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Readeption of Henry VI: 13th October 1470

13/10/2017

In the first week of October in 1470, in what is now known as the Readeption of Henry VI, Henry was released from the Tower of London.

It was on this day, the 13th October, the feast day of the Translation of St Edward, that Henry headed to St Paul's Cathedral, accompanied by Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick and John de Vere Earl of Oxford.

The restoration of Henry VI writes historian Paul Kendall was nothing more than

"a Neville regime in a Lancastirian costume."

Five months later Edward IV returned and taking back his crown returned Henry to the Tower of London.

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Richard III in Lincoln

12/10/2017

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On the 11th October in 1483 King Richard III arrived in Lincoln and stayed for six days, but there was trouble afoot.

The Duke of Buckingham was making his way towards the River Severn with a force of Welshmen to meet up with Henry Tudor who would soon land in Devon with his men from Brittany.

On the following day, the 12th, Richard wrote a letter from the city to his chancellor Bishop John Russell when he found out about Buckingham’s rebellion, in it Richard denounces Buckingham as

'the most untrue creature living.'

There are many unanswered questions regarding the Buckingham Rebellion, the first and foremost is why did Buckingham
rebel ? Was it because he wanted the throne for himself and using Henry for his own ends or was he simply aiding the Tudor cause?

NB Can you believe I actually saw Richard's letter just two months ago, what a great day that was.

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Birth of Edward of Westminster

7/10/2017

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After eight years of marriage, on the 13th October 1453, Margaret of Anjou finally gave birth to an heir to the throne of England. Her child was a boy who she named Edward after Edward the Confessor on whose feast day her baby was born, a joyous occasion for the whole of the country you would think, alas it was not to be.

At the time of Edward's birth his father, Henry VI, was ill, his fragile mental state meant that over the previous four months he had been completely unaware of all that was going on around him, he was unable to stand, walk or move without help and when he was presented with his new born son all he managed was to raise and lower his eyes. By the end of December 1454 the king had regained his scenes and he was finally able to acknowledge his fifteen month old son. However, in a letter from the Milanese Ambassador to the Duke of Milan it states that when Henry talked of his son he said that he must be the son of the Holy Spirit - did Henry consider himself incapable of fathering a child or was he just praising god for this his most wonderful gift?

Margaret of Anjou was described as beautiful and "already a woman: passionate, proud and strong willed" and Henry was seen as an innocent - there are stories that he was shocked and disgusted at the sight of bare chested dancing girls and naked men bathing when he visited the City of Bath. With descriptions such as these it's not unreasonable that history has suggested that the sudden arrival of a child after eight years of marriage was down to Margaret's adultery, for there were rumours in court that Edward was illegitimate.

A women not conceiving in the first years of a marriage isn't uncommon and the cause could be any number of things, one being Henry himself with his pious and saintly ways, after all he was no Henry I ! However, in the first few weeks of January 1453 Margaret and Henry were at Greenwich, they were there to confer knighthoods on Henry's half brothers Edmund and Jasper Tudor and at the same time create them Earls of Richmond and Pembroke. If they were together it was highly likely that Edward was conceived at the time.

Nine months later Edward was born into a country that was in the midst of a power struggle that his father's weak rule had brought about. The bouts of insanity, the escalating squabble between Edmund Beaufort and Richard Duke of York and his mother's fierce determination to keep control of Henry's throne, so Edward could inherit, would add to the England's troubles.

Ironically, Margaret's resoluteness to see Edward wear the crown would eventually lead to his early death.

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Readeption of Henry VI: 13th October 1470

Richard III in Lincoln

Birth of Edward of Westminster

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