I appeal to your goodness, your mercy and your renowned sense of justice to spare my life, Cousin. I pray you remember our friendship, my invaluable support, and our many shared ventures on your path to the crown. Have you forgotten our shared blood? I beg of you to reconsider having my death stain your conscience…

That was enough reading for Richard. Damn you, Harry, murderer of children, he thought, if you believe I will count your traitorous death among my many sins, you are even more foolish than I now know you are. And he flung the letter into the fire.

The garrulous, vain and once-powerful duke of Buckingham was led to the scaffold the very next day. Visibly terrified and surrounded by jeering townspeople, he stumbled up the hastily constructed stairs to face the hooded executioner. Shivering in his fine lawn shirt against the cold November air, he fell on his knees to be shriven by the priest before gingerly placing his neck upon the block. His treasured glossy curls, always so meticulously coiffed, fell over his face, hiding his shameful tears. Then his nerves took hold of his body, and a guard had to steady him as the axe was swung high and swiftly brought down to end Henry Stafford’s faithless life.

Watching from a window, Richard did not flinch.

With the rebellion quelled, Richard turned to governing in earnest. He first sent out a summons to all the lords and commons to convene at Westminster for a session of Parliament in late January.

Returning to London in early December, it was clear to him from the reception he was given by the grateful citizens that he had been accepted wholeheartedly as king, especially as, with her complicity in the rebellion acknowledged, Londoners had lost all sympathy for Elizabeth Woodville.

Richard welcomed Anne to London for Christmas but was disappointed that Ned was not well enough to travel through the cold and snow.

“It is nothing serious, Richard,” Anne assured her husband as they snuggled together on her first night in London. “I would not have come if I thought our son were in any danger. He had the croup—he has had it before, but it takes a week or two to subside. Never fear, Mother will take good care of him.”

“Has he grown? Does he miss me? Can he hit the quintain squarely?”