Hello everyone and welcome to the History of England, Episode 171, two rulers.

Now I suspect rightly or wrongly that you will by now be exhausted with the continual

violence and warring of the last few episodes.

And hoping that at last there is some sort of respite, a chance to celebrate the arts

of peace rather than the arts of war.

And to some degree there is, and we can turn once again gentle listeners to the paths

of love.

There can be few people who waited for the news of the Battle of Tauten, more anxiously

than Cecilie Neville.

After the terrible shock of Wakefield, she'd sent her younger children abroad, but she herself

had stayed in Bayneard Castle in London.

So we might picture Cecilie waiting anxiously for news, and to help with that I should

tell you just a bit more about Cecilie's day.

There is a word of warning about what follows.

This comes from papers written about Cecilie's life when she was 60, so in 1485.

When she might have been loosely following the vows of the Benedictine nun, so it's possible

she wasn't quite a strict, in 1461 where we are now.

But there's no doubt, even then, that Cecilie was a fiercely pious person, very much in

line with the strength of personal devotion in the 15th century.

There might be a degree of anti-claricalism about, and quite a strong strand of anti-papal

feeling, but that should not be mistaken for a lack of spirituality or a lack of strength

of religious feeling.

...