Elizabeth Woodville's Sisters

Of Elizabeth Woodville’s many siblings, the most shadowy, unsurprisingly, are her sisters. Nothing is known about their personalities and very little about their lives, save for genealogical details, which has not stopped the queen’s detractors from characterizing them en masse as greedy, scheming, and unprincipled. Here’s what is known about the queen’s siblings:

Jacquetta
Unlike those of her younger sisters, Jacquetta Woodville’s marriage owed nothing to her sister Elizabeth’s match with the king. Jacquetta had married John Strange, 8th Lord Strange of Knokyn, by March 27, 1450, when the manor of Midlyngton in Oxford was granted to the couple by John’s mother, Elizabeth (Calendar of Patent Rolls). Since Jacquetta’s parents had married around 1437, Jacquetta, who was apparently younger than Elizabeth Woodville and Anthony Woodville, was still a child at the time of her marriage, as was her husband, said to have been five or more at the time of his father’s death in 1449. John outlived Jacquetta, having remarried before his death on October 16, 1479. They had one daughter, Joan, said to be 16 or more at the time of her father’s death. Joan married George Stanley, son of the Thomas Stanley who is notorious for having helped Henry Tudor win the Battle of Bosworth. George is best known for being taken in custody by Richard III before the battle of Bosworth to ensure (unsuccessfully) the loyalty of Thomas Stanley. Joan and George’s son, Thomas, became the second Earl of Derby in 1504, having succeeded to the title of his grandfather Thomas Stanley.

Jacquetta Woodville and John Strange are commemorated in a memorial brass at St. John the Baptist Church in Hillingdon, a picture of which can be seen here.

Anne
Anne Woodville married William Bourchier, eldest son of the Earl of Essex, by August 1467, when they are recorded as receiving lands worth a hundred pounds a year. Anne is one of the rare cases where we get a glimpse of Elizabeth’s sisters at court: she served as one of the queen’s ladies in waiting and was paid forty pounds a year for her services. How long she was at court is uncertain, as the queen’s household records only cover the period from 1466-67.

William Bourchier, who must have been considerably older than Anne, predeceased his father, dying sometime between February 12, 1483, when he was placed on a commission of the peace, and April 4, 1483, when his father the earl died, close to eighty years of age. William and Anne’s son, Henry, born in 1472, became the second Earl of Essex at age eleven. Interestingly, some sources have young Henry taking part in Richard III’s coronation a few months later, bearing gilt spurs in the procession. (Incidentally, Henry Bourchier’s daughter, Anne, married William Parr, whose sister Katherine was Henry VIII’s sixth wife.)

In addition to Henry, Earl of Essex, Anne and William had two daughters, the first being Cecily, who married John Devereux, 8th Baron Ferrers of Chartley (b. 1463). She died in 1493. The other daughter, Isabel, seems to have never married. In her will, dated October 10, 1500, and proven May 14, 1501, she described herself only as “daughter to William Bourchier” and asked to be buried at Whittington College, London, the burial place of her sister. She left monetary bequests to her brother Henry and to her half brother, Richard Grey.

Following William’s death, Anne subsequently married George Grey, the second Earl of Kent. She died on July 30, 1489, survived by a son, Richard Grey, who succeeded George Grey as the third Earl of Kent when George died in 1503. Richard Grey was a wastrel who had dissipated his inheritance by the time he died in 1524.

A number of sources report that Anne was married a third time to Edward Wingfield, but this appears somewhat doubtful to me. Richard Grey, Earl of Kent, who was described as “25 or more” at his father’s death in 1503, may not have been quite this old at the time, but he certainly seems to have been an adult, who sat on a commission of gaol delivery in 1502 and who was given license to enter his lands in 1504. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1505. With a son this old, it seems that Anne, who was not widowed from her first husband until 1483, would have had no time to squeeze in a marriage to Edward Wingfield, who in any case was alive and active after Anne’s death in 1489. The only scenario I can think of that would allow both marriages would have been for Anne to marry one man and then have the marriage annulled before marrying the other, but this seems rather unlikely since no source mentions such an occurrence. Perhaps Anne is being confused with her sister Katherine, who married Richard Wingfield, Edward Wingfield’s younger brother.

Mary
In September 1466, Mary wed young William Herbert at Windsor Castle. William Herbert, born around 1454 or 1455, was the eldest son of William Herbert, a Welsh baron and a strong ally of Edward IV who for a time had young Henry Tudor in his custody. The marriage indenture had been entered into on March 20, 1466. The elder Herbert was created Earl of Pembroke in 1468, but had little time to enjoy his title; he was murdered by the Earl of Warwick’s troops the following year, shortly before two of his Woodville in-laws, Mary’s father and her brother John, met the same fate. Mary’s husband thus became the second Earl of Pembroke, but he never enjoyed the prominence of his father. Like another Woodville in-law, the Duke of Buckingham, he had no role of importance in Edward IV’s reign. It has been suggested that he may have suffered from ill health. In 1479, he exchanged his earldom of Pembroke, which was bestowed upon the Prince of Wales for that of Huntingdon.

Mary, meanwhile, bore William one daughter, Elizabeth, who was described as “16 or more” in 1492, putting her birth date at about 1476. Her date of death is usually given as 1481. In his 1483 will, William (who died in 1490) asked to be buried at Tintern Abbey “where my deare and best beloved wife resteth buried.” In 1484, however, he married Katherine, Richard III’s out-of-wedlock daughter, whom he seems to have outlived. According to the Complete Peerage, he was buried at Tintern Abbey.

William and Mary’s daughter, Elizabeth, married Charles Somerset, the out-of-wedlock child of Henry, Duke of Somerset (d. 1464). As a Beaufort who had been in exile with Henry Tudor, Somerset naturally did well under Henry VII’s reign, being made the first Earl of Worcester.

Margaret
Margaret Woodville was the first of the queen’s sisters to marry after Elizabeth’s marriage to Edward IV was made public. Her marriage to Thomas Fitzalan (b. 1450), known later as Lord Maltravers, took place in October 1464, just weeks after Edward had surprised his council with news of his own marriage. Thomas’s father lived to be 71, dying in December 1487, so he did not succeed to his earldom until 1488. Both men were present at Richard III’s coronation, though they also turned up for Tudor events during the next reign.

Lord and Lady Maltravers assisted at the christening of Edward IV and Elizabeth’s youngest daughter, Bridget, in 1480. They were the parents of several children. Their son William, born around 1476, succeeded to his father’s earldom after Thomas’s death in 1524. Their daughter Joan married George Neville, 3rd Lord Abergavenny. Another daughter, Margaret, married John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, who died rebelling against Henry VII at Stoke Field. This daughter was still alive in 1524, when her father bequeathed her a ring.

Margaret Woodville died before March 6, 1491, and was buried at Arundel. Her husband lived until October 25, 1524, having never remarried. He specified that he be buried at Arundel, “where my Lady my wife doth lie.”

Joan
Joan Woodville (also known, peculiarly, as Eleanor) married Anthony Grey, son of Edmund, Lord Grey of Ruthin. Edmund had turned traitor to the Lancastrian cause at Northampton and was created Earl of Kent on May 30, 1465. Anthony Grey, who was knighted on the eve of Elizabeth Woodville’s coronation, married Joan around this time. Anthony Grey died childless in 1480, predeceasing his father, who died in 1490. Anthony’s younger brother, George, who had married the widowed Mary Woodville, Joan’s sister, became the second Earl of Kent.

Joan was dead by 1492, when a postmortem inquisition on her brother Richard was taken.

Katherine
The best known of Elizabeth Woodville’s sisters is Katherine, who with her marriage to Henry, Duke of Buckingham became the highest ranking of the girls—except, of course, for her sister the queen. Katherine was probably the youngest of the girls; her brother Richard’s postmortem inquisition places her birthdate at about 1458. She had married her husband by the time of Elizabeth’s coronation in 1465, for she is named in a description of the event as the younger Duchess of Buckingham. She and her nine-year-old husband were carried at the coronation by squires. No other duke or duchess is referred to as being carried in this manner, so it’s reasonable to assume that this was due to the youth of the Buckinghams. Following her marriage, Katherine was raised in the queen’s household, where her husband and his brother also resided.

After the execution of her first husband in 1483, Katherine married Jasper Tudor, uncle to Henry VII, shortly before November 7, 1485. She married her third husband, Richard Wingfield, without royal license in early 1496 and died just over a year later on May 18, 1497.

More can be found about Katherine here. It should be noted once again, however, that despite primary sources that indicate that Katherine was a child at the time of her marriage to Buckingham, certain of Richard III’s supporters continue to insist that she was much older than Buckingham at the time and that the experience of being married to an adult woman (and one of lesser birth) hopelessly warped the poor boy. The prize for Katherine-bashing in nonfiction has to go to Ricardian Geoffrey Richardson, who in The Hollow Crowns writes, “A substantial difference in the ages of the bridal pair and the bitter reluctance of the groom were matters of little or no consequence. . . . The principal consequence of this ill-matched mating, which would affect the course of English history, was that Buckingham acquired an abiding hatred of the Woodvilles, verging at times on gross mental instability, perhaps madness would not be too strong a word.” Most recently, Annette Carson in Richard III: The Maligned King, while not going so far as to credit Katherine with driving Buckingham insane, adds a few misstatements of her own, writing “Edward IV had neatly pre-empted any such alliance [i.e., with the Earl of Warwick’s daughters] by purchasing Buckingham’s wardship in order for the boy to be bestowed on the Woodville clan, at the age of about eleven, as husband for the queen’s twenty-year-old sister Catherine. Young Harry’s mortification must have festered for years.” Like Richardson, Carson (who manages to get Harry’s age wrong as well as Katherine’s) cites no source for her misstatement. It should also be noted that Edward IV purchased Harry’s very valuable wardship well before he married Elizabeth Woodville; the boy had previously been in the care of the king’s sister Anne, the Duchess of Exeter. (Poor Harry is also depicted by Carson as being “kept at court tied to the queen’s skirts while she enjoyed the income from his estates.” Aside from the fact that there was not anything at all unusual or untoward in a guardian benefitting from a wealthy ward’s estates during the fifteenth century, Harry was allowed to enter his estates at age 17, years before he reached his majority.)

Instead of to these writers, the last word on Katherine should go to her third husband, a distinguished diplomat who outlived her by many years and who remarried after little more than a year of marriage to her, but whose will orders masses for the zoul of his "singular good Lady Dame Katherine.”

The Mysterious Martha
Finally, another girl is often added to the list of Woodville sisters: Martha, married to Sir John Bromley. As Brad Verity has pointed out, however, Martha is not mentioned as being a Woodville until a 1623 visitation pedigree. She is not named in a note, written in the 1580’s, that lists the offspring of Richard, Earl Rivers, and Jacquetta and their spouses, nor do she or her heirs appear in Richard Woodville’s 1492 inquisition postmortem or in a 1485 document designating inheritance rights to Edward Woodville’s annuity. It seems, then, that Martha Bromley was not a Woodville, or at least not one of the queen's sisters.

And Now, Why Elizabeth Woodville Really Left Sanctuary

First, thanks to all who responded so encouragingly to my last blog post. It's nice to know that there are so many people of goodwill and graciousness out there. Thanks too, from my son, Thad.

But now, it's time to get down to business. As promised a few posts ago, here's the real reason Elizabeth Woodville left sanctuary. (Feel free to blame Susan A., Gabriele, and Lucie for this.)

Dramatis Personae:

Elizabeth, Queen to Edward IV

Her daughters:

Bess, age 17

Cecily, almost 15

Anne, age 9

Katharine, age 4

Bridget, age 3

Richard III

(As dawn breaks in Westminster Abbey in March 1484, two girls are fighting over a washbasin.)

Cecily: I got here first!

Bess: No, missy. I got here first.

Cecily: That's not true! My hand was on it before yours. Look! (Grabs basin and spills it) Damn it! Look what you made me do!

Elizabeth: How dare you use such language!

Cecily: (Tossing her head) I'm a bastard and I can use any language I want. So there.

Katherine: What's a bastard?

Elizabeth: Now see what you started? She'll be after me for the rest of the day.

Bridget: (Learning a new word). Bastard! Bastard!

Bess: (Brushing her hair) Well, well. Another exciting day in sanctuary to look forward to. What have we got planned for today, Mother? Prayers? Reading your Book of Hours? A little embroidery?

Cecily: Maybe all of those things! I'm so excited.

Anne: (Too young to have learned the fine art of sarcasm) You two are stupid.

Bess: Oh, another shire heard from! How lovely.

Cecily: But wait, it's Wednesday!

Bess: Brother Mark's day!

Elizabeth: You girls are not going to tease that young man.

Cecily: But Mama, we can't help it if it's Wednesday.

Bess: We don't make the rules. The abbot does. (A knock is heard outside). Come in!

(Brother Mark, a young and quite handsome monk still in his teens, enters the room, carrying fresh bread and ale. He is promptly surrounded by Cecily and Elizabeth.)

Mark: Good morning, ladies. I've brought your breakfast.

Cecily and Bess: (Trilling) Good morning, Brother Mark.

Bess: Oh, my. What beautiful buns you have.

Cecily: Well-shaped and—firm.

Bess: Lovely.

Mark: (Trying to ignore the girls' bosoms poking into his arms) They are indeed quite delicious.

Elizabeth: (Desperately) Anne, take that bread from him. Now. Thank you, Brother Mark.

Mark: Thank you, your grace. (Flees)

Cecily: Well, I think we got a rise out of him today, didn't we?

Elizabeth: You girls are wicked. Absolutely wicked. If your father were alive—

Bess: If our father was alive, we wouldn't be in this hole, now would we? We'd be having a grand time. I hate being a bastard.

Cecily: I hate it worse than you do.

Bess: It's worse for me because I'm older.

Cecily: It's worse for me because I'm prettier.

Anne: It's worse for me because I have to listen to the two of you whinge all day.

Elizabeth: Enough, all three of you! Actually, we are going to have a visitor today. (Grimly) A very special visitor.

Anne: Who?

Elizabeth: (Biting out the words) Your uncle.

Bess: You mean uncle Richard the king?

Elizabeth: Well, as much I would have liked it to be Henry Tudor, yes. Your uncle Richard.

Cecily: Why didn't you say so earlier? We have to change!

(The stage darkens. When the lights come on again, Elizabeth and Cecily are wearing pretty and quite tight gowns. A knock is heard at the door.)

Elizabeth: Come in. (Aside) Not that I could stop you anyway, you murdering knave. (Sweetly, to Richard) Why, how lovely to see you here.

Richard: Good day, ladies.

All: Good day, your grace.

Richard: (Nodding at the girls) Your daughters are looking well, madam.

Cecily: (Mournfully) We try our best. We haven't had a new gown in—how long has it been, Bess?

Bess: Months.

Cecily: See how tight Bess's is around the bosom?

Richard: Er, yes. What an er—pity.

Anne: What's wrong with your eyes, Bess?

Bess: What do you mean, my eyes?

Anne: You're batting them.

Bess: You're seeing things. So, your grace. How is your lovely wife the Queen?

Richard: Doing quite well.

Bess: It must be lonely for her at Westminster, away from the Yorkshire she loves so much.

Richard: Well, she does have her ladies, of course.

Bess: Still, I bet she would enjoy having someone young and cheerful around her. Someone really young and really cheerful.

Cecily: A couple of people, as a matter of fact.

Anne: Now she's batting her eyes.

Bess: It must be the dust in here. It's very dusty in here, uncle. It's just dreadful for our complexions. Don't you think? (Leans closer to the king)

Richard: Yes, I suppose it is. (Stepping out of earshot of the girls) Madam, have you considered our proposition?

Elizabeth: (Pretending to forget) Now, what was that?

Richard: That you agree to leave here in exchange for certain promises on our part, including a pension of four hundred marks.

Elizabeth: Well, I don't know, your grace. We have become so close-knit since we have started sharing these quarters. It would almost be a shame to leave, especially if the girls had to come to court.

Richard: (Glancing toward the girls) Some of them seem rather eager for a change of scene.

Elizabeth: Oh, you know how girls are. They're just naturally high-spirited. (Aside) Say seven hundred, you whoreson, and we're out of here.

Bess: Uncle Richard!

Elizabeth: Don't interrupt.

Bess: I'm sorry, Mother. I was just hoping that before Uncle Richard left, he could tell us about his military campaigns. I do so enjoy hearing about that type of thing.

Cecily: Me too!

Richard: What charming daughters you have. (Aside) Not at all like their mother.

Bess: It's so nice to have a king with military experience. (Shudders) Imagine how dreadful it would have been under Uncle Buckingham.

Cecily: (Shudders) Or under that awful Henry Tudor.

Bess and Cecily: (Shuddering in perfect harmony) Ooh!

Richard: (To the queen) Of course, there are six of you. I say. Why don't we make it seven hundred marks?

Elizabeth: That sounds reasonable. My dears, start packing. We are to leave here.

Bess: Leave? I'll be ready in ten minutes.

Cecily: I'll be ready in five.

Anne: (Whispering) Mother, what about your deal with Henry—

Elizabeth: Shut up and pack, girl.

Why Did Elizabeth Woodville Leave Sanctuary?

On March 1, 1484, Richard III swore an extraordinary oath. In front of “lords spiritual and temporal” and the mayor and aldermen of London, he promised that if Elizabeth Woodville and her daughters came out of sanctuary at Westminster, he would see that they were in surety of their lives, that they would not be imprisoned in the Tower of London or elsewhere, that the girls would be married to “gentlemen born” and given marriage portions, and that Elizabeth would be given an annuity of seven hundred marks a year. Elizabeth would be attended by John Nesfield, one of Richard’s squires.

Elizabeth accepted the offer, much to the shock of some historians. Paul Murray Kendall, for instance, writing from the comfort of his study in mid-twentieth-century America, thunders, “That she came to terms with the man who had bastardized and deposed the Princes, driven her son the Marquess into exile, and executed her other son Grey and her brother Rivers is difficult enough to understand; but that she came to terms knowing also that he had murdered the Princes well-nigh passes belief, or is at least incomprehensible.”

But is it?

There were several options open for Elizabeth in March 1484. The first, and safest, would have been for her and her daughters to each take the veil. But that would foreclose any other alternatives if the political situation in England later changed, and it would have likely been anathema to Elizabeth’s older daughters, who had grown up expecting to make grand matches, not to immure themselves in convents. Probably, too, it would have been an admission of total defeat for Elizabeth.

The second option was to remain in sanctuary. This was an option, however, that was growing more unpalatable each day. Westminster was heavily guarded, a situation that must have been extremely irritating to the monks there, who may have also been tiring of providing sustenance for Elizabeth and her brood. Undoubtedly the abbot and his flock were eager to get back to normal and to get their relations with the crown back on a good footing. Add to that the fact that six females, two of them adolescents, were cooped up together in a small space, with little to keep them occupied, and the situation must have been a bleak one indeed. With the king a healthy man in his early thirties, and the rebellion of 1483 having failed, the women could be facing a stay of decades in sanctuary.

Nor was sanctuary a guarantee of security. Elizabeth knew well that sanctuary could be broken: her husband had done just that with the Duke of Exeter and with the Lancastrians who sought shelter after the battle of Tewkesbury in the abbey there. Had Richard chosen to violate sanctuary, Elizabeth and her daughters could have found themselves prisoners of the crown.

The third option was to accept Richard’s offer of a pension and good marriages for the girls, with guarantees, sworn under oath in front of numerous witnesses, that Richard would not harm the women or imprison them. This option, the one that Elizabeth ultimately chose, was not without risk. Whatever the fate of the Princes in the Tower, it was beyond question that Richard had executed Elizabeth’s son Richard Grey and her brother Anthony Woodville, and oaths could be broken. But the chances of the girls coming to harm were slim. Elizabeth knew that Margaret Beaufort, who was deeply involved in the 1483 rebellion, had been treated leniently, and she must have also realized that Richard was simply not in a position where he could risk the consequences of harming or being suspected of harming five innocent girls of royal blood, an act far beyond the pale of what was tolerated in his society. Even a popular king would have had the utmost difficulty in getting away with such an act, and Richard was not a popular king, save in the North. Moreover, the girls, unlike their brothers, did not pose much of a threat to Richard. Though nothing in England barred a woman from taking the throne, the idea of a female ruler had little appeal at the time. Only if they were married to the wrong men would the girls be a genuine threat—and through his compact with Elizabeth Woodville, Richard ensured that they would be married to men of his own choosing.

Richard, in fact, had every incentive to keep his part of the bargain. Having achieved the crown, he seems to have genuinely wished to rule well, and at a time when he was trying to reconcile his subjects to his reign, his conduct toward his nieces and the former queen was a display of generosity that could only improve his reputation. In the persons of Edward IV’s daughters, he also gained an opportunity to bind followers to him through marriage—a boon for a man who had only one legitimate child and two bastards of his own to offer. A king’s daughter, even a supposedly bastard daughter, was no mean catch, and Richard suddenly had five such royal offspring at his disposal. He arranged for the marriage of one daughter, Cecily, to Ralph Scrope and entered into negotiations with Portugal for the marriage of Elizabeth of York to Manuel, Duke of Beja. Had Richard survived Bosworth Field, it is likely that he would have married the younger daughters to his advantage as well.

Elizabeth’s arrangement with Richard has been cited as proof that she did not believe that he had killed her sons by Edward IV and/or as evidence that she was callously indifferent to her children’s fate. No normal mother, the argument goes, could have made such a bargain with her sons’ killer. This argument, however, fails to take account of the starkness of the choice facing Elizabeth. Barring a successful rebellion against Richard III, the chances of which must have seemed slender in March 1484 after the debacle of the previous year, she and her young daughters could spend the rest of their lives in some sort of confinement, or they could take their chances with the freedom offered to them. One wonders how many of Elizabeth’s critics would, put in her place, choose the former instead of the latter.

Others in medieval England, fighting for their political lives, had made choices not dissimilar to Elizabeth’s. Edward II had reconciled with the killers of his beloved favorite, Piers Gaveston. In the more recent past, Edward IV reconciled with Richard, Earl of Warwick, after Warwick had imprisoned him and killed two of his in-laws. Warwick in turn reconciled with his bitter enemy, Margaret of Anjou, and entrusted his adolescent daughter into her care by marrying her to Margaret’s son. Margaret, for her part, forgave a man who had cast slurs on her son’s legitimacy. Like her predecessors, Elizabeth did not have the luxury of nursing her grief and outrage. She had to look to the future, not to the past.

Happy Anniversary to Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville

On May 1, 1464, twenty-two-year-old Edward IV, on his way north to deal with a Lancastrian threat, combined pleasure with business. He left his camp at Stony Stratford for the nearby town of Grafton, where he married Elizabeth Woodville, a widow several years his senior with two small sons and a very large family. The marriage remained secret until September, when Edward IV announced it to his dumbfounded council.

No one knows when Edward IV and Elizabeth met or when they began courting, although Elizabeth’s father, Richard Woodville, had been a member of the king’s council for some time. Chroniclers added various embellishments over the years—that Elizabeth, in difficulty about her dower lands, waited under a tree with her young sons, then threw herself at the king’s feet when he passed by; that Edward IV, at first planning to seduce Elizabeth rather than to marry her, placed a dagger at her throat; that Elizabeth herself put a dagger to her throat—but the couple themselves kept a demure silence on the matter. Even the May 1 date has been questioned by some; Elizabeth’s biographer David Baldwin suggests that it was assigned pursuant to romantic tradition and that the couple actually married later in the summer. What is clear, though, is that as late as April 13, 1464, Elizabeth herself seems to have no idea about the impending nuptials, for on that date she entered into a financial arrangement with her neighbor William Hastings, Edward IV’s boon companion. The arrangement, under which William promised to assist Elizabeth in recovering some of her lands in return for a share of profits, would have hardly been necessary had Elizabeth known she was shortly to be queen of England.

Only one source, Fabian’s Chronicle, details the wedding itself. According to Fabian, no one was present at the early-morning wedding but the spouses, Elizabeth’s mother, the priest, two gentlewomen, and a young man who helped the priest sing. “After which spousals ended, [Edward] went to bed, and so tarried there three or four hours, and after departed and rode again to Stony Stratford, and came as though he had been hunting, and there went to bed again.”

Elizabeth’s mother was later accused by a follower of the Earl of Warwick of having brought the match about by witchcraft. Although she was acquitted of the charge in 1470, it made a reappearance in 1484 in Titulus Regius, the document spelling out Richard III’s claim to the throne, where both mother and daughter are accused of using witchcraft to lure Edward into matrimony. The accusation has provided much fodder for historical novelists and for Ricardians, who have noted with delight that April 30 was St. Walpurga’s Eve and thus a fitting day for Jacquetta to work her black arts in preparation for the marriage the next morning. One Ricardian, W. E. Hampton, in “Witchcraft and the Sons of York” (The Ricardian, March 1980), even suggests that Edward IV’s fatigue at Stony Stratford can be attributed to “the orgiastic nature of the rites to which he may have been introduced.” (More generous minds might attribute his fatigue to three or four hours in the bridal bed, perhaps not sleeping the entire time, plus a journey on horseback to and from Grafton, or one could suppose he was feigning fatigue from his nonexistent hunting trip.) Generally not noted by the Woodvilles-as-witches contingent is the conventional Christian piety Elizabeth exhibited during her time as queen.

Once Edward IV himself made the marriage public, he treated his new bride in duly royal fashion, presenting her formally before his council at Michaelmas in 1464 and giving her a grand coronation the following May. Though little is known about the private relations of the couple, Elizabeth bore the king’s children regularly, a mark of his continuing interest in her even after she had produced the needed “heir and a spare,” and played an influential role in the bringing-up of their eldest son, Edward, a mark of the king’s trust in her.

Strangely, and sadly, it was nearly nineteen years later to the day that Elizabeth’s brother Anthony, also having stopped at Stony Stratford, would leave his lodgings there to meet Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who proceeded to make Anthony and Elizabeth’s son Richard Grey his prisoners on April 30. Fearful for her own safety after these arrests, Elizabeth Woodville, recently widowed, would spend her nineteenth anniversary of May 1, 1483, in sanctuary at Westminster Abbey.

Academic Articles I Can't Wait to Read

I was going to do something special for my 300th post today, but I was distracted from that greater purpose when I read abstracts of these articles, to be published in the Summer 2008 issue of The English Historical Research Journal. It's truly exciting how discoveries like these come in clumps sometimes, isn't it? Here are the abstracts:

Isabella’s Scottish Lover: New Evidence

For centuries, it has been assumed that Edward II was the father of Edward III. Now a recently discovered cache of documents, buried deep beneath the site where once stood Hanley Castle, has established irrefutably that—as long suspected by filmmakers and historical novelists—Edward II’s infamous queen did indeed enjoy a brief liaison with a Scottish warrior and that Edward III was the product of this extramarital affair.

The evidence, which comes in the form of a letter from Isabella intended to be given to her son when he came of age, notes by Edward II’s physician, and a fragment of a kilt that Isabella saved as a remembrance of her lover—as well as Edward III’s well-known and hitherto unexplained taste for haggis—indicates that when Isabella was staying in York, the warrior, injured and delirious, wandered south and was taken in by Isabella, who nursed him back to health, with extremely successful results. Meanwhile, Edward II himself had fallen ill and was being cared for daily by his physician, making his own paternity of Edward III an impossibility. When the warrior—known only as “Robert”-- returned north, Isabella, discovering she was pregnant, confessed her secret to her husband, who was so concerned about the situation of his own lover, Piers Gaveston, that he agreed without argument to treat the child as his.

The location of the documents beneath Hanley Castle, home to Hugh le Despenser the younger and his wife, Eleanor de Clare, suggests that Eleanor, Isabella’s lady-in-waiting and favorite niece to Edward II, secreted them there, possibly with the idea of blackmailing Isabella or Edward III, or possibly to protect the Plantagenet dynasty from revelation of this secret.

In light of this discovery, it appears that research into the paternity of Isabella’s other children will be a fruitful endeavor.


Elizabeth Woodville and the Princes in the Tower: New Light on an Old Mystery

Historians have long puzzled over the question of the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower. Was it murder? Were they smuggled north or abroad by Richard III? Now a recently discovered document, buried deep beneath the site where once stood Bermondsey Abbey, Elizabeth Woodville’s last home, has revealed the startling truth: Elizabeth Woodville herself ordered the murder of her sons.

The document, which takes the form of a written confession and which has been established by handwriting experts as matching the queen’s handwriting, explains that Elizabeth, who turns out to have detested the male sex and small boys in particular, believed that by eliminating her boys, she could put her favorite daughter, Elizabeth of York, on the throne, either as wife to Richard III or as wife to Henry Tudor (“if it had to be a man, one was as good as another,” writes Elizabeth).

This discovery solves many other riddles about Elizabeth as well. Her hatred of men—attested here by explicit comments such as, “I hate men” —readily explains why she arranged good marriages for her sisters, but not for her brothers, why she sent young Edward to live far away from the court at Ludlow, why she acceded so willingly to Gloucester’s and Buckingham’s demand that her son Richard join his brother in sanctuary, and why she agreed to leave sanctuary in 1484 and place herself under the protection of Richard III. (Indeed, Richard III appears to have been one of the few men Elizabeth tolerated. “Richard wasn’t nearly as bad as the rest of them,” she writes. “At least he gave me more money to live on than Tudor.”)

Further research into the issue of Elizabeth Woodville’s sexuality, formerly not an issue among academics, may well be warranted by this discovery.

Review: The Woodville by S. R. Bridge

I'm always up to reading a historical novel about the Wars of the Roses, especially when I can find the elusive one that doesn't deal in the usual stereotypes (Good Yorkists, Bad Lancastrians. Saintly Richard III, Evil Woodvilles). So I was pleased to read this novel by S. R. Bridge, published by Hale in 1976.

The Woodville covers Elizabeth Woodville's life from the death of her first husband until shortly after Edward IV's victory at Tewkesbury in 1471. It's told in the third person. Although Elizabeth is the focus, the action is often seen from the point of view of others as well: her brothers John and Anthony and Edward IV and his companions in exile.

What I liked best about this novel is what it's missing. Instead of relying solely on sources hostile to Elizabeth, Bridge has taken the trouble to read widely. The result is that the usual slurs about Elizabeth--her supposed role in the execution of the Earl of Desmond, her supposed involvement in witchcraft, her supposed greed and haughtiness--aren't regurgitated here. The rest of her family is also portrayed sympathetically, though not romantically. (And Bridge gets the age of Elizabeth's sister Catherine right! She's portrayed here as a somewhat bratty little girl.)

This novel does have its faults. Like some other Hale novels I've seen from this era, proofreading seems lacking. The characterizations don't go very deep, and the narrative sometimes feels rushed, as in one chapter where several years pass by in the flash of a couple of paragraphs. The events behind the turmoil of 1469 to 1471 could have been explained a lot better for the reader. On the other hand, there's some good dialogue and some vivid scenes, such as when Edward IV and his companions flee overseas.

The young Richard, Duke of Gloucester, makes a few appearances in the novel but doesn't have much to say for himself. It's a pity the novel stops in 1471; it would have been interesting to see what Bridge made of him (though the epilogue suggests it wouldn't have been a favorable portrait).

All in all, if you're fond of reading novels set in this period, this is a worthy addition to your library--if you can find a copy, which may be difficult outside of the UK. Mine came on loan from the American Branch of the Richard III Society; I don't see a copy for sale anywhere on the Internet.

In Which I Turn to Historical Romance

Reading Alianore's posts on a certain historical romance writer and doing my own post on Richard III's coronation has had a rather odd effect on my mind, I'm afraid. Here is the result:

Precontracted: A Thrilling New Paranormal Romance by Summer Sutton

Beautiful, obsidian-eyed Lady Ebony Butler gives her promise to marry—and her strumpet's luscious body—to the young, dashing Duke of York. But even the ravishing Ebony is powerless over the blandishments of the wicked Elizabeth Woodville, who employs her silver-gilt hair—and her witch's powers—to ensnare the duke. When the duke becomes the King of England, Ebony is cast off.

But the King and his witch have failed to reckon with Ebony's own magical powers, awakened by his betrayal of her. Assuming the shape of Topaz de Leybourn, a temptress no man can resist, Ebony will become the mistress of the king's enigmatic younger brother, Dirk, trapped in a loveless marriage.

Through the secrets Topaz reveals to him, Dirk will capture the throne. Will he also capture Topaz's heart?

"I threw this book across the room . . . in ecstasy! Sutton brings the Wars of the Roses to life in this dazzling debut novel."
--Romantic Times

"Sizzles! I will remember the scene between Topaz and Dirk in Bishop Morton's strawberry garden for the rest of my natural life."
--Romance Reviewed Today

Excerpts

"You want me. You know you do," whispered Topaz. She gazed at Dirk's bulging dagger.

Dirk did want her. Anne, his wife, was a fit wife for a duke, and perhaps even for a king, but not for the animal that raged inside Dirk now. She'd grown fat and dull, even to her name. Anne—when she might have been named Amber, or Amethyst . . . Dirk wanted a woman like his brother's wife, Elizabeth Woodville. A witch who would set his groin on fire . . .

Without a further word, he seized Topaz and stripped her of her clinging gown. Soon they were riding passionate waves of ecstasy, waves that neither Dirk nor even Topaz had ever ridden before . . .

***

"You're telling me that my brother's father was an archer? I cannot believe it!"

"You must," said Topaz. "It is the very truth. An archer named Blade."

Dirk considered. "It is true that my lady mother always had tapestries of archers on the walls, and that she wore a little bow and arrow around her wrist, and that she was always particular that we practice our archery daily. But this I cannot believe! It is your witch's lies!"

"You must believe me. Your brother the king has cried the secret out in his sleep."

Dirk started. "Are you telling me you have shared the king's bed as well as mine?" He grabbed Topaz's ivory shoulder. "You demon!"

Topaz shook her head. "Nay! I have lain but with one brother of the House of York. But a beauteous young woman named Lady Ebony Butler shared your brother's bed, and she knew all of his secrets." She lowered her voice. "Dirk, you must trust what I tell you next. It will allow you to change the course of history . . . "