Meyre cam
ageyne. And at evensong tyme the same day, the Kyng, ... sende
the seyde gowne and furre that he were when he went in p'cession,
and gaf hit frely to God and to Sent Michell, insomuch that non
of the that broughte the gowne wolde take no reward in no wyse.

In 1451 he made the city with the villages and hamlets within its
liberties into a county "distinct and altogether separate from the
county of Warwick for ever," and in 1453 the King and Queen again
visited the Priory. Perhaps out of gratitude for all this royal
favour, Coventry adhered to the Lancastrian cause and in 1459 was
chosen as the meeting place for the "Parliamentum Diabolicum," so
called from the number of attainders passed against the Yorkists. The
year 1467 however saw Edward IV and his Queen keeping their Christmas
here, while less than two years later her father and brother were
beheaded on Gosford Green (Aug. 1469).

After the king's landing at Holderness in 1471 the king-maker,
declining a contest, occupied the town for the Lancastrians, and
Edward passing on to London soon after turned and defeated the earl at
Barnet. After Tewkesbury Edward paid the city another visit, and in
return for its disloyalty seized its liberties and franchises, and
only restored them for a fine of 500 marks. Royal visits still
continued. Richard III came in 1483 to see the plays at the Feast of
Corpus Christi; in 1485 Henry VII stayed at the mayor's house after
his victory at Bosworth Field; and in 1487 kept St. George's Day at
the Monastery, when the Prior at the service cursed, by "bell, book,
and candle," all who should question the king's right to the throne.
The importance of the Gilds is shown by the king and queen being made
a brother and sister of the Trinity Gild; and the part that pageantry
played in the lives of all men is seen in the many occasions on which
kings and princes came hither to be entertained, not only with the
plays "acted by the Grey Friars" but those in which the "hard-handed
men" of, for instance, the Gild of the Sheremen and Tailors, "toil'd
their unbreathed memories" in setting forth such subjects as the Birth
of Christ and the Murder of the Innocents. But although Henry VIII
himself was received in 1511 with pageantry and stayed at the Priory,
royal favours and monastic hospitality availed neither men nor
buildings when the Dissolution came. On 15th January, 1539, Thomas
Camswell, the last Prior of St. Mary's, surrend