Monday, May 28, 2018

The Murders of Edward of Lancaster and Henry VI

From The Richard III Society: 
The ‘Crimes of Richard III’: The murders of Edward of Lancaster and Henry VI.
The year 1471 was a vintage year for ‘crimes’, no less than two of them being attributed to this year. Both of them are of interest because we have more evidence about them than we usually have and can show how the stories developed over about a century from descriptions of what actually happened to what Holinshed and Shakespeare said happened.

The first of them chronologically is the death of Edward of Lancaster, only child of Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou, at Tewkesbury. There are many contemporary sources, two of them written very soon after the battle of Tewkesbury. The first, a letter written by the Duke of Clarence on 6 May, says that Edward was killed in the battle. The Arrivall of Edward IV, Yorkist in sympathy and written only a month or so afterwards says that Edward was killed in the flight after the battle. There are five other accounts written in 1471 or soon after which confirm these statements, reiterated by the Lancastrian Warkworth in about 1478. No serious historian now doubts that Edward was killed in the fighting. (Read more.)
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