The Life and Times of Richard III Quiz

Answer: Robert Stillington

Robert Stillington was Edward IV's Lord Chancellor and the Bishop of Bath and Wells. Following the death of Edward IV, Richard, whom Edward had named Regent and Lord Protector in his will, took charge of Edward's two sons, Edward V and Richard. He brought them to London and housed them in the royal apartments in the Tower of London. Plans were set in motion for Edward V's coronation.

However, sometime between the end of April and June 13, 1483, Stillington came forward with information that he had witnessed the contract of betrothal between Edward IV and Lady Eleanor Butler (aka Talbot), daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury, prior to Edward's clandestine marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, mother of Edward V and his younger brother Richard.

A contract of betrothal was as binding as a marriage contract and under English common law of the time Edward IV's subsequent marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous.

It was for this reason that Richard deposed Edward V. Buckingham, Hastings and Lovell were all real people and all featured largely in the life of Richard III.

Answer: Sir William Catesby, Sir Richard Ratcliff, Lord Francis Lovell and Richard III

Catesby, Ratcliff, and Lovell were Yorkist supporters and close friends of Richard III. The two lines of doggerel were written by William Collingbourne, former steward of Cecily Neville's properties in Wiltshire. Richard had dismissed Collingbourne and replaced him with Lord Francis Lovell. Collingbourne, no doubt ticked off at what he perceived to be an injustice (however, there is some evidence that he had been in treasonable correspondence with Henry Tudor, later Henry VII, and some historians believe that was the reason Richard had him dismissed), wrote the verse and had it pinned to the doors of several churches - including Westminster Abbey.

He was later hanged for treason (q.v. the correspondence with Henry Tudor). It is certainly true that Richard rewarded his friends for their loyalty, giving them high offices.

The doggerel was preserved for posterity in Robert Fabyan's 'Chronicle'.

Answer: Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, Richard's mother

Cecily Neville was born at Raby Castle in Durham in 1415. She was the daughter of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmoreland and his wife Joan Beaufort, daughter of John of Gaunt. In 1437 Cecily (who was also known as Proud Cis because she had a very healthy ego and a hot temper) married Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York in 1437.

Although theirs was an arranged marriage, it appears to have been a happy one and the couple had 13 children (Richard was the twelfth child), seven of whom grew to adulthood. Cecily was aunt to the powerful Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick aka The Kingmaker, mother to two kings - Edward IV and Richard III, and grandmother to a queen - Elizabeth of York who married Henry VII.

In 1469, the Earl of Warwick began spreading rumours that his cousin Edward was not the true son of the Duke of York and that his Aunt Cecily had committed adultery with one Blaybourne, an archer at Rouen where Edward was born. Even though Warwick had made similar accusations against Margaret of Anjou, wife of Henry VI, some of the taint stuck.

In her later years, Cecily lived retired, devoting herself to religious duties, and she died in 1495.

Answer: Three, perhaps four

Richard and his wife Anne Neville had one son, Edward, known as Edward of Middleham, born in 1473. He died in 1484. Richard had other children, born before his marriage to Anne in 1472, and he recognized and provided for both of them. John of Gloucester was born c. 1470.

In March 1485 when he was still in his mid-teens John ("our dear bastard son") was appointed Captain of Calais by his father. John was executed on Henry VII's orders in 1491, when he was 21. He never married and left no known descendants. John's younger sister Katherine Plantagenet became the second wife of William Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon, and Richard III paid for the wedding. Katherine died sometime between 1486 and 1487.

She had no children. There is a putative third illegitimate child, known as Richard Plantagenet or Richard of Eastwell.

The only evidence for his existence was found in the parish register of Eastwell Parish Church, which records the burial of one 'Rychard Plantagenet' in 1550. There is no record among Richard III's papers of Richard of Eastwell or a Richard Plantagenet living at Eastwell.

Answer: Richard's mistress prior to his marriage

Little is known of Katherine Haute, who some believe to have been the mother of two of Richard's illegitimate children, John of Gloucester and Katherine Plantagenet. His liaison with Katherine preceded Richard's 1472 marriage to Anne Neville. Katherine is mentioned in Richard's household records as his pensioner, receiving five pounds per annum (a goodly sum in those days) and as living in East Anglia where Richard had land holdings.

Answer: Sir Thomas More's 'The History of King Richard III'

More's 'The History of King Richard III' is the basis for William Shakespeare's play. Since More was only five years old when Richard was killed at Bosworth, he can have had no personal knowledge of Richard, and his 'history' is compiled primarily from information provided by John Morton, Henry VII's Archbishop of Canterbury. More spent part of his childhood in Morton's household.

Answer: A document declaring Edward IV's children illegitimate

Titulus Regius is a statute of the Parliament of England, issued in 1483, in which the title of King of England is conferred on Richard, Duke of Gloucester, making him Richard III. The document describes why and how Parliament had found that the marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous (qv Stillington and Eleanor Butler), and declaring that the issue of this bigamous marriage was, thereby, illegitimate and ineligible to inherit the throne.

One of the first things that Henry VII did when he came to the throne was to revoke Titulus Regius, making Elizabeth of York, his intended wife, legitimate. He ordered that all copies of the statute, and all documents related to it, should be destroyed, unread. His instructions were so well carried out that only one copy of the law survived. It was transcribed by a monk of Croyland Abbey into the Croyland Chronicle, and it was discovered more than a century later, in the reign of King James I, by one Sir George Buck.

The repeal of Titulus Regius, of course, also made Elizabeth of York's two little brothers legitimate, and they had a stronger claim to the throne than Henry. Many historians are inclined to place Henry Tudor at the top of the list when it comes to likely candidates for doing away with Edward V and his little brother Richard. The Tudors were notoriously sensitive about their right to the throne and had a penchant for getting rid of any threats, and it is interesting to note that the suppression of Titulus Regius for over 100 years coincided with the entire Tudor dynasty, from Henry VII to the last Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I.

Answer: Henry VII's Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Chancellor

John Morton was appointed Bishop of Ely in 1479, during the reign of Edward IV. Following the death of Edward, Morton, who hated Richard for some reason (probably because Richard despised him), entered into alliance with Henry Tudor and became an ardent Lancastrian. In 1486, Henry VII rewarded Morton with the Archbishopric of Canterbury, making him the most powerful cleric in England, and he became Henry's Lord Chancellor in 1487, which made him the most powerful servant of the king in England, too.

Morton is the primary source for More's 'The History of King Richard III', and was responsible for laying a multitude of crimes at Richard's door, including: the murders of the two princes, the murder of his brother George (George was executed at the command of Edward IV), the murder of his own wife Anne (Morton concocted that one to indicate that Richard did so to make way for his nefarious plot to marry his niece Elizabeth of York), the murder of Henry VI, the murder of his wife's first husband, Edward, Prince of Wales, forcing Anne to marry him against her will, accusing Elizabeth Woodville and Jane Shore (Edward IV's wife and mistress respectively) of witchcraft, and even of being illegitimate! It was also Morton who created the Crouchback Richard with the withered arm. Although how a physically disabled Richard could have been as efficient a soldier, wielding a great sword - his favourite weapon - while wearing eighty pounds of armour and controlling his horse, is a stretch of the imagination! Modern X-ray investigation has shown that contemporary portraits of Richard were doctored to create the humped back and withered arm.

Apart from his devious rumour-mongering and his part in creating the monster image of Richard III, Morton is perhaps best known for his brilliant strategy to fill Henry VII's treasury by bleeding the nobility and well-to-do of England. The strategy, known as Morton's Fork, was simple. Morton maintained that "if the subject is seen to live frugally, tell him because he is clearly a money saver of great ability he can afford to give generously to the king. If, however, the subject lives a life of great extravagance, tell him he, too, can afford to give largely, the proof of his opulence being evident of his expenditure." Pretty neat, right? The nobles were caught in a cleft stick, damned if they did and damned if they didn't!

Answer: He confessed to killing the Princes on orders from Richard III

Sir James Tyrrell was a trusted servant of Richard III. No, he did not switch sides at Bosworth - he wasn't even there, since he was in France on the king's business at the time. He returned to England in 1486 and was pardoned by Henry VII - twice! The first pardon was issued on June 16, 1486 (one of the general pardons issued by Henry VII who had dated his reign from August 21, 1483, the day before the Battle of Bosworth, making anyone who fought on Richard's side a traitor to the crown!), and the second on July 16, 1486. Clerical error? Many historians think not, and raise the question: "What did Tyrrell do between June 16 and July 16 that necessitated two pardons?" It has been suggested in several quarters that Henry made a compact with Tyrrell that required the latter to kill the two princes. Of course, one then has to ask why Henry waited for a full year after becoming king to initiate the murder of the princes, and why on earth he would choose a loyal adherent to the Yorkist cause to carry out the dirty deed? However, Henry was nothing if not wily, and could well have devised such a hold over Tyrrell. According to Morton, that old rumour-monger, Richard sent Tyrrell to Robert Brackenbury, the Keeper of the Tower, with orders that Brackenbury was to surrender the keys to Tyrrell for one night. Brackenbury, according to Morton, complied, and Tyrrell murdered the princes. However, while Tyrrell did indeed confess to the murder, he did so while under torture on the rack (for his support of Edward de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, a Yorkist claimant to the throne) in 1502 - nineteen years after he was supposed to have murdered the little princes! Tyrrell was executed on May 6, 1502.

Some French sources indicate that rumours of the death of the princes were circulating in England in 1483, but there are no records of such a rumour in England - except for a mention in the Croyland Chronicle. One has to remember, of course, that Croyland Abbey was in the see of Ely and that John Morton, Henry VII's chief propagandist, was Bishop of Ely at the time. The rumours were more common in France, which just happened to be where, surprise, surprise, Henry Tudor was living at the time!

Answer: Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham

Buckingham's family tree was so loaded with royalty and internecine marriages that he was (a) a Lancastrian contender for the throne,and (b) his own first, second and third cousin (but not his own grandpa!). Buckingham's father, Humphrey, Earl Stafford, fought on the Lancastrian side and was killed at the Battle of St. Alban's in 1455 when Henry was an infant, and his grandfather, Humphrey Stafford, first Duke of Buckingham, was killed in the Battle of Northampton in 1460.

In 1465, Henry was recognized as the second Duke of Buckingham.

He was 11 years old, and, as a minor, he became the ward of Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV's queen. In 1466, Elizabeth, always seeking advancement for her own family members, promptly married 12-year-old Henry to her 24-year-old sister Catherine.

Henry resented the forced marriage and never forgave Elizabeth for it. He also disliked the rest of the Woodville clan, to the extent that, when Edward IV died, he allied himself with Richard, Duke of Gloucester in his struggles with the Woodvilles.

When Richard became king in 1483, Henry expected restoration of the portion of the Bohun lands which were held by the crown (you'll have to look that one up - the explanation is rather tangled and too long). Richard, who had other fish to fry, was not as prompt as Buckingham thought he should be in making this move, so Buckingham returned to his Lancastrian roots and allied himself with John Morton, then Bishop of Ely, on the side of Henry Tudor. When Henry Tudor attempted to invade England in October, 1483 to wrest the crown from Richard, Buckingham raised an army in Wales. However, the rebellion was swiftly put down by Richard (who was, by all accounts, a brilliant military strategist) and Buckingham was captured when he tried to escape, was convicted of treason and beheaded on November 2, 1483. Interesting side note: his widow, Catherine, subsequently married Jasper Tudor, uncle and mentor to Henry Tudor.