One could say that the story of Elizabeth Woodville is a Cinderella story. Young widow meets handsome King; they marry despite opposition and live happily ever after. Well as happy as one can be when the handsome king cheats on you constantly and eventually runs to fat after a life of indolence, and your brother-in-law is an asshole who keeps trying to depose your husband, and then your other brother-in-law steals the throne from your son and you have to hide in sanctuary until finally another handsome prince rescues you and marries your daughter. It’s a different kind of fairy-tale, one that could only take place in Medieval England during the reign of the Plantagenets, the world’s most dysfunctional royal family.
Let’s start from the beginning shall we? Elizabeth Woodville was born sometime in 1437, possibly in October, the eldest daughter of Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the Dowager Duchess of Bedford and Sir Richard Woodville. Her parents’ marriage had been scandalous in their day. Jacquetta had been a 19 year old widow when she fell in love with Richard Woodville, a mere knight at the time. The Woodvilles, although an old and respectable family, were not nobility. Richard had been in service with the Duchess’s late husband, the Duke of Bedford, when they met. Two years after her husband’s death, Jacquetta and Richard Woodville were secretly married. Since they married without the King’s permission, they were fined £1,000. The court was scandalized that Jacquetta would marry a man who was beneath her status. Despite the inauspicious beginning to their marriage, the Woodvilles prospered. Jacquetta was able to keep her rank and dower which provided an income of about £8,000 a year. They were chosen to help escort the new Queen, Marguerite of Anjou to England. And in 1448, Richard was raised to the rank of Baron Rivers.
We know little of Elizabeth’s early life because she doesn’t really become important to history until her marriage to Edward IV. We can speculate that she was brought up to manage an estate, to read but probably not to write, adept at needlework and probably an instrument. Elizabeth would have grown up enjoying a certain amount of privilege and material comforts. At the age of 15, she was married to Sir John Grey of Groby with whom she had two sons, Thomas and Richard. Sir John was killed at the Second Battle of St. Albans in 1461 and it is here that Elizabeth makes her entrance upon the stage.The myth or fable is that soon after Edward became King, Elizabeth stood under an oak tree in the Whittlebury Forest, clutching the hands of her two young sons, hoping to capture his attention as he rode by. The plan was that she would petition to be granted the lands owed to her under the terms of her dowry. In this story, the King was immediately smitten with the young widow, so much so that he attempted to make her his mistress. In a move worthy of Shakespeare, Elizabeth told the King that she was not that kind of girl, she might not have been good enough to marry, but she was certainly too good to be his mistress. The same move was pulled by Anne Boleyn on Edward’s grandson Henry VIII almost 60 years later. One wonders if Anne had heard the story and thought, “well, if it worked once…”
Edward, like his grandson, was most persistent as only a horny teenager can be, but Elizabeth held firm even when he held a knife to her throat. In some versions of the story, it’s Elizabeth who holds the knife on Edward, defending her honor. Frankly I like that version better! It’s a fabulous story but it’s probably not true. Elizabeth wouldn’t have needed such subterfuge to meet the King. Her father, who had fought on the Lancastrian side, had been pardoned by the King soon after the battle of Towton, and was a member of the new King’s Council. During 1461-1464, Edward’s advisors were working on a foreign marriage for him to which he was amenable (apparently one of the bachelorettes was Isabella of Castile). Elizabeth no doubt at court met the King where he was taken with her beauty and maturity (she was several years older than the King).
For Edward, the marriage signaled that he was his own man. He had chafed under his mother and Warwick’s thumb since he was crowned in 1462. And love matches were not uncommon even in royal circles. Edward III had allowed some of his children to marry for love. John of Gaunt’s third marriage to Katherine Swynford was a love match as was Katherine de Valois and Owen Tudor. Although the heart wants what the heart wants to quote Woody Allen, one can understand why Warwick & Cecily were upset. A foreign marriage would have done a great deal to cement and legitimize the new Yorkist dynasty. Elizabeth’s mother Jacquetta was blamed by both Warwick & Cecily for the marriage. It was later claimed that she had used witchcraft to ensnare the King.
Although Elizabeth was beautiful and charming, she also came with baggage in the form of ten siblings, all of whom soon married into some of the noblest families in England. You can’t fault Elizabeth for wanting to help her family, but the way it was done, left many people feeling resentful. For example, her sister Katherine married Henry Stafford, the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, a marriage that he felt was beneath him. Her twenty-year old brother John was married off to Edward IV’s 60 year old aunt, Katherine, Duchess of Norfolk. Elizabeth’s father was raised from a mere baron to an Earl and also made treasurer. She also married her eldest son Thomas, the new Marquess of Dorset of to the heiress of the Duke of Exeter. The Earl of Warwick was just one of many who were not happy at the prominence of the Woodville clan. He had planned for his nephew to marry the Lady Anne Holland. Of course, he was eager to his own people rewarded but the King was looking to build his own faction who was loyal only to him.
Although Elizabeth was beautiful and charming, she also came with baggage in the form of ten siblings, all of whom soon married into some of the noblest families in England. You can’t fault Elizabeth for wanting to help her family, but the way it was done, left many people feeling resentful. For example, her sister Katherine married Henry Stafford, the 2nd Duke of Buckingham, a marriage that he felt was beneath him. Her twenty-year old brother John was married off to Edward IV’s 60 year old aunt, Katherine, Duchess of Norfolk. Elizabeth’s father was raised from a mere baron to an Earl and also made treasurer. She also married her eldest son Thomas, the new Marquess of Dorset of to the heiress of the Duke of Exeter. The Earl of Warwick was just one of many who were not happy at the prominence of the Woodville clan. He had planned for his nephew to marry the Lady Anne Holland. Of course, he was eager to his own people rewarded but the King was looking to build his own faction who was loyal only to him.
While all this was going, Elizabeth was busy having babies. We’re talking lots and lots of babies starting with Elizabeth of York (the future Queen of England as Henry VII’s bride) in 1465. Like her mother, Elizabeth was incredibly fertile, eventually giving birth to ten children. Of those ten, there were five daughters who lived to adulthood, Edward, Princes of Wales and his brother, Richard, Duke of York. When she wasn’t having babies, Elizabeth kept busy doing the usual Queen things of making pilgrimages, obtaining a papal indulgence for those who knelt, distributing alms to the poor, and managing the households of the various royal estates. Her husband, Edward, was a randy bastard and had several mistresses during their marriage, the most notable being the beautiful merchant’s wife, Jane Shore. Elizabeth turned a blind eye to her husband’s infidelities although it can’t have been easy.
And then there was the brief hiccup when the Earl of Warwick and the King’s brother George, Duke of Clarence joined forces and rebelled against Edward IV. Both men were resentful of the rise of the Woodville family amongst other grievances. They eventually joined forces with Marguerite of Anjou to put Henry VI back on the throne. They succeeded briefly but George soon switched sides again and the whole mess was finally put to an end at the Battle of Tewkesbury where the Earl of Warwick and Marguerite’s son Edward was killed. Elizabeth who was pregnant with the future Edward V at the time earned the gratitude of the city of London because she fled into sanctuary at Westminster Abbey rather than staying at the Tower where the citizens of the city would have had to defend her. Elizabeth’s stoicism during the ordeal, the fact that she stayed in England rather than fleeing abroad, endeared her to her subjects.
Elizabeth’s husband, Edward IV, rewarded her by increasingly treating her not just as his wife and consort, but also as his partner in government. She was head of her son’s council when he was created Prince of Wales. She was also named principal executor of her husband’s will. Elizabeth also proved an effective money manager, staying with the budget allotted for her household. And despite her less than noble birth, Elizabeth acquitted herself well at royal gatherings. Despite her husband’s infidelities, the relationship between the couple stayed warm. She gave birth to her last child at the age of 43 in 1480. Over the years of their marriage, Edward’s trust in his wife never diminished.
Some modern historians have alleged that she indulged in petty feuds, behaving meanly to those who got on her bad side but there is little contemporary evidence of this during her lifetime. Another accusation is that she became haughty once she became Queen. No doubt Elizabeth assumed a certain amount of distance but the same could be said of Queen Victoria. As for feuds, Edward was much more inclined to be petty than Elizabeth was. In fact, it can be said that Elizabeth softened him somewhat when it came to dispensing justice. Elizabeth also was responsible for saving Queen’s College, Cambridge as well as Eton from dereliction.
In April 1483, Edward IV died suddenly at the age of 40 after a short illness. He had ruined his health overindulging in food, drink and women. Elizabeth had very little time to mourn her husband. She needed to fight for a position in her son’s reign, knowing that her family’s enemies would take this opportunity to strike. Elizabeth has suffered reversals of fortune before, the death of her first husband and the loss of her lands, and then when Edward lost his crown briefly. What she should have done after Edward’s death was to try and reconcile the two factions. Unfortunately her actions were misconstrued, alarming people at court that the Woodvilles would monopolize power, controlling the new King.
When Richard, Duke of Gloucester took custody of the young king, Elizabeth fled into sanctuary at Westminster Abbey with her second son, Richard, Duke of York and her daughters. She must have recoiled in horror at the news that her brother Anthony and her second son Richard had been executed by the Duke of Gloucester, accused of causing dissension in the realm, and attempting to rule through the king. She was finally persuaded to let the Duke of York join his brother at the Tower of London where he later disappeared. Richard had spent most of his brother’s reign in the North, so Elizabeth knew him only slightly. When Elizabeth tried to raise an army to defend herself and to free the King, she found a great reluctance amongst the nobles to help. Many openly stated that they thought the King should be with his paternal uncle. Then came the bombshell that her marriage to Edward was invalid, making her children illegitimate, and paving the way for Richard to take the throne. It must have stung that her mother-in-law Cecily, Duchess of York, seemed to have no problem with her youngest son seizing the crown from her grandson. Elizabeth was also stripped of all the lands that had been given to her during Edward’s reign. She now saw Richard as an enemy.
From sanctuary, Elizabeth allowed herself to be drawn into a conspiracy with Margaret Beaufort to depose Richard and put her son, the Earl of Richmond, on the throne. As incentive, it was agreed that Henry would marry Elizabeth’s eldest daughter also named Elizabeth (Ironically Edward IV had proposed the very same marriage while he was alive, no doubt as a way to keep an eye on Henry). This rebellion came to naught but Elizabeth’s part in it came to light. Elizabeth, who had become used to dealing with adversity, finally decided to leave sanctuary, after Richard publicly swore an oath that they would not be harmed or sent to the Tower and that he would make sure that they made good marriages. One has to wonder what went through her mind when she heard the rumors in 1485 that Richard, after the death of his wife and son, intended to marry his niece to solidify his throne. Richard issued a denial to what would have been incest if a marriage had taken place. Elizabeth never mentioned or asked what happened to her sons to either Richard or Henry VII. Did she perhaps know that at least her youngest son had possibly be whisked away for protection?
Of course, we know how the story ends. Henry VII triumphs over Richard at Bosworth Field and marries Elizabeth of York in 1486, solidifying the union of the Yorks and the Lancastrians. Elizabeth Woodville was accorded all the honors and titles of a dowager Queen. In 1487, Elizabeth retired from court to Bermondsey Abbey where she lived until she died 5 years later. There is speculation that she retired to the Abbey because she either was involved in the 1487 Yorkist rebellion of Lambert Simmel or because she was seen as a potential ally. It may just be that she and the King’s mother Margaret Beaufort didn’t get along. She received a pension of £400 a year, but it was often paid late if at all. At one point, Henry VII contemplated marrying his mother-in-law off to the widowed King of Scotland, James III but he was killed in battle. Elizabeth lived long enough to see the births of grandchildren, Arthur, Margaret and the future Henry VIII before she passed away in early 1492 at the age of 55. She is buried next to her husband at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor.
Sources:
Sarah Gristwood – Blood Sisters: The Women behind the Wars of the Roses, Basic Books, 2013
David Baldwin, Philippa Gregory & Michael Jones – The Women of the Cousins' War: The Duchess, the Queen, and the King's Mother, Touchstone, 2011Elizabeth Norton - She Wolves: The Notorious Queens of Medieval England, The History Press, 2010
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