The New Murrey and Blue blog

We are told by Collins, quoting Mancini, that Anthony Wydeville (the early print enthusiast who became Lord Scales and Earl Rivers) was appointed in 1473 as “governor and ruler” of the Ludlow household of his sister’s eldest son. He was also given “vice-regal powers” in Wales and the Marches, corresponding directly to those of the Duke of Gloucester in the North. Andrew Dymmock was Rivers’ secretary in this capacity, which seems to have applied continuously until 1483 when that nephew briefly became King before his late father’s bigamy was exposed. Yet, in March that year (Collins via Mancini pp.45-75), Rivers wrote to Dymmock to ask for his position to be confirmed, even though this could have happened in London the previous week. At the same time, he asked for his position as Deputy Constable of the Tower to pass to Dorset, another nephew.

This policy seemed to continue after Edward IV’s death, as the brothers and nephews of his “wife” sought to appoint each other to every post imaginable, without the lawful authority. Edward Wydeville’s flight with much of the Treasury’s contents doomed his co-conspirators (Carson).

Of course, this is the same Mancini who describes Hastings, Morton, Rotherham et al as “foregathering in each other’s houses” before denying that they were engaged in a plot of any sort. Move along please, nothing to see here? Then again, are so many of the inaccuracies and non sequiturs attributable not to Mancini but his current translator, Charles Armstrong? Even the title?