We can exclusively reveal …

… that David Starkey has solved the mystery of Stony Stratford. As we know, three to five hundred of the Dukes of Gloucester and Buckingham’s men managed to persuade Edward V to accompany them to London and not Earl Rivers’ two thousand retainers who had taken him so far. Most of Gloucester’s adherents were in Yorkshire which is not, despite what a certain novelist may think, an inner suburb of east London.

In a Channel Four documentary to be broadcast next month, Dr. Starkey will reveal that Gloucester’s men were successful because they had the use of a squadron of Spitfires and the SAS (Special Archery Service). This was, as he points out, the era in which da Vinci designed a helicopter.