Against all odds

On March 14th, 1471, Edward of York, his brother Richard, and their small band of exiles landed on the Yorkshire coast near the fishing village of Ravenspur. They had sailed from Flushing on the 11th in heavy seas, losing the ship that carried their horses but evading the English fleet under command of the Earl of Warwick’s kinsman, the Bastard of Fauconberg. They’d planned to land in Norfolk, where they had Yorkist support, but when Edward prudently sent a scouting party ashore first, they learned that the Duke of Norfolk was under arrest and the Lancastrian Duke of Oxford was on the alert for them. They put out to sea again, then their ships were scattered in a storm. Richard and the three hundred men under his command came ashore near Ravenspur, and must have had a nerve-wracking night until in the morning they were able to find Edward and Will Hastings and the five hundred men on their ship and then unite with Edward’s brother-in-law Anthony Woodville and his two hundred men. Not a large army to attempt what many thought to be impossible—recover a lost throne. But Edward was one of those men at their best when things were at their worst, and paradoxically, at his worst when all was going well. He was blessed, too, with a brother he could trust implicitly, a luxury few kings enjoyed. And so they set forth bravely on their all or nothing gamble. Stay tuned for further developments.