Annette Carson

“Richard’s Parliament, which concluded on 20 February, is remembered for introducing a catalogue of citizens’ rights and protections which was unparalleled in living memory. Jeremy Potter summarizes thus: There was a programme of law reform which included measures to correct injustice in the ownership and transfer of land, measures to safeguard the individual against abuses of the law in matters affecting juries and bail, measures to prevent the seizure of goods of those arrested but not yet found guilty, and the abolition of a much resented form of taxation known euphemistically as benevolences.”
― Annette Carson, Richard III: The Maligned King

“Indeed, these rebels knew exactly what they were doing by timing their uprising so as to prevent the upcoming sitting of Parliament scheduled for November 1483. They knew the grounds for Edward V’s disinheritance had been examined and accepted by an overwhelming majority of parliamentary representatives the previous June, and they could expect a formal Parliament to endorse that decision: their overriding concern was to set aside not just Richard III, but the constitutional framework that had set him on the throne.”
― Annette Carson, Richard III: The Maligned King