Edward IV and his brother Richard (later Richard III) arrive back in England on their return from exile in Burgundy, landing at Ravenspur.

Battle of Losecoat Field, at Tickencote Warren near Empingham, Rutland.  The Yorkists were led by Edward IV against Robert Welles, 8th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, and his men who had sided with Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (‘The Kingmaker’).  Fast victory for the Yorkists.   A popular myth is that as they fled, Welles’ men quickly left their coats behind to avoid identification, which gave the battle its name.

Edward IV leaves Burgundy to return to England and win back his throne.  He is accompanied by his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III)

Birth of Ferdinand II of Aragon, the father of Catherine of Aragon.

John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) is issued with letters patent by Henry VII to explore unknown lands.

Investiture of Edward, Earl of March (eldest son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville) as King Edward IV of England.   Edward seized the crown on three counts:  descent from Edward III through the male line, descent from Edward III through the female line and the nomination of the childless Richard II’s of his Mortimer cousins as his heirs.

Elizabeth Woodville and her daughters leave sanctuary at Westminster Abbey and are reconciled with Richard III.

Birth of Eleanor Talbot, daughter of John Talbot, 1st earl of Shrewsbury, and Margaret Beauchamp at Blakemere, Shropshire.  She is said to have entered probably some time after March 1461 into a clandestine marriage with Edward IV, which made his subsequent, also clandestine, marriage to Elizabeth Woodville bigamous.

More on Eleanor:

John Ashdown-Hill,  Eleanor – The Secret Queen, The History Press.  ISBN 978-0752448664

Geoffrey of Monmouth elected to the see of St Asaph in Wales.  It is assumed he was born between 1100 and 1110, and to have died between  25 December 1154 and 24 December 1155.

He is mainly known as a writer of the Historia Regum Britanniae (The history of the kings of Britain), which includes stories of Arthur, Merlin and kings Leir and Coel.

Geoffrey will always remind me of my classes in medieval Latin at university, where we studied his story of King Arthur.  Though I had disliked Latin at school and only did the course because it was a prerequisite for graduation, here I discovered that studying a ‘dead’ language could actually be fun.

Reference:

J. C. Crick, ‘Monmouth, Geoffrey of (d. 1154/5)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.

Dorothea Preis