She sighed and turned her attention to Richard. They walked to the river’s edge and sat down to enjoy the warm June sunshine and tell her tale. And such a tale she told of thrilling victories for Edward at Mortimer’s Cross on the Welsh Marches and at Towton in Yorkshire, of a bitter defeat for Cousin Warwick at St. Alban’s, and how the queen had failed to take advantage of her victory there to overrun London close by. “Instead, she rampaged north with her troops allowing your brother to follow and rout the royal army at Towton.”

Richard’s eyes shone. “Aye, my lady, I know about that battle on Palm Sunday. The king and queen ran away to Scotland. Is Henry no longer king because he ran away?”

“’Tis a mite more complicated than that, my child. Remember the oath Henry swore to your father that he ‘charge all persons here to put it abroad that it shall be considered…’”

“‘…an act of high treason for any person to conspire against the said duke’s life,’” Richard finished for her with the exact wording.

Cecily proudly patted his hand. “That is correct, and by provoking your father to fight at Wakefield, his grace the king broke his own oath. It was enough for the Commons to acclaim Edward, as York’s heir, king.”

Later, Richard’s memory of the conversation faded as he was prepared in the customary way to be made a knight of the Bath in a ceremony the boy would not soon forget. It was the first of many distinctions he was to be given during his brother’s reign.

Together with Richard and George, twenty-six young noblemen were awarded the signal honor that night. Once again, he suffered a few regrets at being the smallest, but then he noticed the older boys were treating him with deference—a nicer side of being the king’s brother, he decided.

Appropriately, the ceremony began with bathing as two king’s knights intoned the rules and rites of this chivalric order. A priest entered the princes’ chamber carrying a silver chalice. He blessed the water in it and sprinkled the cold liquid over the boys’ heads and shoulders while giving a blessing for the purification of the two knight candidates. Then in complete contrast to the solemnity of the ceremony, the squires attending their knights began to sing and cavort about the tub—all part of the ritual, Richard realized, although he privately thought this silly. Then the two knights recited the chivalric oath, which the brothers repeated.

Later, clothed in white, Richard spent the rest of the night holding vigil and lying prostrate in the Tower’s chapel with all the novice knights. The hours of humility in the silence had a profound effect on the boy, and for the first time he felt a spiritual connection with his God.