The Mysterious Story
of
Richard of Eastwell
Richard III is known to have fathered at least two illegitimate children. John of Gloucester and Dame Katharine Plantagenet were both openly acknowledged by their father. John was appointed Captain of Calais although in title only and Katharine was married to the prominent Yorkist William Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon, based at Raglan Castle in South Wales.
In addition to these two children, however, tradition also speaks of a third, a most mysterious character named Richard Plantagenet, who was brought up in secret and whose subsequent life, in the days of the despotic Tudors, was lived out under a protective cloak of mystery and anonymity.
What you are about to see is a letter, written centuries ago by a man who, in traversing some country off the beaten track in Kent in 1720, stumbled upon the lost trail, buried already beneath the dust of centuries, of this mysterious son of King Richard's.
The letter was incorporated in 1735 into Francis Peck's original 'Desiderata Curiosa', some copies of which still survive and which you are now about to see.
-- Michael Alan Marshall