John Talbot, in his Garter robes, presents a copy of the beautifully illustrated Shrewsbury Book to Marguerite of Anjou, shown hand in hand with her new husband Henry VI. Daisies – Marguerite’s personal emblem – decorate the lavish borders.
The stained-glass Royal Window in Canterbury Cathedral shows the figures of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, with their sons and daughters to either side, kneeling at prayer desks. The royal figures originally flanked an image of the Crucifixion, but the window was damaged by Puritan iconoclasts in 1642.
Believed to have been painted by Rowland Lockey in the last years of the sixteenth century, this image of the ageing Margaret Beaufort reflects her reputation for piety. Margaret’s emblems – the mythological beast called a Yale, the portcullis and the red rose – adorn several Cambridge colleges of which she was patron.
Cecily Neville’s father, the Earl of Westmorland, flanked by the many children of his second marriage, in a French illustration from the fifteenth century.
Portraits of Elizabeth Woodville – mostly sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century copies of one original portrait type – show the high forehead and elaborate headdress that were a fashion of the day.
Anne Neville, depicted here in the Rous Roll, is shown in her coronation robes with orb and sceptre.
Portraits of Richard III often show a more personable figure than his later reputation might suggest.
This lovely miniature shows a vision in which the risen Christ appeared to Margaret of Burgundy in her bedroom, so silently that even her sleeping dog was not aroused.
Like that of her mother Elizabeth Woodville, this portrait of Elizabeth of York is a later version of a single earlier painted portrait type. She holds the white rose symbol of York in her hand.
This depiction of the birth of Julius Caesar reflects not only the childbirth customs of the late fifteenth century but also the high quality of illumination found in Burgundian books and manuscripts at the time.
This tapestry of a hunting scene also shows the courtly pastimes of fishing and falconry. From the marguerites woven into some of the ladies’ hats, it may have been a wedding present for Marguerite of Anjou.
The funeral procession of Elizabeth of York. Margaret Beaufort’s husband Lord Stanley walks directly in front of the bier.
The preparations for a tournament, in the Livre des Tournois written by Marguerite of Anjou’s father René.
Margaret of Burgundy’s crown may have been made for her wedding, or possibly as a votive offering. The white roses around the rim could suggest the Virgin Mary, as well as being a Yorkist emblem.
A French collection of love songs, made with heart-shaped pages c. 1475.
This illustration for a volume of poems by Charles, Duke of Orléans reflects his twenty-five-year imprisonment in the Tower of London. Behind the Tower itself is a panorama of the city.
Elizabeth of York has inscribed her name – ‘Elisabeth the quene’ – on the lower margin of this page from a Book of Hours passed down through her family.
Taken from the Troy Book of the mid-fifteenth century, the image of the Wheel of Fortune, with a crowned king poised at its apex, would prove all too prophetic for the years ahead.