Richard III and
the Queen’s Brother

Philosopher, poet, soldier, dreamer, and Renaissance man ahead of his time, Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales and later Earl Rivers, was no stranger to the vagaries of Fortune. Violent turns of her capricious Wheel spun his world often during his life, delivering fame and riches, blows and perils—and, finally, a bloody end by the headsman’s axe. Alone in his cell on the eve of execution, he spent his last hours on earth penning a lament to the fragility of good fortune and the vicissitudes of life.


The eldest male in a brood of thirteen offspring, Anthony Woodville was born to Sir Richard Woodville of Grafton, Northamptonshire, and Jacquetta, daughter of Pierre Count of St Pol of Luxemburg. They met in France when Jacquetta’s husband, the Duke of Bedford, brother to Henry V, presided over the trial of Joan of Arc. After her husband’s death, Jacquetta was escorted to England by a guard of English knights under the command of Sir Richard Woodville. The stage was set for romance, but a simple knight was no match for a royal widow, and instead of seeking the king’s permission, the lovers wed secretly in 1436. The first child born to them was a daughter, Elizabeth, who would grow up to ensnare a king and propel the family fortunes to blazing heights. Then came Anthony. The place of his birth is unknown, but the date is thought to be 1442.
Alongside his father, Anthony Woodville fought for Henry VI at Towton but later transferred his allegiance to York. Edward IV showed him preferment in allowing him to marry Elizabeth, the heiress of Lord Scales in 1462, and one can guess the reason: the King had become enamored of Elizabeth Woodville and was actively pursuing her during this period. After Elizabeth’s marriage to Edward, Anthony advanced rapidly.  Of Anthony’s family, the great biographer, Paul Murray Kendall, paints a vivid portrait:

“Anthony Woodville’s father was a rapacious adventurer; his mother, so formidable and devious a woman that she was held to be a witch. His brother Lionel was a type of their father in the gown of a bishop. His sister the Queen—beautiful, suffering, brought from nowhere to the highest place and cast down again to misery and friendless death—owned a destiny presenting the grand outlines of ‘tragedie’ which disintegrates upon inspection because it was developed by a mean, stupid and cruel character.”

Much is known about Anthony Woodville’s own character, yet he remains something of an enigma in history. A complex man notably different from his family, he eludes us by his contradictions. As always, Kendall puts it best:

“Anthony, Earl Rivers, was the changeling of the Woodville clan. London was not farther from Ludlow than he from the world of his kin.… Pilgrim and knight, worldling and ascetic, Anthony Woodville was moved by the vision of both the Grail and the Good Life.”

While Anthony suffered from Woodville pride and vanity, his scholarly pursuits won him acclaim during his time and set him apart from his brothers whose sole accomplishments consisted of marrying well. He was the only one of his kin to earn a word of praise from Dominic Mancini who called him “a kind, serious and just man.” William Caxton, the burgher who imported the art of printing to England, and to whom Anthony Woodville proved a very generous patron, paid him heartfelt tribute in the epilogue he wrote for the Earl’s second book, Cordyale, in which he records this prayer: “…whom I beseech Almighty God to keep and maintain in his virtuous and laudable acts and works…And after this short, dangerous and transitory life, grant him life everlasting in Heaven. Amen” In view of what Fortune held in store for Anthony Woodville, Caxton’s words acquire a prophetic ring.
Anthony Earl Rivers, was also a good soldier, unlike three of his four brothers and his cowardly nephew the Marquess of Dorset, the Queen’s eldest son who always managed to absent himself from battle.  Yet he never won glory, and for a while Edward even held him in contempt for seeking to leave on pilgrimage to the Shrine of St. James of Compostella following the Lancastrian defeat at Tewkesbury and the death of Henry VI.
Anthony’s refusal to back down in the face of royal scorn provides some interesting insights into his character. Obviously he was willful; a trait he inherited from his mother and shared with his sister, Elizabeth. Far more revealing his ambition was not boundless like that of the rest of his clan, and unlike them he had a conscience, one which troubled him deeply at times. After all, he’d once sworn fealty to Henry VI, and in battle he must have slain Lancastrians with whom he’d shared wine and friendship. That spiritual redemption at this traumatic time in his life meant more to him than worldly gain, speaks volumes about the man himself.
Even greed, the trait that forged so vital a part of the Woodville metal was tempered in Anthony with sensitivity. In the Cordyale Caxton particularly lauded Anthony Woodville for his ballads against the Seven Deadly Sins, saying Rivers undertook the work as a good deed. As Caxton explained, since Rivers understood the mutability and instability of this life, desired spiritual salvation himself, hated the “damnable sins” of Pride, Greed, etc., he wished to make the “readers and hearers” recognize themselves and amend their own living, lest they lose the chance to save their soul. One cannot help wondering if Anthony had his kinfolk in mind as he wrote the ballads for which Caxton said he should be “commended and singularly remembered with our good prayers.”
Though he enjoyed the trappings of wealth and was drawn to the pleasures of the senses, Anthony Woodville’s desire for riches, like his desire for power, never matched that of his mother, or father, or his sister the Queen, or his debauched nephew, the Marquess of Dorset. No doubt they considered him flawed, since he had scruples where they had none, for unlike them, Anthony’s fine mind conceived of ideas and embraced ideals, and his curiosity about the world he lived in—and the one to come—drove him to peruse the philosophers and devotional works. His fascination with mysticism kindled doubts about the heedless pursuit of worldly gain and led him to ponder their cost to his soul, further widening the gap between himself and his kinfolk. He made pilgrimages to Rome, Naples, France and Spain, and he penned the first book printed in England by William Caxton’s press, The Dictes and Sayings of Philosophers, a translation of a French manuscript he acquired on his pilgrimage to St. James of Compostella. The Dictes was a miscellany of advice from ancient philosophers on truth and falsehood, living well, and on how to treat friends and foes, wage war and govern wisely. In his prologue, Anthony writes about the “storms of Fortune” he had known and of being sustained in adversity by his faith in God. Little did he guess how fiercely, and how soon, those storms were to blow for him again.
Nevertheless, while Anthony Woodville lived life with one eye on Heaven, the other was fixed firmly on this world. Earl Rivers always traveled with an impressive retinue. He enjoyed ceremony and was fond of the joust where he sought to dazzle the crowd with his skill in arms, good looks and magnificent costumes. During the tournament celebrating the marriage of little Richard of York to Anne Mowbray in December 1477, he was the most splendid figure of the day. Like the one at Smithfield during the troubles with Warwick a decade earlier, however, a certain someone was notable by his absence.
During these weeks, due mainly to the Woodvilles, George Duke of Clarence lay confined to the Tower under sentence of death, and Richard, with no heart for merriment, did not participate in, or attend, the gorgeous spectacle. However, he still could not escape the taunting reminders of how far his brother had fallen, and how high the Woodvilles had risen, for Caxton’s recent publication of Anthony Woodville’s book The Dictes was the talk of the court. Ironically, when Caxton had come to England, he had sought Clarence’s patronage, but thanks to the Woodvilles, Clarence now languished in the Tower.
One can only speculate how Richard felt to witness the Woodvilles in their glory days. It could not have gone easy on him. Though Clarence had caused him a great deal of travail over the years, he was still bound to his malefactor by the bond of blood and memories. For Richard who had chosen as his motto Loyalty Binds Me and who had sided with his brother Edward against his adoptive family the Nevilles and the girl he loved, grief and anger must have been overwhelming. However well he may have liked Anthony Woodville personally—and there is no proof that he did—he would have held the Queen’s brother responsible, at least to some extent, for Clarence’s fate. No matter what else Anthony was, he was a Woodville; and no matter what Clarence had done, he was blood.
By this period in 1477 Richard had watched the Woodville queen humiliate, and then destroy, her rivals the Nevilles, whom he had loved. He had watched her son, Dorset, take part in, and aid, Edward’s drunken debauchery, staining what greatness he might have otherwise achieved. He had watched them plot, and applaud, Clarence’s destruction, a destiny that found its beginning and its end with the Woodvilles, and one which surely would have been avoided had they not entered the scene. After Clarence’s death, Richard absented himself from court and was heard to remark that he would one day have his revenge on the Queen.  So how did Richard view Anthony? As one of the detested Woodvilles, and therefore guilty by association, or as a unique individual, distinct from his scheming relatives?
In medieval times a man was bound by social codes very different from the ones today and rarely could he distance himself from his clan and still thrive. John Neville, Marquess of Montagu, had tried, and failed. Punished for being a Neville, he was driven back to the brothers he had forsaken for his King. Richard and Anthony Woodville had shared much together: battle, exile, danger, the loss of a brother, as well as good times, festivities, high honors and many a success. They even shared some strong similarities. Both were good soldiers, hard-working, intelligent men with imagination and drive. Yet no matter how congenial a companion Anthony may have proven during these turbulent years, Richard would have found it difficult to forget that, but for the Woodvilles, there would have been no civil war or second exile in Burgundy, and he wouldn’t have been shorn of one brother and distanced from the other. Further balancing any regard he might have for his brother-in-law was the knowledge that Anthony had benefited from Clarence’s death by receiving incomes from his estates.  Amidst the pull of these conflicting emotions in which the negative had to predominate, came Edward’s death and the fateful events at Stony Stratford.
One of the mysteries of this period centers on why Anthony Woodville did what he did at Stony Stratford. His motives have been scrutinized by historians and remain speculation, but it does seem he was a reluctant participant in the queen’s scheme to trump Richard’s hand. He did not depart Ludlow with the young king in haste, as the queen had urged. Instead he dallied to celebrate St. George’s Day, the anniversary of his knighthood. Once again we find evidence that other considerations, either spiritual or sentimental, over-rode the raw ambition which characterized the rest of his clan, especially his sister.
Two weeks after Edward’s death Anthony Woodville set out with the King and an escort of two thousand men to meet Richard at Northampton. But he failed to halt there. Instead, he continued on to Stony Stratford, fourteen miles closer to London. Pressure brought by Lord Richard Grey, the King’s half-brother, whom the Queen had sent to meet Anthony in Northampton, must have been responsible for this change in plan.  The queen had learned of her brother’s cordial agreement to rendezvous with Richard, and anxious to whisk the King to London ahead of the Protector so she could seize power, she sent her son Grey to sabotage the arrangement. The question arises, why then did Anthony Woodville return to Northampton?
The historian Elizabeth Jenkins believes that after agreeing to rendezvous with Richard and then making the King evade it, he couldn’t evade it himself without an appearance of hostility. Kendall agrees that Anthony was under pressure from his family to deliver the King to London ahead of Richard and had misgivings about such a course. Perhaps he disagreed with his willful, rapacious sister—and surely not for the first time. Perhaps, too, he actually liked Richard and empathized with his predicament.
Did Anthony Woodville die because he tried to stand apart from his clan? He didn’t break with them as John Neville had done for the sake of his conscience during the troubles with Warwick, but he did try to ameliorate a bad situation by making an effort to show his own goodwill. Again, it is Kendall who captures the essence of the two men at this crucial juncture in their lives:

“So unlovely was his family that even Anthony, for all his accomplishments, could not be loved, save by his immediate followers and Caxton. In Richard’s mind, the renewed plotting of the Queen justified his execution, but in a broader sense he perished because nobody spoke for him and because he was the ablest, not the most guilty of a family which had long exacerbated the feelings, and now threatened the stability, of the realm.”

Around June 18th, Richard signed Anthony Woodville’s death warrant and sent it north. On the evening of June 23rd, at Sheriff Hutton, Anthony Woodville was informed that as a result of his sister’s plotting, he would be put to death. His mind in turmoil, he made out his will and begged Richard to ensure his wishes were carried out.  That night, this man of letters crowded his thoughts into a plaintive little ballad:

“Somewhat musing, And more mourning, In remembering Th’unsteadfastness; This world being Of such wheeling, Me contrarying, What may I guess?”

The following day he was taken to Pontefract and on June 25th he was beheaded along with Richard Grey and King Edward’s tutor, Thomas Vaughn. It was discovered afterwards that Anthony Woodville, who considered himself a staunch son of the Holy Church, had gone to his death wearing a hair shirt beneath his rich robes of an earl.
In his piety, as in several other aspects of his character, Anthony Woodville bore a strong resemblance to Richard. Neither man accepted Church dogma blindly, but impregnated it with his own character: Anthony, with a special mysticism, and Richard with an independent philosophical quality evidenced by his willingness to marry Anne without a dispensation and to own a Lollard Bible.  There is yet one other way in which they were both strangely similar; one which is quite poignant.
An analysis of Anthony’s handwriting reveals that he was a tireless researcher and had a theatrical sense, qualities which when combined with his excellent mind, would have made him a fine lawyer.  Richard’s own excellent mind and his tireless dedication to the pursuit of justice is well documented. Had they lived today, they might have met across a courtroom bench as lawyer and judge. But this was 1483 and the game of politics was the most dangerous a man could play. The stakes were never higher. A crown hung in the balance, as well as life itself—and not merely their own, but the lives of those they loved.
Much as Anthony Woodville might have liked to stand apart from his family at this fateful moment at Stony Stratford, he could not do so. And much as Richard might have wished to avoid this final, and deadly, confrontation with Anthony, he could not take the chance. They were both forced to act against their will; maybe even against their own heart.
In this lay the greatest tragedy they shared.

i. For considerations of length, the broad outlines of Anthony Woodville's career are sketched here ratner than in the body of the article. He was a member of the embassy that arranged the match between the Duke of Burgundy and Edward's sister, Margaret in 1467, and he escorted the bride to Bruges, where he took part in a brilliant tournament. He escaped the fate of his brother and his father, Earl Rivers, at Edgecote in 1469, and succeeded as the second Earl Rivers. He shared Edward's exile in Burgundy, and returned with him to secure victory at Barnet, and to beat off the Bastard of Fauconberg's attack on London.
ii.  Kendall, Paul Murray, RICHARD THE THIRD; W.W.Norton, New York, p. 254
iii.  Kendall, Richard The Third, W.W. Norton & Company, p. 204
iv.  Sir Edward Woodville was the exception
v.  Dominic Mancini
vi.  Calendar of Patent Rolls 1476-85
vii.  Jenkins, Elizabeth, THE PRINCES IN THE TOWER, Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc; p. 146
viii.  Kendall, ibid, p.254
ix.  Anthony's will was never proven. It may have been that Richard was unable to find time due to the pressure of events, or it may have been that it was simply overlooked. The reason is just not known.
x.  The full ballad appears in Kendall, ibid, p. 253
xi.  Not because he disavowed the miracle of transubstantiation, but because this most English of English kings wished to read Scripture in his own tongue, the language dearest to his heart.
xii.  Master Graphoanalyst Florence Craving's conclusion comes from an examination of the sample of Anthony Woodville's handwriting provided in the 1995 exhibition at Warwick Castle, "To Prove A Villain."

Return to the Articles about Richard III index page.

Copyright  © Sandra Worth - All Rights Reserved