George's eyes widened in disbelief at the sight which greeted them.

His mother was crying. No, not crying, wailing like one of those banshees that lie in the bogs of Ireland. He had never seen her like this. Throughout his short life he had seen her overcome every fear and foe like the ancient Queen of the Britons, Boadicea.

But this.

This frightened 10 year old George.

Tudor apologists have been incredibly successful in playing on the feelings of generations of men and women via the myth of the murder of the two eldest sons of King Edward IV by Elizabeth Woodville. In this they have been aided and abetted by Shakespeare's fictionalised version of the Fifteenth Century. 

It is high time that two other little boys came before their hearts.

Two children whose lives were blighted by the events of December 1460.

Two little boys whose hearts were turned in opposite directions by another double murder.

A five minute stroll from my home takes me to the estuary of the river Dee. Facing me across the marshy wasteland is the North Wales town of Flint. Planted at the edge of the river are the ruins of Flint Castle, its solid towers reflecting the morning sun but dwarfed by the Welsh Hills behind them. Our story will end at Flint but begins 30 miles further round the Welsh coast.

The Norman victory at Hastings in 1066 changed this island forever. But  that single battle did not secure William’s grip on these shores. It was to be a bloody conquest. Refusing to accept their Norman Conqueror as king, Yorkshire and Durham rose in rebellion against him: a rebellion which William put down with brutal and savage efficiency in the autumn of 1069. Such was the destruction of people and property that 10 years later the ground could not be tilled and towns between York and Durham stood empty, their streets a haven for robbers and wild beasts.