Clarence's wife Isabel had in 1475 given …
Years: 1477 - 1477
Clarence's wife Isabel had in 1475 given birth to a son, Edward, later Earl of Warwick.
She died on December 22, 1476, two months after giving birth to a short-lived son named Richard, and they are buried together at Tewkesbury Abbey in Gloucestershire.
Their surviving children, Margaret and Edward, will be cared for by their aunt, Anne Neville, until she dies in 1485, when Edward is ten years old.
Though most historians now believe Isabel's death was a result of either consumption or childbed fever, Clarence is convinced she had been poisoned by one of her ladies-in-waiting, Ankarette Twynyho, whom, as a consequence, he has judicially murdered in April of 1477, by summarily arresting her and bullying a jury at Warwick into convicting her of murder by poisoning.
She is hanged immediately after trial with John Thursby, a fellow defendant.
Clarence's mental state, never stable, deteriorates from this point and leads to his involvement in yet another rebellion against his brother Edward.
The arrest and committal to the Tower of one of Clarence's retainers, an Oxford astronomer named Dr. John Stacey, leads to his confession under torture that he had 'imagined and compassed' the death of the King, and used the black arts to accomplish this.
He implicates one Thomas Burdett, and one Thomas Blake, a chaplain at Stacey's college.
All three are tried for treason, convicted, and condemned to be drawn to Tyburn and hanged.
Blake is saved at the eleventh hour by a plea for his life from James Goldwell, Bishop of Norwich, but the other two are put to death as ordered.
This is a clear warning to Clarence, which he chooses to ignore.
He appoints Dr. John Goddard to burst into Parliament and regale the House with Burdett and Stacey's declarations of innocence that they had made before their deaths.
Goddard is a very unwise choice, as he is an ex-Lancastrian who has expounded Henry VI's claim to the throne.
Edward summons Clarence to Windsor, severely upbraids him, accuses him of treason, and orders his immediate arrest and confinement.
