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was released from his prison, where he had not been ‘so cleanly kept as should seem such a prince’, and was ceremoniously conducted to ‘the king’s lodgings where the queen before lay’. 5
    No doubt he slept in her very bed.
    Meanwhile, in the sanctuary, Elizabeth and her mother found themselves dependent on the charity of friends and foes alike. A London butcher, William Gould, gave them out of ‘great kindness and true heart’ the carcasses of half a cow and two sheep to feed their household each week; Thomas Millyng, the abbot of Westminster, went out of his way to befriend them; even Henry VI’s government provided (andpaid for) the services of Elizabeth, Lady Scrope of Bolton, as the queen’s lady-in-waiting. 6
    A month later, on 2 November, Elizabeth Woodville was safely delivered of a son. Her own doctor and midwife were in attendance. But, since she was a mere ex-queen, there was no ceremony. There was ‘little pomp’ either when the child was christened in the Abbey, with Millyng and the prior as godfathers and Lady Scrope as godmother. 7
    Nevertheless, he was named ‘Edward’ after his father – and in the hope of better times.
    And the good times soon returned. Only two years earlier, in July 1468, Edward IV’s sister Margaret had married Charles the Bold, the most magnificent and ostentatious ruler of the day. As duke of Burgundy, Charles was a prince of the blood royal of France. But his real power came from his control of the Netherlands, a patchwork of cities and territories which included not only the modern Netherlands, but also present-day Belgium and much of north-eastern France. It was the richest area of Europe outside Italy, and was England’s principal trading partner.
    Here Edward IV found refuge in his exile. Nevertheless, despite their close relationship, Charles’s initial welcome was cool. It became much warmer in December 1470 when Louis XI of France, the ally and patron of the new Lancastrian regime, declared war on Charles. Duke Charles riposted by agreeing to support Edward IV in a bid to recover England.
    Things were going Edward IV’s way in England as well. Henry VI ‘readepted’ was no more effectual than he had been the first time round. And the unholy alliance of Yorkists and Lancastrians that had restored him was coming apart. The result was that when Edward IV landed in Yorkshire in March 1471 his invasion soon turned into a promenade. As he marched south, troops flocked to join his little army of 1,500 men and he entered London unopposed.
    Once again, it was all change, as Henry’s grandfather confronted his great-uncle. Edward IV took the surrender of Henry VI, unkinged him for a second time and sent him back to his prison in the Tower. Then he went to Westminster to liberate his queen and children from the sanctuary. Elizabeth Woodville’s first gesture was to present him with his first-born son Edward – the son he had never seen – ‘to the king’s greatest joy … [and] his heart’s singular comfort and gladness’. 8
    Elizabeth, for her part, probably never forgot that moment either.
    It was the eve of Easter, and Edward IV’s enemies expected him to pause for the court’s customary elaborate devotions. Instead, he took them off-guard and defeated both groups in turn: the ex-Yorkists at Barnet and the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury.
    This time, he decided, there would be no survivors. The Lancastrian prince of Wales and the last Beaufort duke ofSomerset were killed in the battle, and Henry VI himself was done to death in the Tower with a heavy blow to the back of the head. No one, a Yorkist chronicler exulted, of ‘the stock of Lancaster remained among the living’ who could claim the throne.
    No one, that is, apart from Henry’s father, Henry Tudor.
    He and his uncle Jasper, earl of Pembroke, were in south Wales at the time of Tewkesbury. In the wake of the disaster, they retreated first to Pembroke Castle and then, in late September 1471, took ship