Elizabeth Woodville

Elizabeth Woodville (also spelled Wydville, Wydeville, or Widvile[nb 1]) (c. 1437[1] – 8 June 1492) was queen of England as the spouse of King Edward IV from 1464 until his death in 1483.

Elizabeth Woodville
Queen consort of England
Tenure1 May 1464 – 3 October 1470
Coronation26 May 1465
Westminster Abbey
Tenure11 April 1471 – 9 April 1483
Bornc. 1437
Grafton Regis, Northamptonshire, England
Died(1492-06-08)8 June 1492 (about 55)
Bermondsey, Surrey, England
Burial12 June 1492
St George's Chapel
Spouse
Issue
among others
FatherRichard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers
MotherJacquetta of Luxembourg
ReligionRoman Catholic

At the time of her birth, her family was of middle rank in the English social hierarchy. Her mother, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, had previously been an aunt-by-marriage to Henry VI. Elizabeth's first marriage was to a minor supporter of the House of Lancaster, Sir John Grey of Groby. He died at the Second Battle of St Albans, leaving Elizabeth a widowed mother of two sons.

Her second marriage to Edward IV was a cause célèbre of the day, thanks to Elizabeth's great beauty and lack of great estates. Edward was the first king of England since the Norman Conquest to marry one of his subjects,[2][3] and Elizabeth was the first such consort to be crowned queen.[nb 2] Her marriage greatly enriched her siblings and children, but their advancement incurred the hostility of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, 'The Kingmaker', and his various alliances with the most senior figures in the increasingly divided royal family. This hostility turned into open discord between King Edward and Warwick, leading to a battle of wills that finally resulted in Warwick switching allegiance to the Lancastrian cause, and to the execution of Elizabeth's father, Richard Woodville, in 1469.

After the death of her husband in 1483, Elizabeth remained politically influential even after her son, briefly proclaimed King Edward V of England, was deposed by her brother-in-law, Richard III. Edward and his younger brother Richard both disappeared soon afterward, and are presumed to have been murdered. Elizabeth subsequently played an important role in securing the accession of Henry VII in 1485. Henry married her daughter Elizabeth of York, ended the Wars of the Roses, and established the Tudor dynasty. Through her daughter, Elizabeth was a grandmother of the future Henry VIII. Elizabeth was forced to yield pre-eminence to Henry VII's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort; her influence on events in these years, and her eventual departure from court into retirement, remain obscure.[4][5]

Early life and first marriage

Elizabeth Woodville was born about 1437, possibly in October,[nb 3][6] at Grafton Regis, Northamptonshire. She was the firstborn child of a socially unequal marriage between Sir Richard Woodville and Jacquetta of Luxembourg, which briefly scandalised the English court. The Woodvilles, though an old and respectable family, were gentry rather than noble, a landed and wealthy family that had previously produced commissioners of the peace, sheriffs, and MPs, rather than peers of the realm; Elizabeth's mother, in contrast, was the widow of the Duke of Bedford, uncle of King Henry VI of England.

In about 1452, Elizabeth Woodville married Sir John Grey of Groby, the heir to the Barony Ferrers of Groby. He was killed at the Second Battle of St Albans in 1461, fighting for the Lancastrian cause. This would become a source of irony, since Elizabeth's future husband Edward IV was the Yorkist claimant to the throne. Elizabeth Woodville's two sons from this first marriage were Thomas (later Marquess of Dorset) and Richard.

Elizabeth Woodville was called "the most beautiful woman in the Island of Britain" with "heavy-lidded eyes like those of a dragon."[7]

Queen consort
Illuminated miniature depicting the marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, Anciennes Chroniques d'Angleterre by Jean de Wavrin, 15th century
Elizabeth as queen, with Edward and their oldest son. From Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers, Lambeth Palace.

Edward IV had many mistresses, the best known of them being Jane Shore, and he did not have a reputation for fidelity. His marriage to the widowed Elizabeth Woodville took place secretly and, though the date is not known, it is traditionally said to have taken place at her family home in Northamptonshire on 1 May 1464.[8] Only the bride's mother and two ladies were in attendance. Edward married her just over three years after he had assumed the English throne in the wake of his overwhelming victory over the Lancastrians, at the Battle of Towton, which resulted in the displacement of King Henry VI. Elizabeth Woodville was crowned queen on 26 May 1465, the Sunday after Ascension Day.

In the early years of his reign, Edward IV's governance of England was dependent upon a small circle of supporters, most notably his cousin, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. At around the time of Edward IV's secret marriage, Warwick was negotiating an alliance with France in an effort to thwart a similar arrangement being made by his sworn enemy Margaret of Anjou, wife of the deposed Henry VI. The plan was that Edward IV should marry a French princess. When his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, who was both a commoner and from a family of Lancastrian supporters became public, Warwick was both embarrassed and offended, and his relationship with Edward IV never recovered. The match was also badly received by the Privy Council, who according to Jean de Waurin told Edward with great frankness that "he must know that she was no wife for a prince such as himself".

With the arrival on the scene of the new queen came many relatives, some of whom married into the most notable families in England.[9] Three of her sisters married the sons of the earls of Kent, Essex and Pembroke. Another sister, Catherine Woodville, married the queen's 11-year-old ward Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, who later joined Edward IV's brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, in opposition to the Woodvilles after the death of Edward IV. Elizabeth's 20-year-old brother John married Katherine, Duchess of Norfolk. The Duchess had been widowed three times and was probably in her sixties, so that the marriage created a scandal at court. Elizabeth's son from her first marriage, Thomas Grey, married Cecily Bonville, 7th Baroness Harington.

When Elizabeth Woodville's relatives, especially her brother Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, began to challenge Warwick's pre-eminence in English political society, Warwick conspired with his son-in-law George, Duke of Clarence, the king's younger brother. One of his followers accused Elizabeth Woodville's mother, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, of practising witchcraft. She was acquitted the following year.[10] Warwick and Clarence twice rose in revolt and then fled to France. Warwick formed an uneasy alliance with the Lancastrian Queen Margaret of Anjou and restored her husband Henry VI to the throne in 1470. But the following year, Edward IV, returned from exile and defeated Warwick at the Battle of Barnet, and the Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury. Henry VI was killed soon afterwards.

Following her husband's temporary fall from power, Elizabeth Woodville sought sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, where she gave birth to a son, Edward (later King Edward V of England). Her marriage to Edward IV produced a total of ten children, including another son, Richard, Duke of York, who would later join his brother as one of the Princes in the Tower.[6] Five daughters also lived to adulthood.

Elizabeth Woodville engaged in acts of Christian piety in keeping with conventional expectations of a medieval queen consort. Her acts included making pilgrimages, obtaining a papal indulgence for those who knelt and said the Angelus three times per day, and founding the chapel of St. Erasmus in Westminster Abbey.[11]

Queen dowager

Following Edward IV's sudden death, possibly from pneumonia, in April 1483, Elizabeth Woodville became queen dowager. Her young son, Edward V, became king, with his uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, acting as Lord Protector. In response to the Woodvilles' attempt to monopolise power, Gloucester quickly moved to take control of the young king and had the king's uncle Earl Rivers and half-brother Richard Grey, son to Elizabeth, arrested. The young king was transferred to the Tower of London to await the coronation. With her younger son and daughters, Elizabeth again sought sanctuary. Lord Hastings, the late king's leading supporter in London, initially endorsed Gloucester's actions, but Gloucester then accused him of conspiring with Elizabeth Woodville against him. Hastings was summarily executed. Whether any such conspiracy really occurred is not known.[12] Richard accused Elizabeth of plotting to "murder and utterly destroy" him.[13]

On 25 June 1483, Gloucester had Elizabeth Woodville's son Richard Grey and brother Anthony, Earl Rivers, executed in Pontefract Castle, Yorkshire. By an act of Parliament, the Titulus Regius (1 Ric. III), it was declared that Edward IV's children with Elizabeth were illegitimate on the grounds that Edward IV had a precontract with the widow Lady Eleanor Butler, which was considered a legally binding contract that rendered any other marriage contract invalid. One source, the Burgundian chronicler Philippe de Commines, says that Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, carried out an engagement ceremony between Edward IV and Lady Eleanor.[14] The act also contained charges of witchcraft against Elizabeth, but gave no details and the charges had no further repercussions. As a consequence, the Duke of Gloucester and Lord Protector was offered the throne and became King Richard III. Edward V, who was no longer king, and his brother Richard, Duke of York, remained in the Tower of London. There are no recorded sightings of them after the summer of 1483.

Life under Richard III

Now referred to as Dame Elizabeth Grey,[6] she, with Duke of Buckingham (a former close ally of Richard III and now probably seeking the throne for himself) now allied themselves with Lady Margaret Stanley (née Beaufort) and espoused the cause of Margaret's son Henry Tudor, a great-great-great-grandson of King Edward III,[15] the closest male heir of the Lancastrian claim to the throne with any degree of validity.[nb 4] To strengthen his claim and unite the two feuding noble houses, Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Beaufort agreed that the latter's son should marry the former's eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, who upon the death of her brothers became the heiress of the House of York. Henry Tudor agreed to this plan and in December 1483 publicly swore an oath to that effect in the cathedral in Rennes, France. A month earlier, an uprising in his favour, led by Buckingham, had been crushed.

Richard III's first Parliament of January 1484 stripped Elizabeth of all the lands given to her during Edward IV's reign.[16] On 1 March 1484, Elizabeth and her daughters came out of sanctuary after Richard III publicly swore an oath that her daughters would not be harmed or molested and that they would not be imprisoned in the Tower of London or in any other prison. He also promised to provide them with marriage portions and to marry them to "gentlemen born". The family returned to Court, apparently reconciled to Richard III. After the death of Richard III's wife Anne Neville, in March 1485, rumours arose that the newly widowed king was going to marry his beautiful and young niece Elizabeth of York.[17]

Life under Henry VII

In 1485, Henry Tudor invaded England and defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. As King, Henry VII married Elizabeth of York and had the Titulus Regius revoked and all found copies destroyed.[18] Elizabeth Woodville was accorded the title and honours of a queen dowager.[19]

Scholars differ about why Dowager Queen Elizabeth spent the last five years of her life living at Bermondsey Abbey, to which she retired on 12 February 1487. Among her modern biographers, David Baldwin believes that Henry VII forced her retreat from the Court, while Arlene Okerlund presents evidence from July 1486 that she was already planning her retirement from court to live a religious, contemplative life at Bermondsey Abbey.[20] Another suggestion is that her retreat to Bermondsey was forced on her because she was in some way involved in the 1487 Yorkist rebellion of Lambert Simnel, or at least was seen as a potential ally of the rebels.[21]

At Bermondsey Abbey, Elizabeth was treated with the respect due to a dowager queen. She lived a regal life on a pension of £400 and received small gifts from Henry VII.[22] She was present at the birth of her granddaughter Margaret at Westminster Palace in November 1489 and at the birth of her grandson, the future Henry VIII, at Greenwich Palace in June 1491. Her daughter Queen Elizabeth visited her on occasion at Bermondsey, although another one of her other daughters, Cecily of York, visited her more often.

Henry VII briefly contemplated marrying his mother-in-law to King James III of Scotland, when James III's wife, Margaret of Denmark, died in 1486.[23] However James III was killed in battle in 1488.

Elizabeth Woodville died at Bermondsey Abbey, on 8 June 1492.[6] With the exception of the queen, who was awaiting the birth of her fourth child, and Cecily of York, her daughters attended the funeral at Windsor Castle; Anne of York (the future wife of Thomas Howard), Catherine of York (the future Countess of Devon) and Bridget of York (a nun at Dartford Priory). Elizabeth's will specified a simple ceremony.[24] The surviving accounts of her funeral on 12 June 1492 suggest that at least one source "clearly felt that a queen's funeral should have been more splendid" and may have objected that "Henry VII had not been fit to arrange a more queenly funeral for his mother-in-law", although simplicity was the queen dowager's own wish.[24] A letter discovered in 2019, written in 1511 by Andrea Badoer, the Venetian ambassador in London, suggests that she had died of plague, which would explain the haste and lack of public ceremony.[25][26] Elizabeth was laid to rest in the same chantry as her husband King Edward IV in St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle.[6]

Issue of Elizabeth Woodville

By Sir John Grey

By King Edward IV

In literature

Elizabeth Woodville is thought to have been the author of one of only three lyric poems in Middle English ascribed to a woman author. A "Hymn to Venus", found in one single manuscript[28] in which it is ascribed to "Queen Elizabeth", is a complex six-stanza poem that praises Venus, the goddess of love.[29] It is an "elaboration of the sestina", in which the first line of each seven-line stanza is also its last line, and the lines of the first stanza provide the first lines for each subsequent stanza.[30]

Non-fiction
  • Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower (2002) by David Baldwin
  • Elizabeth Wydeville: The Slandered Queen (2005) by Arlene Okerlund
  • The Women of the Cousins' War (2011) by Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin and Michael Jones. The book deals with Jacquetta of Luxembourg (mother of Elizabeth Woodville) (chapter written by Philippa Gregory), Elizabeth Woodville (chapter written by David Baldwin), and Lady Margaret Beaufort (mother of Elizabeth Woodville's son-in-law King Henry VII) (chapter written by Michael Jones)
  • Elizabeth Woodville (2013) by David MacGibbon
  • The Woodvilles: The Wars of the Roses and England's Most Infamous Family (2013) by Susan Higginbotham
  • Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville: A True Romance (2016) by Amy Licence


Fiction

Edward IV's love for his wife is celebrated in sonnet 75 of Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella.[31] (written by 1586, first pub. 1591).

She appears in two of Shakespeare's plays: Henry VI Part 3 (written by 1592), in which she is a fairly minor character, and Richard III (written approx. 1592), where she has a central role. Shakespeare portrays Elizabeth as a proud and alluring woman in Henry VI Part 3. By Richard III, she is careworn from having to defend herself against detractors in the court, including her titular brother-in-law Richard. She is one of Richard's cleverest opponents, as she sees through him from the beginning, but she is also melodramatic and self-pitying. Although most modern editions of Henry VI Part 3 and Richard III call her "Queen Elizabeth" in the stage directions, the original Shakespearean Folio never actually refer to her by name, instead calling her first "Lady Grey" and later simply "Queen."

Novels that feature Elizabeth Woodville as a character include:

Media portrayals

Film

Television

Music

Schools named after Elizabeth Woodville

Arms
Coat of arms of Elizabeth Woodville
Escutcheon
Elizabeth Woodville's arms as queen consort, the royal arms of England impaling Woodville (Quarterly, first argent: a lion rampant double queued gules, crowned or (Limburg-Luxembourg, her mother's family); second: quarterly, I and IV: gules a star of eight points argent; II and III: azure, semée of fleurs de lys or (Baux); third: barry argent and azure, overall a lion rampant gules (Lusignan); fourth: gules, three bendlets argent, on a chief of the first, charged with a fillet in base or, a rose of the second (Orsini); fifth: three pallets vairy, on a chief or a label of five points azure (Châtillon); and sixth, argent a fess and a canton conjoined gules (Woodville))
Supporters
Dexter, a lion argent. Sinister, a greyhound argent collared gules.[34]

Notes
  1. Although spelling of the family name is usually modernised to "Woodville", it was spelled "Wydeville" in contemporary publications by Caxton, but her tomb at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle is inscribed thus: "Edward IV and his Queen Elizabeth Widvile".
  2. John's marriage to Isabel of Gloucester was annulled shortly after his accession, and she was never crowned; Henry IV's first wife Mary de Bohun died before he became king.
  3. No record of Elizabeth's birth survives. She was the product of a secret marriage between Richard Woodville, a prominent English gentleman, and Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the aristocratic eldest daughter of Peter I of Luxembourg, Count of Saint-Pol, Conversano and Brienne. The marriage caused a scandal when it came to public notice and the couple were fined, and, on 24 October 1437, pardoned for marrying without royal permission. David Baldwin conjectures that the pardon coincided with the birth of Elizabeth Woodville, the couple's firstborn child. See Baldwin, David, Elizabeth Woodville: The Mother of the Princes in the Tower
  4. Henry Tudor's claim to the throne was weak, owing to a declaration of Henry IV that barred the accession to the throne of any heirs of the legitimised offspring of his father John of Gaunt by his third wife Katherine Swynford. The original act legitimizing the children of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford passed by Parliament and the bull issued by the Pope in the matter legitimised them fully, making questionable the legality of Henry IV's declaration.

References
  1. Karen Lindsey, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived, xviii, Perseus Books, 1995
  2. A Complete History of England with the Lives of all the Kings and Queens thereof; London, 1706. p486
  3. Kennett, White; Hughes, John; Strype, John; Adams, John; John Adams Library (Boston Public Library) BRL (16 June 2019). "A complete history of England: with the lives of all the kings and queens thereof; from the earliest account of time, to the death of His late Majesty King William III. Containing a faithful relation of all affairs of state, ecclesiastical and civil". London: Printed for Brab. Aylmer ... – via Internet Archive.
  4. Jewell, Helen M. (1996). Women in Medieval England. ISBN 9780719040177.
  5. Baldwin, David, Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower
  6. Hicks, Michael (2004). "Elizabeth (c.1437–1492)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8634. Retrieved 25 September 2010. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) (subscription required)
  7. Jane Bingham, The Cotswolds: A Cultural History, (Oxford University Press, 2009), 66
  8. Robert Fabian, The New Chronicles of England and France, ed. Henry Ellis (London: Rivington, 1811), 654; "Hearne’s Fragment of an Old Chronicle, from 1460–1470," The Chronicles of the White Rose of York. (London: James Bohn, 1845), 15–16.
  9. Ralph A. Griffiths, "The Court during the Wars of the Roses". In Princes Patronage and the Nobility: The Court at the Beginning of the Modern Age, cc. 1450–1650. Edited by Ronald G. Asch and Adolf M. Birke. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. ISBN 0-19-920502-7. 59–61.
  10. Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1467–77, pg. 190.
  11. Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, "A 'Most Benevolent Queen;'"Laynesmith, pp. 111, 118–19.
  12. C. T. Wood, "Richard III, William, Lord Hastings and Friday the Thirteenth", in R. A. Griffiths and J. Sherborne (eds.), Kings and Nobles in the Later Middle Ages, New York, 1986, 156–61.
  13. Charles Ross, Richard III, University of California Press, 1981 p81.
  14. Philipe de Commines, The memoirs of Philip de Commines, lord of Argenton, Volume 1, H.G. Bohn, 1855, pp.396–7.
  15. Genealogical Tables in Morgan, (1988), p. 709.
  16. "Parliamentary Rolls Richard III". Rotuli Parliamentorum A.D. 1483 1 Richard III Cap XV. Archived from the original on 1 September 2013. Retrieved 1 July 2013.
  17. Richard III and Yorkist History Server Archived 9 July 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  18. "Rotuli Parliamentorum A.D. 1485 1 Henry VII – Annullment of Richard III's Titulus Regius". Archived from the original on 2 September 2013. Retrieved 1 July 2013.
  19. "Rotuli Parliamentorum A.D. 1485 1 Henry VII – Restitution of Elizabeth Queen of Edward IV". Archived from the original on 2 September 2013. Retrieved 1 July 2013.
  20. Arlene Okerlund, Elizabeth: England's Slandered Queen. Stroud: Tempus, 2006, 245.
  21. Bennett, Michael, Lambert Simnel and the Battle of Stoke, New York, St. Martin's Press, 1987, pp.42; 51; Elston, Timothy, "Widowed Princess or Neglected Queen" in Levin & Bucholz (eds), Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England, University of Nebraska Press, 2009, p.19.
  22. Breverton, Terry (15 May 2016). Henry VII: The Maligned Tudor King. Amberley Publishing Limited. ISBN 9781445646060.
  23. "Margaret of Denmark Facts, information, pictures". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
  24. J. L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship 1445–1503, Oxford University Press, New York, 2004, pp.127–8.
  25. Alison Flood (25 April 2019). "'White Queen' died of plague, claims letter found in National Archives". The Guardian.
  26. Roger, Euan C. (2019). "To Be Shut Up: New Evidence for the Development of Quarantine Regulations in Early-Tudor England". Social History of Medicine: 5–7. doi:10.1093/shm/hkz031.
  27. Richardson, Douglas (2011). Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, ed. Kimball G. Everingham II (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City. ISBN 1449966381, pp 304–7
  28. Stanbury, Sarah (2005). "Middle English Religious Lyrics". In Duncan, Thomas Gibson (ed.). A Companion to the Middle English Lyric. Boydell & Brewer. pp. 227–41. ISBN 9781843840657.
  29. McNamer, Sarah (2003). "Lyrics and romances". In Wallace, David; Dinshaw, Carolyn (eds.). The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Women's Writing. Cambridge UP. pp. 195–209. ISBN 9780521796385.
  30. Barratt, Alexandra, ed. (1992). Women's Writing in Middle English. New York: Longman. p. 275-77. ISBN 0-582-06192-X.
  31. "Astrophel and Stella: 75". utoronto.ca.
  32. "Elizabeth Woodville Primary School". Elizabethwoodvilleprimaryschool.co.uk. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
  33. "The Elizabeth Woodville School". Ewsacademy.org. Retrieved 5 September 2016.
  34. Boutell, Charles (1863). "A Manual of Heraldry, Historical and Popular". London: Winsor & Newton: 277. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

Further reading
  • Philip Butterworth and Michael Spence, 'William Parnell, supplier of staging and ingenious devices, and his role in the visit of Elizabeth Woodville to Norwich in 1469', Medieval English Theatre 40 (2019)
  • David Baldwin, Elizabeth Woodville (Stroud, 2002)
  • Christine Carpenter, The Wars of the Roses (Cambridge, 1997)
  • Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin, Michael Jones, The Women of the Cousins' War (Simon & Schuster, 2011)
  • Michael Hicks, Edward V (Stroud, 2003)
  • Rosemary Horrox, Richard III: A Study of Service (Cambridge, 1989)
  • J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens (Oxford, 2004)
  • A. R. Myers, Crown, Household and Parliament in Fifteenth-Century England (London and Ronceverte: Hambledon Press, 1985)
  • Arlene Okerlund, Elizabeth Wydeville: The Slandered Queen (Stroud, 2005); Elizabeth: England's Slandered Queen (paper, Stroud, 2006)
  • Charles Ross, Edward IV (Berkeley, 1974)
  • George Smith, The Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville (Gloucester: Gloucester Reprints, 1975; originally published 1935)
  • Anne Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs, "'A Most Benevolent Queen': Queen Elizabeth Woodville's Reputation, Her Piety, and Her Books", The Ricardian, X:129, June 1995. PP. 214–245.
English royalty
Vacant
Title last held by
Margaret of Anjou		 Queen consort of England
Lady of Ireland
1 May 1464 – 3 October 1470		 Succeeded by
Margaret of Anjou
Preceded by
Margaret of Anjou		 Queen consort of England
Lady of Ireland
11 April 1471 – 9 April 1483		 Vacant
Title next held by
Anne Neville

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