• 1472-02-16

    On 16th February 1472, Edward IV, his queen, Elizabeth, and his brothers, George, and Richard (lord of Sandal), rowed up the Thames to the royal manor of Sheen to attend a ‘pardon’, a ceremony granting papal indulgences. Edward intended to use the occasion to sort out the increasingly bitter dispute between his brothers concerning Richard’s proposal to marry George’s sister-in-law, Anne Neville. As Sir John Paston noted: ‘Men say… (the brothers) had gone not in all charity.’

  • 1469-06-01

    In June 1469, Edward IV, together with his younger brother, Richard, lord of Sandal, and his Woodville in-laws, Lord Rivers, Anthony Woodville and his younger brother, Sir John, set off north to address the Yorkshire insurgency against a regional tax levy which had been led by ‘Robin of Holderness’. Albeit ‘Robin’ had been captured and executed at York and a commission established to investigate the disturbances, Edward took a ‘leisurely’ journey through Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Fotheringhay and Newark before retreating to Nottingham Castle on hearing of a resurrected insurgency led by another folk hero, ‘Robin of Redesdale’, who reputedly had an army three times that of the king. This latest uprising had burst out of Richmondshire, an area dominated by Edward’s kith-and-kin, in the form of the Earl of Warwick’s fortress at Middleham and George, Duke of Clarence’s lordship of Richmond. Rumours abounded that ‘Robin’ was Sir John Conyers, Warwick’s household steward at Middleham and former Sheriff of Yorkshire with other leading protagonists members of the extended Neville family. Familial treachery in the Yorkist regime was becoming increasingly evident.

  • 1469-01-15

    In January 1469, Edward IV’s youngest brother, sixteen-years-old Richard, lord of Sandal, headed a commission at Salisbury investigating charges against key figures accused of plotting with the exiled Lancastrians. Sir Thomas Hungerford and Henry Courtenay, heir to the earldom of Devon, had been arrested the previous November along with John de Vere, Earl of Oxford. Hungerford’s father had been executed in 1464; Courtenay’s younger brother was in Flanders being funded by Charles the Bold; de Vere’s father and older brother had been executed in 1462. Amongst the commissioners were the king’s brother-in-law, Anthony Woodville and the Devon noble, Humphrey, Lord Stafford. Their guilty verdict was a formality and Hungerford and Courtenay were hanged, eviscerated whilst still conscious, then beheaded. Oxford was released from the Tower with sureties imposed for his future good behaviour.

  • 1495-07-01

    In July 1495, Henry VII commissioned a Nottingham tradesman, Walter Hylton, to erect an unpretentious alabaster tomb for Richard III (lord of Sandal) over the ex-king’s grave near the altar in Leicester Grey Friars. Payment of £50 (£48,000 today) was paid in two instalments with a separate fee of £10 (£9600 today) issued to James Keyley two months later for additional work on the tomb. This edifice remained in situ until about 1538 when the friary was suppressed. Despite Richard’s reputation suffering Tudor ridicule (and more), Henry saw an opportunity to lessen any animosity towards him for Richard’s quick, ‘unseemly’ burial and remind any Yorkist supporters that transferring their loyalties to Perkin Warbeck would ignore Richard’s own delegitimization of Edward IV’s sons.

  • 1460-12-09

    On 9th December 1460 it is believed that Richard Duke of York, Lord of Sandal, headed north under a ‘commission of array’ to deal with the insurrection in the north and to bring stability to his own lands. In December of that year, Lancastrian forces were beginning to muster around Hull and eventually Pontefract. Given the terms of the Act of Accord of 25th October 1460, Richard was now heir to the throne of King Henry VI. Therefore, one could argue that Margaret of Anjou – wife of King Henry VI – and her Lancastrian armies were now rebels and traitors and that all subsequent actions against Richard could be declared treasonous as he was now legally  fighting on behalf of the King.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • 1483-09-18

    On 18th September 1483, Richard III, lord of Sandal, officially thanked the city of York for its hospitality on his royal progress and making his son, Edward, Prince of Wales, at its Minster and wiped over half the taxes due from the city.

  • 1483-08-29

    On 29th August 1483, Richard III’s, lord of Sandal, royal progress reached York, entering under Micklegate Bar where nearly twenty-three before his father’s head had been impaled. The mayor presented the king with a gold cup containing 100 marks (£42,000 today) and another to Queen Anne.

  • 1483-07-23

    On 23rd July 1483, Richard III, lord of Sandal, wrote an agreement protecting the widow (Katherine Neville) and children of Lord Hastings who had been executed for treason the previous month. No attainder was issued meaning that his family kept their titles and land and Hastings’ brother, Ralph was pardoned on 2nd August.

  • 1471-05-21

    On 21st May 1471, seventeen days after Edward IV’s victory at Tewkesbury, Richard, Duke of Gloucester and lord of Sandal, led his brother’s victorious army into London with ex-Queen Margaret of Anjou appearing in a ‘chariot’ not much better than a cart. That night, it is believed Henry VI, her husband, was murdered in the Tower of London; by Richard, Duke of Gloucester, according to Sir Thomas More in his ‘History of Richard III’. Henry’s body was embalmed and taken to Chertsey Abbey but in 1484 brought to Windsor for burial at the command of Richard III. An exhumation of Henry’s body in November 1910 showed a man of 5ft 9in with brown hair matted with blood (according to Professor MacAlister, forensic scientist) possibly indicative of a brutal death.

  • 1471-04-12

    On 12th April 1471, the exiled Edward IV held a council of war at Baynard’s Castle with Richard, Duke of Gloucester and lord of Sandal, and his brother, George, Duke of Clarence. Many Yorkist supporters emerged from sanctuary (Commyns stated 2,000) to help Edward in his conflict with the Earl of Warwick and Queen Margaret of Anjou (then in France with her son, Prince Edward). The Battle of Barnet was two days away.