Four years later the outskirts of Coventry was the scene of one of the too frequent tragedies of those unsettled times, when Earl Rivers and his son were beheaded at Gosford Green by the orders of Sir John Coniers, who had obtained some partial success in Oxfordshire. In the following year, 1470, the Earl of Warwick, on his return from France, entered Coventry, which was still Lancastrian in sympathy, with much war material and hostile intentions to the inhabitants. On hearing of the Earl of Warwick’s presence King Edward, who lay at Leicester with his forces, marched thence, and after resting at Coombe Abbey, proceeded to Gosford Green, and then approaching Coventry demanded admission; but this being refused, he continued his march to Warwick. Later on, when he had won the decisive battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury, and had regained power, Edward, in revenge for the action of the people of Coventry in refusing to receive him in the previous year, deprived them of many of their privileges and levied upon them a considerable fine, amounting to five hundred marks. But the King soon realised that the good–will of the townsfolk was of too great importance for him to risk losing it by undue severity; and, therefore, on payment of the fine, their privileges of which they had been deprived were again restored to them. Four years later Edward kept the Feast of St. George at Coventry, and in the same year his son stood as godfather to the Mayor’s child, and was presented with a cup and a hundred guineas, and also made a brother of the Guilds of Corpus Christi and Holy Trinity. Richard II. also visited the city, and Henry VII. came and lodged at the Mayor’s immediately after the decisive victory over Richard III. at Bosworth Field. It would appear that the people of Coventry of these days were opulent and generous, but exercised little originality in the form of the gifts they bestowed upon royal or distinguished visitors, for, like Prince Edward of York a few years previously, Henry VII. was presented with a cup and a hundred guineas, and seems to have made so favourable an impression upon the townsfolk that they a few years later subscribed £1100 towards the tax which was levied for the purpose of defraying the expense of the King’s expedition to France.