Death of Elizabeth Woodville at Bermondsey Abbey. Her will indicates that during her last years she lived in relative poverty. For her funeral she was accompanied by four people, one of them Edward IV’s illegitimate daughter Grace. Her coffin was taken quietly from Bermondsey to Windsor Castle, where she arrived in the middle of the night by just a single priest and a clerk without any formalities. She seems to have been interred virtually immediately next to Edward IV.
Bibliography: David Baldwin, Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower. Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2002. ISBN 0 7509 3886 2, pp. 123-125
Death of George Neville, Archbishop of York. He was the fourth and youngest surviving son of Richard Neville, fifth earl of Salisbury (1400–1460), and Alice Montagu (c.1406–1462). His eldest brother was Richard, earl of Warwick (“The Kingmaker”). His interest in learning and association with learned men is thought to have been a strong influence on Richard, duke of Gloucester.
Thomas Becket consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury.
Death of Cecily Neville (mother of Edward IV and Richard III) at Berkhamstead Castle, Hertfordshire. She was buried with her husband Richard and son Edmund at St Mary and All Saints Church, Fotheringhay.
Birth of Margaret Beaufort, daughter and heir of John Beaufort, duke of Somerset (1404–1444), and Margaret (d. 1482), daughter of Sir John Beauchamp of Bletsoe, Bedfordshire.
She was an influential supporter of her son Henry Tudor, who became Henry VII after defeating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth.
Coronation of Margaret of Anjou in Westminster Abbey. The ceremony was performed by the archbishop of Canterbury, John Stafford.
Source: ODNB on Margaret of Anjou
Margaret Pole is executed at the Tower of London. Margaret was the daughter of George, duke of Clarence, and thus Richard III’s niece.
She was born on 14 August 1473 at Farleigh Castle, Somerset. She lost her mother when she was three years old and her father two years later. She and her brother Edward were then in the care of her uncles, first Edward IV and then Richard III. While her brother was executed in 1499, she was married to Sir Richard Pole and they had five children. She and her children remained steadfast Catholics during the Reformation. In December 1886, Pope Leo XIII beatified her, her feast day is celebrated on 28 May.
Coronation of Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV.
A young man is crowned as Edward VI in Dublin. The Tudor government identified him later as Lambert Simnel, though it is not sure who he actually was.
Bibliography: Smith, G, ‘Lambert Simnel and the King from Dublin’. The Ricardian, Vol. X, No.135 (December 1996), pp.498-536.
Proxy marriage of Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou.
