The Ricardian Volume 15 2005

Antony Wydevile, Lord Scales and Earl Rivers: Family, Friends and Affinity, Part 1
Lynda Pidgeon

The Wydevile family has generally been vilified as grasping and opportunistic, a family 'made by marriage'. But how true are these views and how typical a member of the family was Antony? This first article looks at Richard and Jacquetta Wydevile, their family background and contemporary opinions of them. Their success in acquiring land and status is looked at and their achievements up to 1469 are reviewed.

The Stonors and Thomas Betson: Some Neglected Evidence
Alison Hanham

Alison Hanham takes a closer look at the Thomas Betson of Eileen Power's Medieval People in the light of her discovery that Elizabeth nee Croke had been married to Betson's master before she took William Stonor as her third (not, as thought, second) husband in 1475.

Parvenus in Politics: The Woodvilles, Edward IV and the Baronage: 1464-1469
Andrew Kettle

Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville has received much attention from historians studying the cause of the breakdown in relations between the king and his barons which led to his loss of throne and the continuation of the Wars of the Roses. Detailed studies of the Woodvilles, however, have tended to be isolated from the politics of the period. In this dissertation, Andrew Kettle attempts to put the king's marriage and the rise of the queen's family into the political context of Edward's 'first reign'. How unsuitable was Edward's choice of bride? How far were the Woodvilles inordinately favoured? What effect did Edward's marriage and the subsequent advancement of his bride's family have on the fragile political foundations of the young Yorkist regime?

Richard, Duke of Gloucester and the De Vere Estates, 1462-85
James Ross

This article looks at Richard's tenure of the forfeited estates of the de Vere earls of Oxford, firstly as duke and then as king, investigating which estates he held, their annual income and the use Richard made of them. It examines Richard as a landlord in a region peripheral to his main landed interests, investigates his use of some of his more far-flung possessions and examines the pattern of dispersal of most of these estates to religious institutions and to his supporters after 1483.

The Execution of the Earl of Desmond
John Ashdown-Hill and Annette Carson

Charles Ross and other historians have discounted the story that Desmond was killed because he had offended Elizabeth Woodville, dismissing this account as a 'Tudor fabrication' and stating that the earl was simply being punished for treason. The authors of this article systematically re-examine all the available source material and argue that Elizabeth Woodville's involvement in Desmond's execution should not be so lightly dismissed.

"Danse Macabre" around the Tomb and Bones of Margaret of York
Paul De Win

The author surveys the evidence about the funeral monument of Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy, wife of Charles the Bold, in the church of the Grey Friars at Malines and the various discoveries of human remains in the same church between 1936 and 1955