Edward IV is well known for having used hard to explain sights as motivation tools. The Sun in Splendour was adopted as his personal badge resulted from his men seeing a parhelion before the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross. Now, ten years later and once more on his way to fight for the crown, he sees and uses another vision.

King Edward IV sees a sign from God at Daventry, 6 April 1471

On this occasion, Edward and his companions see a vision in a church at Daventry. It is recorded in Edward’s history of his restoration, the Arivall, which he commissioned says:

“So it happened that, the same Palm Sunday, the King went into procession, and all the people after, in good devotion as the service of that day asks, and when the procession was come into the church, the King knelt and devoutly honoured the rood. …in a pillar of the church a little image of St. Anne, made of alabaster, standing fixed to a pillar, closed and clasped together with four boards [as iy] had been from Ash Wednesday to that time. And suddenly boards, compassing the image about, gave a grest crack and a little opened, which the King well perceived and all the people around him. And then, after the boards closed together again, without any man’s hand or touching and as though it had been a thing done with violence, with a greater might it opened all abroad, and so the image stoodd open and discovered, in the sight of all the people there. The King, seeing this, thanked snd honoured God snd St. Anne, taking it for a good sign, and token of good and prosperous adventure, that God would send him aid in what he had to do, and remebering his promise… gsve his offerings.”

Image is simply an old print of Daventry as I couldn’t find anything particularly medieval. Please comment if you have a more appropriate image that could be used.