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Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers

Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers KG (c. 1440 – 25 June 1483), was an English nobleman, courtier, bibliophile and writer. He was the brother of Queen Elizabeth Woodville who married King Edward IV. He was one of the leading members of the Woodville family, which came to prominence during the reign of King Edward IV. After Edward's death, he was arrested and then executed by the Duke of Gloucester (the future King Richard III) as part of a power struggle between Richard and the Woodvilles. His English translation of The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers is one of the first books printed in England.[2]

Anthony Woodville

Origins[edit]

He was the eldest son to survive childhood of Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers, by his wife Jacquetta of Luxembourg. His sister was Elizabeth Woodville, who married King Edward IV and became queen.

Death and succession[edit]

When the king died suddenly in 1483, Rivers was ordered by his sister to bring the Prince of Wales, now King Edward V, straight back to London under an armed guard. They were intercepted by Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later King Richard III), who arrested the Earl, along with his nephew Sir Richard Grey, the young king's half-brother.[6] Rivers was imprisoned and then beheaded at Pontefract Castle in West Yorkshire on 25 June 1483 as part of the duke's path towards kingship (as Richard III).


Anthony was succeeded by his brother Richard Woodville, 3rd Earl Rivers.[2] The Scales lands inherited from his wife were bequeathed to his younger brother Edward Woodville, but King Richard III ignored Anthony's wishes as Edward had joined Henry Tudor.

Firstly to , suo jure Baroness Scales (d. 1473), daughter and heiress of Thomas de Scales, 7th Baron Scales, and widow of Henry Bourchier, younger son of Henry Bourchier, 1st Earl of Essex. Before succeeding to his father's earldom, Anthony was summoned to Parliament, in right of his wife, as Baron Scales.

Elizabeth de Scales

Secondly he married Mary FitzLewis, daughter of Henry FitzLewis.

Literary interests[edit]

Rivers had met the earliest English printer William Caxton when in exile in Bruges, and there in 1475–76 Caxton published Cordyale, or Four last thinges, Rivers' English translation from the French of Jean Miélot of Les quattres choses derrenieres, itself a translation of the Cordiale quattuor novissimorum. After both of them had returned to England, one of the first, if not the first, books printed in England was Rivers' translation from French of the Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, printed by Caxton at Westminster in 1477.[9] Lambeth Palace Library has a manuscript illustration showing Rivers presenting a copy of this book to Edward IV (illustrated top right).

Hicks, Michael. "Woodville, Anthony". (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/29937. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Ives, E. W. "Andrew Dymmock and the Papers of Anthony Earl Rivers," Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 41 (1968): 216–229.

Lowe, D. E. "Patronage and Politics: Edward IV, the Wydevills, and the Council of the Prince of Wales, 1471-83," The Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 29 (1981): 545–573.

Pidgeon, Lynda. The Ricardian 15 (2005): 1–19. Richard III Society.

"Antony Wydevile, Lord Scales and Earl Rivers: Family, Friends and Affinity. Part 1,"

Pidgeon, Lynda. The Ricardian 15 (2006): 1–14. Richard III Society.

"Antony Wydevile, Lord Scales and Earl Rivers: Family, Friends and Affinity. Part 2,"

Scofield, Cora L. "The Capture of Lord Rivers and Sir Anthony Woodville, 19 January 1460," The English Historical Review 37:146 (April 1922): 253–255.