ABSTRACT
Henry VI’s cult took on new meaning in opposition to the allegedly tyrannous and illegitimate regime of his supposed murderer, and allegiance to the last Lancastrian became a quasi-religious touchstone of political opposition. In August 1484 Henry’s body was removed from Chertsey Abbey to the chapel at Windsor Castle, presumably because Richard hoped either to identify himself with the cult and so disarm its effect, or to bring it more closely under his control. In expectation of Henry’s canonization, but also because he had now passed into the realm of legend, those who had known the King in life were recalling personal anecdotes and generating the apocryphal tales which inevitably surround the central figure of a popular cult. Piety and profit commingled as happily in the business of pilgrimage as they had in the Crusades, and the profits from a major cult were incentive alike to the proud, the pious and the merely greedy.
