(1) The Battle of Towton

(1a) The Towton Ring (British Museum)

(2) “Now is the winter of our discontent” – Richard III by William Shakespeare

(2a) King Richard III had the ‘Princes in the Tower’ murdered, historian finds (Live Science)

(3) A quote from The Stripping of the Altars by Eamon Duffy:

“Under both the Angevin kings and their Plantagenet successors the cult of the saints often had a political dimension. The victims of political struggles might become martyrs, and popular devotion to such “saints” might be the vehicle for criticism or resistance to the political status quo. A number of fifteenth century English cults had a strong political dimension, like the anti-Lancastrian cult of Archbishop Scrope of York, executed for treason by Henry IV, or the anti-Yorkist cult of Henry VI. Scrope quickly became the focus of a popular cult openly hostile to the monarchy – it was part of the cult legend that Henry IV had been stricken with leprosy as an immediate consequence of Scrope’s martyrdom. Henry VI’s miracula include very overt political miracles, like the healing of a little girl afflicted with the “King’s evil”, whose parents had refused to bring her to be “touched” by the “usurper”, Richard III. Henry VII attempted to mobilize the cult of Henry VI in support of his own dynasty, building a magnificent chapel at Westminster Abbey to house Henry VI’s relics, and promoting his cause at Rome. The process foundered in the late 1520s, but “good King Harry” would almost certainly have been canonized had not bad King Harry’s matrimonial affairs strained and eventually broken ties with Rome.”

(4) A Lament for Our Lady’s Shrine at Walsingham: A lament for a Catholic place of pilgrimage devastated by Henry VIII, this simple ballad delivers a powerful sense of grief (The Guardian)