Stain glass windows at York Minster depicting Richard III and his royal arms, the white boar, with his motto “Loyalty me lie”.
Richard died on this day on the 22nd of August 1485. He was the last of the Plantagenet and Yorkist dynasty, and the last English King to die in battle.
In the 14th century, a man called John Deydras claimed to be the real Edward II, asserting he and the English king were switched as infants by a nurse.
At his sedition trial he confessed to making up the story, explaining the devil possessed his cat and his cat convinced him to do it. In June 1318 he was hanged and his body was burned.
The cat was also hanged for its role in the plot.
And so you see, this isn’t a story about a mad pretender to the crown but rather about the hangman tasked with making a little cat-sized noose and actually carrying out the execution of an innocent cat whose only crime was to be the pet of a sniveling little punk snitch.
Stained glass depicting Elizabeth of York and her sisters at Little Malvern Priory, Worcestershire (circa 1480-2) |Photo by Aidan McRae Thomson
This made more sense once I realized that the main figure is Elizabeth Woodville, with Elizabeth and her sisters behind her. The escoffion headdress the queen is shown in was on its way out in the late 15th century, but not unheard of; her daughter would adopt an early version of the English or gable hood.
