS. 49
50. Gristwood
51. Weir: The Princes in the Tower; Visser-Fuchs: “Where did Elizabeth of York find consolation?”; Baldwin: Lost Prince; Okerlund: Elizabeth of York
52. Vergil
53. Ibid.; Griffiths and Thomas
54. Gristwood
55. Acts of Court of the Mercers’ Company
56. York Civic Records; Letters of the Kings of England
57. Croyland Chronicle
6: “PURPOSING A CONQUEST”
1. Aside from Gairdner, who compared all the versions of the poem, most historians have based their assessments on Heywood’s edition; however, it differs considerably from the earlier texts.
2. Letts