The Woodville family:

Sir Richard Woodville – later Earl Rivers.  He rose to high office in the service of the Crown, holding many positions, including Governor of the Tower of London.  Sir Richard and his son John were captured during the battle of Edgecote in July 1469, fighting against the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence.  They were later beheaded, without trial.

His wife Jacquetta, the dowager duchess of Bedford, came from a long line of European aristocracy and royalty.  She married the Duke of Bedford when she was 17, and became a widow at 19.  She was said to be beautiful and, with the addition of a vast fortune, was the most desirable woman in Europe.  She married a relatively humble knight, much to the shock of her contemporaries.

The couple had a home in Grafton in Northamptonshire and various other great estates around the country.  They had fifteen children, of whom thirteen lived, something quite extraordinary in a time when infant mortality was a fact of life.

Of those thirteen children, their eldest daughter, Elizabeth, married King Edward IV and began the Woodville rise to true riches and fame.  Elizabeth gave Edward IV ten children in all, the two most famous of these were Edward, Prince of Wales and Richard, duke of York, who later became known simply as the Princes in the Tower.

The Woodville's eldest son, Antony, also married well and became Lord Scales of Newcelles and the Isle of Wight.  He held the Lordship of the Island for sixteen years.  During that time he instituted the building of what is now called the Entrance Gate at Carisbrooke Castle and also set in place other building work.  He was executed on the orders of the Lord Protector, Richard, duke of Gloucester, (later Richard III) on the grounds of treason.  The execution took place in Pontefract Castle on the 25th June 1483.

Other Woodville children also rose to high office, for example, Lionel Woodville became Bishop of Salisbury and the girls 'married well' and became titled ladies.

Edward Woodville held a high position in Court, he was Admiral of the Fleet and fought in the Borders campaigns against the Scots, as well as fighting at Bosworth against Richard III.  He was awarded the Captaincy of the Isle of Wight by Henry VII.  He fought the Moors in Granada and later led a campaign to fight against the French in Brittany.  Unfortunately, of the 440 men who sailed to Brittany in 1488, only one boy returned to tell the story of the slaughter by the French, after they were abandoned by the Bretons who were supposed to fight with them.