35. The tomb of the Black Prince behind the quire of Canterbury Cathedral. Its epitaph begins, ‘Such as thou art, sometime was I. Such as I am, such shalt thou be.’
36. The image of Richard II from the ‘Wilton Diptych’. Standing around him are King Edmund (saint and martyr), Edward the Confessor (saint), and John the Baptist (saint). He considered these to be his forebears and protectors.
37. A page from Wycliffe’s Bible. This translation into Middle English is not the work of Wycliffe himself, but of several authors inspired by Wycliffe’s example.
38. The cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral, with the earliest and perhaps the best fan-vaulted roof in England, were built in the latter half of the fourteenth century. The cathedral itself is of Norman origin based on an Anglo-Saxon original. In this, it does not differ from many other English cathedrals.
39. A scene from the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381. It marked the greatest rebellion of the people against their masters in English history.
40. The coronation of Henry IV in Westminster Abbey, October 1399. Since he had gained the crown by conquest, it always lay uneasily upon his head.
41. The Battle of Agincourt, fought in the autumn of 1415, was an overwhelming victory for Henry V against the French. On his return from the field he was hailed by the English as ‘lord of England, flower of the world, soldier of Christ’.
42. The wedding of Henry V and Katherine of Valois, daughter of the King of France, in the summer of 1420 at Troyes Cathedral. Henry died a little over two years later, but Katherine had given birth to a male heir.
43. An image of Joan of Arc, or ‘the Maid of Orleans’, whose victories in 1429 anticipated the English expulsion from the towns and cities of France two decades later.
44. Henry VI in full martial array. In truth he was not a very good soldier, and not a very able king.
45. The Warwick family tree, from John Rous of Warwick’s De Regius Angliae, showing Richard Neville, 16th Earl, his wife Anne Beauchamp, their daughter Isabel Spencer and her husband George, Duke of Clarence.
46. An image of Edward IV, whose greatest achievement was to consolidate royal authority after the weak and vacillating rule of Henry VI.
47. Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV. Unlike most royal brides she was English and, at the time of her marriage, already a widow with two children.
48. Edward V, the unfortunate boy-king who reigned for just two months before being murdered in the Tower of London. He was never crowned.
49. Richard III standing on a white boar; the white boar was his personal badge or ‘livery badge’. It may derive from the Latin name of York, Eboracum, since he was known as Richard of York.
50. Elizabeth of York and Henry VII, from a nineteenth-century illustration. From their union the rest of the Tudor dynasty sprang.
51. An allegory of the Tudor dynasty. The red dragon on the left represents the Welsh ancestry of Henry VII, for example, while the white greyhound on the right is taken from his father’s coat of arms as first earl of Richmond. Surmounting all is the Rose of Tudor, incorporating the white rose of Yorkshire within the red rose of Lancashire.
First published 2011 by Macmillan
This electronic edition published 2011 by Macmillan
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Copyright © Peter Ackroyd 2011
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The list of illustrations constitutes an extension of this copyright page.
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Contents
List of illustrations
1. Hallelujah
2. All in scarlet
3. Heretic!
4. The woes of marriage
5. Into court
6. Old authentic histories
7. The king’s pleasure
8. A little neck
9. The great revolt
10. The confiscation
11. The old fashion
12. The body of Christ
13. The fall
14. War games
15. A family portrait
16. The last days
17. The breaking of the altars
18. Have at all papists!
19. The barns of Crediton
20. The lord of misrule
21. The nine-day queen
22. In the ascendant
23. Faith of our fathers
24. An age of anxiety
