One thing that can be said for certain about Edward IV-the king whose secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville sets the events of my novel The Stolen Crown into motion-he knew how to put on a show. Take, for instance, the welcoming of Louis de Gruthuse to England in 1472, an event recorded by Bluemantle Pursuivant. We know that Gruthuse was led to the chambers of Edward IV’s queen, where the ladies were dancing and playing games; that Edward presented his visitor with costly gifts, including a great gold cup containing a unicorn’s horn, feasted with him, and hunted with him; and that when the long days of pleasure were over, Gruthuse was escorted to a splendid bed of “as good downe as coulde be thought.” Edward got another chance to demonstrate the magnificence of his court in 1478, when his four-year-old son, Richard, Duke of York, married little Anne Mowbray, who at age five was even longer in the tooth than little Richard. We have a detailed description of the wedding festivities and especially of the celebratory jousts, at the conclusion of which the king’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, presented the winners with golden initials studded with a diamond,…