Richard Plantagenet of Eastwell

The parish register of Eastwell records the burial of Richard Plantagenet on 22 December 1550, and the Earls of Winchilsea kept a tradition about him. Sir Thomas Moyle, building Eastwell Place, noticed that his chief bricklayer spent every spare moment reading, and found the book was in Latin. The old man told him he had been schooled without knowing his parents, until he was taken to Richard III’s tent on the eve of Bosworth and told he was the king’s son. After the battle he hid his birth and became a bricklayer, and Moyle offered to keep him for the rest of his life; marks of his house were still shown at Eastwell.