Elizabeth Woodville: The Knight’s Widow

Laynesmith, J. L.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-94886-3_13

J. L. Laynesmith⁸

Part of the book series: Queenship and Power ((QAP))

224 Accesses

Abstract

Edward IV’s queen is distinctive for being an English gentlewoman and for a family whose influence in her husband’s reign has been a key feature in discussions of the Wars of the Roses. This chapter argues that for the most part Elizabeth’s queenship was exemplary: she was fertile, pious, cultured, and beautiful, a successful intercessor, and an able administrator, who tried hard to present herself within the acceptable ideal for English queens. Nonetheless, in the exceptional circumstances of a civil conflict she was a natural target for abuse because contemporary perceptions of social status meant that her husband’s critics could use her family connections to undermine his credibility. Similar prejudices among later generations of historians have continued to obscure the positive elements of her queenship. Her most politically significant role was as mother of the future king, Edward V, but this was ultimately compromised by her devotion to the children of her first marriage.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 109.00; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 139.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 139.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
I am very grateful to Mark Laynesmith for his advice and suggestions on this chapter.
2.
Jehan de Waurin, Recueil des croniques et anchiennes istories de la Grant Bretaigne, a present nomme Engleterre, ed. W. Hardy and E.L.C.P. Hardy, 5 vols. (London, 1864–1891), 5:455; Hannes Kleineke, Edward IV (London: Routledge, 2009), 81.
3.
A.J. Pollard, “Elizabeth Woodville and her Historians,” in Traditions and Transformations in Late Medieval England, ed. Douglas Biggs, Sharon Michalove, and Compton Reeves (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 145–158.
4.
Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs, “A ‘Most Benevolent Queen’: Queen Elizabeth Woodville’s Reputation, her Piety and her Books,” The Ricardian 10 (1995): 214–245.
5.
Lucia Diaz Pascual, “Jacquetta of Luxembourg, duchess of Bedford and Lady Rivers,” The Ricardian 21 (2011): 67–91.
6.
Lynda Pidgeon, “The Wydeviles, 1066–1503: A Reassessment” (PhD thesis, University of Southampton, 2011), 23.
7.
Susan Higginbotham, The Woodvilles (Stroud: The History Press, 2013), 14; C.H. Hunter Blair, ed., Visitations of the North, Part III (London: Surtees Society, 1930), 58.
8.
Christine Carpenter, ed., Kingsford’s Stonor Letters and Papers, 1290–1483 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), no. 120.
9.
Pascual, “Jacquetta,” 87.
10.
Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, “Benevolent Queen,” 227–232.
11.
A.R. Myers, Crown, Household and Parliament, ed. Cecil H. Clough (London: Hambledon Press, 1985), 318.
12.
Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust, Archer of Tanworth, DR 37/2/Box 73/34.
13.
Calendar of State Papers, Milan, Volume 1, 1385–1618, ed. A.B. Hinds (London: HMSO, 1912), 100.
14.
TNA C 1/27/268–271.
15.
Michael Hicks, Edward V: The Prince in the Tower (Stroud: Tempus, 2003), 43–45.
16.
J.R. Lander, “Councils, Administration and Councillors, 1461–85,” Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research 32, no. 86 (1959): 157, 167.
17.
Hicks, Edward V, 44–45.
18.
Royal Collection, RCIN 406785, oil on panel, c.1513–1530. For the way this conformed to contemporary ideas of beauty, see: D.S. Brewer, “The Ideal of Feminine Beauty in Medieval Literature, especially ‘Harley Lyrics’, Chaucer and some Elizabethans,” The Modern Language Review 50 (1955): 257–269.
19.
C. Fahy, “The Marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville: A New Italian Source,” English Historical Review 76 (1961): 660–672.
20.
J.L. Laynesmith, The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship, 1445–1503 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 53–58.
21.
Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs, “The Device of Queen Elizabeth Woodville: A Gillyflower or Pink,” The Ricardian 11 (1997): 23.
22.
Thomas Hearne, ed., Thomæ Sprotti Chronica (Oxford, 1719), 293.
23.
Calendar of State Papers, Venice, Volume 1, 1202–1509, ed. Rawdon Brown (London: HMSO, 1864), 114; Jehan de Wavrin, Anchiennes Cronicques d’Engleterre, ed. M. Dupont, 3 vols. (Paris, 1858–1863), 2:326.
24.
Livia Visser-Fuchs, “English Events in Caspar Weinreich’s Danzig Chronicle, 1461–95,” The Ricardian 7 (1986): 313.
25.
Thomas More, The History of King Richard III, ed. Richard S. Sylvester (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963), 62.
26.
Anne Crawford, ed., The Household Books of John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, 1462–1471, 1483–1485 (Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1992), 196–197.
27.
J. Stevenson, ed., Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France during the Reign of Henry the Sixth, 2 vols. (London, 1861–1864), 2:783.
28.
Jonathan Hughes, Arthurian Myths and Alchemy: The Kingship of Edward IV (Stroud: Sutton, 2002), 116–161.
29.
S. Bentley, ed., Excerpta Historica (London, 1832), 180.
30.
Bentley, Excerpta, 192.
31.
Jean d’Arras, Melusine, trans. Donald Maddox and Sarah Sturm-Maddox (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012), 22, 31–33.
32.
Laynesmith, Last Medieval Queens, 183. These arms can be seen in the Royal Window (NXXVIII e13) at Canterbury.
33.
Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, “Benevolent Queen,” 232.
34.
Cora L. Scofield, The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, 2 vols. (Croydon: Fonthill, 2016), 1:372.
35.
Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs, “The Entry of Queen Elizabeth Woodville over London Bridge, 24 May 1465,” The Ricardian 19 (2009): 1–31.
36.
Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, “The Entry of Queen Elizabeth Woodville,” 28, 31.
37.
Stevenson, Letters and Papers, 2.2:783–784; G. Smith, The Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville (Cliftonville: Gloucester Reprints, 1975), 8–10.
38.
Smith, Coronation, 14–15.
39.
Calendar of State Papers Preserved in the Public Record Office, Edward IV: Volume 1, 1461–1467 (London: HMSO, 1897), 430, 445, 480.
40.
Myers, Crown, Household and Parliament, 287.
41.
Myers, Crown, Household and Parliament, 137.
42.
Rosemary Horrox, Richard III: A Study of Service (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 80.
43.
Carpenter, Stonor Letters, 319.
44.
Myers, Crown, Household and Parliament, 294.
45.
TNA DL 30/105/1490. I am grateful to Jonathan Mackman for drawing this letter to my attention.
46.
James Gairdner, ed., The Paston Letters, A.D. 1422–1509, 6 vols. (London: Chatto & Windus, 1904), 6:105–108.
47.
Colin Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 2: Fastolf’s Will (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 119.
48.
Helen E. Maurer, Margaret of Anjou: Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2003), 60–62.
49.
Gairdner, Paston Letters, 5:24.
50.
Carpenter, Stonor Letters, no. 120. The queen is unnamed and the letter undated and unsigned, but the editor suggests a date of c.1472.
51.
Hannes Kleineke, “Some Evidence for the Early Career and Practice of Dominic de Serego, Physician to Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth Woodville,” The Ricardian 26 (2016): 121–126.
52.
Myers, Crown, Household and Parliament, 288–289, 310.
53.
Myers, Crown, Household and Parliament, 260–318.
54.
W.G. Searle, The History of the Queens’ College, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1867–1871), 1:70.
55.
Searle, Queens’ College, 1:90.
56.
Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, “Benevolent Queen,” 224, 233–234.
57.
Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, “Benevolent Queen,” 232–235; Laynesmith, Last Medieval Queens, 254–260.
58.
Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs, “The Cult of Angels in Late Fifteenth-Century England: An Hours of the Guardian Angel presented to Queen Elizabeth Woodville,” in Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence, ed. Lesley Smith and Jane H.M. Taylor (London: The British Library, 1996), 230–265.
59.
Laynesmith, Last Medieval Queens, 118, 247–249.
60.
CSP Milan, 1:129.
61.
Gairdner, Paston Letters, 5:34.
62.
K. Dockray, ed., Three Chronicles of the Reign of Edward IV (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1988), 68–69.
63.
CSP Milan, 1:131.
64.
CSP Milan, 1:131.
65.
Nicholas Pronay and John Cox, eds., The Crowland Chronicle Continuations 1459–1486 (London: Richard III and Yorkist History Trust, 1986), 114–115.
66.
Hearne, Sprotti Chronica, 299.
67.
David MacGibbon, Elizabeth Woodville (1437–1492): Her Life and Times (London: Arthur Baker, 1938), 82–83.
68.
CSP Milan, 1:131.
69.
Scofield, Edward the Fourth, 1:498.
70.
CSP Milan, 1:132.
71.
Reginald R. Sharpe, London and the Kingdom, 3 vols. (London, 1895), 3:386; Cora Scofield “Elizabeth Wydevile in the Sanctuary at Westminster, 1470,” English Historical Review 24 (1909): 90–91.
72.
Sharpe, London, 3:386.
73.
TNA C 1/43/54.
74.
Scofield, “Elizabeth Wydevile in Sanctuary,” 91.
75.
Scofield, “Elizabeth Wydevile in Sanctuary,” 91.
76.
Pronay and Cox, Crowland, 123.
77.
Laynesmith, Last Medieval Queens, 173–174.
78.
MacGibbon, Elizabeth Woodville, 112, 117, 121, 129, 130.
79.
CPR 1467–77, 283.
80.
D.E. Lowe, “Patronage and Politics: Edward IV, the Wydevilles, and the Council of the Prince of Wales, 1471–83,” Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies 29 (1981): 562.
81.
CPR 1467–77, 417.
82.
Scofield, Edward the Fourth, 1:125.
83.
W.H. Black, Illustrations of Ancient State and Chivalry (London: Roxburghe Club, 1840), 27–40.
84.
T.B. Pugh, “Grey, Thomas, first marquess of Dorset (c. 1455–1501),” ODNB, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/11560.
85.
Pronay and Cox, Crowland, 154.
86.
Pronay and Cox, Crowland, 154–157; Dominic Mancini, The Usurpation of Richard III, ed. C.A.J. Armstrong (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1989), 74–9.
87.
Horrox, Richard III, 80–81; A.J. Pollard, “Dominic Mancini’s Narrative of the Events of 1483,” Nottingham Medieval Studies 38 (1994): 152–163.
88.
Pronay and Cox, Crowland, 156–157.
89.
Carpenter, Stonor Letters, nos. 330, 331.
90.
Lorraine C. Attreed, ed., The York House Books, 1461–1490, 2 vols. (Alan Sutton: Stroud, 1991), 2:713–714.
91.
Mancini, Usurpation, 62–63, 94–97.
92.
R.H. Helmholz, “The Sons of Edward IV: A Canonical Assessment of the Claim that they were Illegitimate,” in Richard III: Loyalty, Lordship and Law, ed. P.W. Hammond (London: Richard III & Yorkist History Trust, 1986), 91–103.
93.
Rosemary Horrox and P.W. Hammond, eds., British Library Harleian Manuscript 433, 4 vols. (Gloucester: Richard III Society, 1979), 3:190.
94.
Pronay and Cox, Crowland, 162–163.
95.
H. Ellis, ed., Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s History (London, 1844), 195–196.
96.
Polydore Vergil, Anglica Historia (1555 version), ed. Dana F. Sutton (2005–2010) http://www.philological.bham.ac.uk/polverg/26eng.html; section 6.
97.
Horrox and Hammond, Harleian 433, 3:190; Pronay and Cox, Crowland, 162–163.
98.
MacGibbon, Elizabeth Woodville, 192–194.
99.
MacGibbon, Elizabeth Woodville, 214–221.
100.
J. Armitage Robinson, The Abbot’s House at Westminster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1911), 22–23. I have found no evidence that she entered Bermondsey on 12 February 1487. I suspect this tradition arises from confusion with the date of the council that Vergil said was the occasion on which her estates were resumed. I have also been unable to verify the tradition that her husband’s de Clare ancestry meant that she had a right to stay at Bermondsey by virtue of the abbey’s foundation charter (which does not survive).
101.
TNA PROB 11/9/207.
102.
TNA PROB 11/9/207.
103.
Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs with R.A. Griffiths, The Royal Funerals of the House of York at Windsor (London: The Richard III Society, 2005), 72–74.
104.
Euan C. Roger, “‘To Be Shut Up’: New Evidence for the Development of Quarantine Regulations in Early-Tudor England,” Social History of Medicine 33, no. 4 (2020): 1081–1083.
105.
Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, Royal Funerals, 72–73.
106.
Vetusta Monumenta III (1790), Pl. VII, 3.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

University of Reading, Reading, UK
J. L. Laynesmith

Authors

J. L. Laynesmith
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

University Campus North Lincolnshire, England, UK
Aidan Norrie
University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Carolyn Harris
University of Reading, Reading, UK
J.L. Laynesmith
York, UK
Danna R. Messer
University of Winchester, Winchester, UK
Elena Woodacre

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Laynesmith, J.L. (2023). Elizabeth Woodville: The Knight’s Widow. In: Norrie, A., Harris, C., Laynesmith, J., Messer, D.R., Woodacre, E. (eds) Later Plantagenet and the Wars of the Roses Consorts. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94886-3_13

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94886-3_13
Published: 04 March 2023
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-94885-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-94886-3
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics