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Elizabeth Woodville
Queen consort of England
Tenure	1 May 1464 - 3 October 1470 11 April 1471 - 9 April 1483
Coronation	26 May 1465
Born	c. 1437/8 Grafton Regis, Northamptonshire
Died	(1492-06-08)8 June 1492 (age 55) Bermondsey, London
Burial	St. George's Chapel, Windsor
Spouse	Sir John Grey m. c. 1452; dec. 1461 Edward IV of England m. 1464; dec. 1483
Issue	Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset Richard Grey Elizabeth, Queen of England Mary of York Cecily of York, Viscountess Welles Edward V of England Margaret of York Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York Anne of York, Countess of Surrey George Plantagenet, Duke of Bedford Catherine of York, Countess of Devon Bridget of York
House	House of York
Father	Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers
Mother	Jacquetta of Luxembourg

Elizabeth Woodville (also spelled Wydeville or Widvile; c. 1437 – 8 June 1492) was Queen consort of England as the spouse of King Edward IV from 1464 until his death in 1483. Elizabeth was a key figure in the series of dynastic civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses. As Lady Grey (née Woodville), Elizabeth had two sons by her first husband, Sir John Grey of Groby who was killed at the Second Battle of St Albans. As the daughter of Sir Richard Woodville, she was the first commoner (i.e. non royal) to marry an English sovereign. It was because of this that Edward's former staunch ally Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, known to history as "The Kingmaker" switched his allegiance to the House of Lancaster. Her children included the Princes in the Tower and Elizabeth of York; the latter made her the maternal grandmother of Henry VIII and great grandmother of Queen Elizabeth I. Tradition holds that she served as a Maid of Honour to Margaret of Anjou, but the evidence of this is uncertain.

Early life and first marriage

Elizabeth was born about 1437 at Grafton Regis, Northamptonshire, the daughter of Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers, and his wife, the former Jacquetta of Luxembourg, widow of John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford. Although spelling of the family name has sometimes been modernized to "Woodville", it was spelled "Wydeville" in contemporary publications by Caxton and as "Widvile" on Queen Elizabeth's tomb at St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.

She may have been a maid of honour to Margaret of Anjou, Queen of Henry VI, in 1445, when she was about eight years of age. The identification of Elizabeth as the "Isabel Grey" referred to in the record in question is uncertain, however; as A. R. Myers and George Smith have each noted, assuming that the eight-year-old Elizabeth was then married to John Grey, there were several women by the name of Isabella or Elizabeth Grey, including an Elizabeth Grey who is noted as serving Margaret and as being the widow of a Ralph Grey. In about 1452, she married Sir John Grey of Groby, who was killed at the Second Battle of St Albans in 1461, fighting for the Lancastrian cause, which would become a source of irony as Edward IV was the Yorkist claimant to the throne. Elizabeth's two sons from this first marriage were Thomas (later Marquess of Dorset) and Richard.

Elizabeth was called "the most beautiful woman in the Island of Britain" with "heavy-lidded eyes like those of a dragon", suggesting a perhaps unusual criterion by which beauty in late medieval England was judged.

Queen consort

Edward IV had many mistresses, the most notorious being Jane Shore, and did not have a reputation for fidelity. His marriage to the widowed Lady Grey took place secretly and though the date is not accepted as exactly accurate is traditionally said to have taken place (with only the bride's mother and two ladies in attendance) at her family home in Northamptonshire on 1 May 1464, just over three years after he had taken the English throne subsequent to leading the Yorkists in an overwhelming victory over the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton. Elizabeth was crowned Queen on Ascension Day, 26 May 1465.

In the early years of his reign, Edward'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'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 should marry a French Princess. When his marriage to Elizabeth, 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 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 she was no wife for a prince such as himself."

With the arrival on the scene of the new queen came a host of siblings who soon married into some of the most notable families in England. The marriages of her sisters to the sons of the earls of Kent, Essex and Pembroke have left no sign of unhappiness on the parts of the parties involved, nor does that of her sister, Catherine Woodville, to the queen's 11-year-old ward Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, though the duke stood with the duke of Gloucester in opposition to the Woodvilles after the death of Edward IV. The one marriage which may be considered shocking was that of her 20-year-old brother John Woodville to Katherine, Duchess of Norfolk, daughter of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, by Joan Beaufort, and widow of John Mowbray, 2nd Duke of Norfolk. The wealthy Katherine had been widowed three times and was probably in her sixties.

When Elizabeth'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, the Duke of Clarence, the king's younger brother. One of his followers accused Elizabeth's mother, the Duchess of Bedford, of practising witchcraft. Jacquetta was acquitted the following year. 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 murdered soon afterwards.

Following her husband's temporary fall from power, Elizabeth had sought sanctuary in Westminster Abbey, where she gave birth to a son, Edward (later 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. Five daughters also lived to adulthood.

Queen Elizabeth engaged in acts of Christian piety, which was in keeping with what was expected 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.

Queen Mother

Following Edward's sudden death, possibly from pneumonia, in April 1483, Elizabeth briefly became Queen Mother as her son, Edward became king, with his uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, acting as Lord Protector. Fearing the Woodvilles would attempt to seize power, Richard quickly moved to take control of the young king and had Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, and Richard Grey, brother and son to Queen Elizabeth, arrested and beheaded. The young king was transferred to the Tower of London to await the Coronation. With her daughters, Elizabeth again sought sanctuary and conspired against the Lord Protector with Baron Hastings, who was subsequently also beheaded.

Richard now moved to take the throne himself and on 25 June 1483, an act of parliament, the Titulus Regius (1 Ric. 3), declared Edward's and Elizabeth's children illegitimate on the grounds that Edward had made a previous promise (known as a precontract) to marry 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, claimed to have carried out the ceremony between Edward and Eleanor. The act also contained charges of witchcraft against Elizabeth, but gave no details and had no further repercussions. As a consequence, the Duke of Gloucester became King Richard III. Young Edward and his brother Richard, Duke of York, remained in the Tower of London. The exact fate of the so-called Princes in the Tower has been long debated; whether they died, disappeared, or were murdered is still unknown.

Life under Richard III

Elizabeth, now referred to as Dame Elizabeth Grey, conspired to free her sons and restore her eldest to the throne. However, when the Duke of Buckingham, one of Richard III's closest allies, entered the conspiracy, he told her that the princes had been murdered. Elizabeth and Buckingham now allied themselves with Lady Margaret Beaufort and espoused the cause of Margaret's son Henry Tudor, a great-great-great-grandson of King Edward III the closest male heir of the Lancastrian claim to the throne with any degree of validity. To strengthen his claim and unite the two feuding noble houses, Elizabeth and Margaret agreed that Henry should marry Edward IV and Elizabeth's oldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, who upon the death of her brothers became the Yorkist heiress. Henry agreed to this plan and in December 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.

On 1 March 1484, she and her daughters came out of sanctuary after Richard 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 King Richard. After the death of Richard's Queen Anne Neville in 1485, rumours arose that the now-widowed King was going to marry his beautiful teenaged niece Elizabeth of York. Richard issued a denial; though according to the Crowland Chronicle he was pressured to do this by the Woodvilles' enemies who feared, among other things, that they would have to return the lands they had confiscated from the Woodvilles.

Life under Henry VII

In 1485, Henry Tudor invaded England and defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth. As King, he married Elizabeth of York and had the Titulus Regius revoked. Elizabeth was accorded the title and honours of a queen dowager.

Scholars differ about why Dowager Queen Elizabeth spent her last five years living at Bermondsey Abbey. Among her modern biographers, David Baldwin believes that Henry VII forced her retreat from the Court, while Arlene Okerlund presents evidence that indicates she was planning a religious, contemplative life as early as July 1486. At the Abbey, Elizabeth was treated with all the respect due to a queen dowager, lived a regal life, and received a pension of £400 and small gifts from the King. She was present at the birth of her second grandchild, Margaret, at Westminster Palace in November 1489. The Queen rarely visited her, although Elizabeth's daughter Viscountess Welles is known to have done so more often.

Henry VII briefly contemplated marrying his mother-in-law off to King James III of Scotland, when James' wife, Margaret of Denmark, died in 1486. However, James was killed in battle in 1488, rendering the plans of Henry VII moot.

Elizabeth died at Bermondsey Abbey on 8 June 1492. With the exception of the Queen, who was awaiting the birth of her fourth child, and Cecily (Viscountess Welles), her daughters attended the funeral at Windsor Castle: Anne (the future Countess of Surrey), Catherine (the future Countess of Devon) and Bridget (a sister at Dartford Priory). Her will specified a simple funeral. Many ardent Yorkists, who considered themselves slighted by the ordinary and very simple burial of Edward IV's Queen on 12 June 1492, were not pleased. Elizabeth was laid to rest in the same chantry as her husband King Edward IV in St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle.

Issue of Elizabeth Woodville

By Sir John Grey

• Thomas Grey, Earl of Huntingdon, Marquess of Dorset and Lord Ferrers de Groby (1457 – 20 September 1501), married firstly Anne Holland, but she died young without issue; he married secondly on 18 July 1474, Cecily Bonville, suo jure Baroness Harington and Bonville, by whom he had fourteen children.
• Richard Grey (1458 – 25 June 1483)

By King Edward IV

• Elizabeth of York (1466–1503), Queen Consort of England
• Mary of York (1467–1482), buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
• Cecily of York (1469–1507), Viscountess Welles
• Edward V of England (1470–1483/5), one of the Princes in the Tower
• Margaret of York (Apr. 1472-Dec. 1472), buried in Westminster Abbey
• Richard, Duke of York (1473–1483/5), one of the Princes in the Tower
• Anne of York, Countess of Surrey (1475–1511)
• George Plantagenet (1477–1479), Duke of Bedford; buried in St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle
• Catherine of York (1479–1527), Countess of Devon
• Bridget of York (1480–1517), nun at Dartford Priory, Kent

In literature

Elizabeth is a character in the plays Richard III and Henry VI Part 3 by William Shakespeare.

Philippa Gregory's 2009 novel The White Queen follows a fictionalized account of Elizabeth's life from meeting her future husband, King Edward, up through the disappearance of her sons and the reign of her brother-in-law, Richard III. The novel places a great deal of focus on the legend of Melusine and Elizabeth and her mother's ties to witchcraft.It should be made clear, however, that was never any evidence against them and it is a historical fact that Jacquette, Elizabeth’s mother, was exonerated of the charge a matter of public knowledge at the time

Other fictional portraits of Elizabeth Woodville include that found in A Secret Alchemy by Emma Darwin. A less sympathetic picture is given in Sandra Worth's Lady of the Roses (2008) as well as in Marjorie Bowen's 1929 novel Dickon where she is portrayed as a schemer who is at the very heart of the various conspiracies against Richard III. She is also found in Sharon Kay Penman's The Sunne in Splendour, where she is seen mainly through the eyes of others, and in Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time, where she is not evil but too self-centered and too kind to her family. Rosemary Hawley Jarman's fictionalized biography of Elizabeth Woodville is entitled The King's Grey Mare (1972). ). With the exception of Emma Darwin all are known Ricardian authors. Caveat lector.

Schools named after Elizabeth Woodville

• Elizabeth Woodville Secondary School, Northamptonshire
• Elizabeth Woodville Primary School, Groby, Leicestershire.

Ancestry

Screen portrayals

Film

• Richard III (1911): Elizabeth was played by Violet Farebrother
• Richard III (1912): Elizabeth was played by Carey Lee.
• In the French film, Les enfants d'Édouard (1914), Elizabeth was played by Jeanne Delvair.
• Jane Shore (1915): Elizabeth was played by Maud Yates.
• Tower of London (1939): Elizabeth was played by Barbara O'Neil.
• Richard III (1955): Elizabeth was portrayed by Mary Kerridge.
• In the Hungarian TV movie III. Richárd (1973) Elizabeth was played by Rita Békés.
• Richard III (1995): Elizabeth was played by Annette Bening.
• Looking For Richard (1996): Elizabeth was played by Penelope Allen.
• Richard III (2005): Elizabeth was played by Caroline Burns Cooke.
• Richard III (2008): Elizabeth was played by María Conchita Alonso.

Television

• An Age of Kings (1960): Elizabeth is portrayed by Jane Wenham.
• Wars of the Roses (1965): Elizabeth was played by Susan Engel.
• The Third Part of Henry the Sixth and The Tragedy of Richard III (1983): Elizabeth was played by Rowena Cooper.
• The White Queen (2013): Elizabeth will be portrayed by Rebecca Ferguson.

References

1. Karen Lindsey, Divorced, Beheaded, Survived, xviii, Perseus Books, 1995
2. ^ Myers, p. 182 n.2; Smith, p. 28.
3. ^ Hicks, Michael (2004), "Elizabeth (c.1437–1492) (subscription required)[[Category:Pages containing links to subscription-only content]]", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/8634, retrieved 25 September 2010 {{citation}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
4. Jane Bingham, The Cotswolds: A Cultural History, (Oxford University Press, 2009), 66
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Boutell, Charles (1863), A Manual of Heraldry, Historical and Popular, London: Winsor & Newton, p. 277
8. Blazon of Woodville quoted from: , The House of York
9. Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1467-77, pg. 190.
10. Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, "A 'Most Benevolent Queen;'"Laynesmith, pp. 111, 118-19.
11. Philipe de Commines, ’’The memoirs of Philip de Commines, lord of Argenton’’, Volume 1, H.G. Bohn, 1855, pp.396-7.
12. Genealogical Tables in Morgan, (1988), p. 709.
13. Henry's claim to the throne was weak due to Henry IV's declaration barring the accession to the throne of any heirs of the legitimized offspring of his father, John of Gaunt (son of King Edward III) 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, which made the legality of Henry IV’s declaration questionable.
14. Richard III and Yorkist History Server
15. Arlene Okerlund, Elizabeth: England's Slandered Queen. Stroud: Tempus, 2006, 245.
16. http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O110-MargaretofDenmark.html.
17. www.ews.northants.sch.uk/ - Elizabeth Woodville Secondary School .
18. www.elizabethwoodvilleprimaryschool.co.uk/

Further reading

• David Baldwin, Elizabeth Woodville (Stroud, 2002)
• Christine Carpenter, The Wars of the Roses (Cambridge, 1997)
• 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.

External links

• Brief notes, the portrait and the coat of arms (Queens' College Cambridge)

v t e Wars of the Roses
Red Rose of Lancaster White Rose of York Tudor rose Family tree
Key figures	Monarchs Henry VI Edward IV Edward V Richard III Henry VII Lancaster Tudor Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset Edmund Beaufort, 4th Duke of Somerset John Beaumont, Viscount Beaumont Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset John Sutton, 1st Baron Dudley James Butler, Earl of Ormond John Butler, Earl of Ormond John Clifford, Baron Clifford John Courtenay, Earl of Devon Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter John Neville, Baron Neville John Neville, Marquess of Montagu Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick Thomas Neville, Bastard of Fauconberg Henry Percy, 2nd Earl of Northumberland Henry Percy, 3rd Earl of Northumberland Thomas Ros, Baron Ros Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby George Stanley, Baron Strange William Stanley George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury Andrew Trollope Thomas Clifford, 8th Baron Clifford James Tuchet, Baron Audley Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke Margaret Beaufort Owen Tudor Edward Woodville, Lord Scales York Anne Neville, Queen of England John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln Thomas FitzGerald, Earl of Desmond William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke William Hastings, Baron Hastings John Howard, Duke of Norfolk Francis Lovell, Viscount Lovell John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury Sir Thomas Neville William Neville, Earl of Kent Sir Richard Herbert Edmund Plantagenet, Earl of Rutland George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence Humphrey Stafford, Earl of Devon Margaret of York Richard of York
Events	St Albans (First) Loveday (1458) Blore Heath Ludford Bridge Sandwich Siege of the Tower of London Northampton Worksop Wakefield Mortimer's Cross St Albans (Second) Ferrybridge Towton Piltown Hedgeley Moor Hexham Edgcote 1470 Lincolnshire Rebellion Losecoat Field Readeption of Henry VI Barnet Tewkesbury Siege of London Buckingham's rebellion Bosworth Field Stafford and Lovell rebellion Stoke Field
See also	Act of Accord Issue of Edward III of England Titulus Regius Princes in the Tower Bonville–Courtenay feud Percy–Neville feud Neville–Neville feud Perkin Warbeck Battle of Deal Second Cornish uprising of 1497
Briefly joined the Lancastrians. Briefly joined the Yorkists. Defected from the Yorkist to the Lancastrian cause. Initially a Yorkist who later supported the Tudor claim. Initially a Lancastrian who later supported the Tudor claim. Category

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