Elizabeth Woodville allows her younger son Richard to quit sanctuary at Westminster and join his brother Edward at the Tower.

Battle of Stoke Field, Nottinghamshire, between the Yorkists on behalf of “Edward VI” and the Tudor government troops.  On the Yorkist side, John de la Pole, 1st Earl of Lincoln, a nephew of both Edward IV and Richard III, was killed.  He had been considered heir to the throne of Richard III after the death of Edward of Middleham.  It is not quite clear who “Edward VI” actually claimed to be.  According to Tudor sources he was said to pretend to be Edward, the son of George, Duke of Clarence.  As the real Edward was locked up in the Tower, this was impossible.  There is no surviving evidence who his own supporters said he was.

Bibliography:  Smith, G, ‘Lambert Simnel and the King from Dublin’. The Ricardian, Vol. X, No.135 (December 1996) , pp. 498-536.

Execution of William, 1st Baron Hastings.   He was not attainted and his widow Katherine was placed under Richard’s protection.  With Hastings were arrested John Morton, Bishop of Ely, Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York, and Thomas Lord Stanley.  The reasons  and circumstances for his sudden execution remain controversial.  Peter Hancock’s theory that it was because Richard discovered that Hastings knew about the precontract between Edward IV and Eleanor Talbot, but had kept it secret from him, is certainly interesting.

Bibliography:

Peter A Hancock, Richard III and the Murder in the Tower.  The History Press, Stroud, 2009.  ISBN 978 0 7524 5148 0 (hardback)

Richard and his brother George return to England from exile in Burgundy, where they had been sent for their safety after the Yorkist defeat at the Battle of Wakefield, West Yorkshire (30 December 1460).

The photograph shows Ghent (© Dorothea Preis)

RIII Memorial Stone, Leicester Cathedral

David Guy Barnabas Kindersley, stone-carver and type designer, was born in Codicote, Hertfordshire, on 11 June 1915. Among his work is the Richard III Memorial Stone, which used to be in Leicester Cathedral.  The stone is now on loan to the King Richard III Visitor Centre,which also allows access to Richard’s original grave

In the Ricardian Bulletin of December 1982 Jeremy Potter in his AGM report said the following:

“The Leicester Memorial Stone, carved by David Kindersley, dedicated in August, was not a Society project, but that of the Rev T.C.Hunter-Clare; however the Society was glad to have been able to contribute and had much appreciated the dedication service.”

At the previous year’s AGM he said: “The Society had made an initial small donation and a larger later one”.

Around this time the  Leicester Statue fund was wound up and it was agreed the residue would be used for special projects “such as the Leicester Cathedral Memorial and Fotheringhay Chapel.”

More information on David Kindersley: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituariesdavid-kindersley-1571426.html and on Dottie Tales.

Dorothea Preis

Wedding of  Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII at the Franciscan church at Greenwich.

Birth of Anne Neville, younger daughter of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (‘The Kingmaker”) and Anne Beauchamp, at Warwick Castle.  She was later the wife of Richard III.

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.