Quotes from The Brothers York: An English Tragedy by Thomas Penn:

“He [Edward IV] was comfortable enough to schedule in a diversionary loop, a pilgrimage through East Anglia to the great north Norfolk shrine of Walsingham, during which he would recruit additional armed forces for his norther operation.”

“The area was a hotbed of support for the pro-Lancastrian Percy family, whose heir, the twenty-one-year-old Henry Percy, was securely in the wardship of William Herbert away in south Wales: the insurgents wanted him restored as earl of Northumberland in place of the man who had supplanted him, John Neville. Late May, some fifteen thousand strong, they reached the gates of York before Neville and his men materialized. There, after a ‘long fight’, Robin of Holderness was captured and beheaded.”

“While Cook himself was still in custody, Edward ordered Rivers and Fogge to break into his property and seize his moveable assets in order to pay off the debt: a common, if harsh, practice that their men interpreted liberally, turning Cook’s London townhouse upside-down, drinking his cellar dry and carting off large quantities of cloth, £700 in plate and jewels, and a series of exquisite, jewel-encrusted tapestries depicting the Siege of Jerusalem.”

“Late that October, in a small chamber in Westminster Palace, Henry Percy swore an oath of allegiance to Edward, witnessed by a small knot of royal councillors including William Hastings and the archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Bourchier. In return, Percy was given his liberty. His release was seismic. Percy, everybody now knew, was to be restored to his earldom of Northumberland – with inevitable consequences for those who had profited from it: Warwick, Clarence and the earldom’s current incumbent, John Neville.”

“Though the carnage of Towton was now a decade ago, it lingered in the memory and everybody knew somebody who had died there; mostly on the Lancastrian side, fighting for Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland.”

I was in the **new** store in Westport, CT a couple of weeks ago doing some research. The Brothers York, by the way, is a perfect follow-up to Fatal Colours by George Goodwin. Book serendipity.

(1) The Englishman trying to save American bookstores from Amazon (CorpUS)