George Buck

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir George Buc (1560-1622) was an antiquarian who served as Master of the Revels to King James I of England. Sir George was a descendant of Sir John Buck, an adherent of Richard III who had been executed following the Battle of Bosworth Field. It was Buc who discovered the copy of the act of parliament, Titulus Regius, which brought Richard to the throne. He found it in the Croyland Chronicle, one of the sources for his History of King Richard III, published in 1619.

Buc also claimed to have seen a letter written by Elizabeth of York to John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, shortly before the death of Queen Anne Neville, in which Elizabeth declared her love for King Richard and her hope of becoming his wife. In Buc's words, the letter asks Norfolk "to be a mediator for her to the King, in behalf of the marriage propounded between them", who, as she wrote, was her "onely joy and maker in this world", and that she was his in heart and thought: "withall insinuating that the better part of February was past, and that she feared the Queen would never die." The letter, if it ever existed, is now lost. Buck fell from favour, was overwhelmed by debt, and died insane.