Chapter-Index

Chp.	Year	Location	Description

IV. Richard, By the Grace of God…”

IV.1	1483	Middleham	April: At a feast at Middleham, Anne Neville talks about the dislike of the Earl of Northumberland for Richard III. A letter from Will Hastings, Edward IV’s Lord Chamberlain, arrives to warn Richard III to come to London.

IV.2	1483	Middleham	April: Richard III is angry about Elizabeth Woodville not giving him direct notice about the death of his brother. A second letter from Will Hastings warns Richard III about the Woodville-families intentions to exclude him from power. Richard III plans to go without large army, pledges his allegiance to the new king and receives support from Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham. Richard III travels south and meets with Edward V. in Stony Stratford, where he arrests his uncle Anthony Woodville and dismisses his army.

IV.3	1483	Westminster	May: Bess and Cecily watch their mother move the family into sanctuary at Westminster. Richard III travels to London with Edward V’s, where he meets with Will Hastings.

IV.4	1483	London	May: Richard III decides at first against charging the Woodvilles with treasons, despite clear evidence. Edward V is moved into the royal residence in the Tower of London. Richard III discusses politics with his wife Anne Neville and notes that Edward Woodville has stolen the late Edward IV’s treasury. Elizabeth Woodville remains in sanctuary in Westminster and demands rewards and seats in a regency council for her relatives.

IV.5	1483	London	June: Edward, George of Clarence’s son, has just been taken into Richard III and Anne Neville’s custody. Buckingham, Lovell and Robert Stilington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, surprise Richard III and Anne Neville with the Eleanor Butler story of a first mariage of Edward IV. They urge Richard III to take the crown himself.

	Servetus: Information and questions to Book IV, chapter 1 – 5

IV.6	1483	London	June: Will Hastings hears from Jack Howard about the Eleanor Butler story (1st marriage proposal of Edward IV). Richard III tells Jack Howard about the Woodville conspiracy together with bishops Morton and Rotherham and Tom Stanley.

IV.7	1483	London	June: Jane Shore admits that she’s the one who brought Will Hastings to the Woodville side, motivated by loyalty to the late king Edward IV, her former lover. At the council meeting, Richard III accuses both bishops, Morton and Rotherham, and Will Hastings of treason and orders Will Hastings’ execution.

IV.8	1483	Ludgate Prison, London	June: Jane Shore is imprisoned at Ludgate and sentenced to do public penance by walking through the London streets.

IV.9	1483	Westminster Sanctuary	June: Bess (Elizabeth of York) had had the resultion to warn Richard III of the treasonable intent of her mother, Elizabeth Woodville, before she had heard of the execution of Will Hastings. Reassured of her family’s safety, Elizabeth Woodville lets her son Dickon join his older brother Edward V. in the Tower. Bess and Cecily confront their mother Elizabeth Woodville with the Eleanor Butler story, who confesses that the story is true.

IV.10	1483	London	June: The sermon, which alerts the Londoners to the bigamous marriage of late king Edward IV takes place. Parliament requests that Richard III takes the throne and he accepts. Anne Neville, his wife, is not happy about their move from Crosby Place into Baynard’s Castle and about becoming queen. Richard III goes into the Tower to visit the now set-aside Edward V and Dickon.

	Servetus: Information and questions to Book IV, chapter 6 – 10

IV.11	1483	Minster Lovell	July: Frances Lovell prepares for the visit of King Richard III’s visit on his royal progress. Thomas Lynom asks to marry Jane Shore and King Richard III consents. The Duke of Buckingham arrives and alert King Richard that his nephews are missing.

IV.12	1483	York	September: Coronation of Edward of Middleham, son of King Richard III, as Prince of Wales.

IV.13	1483	Lincoln	October: Francis Lovell recounts the stations of King Richard’s royal progress and notes the favourable response in the cities, except in Brittany, where Henry Tudor was being sheltered. News of a rebellion on behalf of Henry Tudor lead by the Duke of Buckingham arrives.

IV.14	1483	Westminster Sanctuary	October: Bess, Elizabeth of York and later wife of Henry Tudor, ponders her situation and is informed by her mother’s doctor that she’s to be betrothed to Henry Tudor.

IV.15	1483	Weobley	October: The Duke of Buckingham ponders his setbacks, including Tudor’s non-arrival and the failure of supporting revols to materialize, and admits to having the boys killed, while dreading having to face King Richard’s armies.

	Servetus: Information and questions to Book IV, chapter 11 – 15

IV.16	1483	Salisbury	November: Execution of the Duke of Buckingham and reactions to it.

IV.17	1483	Westminster	December: King Richard III has a nightmare about his nephews, which is about his son. King Richard III prepares important legislation for Parliament with his officials, and meetsKatherine (Woodville) Stafford, Buckingham’s widow. In an emotional encounter he admits to her that Buckingham killed the princes and she tells him of a relevant conversation she overheard. Katherien then goes to Elizabeth Woodville in sanctuary and delivers the bad news.

IV.18	1484	Westminster	February: Anne and Richard III discuss what Elizabeth Woodville will want in exchange for leaving sanctuary. Richard III awaits Elizabeth Woodville at the chapel of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey and is accosted by Bess, Elizabeth of York. When Elizabeth Woodville overhears their conciliatory conversation, she explodes, insisting on pardon for her son Thomas, exiled in France with Henry Tudor, and a public oath, before she and her daughters will leave sanctuary.

IV.19	1484	Nottingham	April: Richard III contemplates the betrothal of his illegitimate daughter, Kathryn, just before he and Anne learn of Edward of Middleham’s death away from them, in Middleham. After the burial, Richard III comforts his illegitimate son, John, with the reassurance he means for them to stay together.

IV.20	1484	Scarborough, Yorkshire	July: Richard III and Anne fight over her lack of appetite, their mutual shortage lack of children, and the political situation. Richard announces his intent to make his nephew John de la Pole his heir.

	Servetus: Information and questions to Book IV, chapter 16 – 20

IV.21	1484	Nottingham	October: Queen Anne feels poorly and by her doctor is diagnosed with consumption. She tells Richard III to stop sleeping with her for fear of contagion. (Unhistoric explanation of historic events!)

IV.22	1485	London	January: Elizabeth Woodville, now out of sancutary, plots her way back to power with the assistance of Reginald Bray, one of Buckingham’s conspirators, who warns Elizabeth that Bess, Elizabeth of York, seems to be too enamored of Richard III even to consider marrying Henry Tudor.

IV.23	1485	Windsor	February: Elizabeth Woodville tries to talk Bess, Elizabeth of York, into wanting to marry King Richard III.

IV.24	1485	Westminster	March: Anne and Richard III talk on her deathbed, whereupon she dies – unfortunately for Richard, on the same day as a solar eclipse, an ill omen.

IV.25	1485	Westminster	March: London is agog with the possibility that Richard III might marry Bess, Elizabeth of York, and that Anne’s death might have been hastened with poison. His advisors debate whether it would be better to ifnore the rumours or respond to them; Richard speaks because it had been an error not to make the disappearance of the princes public in the summer fo 1483. Cecily Neville, his mother, pleads with Richard to see Bess before putting her out of reach. At this meeting, Bess concedes that she had briefly entertained romantic dreams of Richard, and Richard realizes his last tie to his brother has now been broken.

	Servetus: Information and questions to Book IV, chapter 21 – 25

IV.26	1485	Berkhampsted	May: Cecily Neville dines with her son King Richard III at Berkhamsted. Aware that clients are leaving Richard to side with Henry Tudor, she suggest a remission of taxes for London to get the south of England on side. In urging her son to remarry, Cecily draws from him the admission that he fears he sinned in taking the throne, and realizes that he is putting the maintenance of his throne in divine hands.

IV.27	1485	Nottingham	August: King Richard III dreams of Anne and reflects over the coming challenges, as Henry Tudor has landed in Wales. Thomas Stanley, always at pains to keep York and Lancaster in balance, says he is too sick to support Richard III. In reality he’s decided for Tudor.

IV.28	1485	Redmore Plain	August: Francis Lovell and Humphrey Stafford ponder how Richard could have put himself in a situation where his own flank commanders were not to be trusted and his own allies from York are not to be present. Richard III is unenthused about covtory, insofar as he has decided that should he win, he will not show the losers any mercy. Richard tortured by bad dreams, decides not to hear mass. The battle begins: Tudor is outnumbered and not a military man himself. But Richard’s friend Norfolk is killed; the Stanleys betray him; Northumberland does not move his men into position – and in the end, Richard makes a desperate charge directly at Tudor. He’s killed.

IV.29	1485	Sheriff Hutton	August: Cecily of York learns from some of Richard III’s allies that the battle was lost due to treason.

IV.30	1485	Westminster	December: Bess, Elizabeth of York, is preparing for Christmas at Westminster, and reconciling herself to a marriage to Henry Tudor, after that. Bess denies to Tudor that she’d been Richard’s lover.

IV.31	1486	Mechlinia, Burgundy	July: Richard’s and York’s still loyal supporters, among them Lovell, gather in Burgundy at the court of Richard’s sister, Margaret of York.

IV.32	1492	Bermondsey Abbey	June: Grace [one of Edward IV’s illegitimate offsprings] visits Elizabeth Woodville on her deathbed at Bermondsey Abbey. Bess, Elizabeth of York and now wife to Henry Tudor, cannot come, as she’s brought to bed with her fourth pregnancy in six years.

IV.Afterword			The book closes with an afterword that tells of the fates of the surviving principals: the death in rebellion or in prison of Richard’s supporters; the ill fates of the turncoats who had supported Tudor; the gradual fading from the scene of the surviving Grey men, Elizabeths Woodville’s sons; the deaths of Anne Neville’s mother and Cecily Neville; the fates of Edward IV’s daughters; and the executions of Richard’s illegitimate sons and their surviving York cousins in the consequence of rebellions in their favour.

	Servetus: Information and questions to Book IV, chapter 26 – 32