Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers

Anthony Woodville
2nd Earl Rivers
Anthony Woodville (kneeling, second from left, wearing a tabard displaying his armorials) and William Caxton (dressed in black) presenting the first printed book in English (Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers) to King Edward IV and Woodville's sister Queen Elizabeth. Lambeth Palace Library, London.
Earl Rivers
Tenure1469–1483
PredecessorRichard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers
SuccessorRichard Woodville, 3rd Earl Rivers
Bornc. 1440
Grafton Regis, Northamptonshire, Kingdom of England
Died25 June 1483
Pontefract Castle
SpouseElizabeth Scales, 8th Baroness Scales
Mary Fitz-Lewis
IssueMargaret Woodville (Illegitimate)[1]
FatherRichard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers
MotherJacquetta of Luxembourg
Arms of Woodville: Argent, a fesse and a canton conjoined gules
Quartered arms of Sir Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, KG

Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers KG (c. 1440 – 25 June 1483), was an English nobleman, courtier, bibliophile and writer. He was the brother of Queen Elizabeth Woodville who married King Edward IV. He was one of the leading members of the Woodville family, which came to prominence during the reign of King Edward IV. After Edward's death, he was arrested and then executed by the Duke of Gloucester (the future King Richard III) as part of a power struggle between Richard and the Woodvilles. His English translation of The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers is one of the first books printed in England.[2]

  1. ^ Novelist Susan Higginbotham blog
  2. ^ Gosse, Edmund (1911). "Rivers, Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 385. This presents a detailed biography.