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Act Two

• 21. Earl Rivers seems neither to have forgotten nor forgiven Hastings for having supplanted him in the office of captain of Calais in 1471, and as late as 1482 was busy spreading slanders about him, including the charge that Hastings might betray Calais to the French. By this date Hastings also had a well-attested feud with Thomas Grey, marquis of Dorset, with whom he had quarreled 'over the mistresses whom they had abducted, or attempted to entice from one another': they too were suborning informers and incriminating each other. Edward IV was sufficiently worried by the strife between Hastings and Dorset to attempt a reconciliation between them in the last days of his life, at least according to More. (pg. 39-40)

• 22. 9 April 1483.

• 23. 29 April 1483 the young king was at Stony Stratford.

• 24. At the occasion of the great official banquet given by Edward prince of Wales on 9 November 1477 there survives what, in hindsight at least, seems an ironic account of Gloucester's coming to pay homage to Richard duke of York for all the lands he held from him as of the Duchy of Norfolk. The prince, then aged four-and-a-half, had been placed upon a bed-seat beside the cloth of estate. Gloucester knelt before him, and placing his hands between the prince's, did formal homage. York, in response, 'thanked him for that it liked him to do it so humble'. This may have been the first meeting between the two Duke Richards: it was almost certainly the last. (pg. 35)

• 25. The news reached London on the night of 30 April - 1 May.

• 26. Actually Pontefract Castle.

• 27. The first moves in the struggle for power were initiated by the Woodville group in London during the days immediately following King Edward's death. They evidently planned to maintain their position by force if necessary, by seizing the royal treasure in the Tower, putting a fleet to sea under Woodville command, arranging for an early coronation of the young king, bringing him to London at the head of an army controlled by Earl Rivers and his friends, and devising a form of interim government from which the duke of Gloucester would be largely excluded. (pg. 65)
  Sir Edward Woodville indeed put to sea with the fleet, and a part of Edward IV's treasure from London. The rest had been divided between the queen herself and the marquis of Dorset, who, after first joining her in sanctuary, later escaped to stir up opposition to the new regime. (pg. 73)
  Uncertainty about what the council might decide explains why Gloucester thought it vital to seize the person of the young king at an early stage, and made it his first positive move. Control of the person of the king - a lively adolescent much influenced by his mother and her family - was of far greater political importance in the circumstances than had been that of a nine-month-old baby in 1422. Control of the council was important to the Woodville group, for properly handled, it could be used to defeat Gloucester's claim to power in the minority government. If it could be persuaded to endorse a Woodville-dominated minority before either Gloucester or the young king reached London, then the Woodville battle was largely won. (pg. 67)

• 28. On 10 May Bishop John Russell of Lincoln succeeded Archbishop Rotherham of York as chancellor of England, thereby removing a long-term and much trusted servant of Edward IV, who had already shown an undue sympathy with the queen dowager by releasing the Great Seal of England into her hands. (pg. 76)

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