​During Richard's reign, a handwritten prayer was added, either by Richard himself or by a scribe. One prayer reads,

Moleyns was dragged from what is now the Garrison Church onto the beach where the square tower now stands and killed.

There are those who like to link Moleyns murder to Richard, Duke of York, suggesting that he paid local sailors to kill him because of his part in the loss of the French territories of Maine and Anjou. These lands formed part of the marriage contract of Henry VI to Margaret of Anjou that had been arranged by William de la Pole, the Duke of Suffolk. Moleyns, it is said, made some attempt to save his life by accusing William de la Pole of being solely responsible for their loss. Pole was forced to deny the ensuing rumours in Parliament.

How convenient for those who hated the Duke of York to use these rumours to their advantage? Indeed, some five months later, William de la Pole was found murdered on a beach near Dover!

So why was Molyens killed?

What is more likely is that he was killed by sailors, not on the order of the Duke of York, but when they discovered that he, as Keeper of the Privy Seal, was in town to make reduced payments to the sailors due to their behaviour during church services.

Following this incident, the inhabitants of Portsmouth were excommunicated for fifty years.










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Morton passed through the Wars of the Roses unscathed whereas those of whom he was of service and were of a higher rank perished, those such as Margaret of Anjou, Richard Neville, Edward IV and Richard III.

Morton encouraged Buckingham in his rebellion against the Richard III, and it is he who is considered to be the source of much of what was written about the king - the murder of his brother George, Duke of Clarence and the murder of the Princes in the Tower are but two. Thomas More's 'History of Richard III' was based on Morton's account of the time.

However, Morton was a survivor who knew how to take care of himself, he died an old man at Knole House in Kent, a property that had been granted to the See of Canterbury on the death of Thomas Bourchier in 1486, his political machinations continuing under the new Tudor king.
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He was buried at Canterbury Cathedral.

​She is also known to have spent some time in the market town of Boston, her account books show an entry of a payment to a child who played a song for her during a visit - maybe she was entertained in the household of Fredrick and Margaret Tilney in their Skirbeck home. She may well have even attended a service at the recently built St Botolph's Church and been shown the newly carved choir stalls and misericords. The Tilney's were an important family in Boston at the time of Margaret's visit, later their great granddaughter would become Henry VIII's fifth wife.

Despite what many think of Henry VII's mother, she was a generous benefactor to churches and abbeys and often kind to those less fortunate that herself and, this is why her emblem of the portcullis can be found dotted around the town. 

​She can also be seen immortalised, albeit quite recently, in a stained glass window in the at St Botolph's.

​Edward was brought up at Ludlow Castle on the Welsh Marches. At the age of twelve, he ascended the throne on the death of his father, however, he and his brother Richard of Shrewsbury were found to be illegitimate when the pre-contracted marriage of his father to Eleanor Butler came to light.

​Before Edward could be crowned, he and his younger brother disappeared.

What happened to these two boys is a mystery - but they are not encased in that urn at Westminster Abbey.

​In 1455, at the age of just twelve years old Henry's mother, a wealthy heiress had married Edmund Tudor, the son of a commoner who had climbed into the bed of a queen of England. Margaret was soon pregnant. Henry was born into a country that was divided by conflict and civil war. Margaret Beaufort was just a child herself and Henry's birth did irreparable damage, this could account for the fact that she never gave birth again, however she turned out to be an influential and dominant figure throughout Henry's life. Margaret was also aware of her son's vulnerability and because of this sent him into the care of his uncle, Jasper Tudor. Following the Battle of Tewkesbury in the May of 1471 Jasper and Henry fled to Brittany and then finally into France. Henry spent, in total, fourteen years of his life in exile.

His return to England in 1485 has been much written about, and most of you will know that he was aided at the Battle of Bosworth by Thomas Stanley his mother's husband, and his brother William. Henry of Richmond became king of England on the 22nd August in 1485.

I, of course, am a Ricardian and see Henry as a usurper, whose claim to the throne is a tenuous one to say the least, however, Richard and Henry's stories are real and to understand Henry, Richard and the Wars of the Roses it is always best to read widely with the aim to gain an understanding of both sides of story, therefore I add this paragraph taken from the Henry Tudor Society about Henry.

"He is a king often accused of being parsimonious, miserly, ruthless, severe and avaricious to the extreme, cold to his wife and cruel to friend and foe alike. The study of Henry’s life, from his beginnings through to the exile, and from his early reign to the tragic end, put forward a different man. It is this man, the real Henry, not the mythical Henry, that we aim to bring to the fore. A man who had an astounding tenacity to survive, to cling to his throne and to pass his crown to his son in a peaceful manner, something which eluded several monarchs before him."

Here a link to the Henry Tudor Society -

                                                                     https://henrytudorsociety.com/
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​It is not hard to imagine what the state of the country was in during these years, anarchy would possibly be a good word to describe it. Following the aforementioned Lincolnshire revolt - the Battle of Empingham or Losecoate Field as it is commonly known, Warwick and Clarence fled the country. They were refused entry into Calais but eventually arrived in the court of Louis XI of France. While under the protection of the French king Warwick set about organising the restoration of Henry VI to the throne of England and the marriage his daughter Anne to Henry's son Edward. An invasion force was soon bound for England's shores and they landed in the West Country between the 9th and 13th of September 1470. Warwick found that his brother John, the Marquess of Montage, had abandoned the Yorkist cause and he also soon learned that the king had left England.

While most were troubled by the events of 1469 and 1470 the triumphant Richard Neville was in his element as he later placed the crown of England, once again, on the head of Henry VI. Released from the Tower of London, the poor man’s physical health was weak and his mental health clearly unstable. As these two men stood together it was obvious to everybody who was in charge. Real power was now in the gauntleted hand of Richard, Earl of Warwick, the King’s Lieutenant of the Realm.

Collingbourne had held a number of positions in local government in his home county of Wiltshire during the reign of Edward IV and had been in the pay of Cecily Neville but had been replaced. Although the reasons for writing the poem are unclear, its probable that its roots lay in resentment and plain old jealously!

However, by making his feelings very clear in his poem he did achieve the result he hoped for, I wonder though, did he think that he'd get away with offending a king? He didn't. Collingbourne was arrested, tried and sentenced within four months. He was executed at Tower Hill by hanging, drawing and quartering by the end of the year.
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William Collingbourne didn't go to the scaffold because of his poetry alone, it was the choices he made in the summer of 1483 and his support of Henry Tudor's invasion and corresponding with him when he was in exile.

Anne can be seen here, the second figure on the left.

William's older brother Edward the Black Prince had predeceased his father, the death of both these men would leave the country in the hands of various family members notably Richard II - child monarch, John of Gaunt - an ambitious and lustful protector and Henry of Bolingbroke - a murderous would-be monarch.

The seeds of the Wars of the Roses were set!