RIVERS, ANTHONY WOODVILLE, or WYDEVILLE, 2ND EARL (C. 1442-1483), statesman and patron of literature, and author of the first book printed on English soil, was born prob ably in 1442. He was the son of Richard de Wydeville and his wife, Jacquetta de Luxemburg, duchess of Bedford. His father was raised to the peerage in his son's infancy, and was made earl of Rivers in 1466. Anthony, who was knighted before he became of age, and fought at Towton in 1461, married the daughter of Lord Scales, and became a peer jure uxoris in 1462, two years after the death of that nobleman. Being lord of the Isle of Wight at the time, he was in 1467 appointed one of the ambassadors to treat with the duke of Burgundy, and he exalted his office by challenging Anthony, comte de la Roche, the bastard of Burgundy, to single fight in what was one of the most famous tournaments of the age. (See Bentley's Excerpta Historica, 176-182.) In 1469 Anthony was promoted to be lieutenant of Calais and captain of the king's armada, while holding other honorary posts. His father and brother were beheaded after the battle of Edgecot, and he succeeded in August of that year to the earldom. He accompanied Edward in his temporary flight to the Continent, and on his return to England had a share in the victory of Barnet and Tewkesbury and defended London from the Lancastrians. In 1473 he became guardian and governor to the young prince of Wales. In 1475 and 1476 he went on pilgrimage to the holy places of Italy.
Caxton had in 1476 rented a shop in the Sanctuary at West minster, and here had set up a printing-press. The first book which he undertook in London was one sent to him by "the noble and puissant lord, Lord Antone, Erle of Ryvyers," consisting of a translation "into right good and fayr Englyssh" of Jean de Teonville's French version of a Latin work, "a glorious fair mirror to all good Christian people." In 1477 Caxton brought out this book, as Dictes and Sayengis of the Philosophers. (See CAXTON.) To this succeeded the Moral Proverbs of Christine de Pisan, in verse, in 1478, and a Cordial, in prose, in 1479. The original productions of Lord Rivers, and, in particular, his Balades against the Seven Deadly Sins, are lost.
In 1478 a marriage was arranged between him and Margaret, sister of King James III. of Scotland, but it was mysteriously broken off. He was beheaded by order of Richard III. at Ponte fract on June 25, 1483. His protection and encouragement of Caxton were of inestimable value to English literature, and in the preface to the Dictes the printer gives an account of his own relations with the statesman which illustrates the dignity and modesty of Lord Rivers in a very agreeable way. Rivers was one of the purest writers of English prose of his time.
" Memoirs of Anthony, Earl Rivers " are comprised in the His torical Illustrations of the Reign of Edward the Fourth (ed. W. H. B [lack] )