Today, I introduce to you Elizabeth of York (1466-1503), eldest daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. In popular memory, she was the White Rose of the late Plantagenets who married the usurping Red Rose Henry Tudor, King Henry VII whose emblems together make up the bi-colour Tudor rose. Both bride and groom descended from King Edward III, though with quite a bit of bastardy on the Tudor side, and some marital irregularity on the Plantagenet side. This is necessarily a short history, from a very biased Yorkist hand.
I have always had a sense of wonderment about Elizabeth of York, and see her as one of the bridging mothers who connect not only different dynasties but also different ages. In earlier times, Elizabeth would have been called ‘a peace queen’ - one whose marriage brought a peace to the land.
She was born at a critical time in the late 15th century when, what we know as the Wars of the Roses, or the Cousins’ War to her contemporaries, was still playing out. At Edward IV’s death, she and her siblings were declared illegitimate when it became clear that her famously louche father had been previously been affianced to another lady, Eleanor Butler. Under canon law, this pre-contract rendered Edward IV’s scandalous wedding to the Lancastrian widow, Elizabeth Woodville, null and void, since his fiancée had been living at the. time of her parent’s marriage. This is why neither of her two brothers Edward and Richard - lodged in the tower together awaiting Edward’s coronation - became kings of England: for they were subsequently smuggled out of the country to try their luck another time.
Holed up with her mother and sisters in sanctuary during the period of King Richard III taking the throne, Elizabeth was held in a limbo until her mother accepted the King’s pension to come out of sanctuary to court, where he promised to look after the girls and their mother according to their noble estate, and to find good husbands for the girls. It has often been pointed out that the sight of a mother whose sons had been allegedly killed coming back to court and making up to their killer, is a scenario that doesn’t play well. It is clear that Queen Elizabeth Woodville had learned that her two sons were safe overseas and was delighted to come back into society again.
We now have the proof, courtesy of Philippa Langley’s book The Princes in the Tower, that Elizabeth of York’s brothers survived and were not killed in the tower as alleged: evidence of European bills of lading for martial fodder, of the commissioning of mercenary troops, and other more amazing archival material have come to light, making it clear that Edward, her brother, survived at least to the Battle of Stoke in 1487, and that Richard was most likely the person whom Henry VII executed as Perkin Warbeck: he was recognised formally by his aunt as the true son of her brother, Edward IV.
Winding speedily onwards. Henry Tudor (1457-1509), the son of Edmund Tudor, Duke of Richmond, and Lady Margaret Beaufort, had been living overseas as an inconvenient Lancastrian with a half-decent acquaintance with the royal line. The Yorkists had kept him at distance, with his mother Margaret Beaufort on her best behaviour. But he brought in a mercenary army to fight the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, and declared himself king. Three acts typify the kind of King he was to be: he immediately declared everyone fighting for Richard III as a traitor, by the simple act of predating the battle from the day before! He commanded to be destroyed, without being read, any copies of the act of Parliament, Titulus Regulus, that rendered Elizabeth of York illegitimate. And he spent three months trying to find and secure the two princes, her brothers, before marrying Elizabeth.
Englishmen are not very good at being called traitors when they were fighting for their anointed sovereign at the time, and Parliament threw out that back-dating attempt, though preferment was tough for those survivors. By trying to destroy Titulus Regulus, and by declaring his future wife a legitimate daughter of Edward IV, Henry was aware that he would also be making all her brothers and sisters legitimate too! When he couldn’t discover her brothers’ whereabouts, he turned to rumour instead to indicate that his possible rivals for the throne were already dead, then had to deal with endless Yorkist claimants. His treatment of Elizabeth’s mother suggests that he knew that she knew that they were still alive. She was shipped off to a monastery in Bermondsey where she died a pauper.
What Elizabeth of York made of her enforced husband, with whom she created a new dynasty, we have not heard. She lived through most of his reign having to stay silent about his killing off of several of her father’s allies and surviving relatives, and the execution of her younger brother Richard, as well as witnessing Henry’s marrying off of her sisters to his obscure and hardly noble hangers-on. One imagines that talk about the extended family was an embarrassing no-go area at home.
Elizabeth was quick to give Henry an heir: their first son, - the only one to be given the chief Christian, Arthur, was born at Winchester in September 1487. As was customary at the time, the Prince of Wales were lodged at Ludlow with his own tutors and chaplain, in order to fit him for rule. Two months after the birth of Arthur, Elizabeth was crowned Queen.
Queen Elizabeth may have lost her elder son to the custom of the day, but she educated her younger children herself at Elsyng Palace and Placentia Palace - both no longer existent today. We can see from Henry VIII’s signature, shown here underneath, her ‘Elizabeth the Queen’ signature . We can see that he formed his letters by copying his mother’s hand.
When my John was researching his first Grail book, he noticed on the flyleaf of more than one of the text, the signature of Elizabeth, who doubtless read these Arthurian marvels to her children.
Children in those days were the pawns of international diplomacy, and when it became time to look for a wife for hid heir, Henry applied to the Very Catholic rulers of Spain - Isabella and Ferdinand - asking for the hand of their daughter Katherine. This took a lot of dickering during which it became clear that their Catholic majesties were uneasy at sending their daughter into what looked to be a very unstable country. They demanded the death of the simple son of the Duke of Clarence - Elizabeth’s first cousin - as part of the agreement. This young man had been imprisoned from his youth by Henry, because he had a much better claim to the throne than anyone else, being of the blood royal. And so Katherine was dispatched as Clarence’s son was beheaded, accused of a trumped up act of treason.
Alas, she was not to enjoy her husband long. Arthur, died in 1502, and the Princess of Wales, Katherine, proved not to be pregnant by Arthur. Henry VII’s successor to the throne left just one spare - and this is how Henry, who had been destined for the church, stepped up as heir apparent. There being was no spare, his parents decided to try for another son at a perilous time in the life of the Queen. Now 36 and approaching her infertile years, Elizabeth went into labour on Candlemas February 1403, only to give birth to a daughter who did not live. Elizabeth herself died a few days later of puerperal fever.
The effect of their mother’s loss was grave. This miniature, now in the National. Library of Wales, shows a king being presented with a book, possibly the Vaux Passional in which it appears (Peniarth MS 482D).
The section on the left hand side is believed by Dr Maredudd ap Huw, to show the older children of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York who would have been present at the time: 13 year old Princess Margaret, the 7 year old princess Mary, and the 11 year old Prince Henry (the future Henry VIII) shortly after the death of their mother. The boy is seen weeping into the bedclothes.
We all know that, on the death of Henry VII, that Henry VIII immediately took up with his sister in law, the languishing Princess of Wales, Katherine, kept in England with scanty attendance by her erstwhile father in law. Thus Katherine, with a little canonical jiggery-pokery, became Henry VIII’s first wife - but that is story for another time, as my storyteller friend says.
Henry on becoming king commissioned Pietro Torrigiano to make the great covering of his parent’s tomb in the Lady Chapel of Westminster Abbey,
Westminster Abbey still retains their funerary effigies, modelled upon the living subjects ;dressed in their own clothes, these effigies were put on display at the time of their obsequies. On the.whole, it looks as if Elizabeth had worn better than her husband.
The poem below is attributed to Elizabeth of York. Written in abab baa form with a mirrored refrain in each verse, it is a hymn to Venus, rejoicing in stability and comfort, and the need to be fertile. Well, she did bear 7 living children. But, we note, there is no talk of love here, nor of any partner in the performance of Venus’ work. Alas, poor Elizabeth! You had your mother’s fair beauty, and your father’s sociability, but your heart was not met to the same generous degree, I fear.
I Pray to Venus attributed to Elizabeth of York. My heart is set upon a lusty pin; I pray to Venus of good continuance, For I rejoice the case that I am in, Deliver'd from sorrow, annex'd to pleasance, Of all comfort having abundance; This joy and I, I trust, shall never twin (divide) My heart is set upon a lusty pin. I pray to Venus of good continuance Since she hath set me in the way of ease; My hearty service with my attendance So to continue it ever I may please; Thus voiding from all pensful disease, (depressive) Now stand I whole far from all grievance I pray to Venus of good continuance. For I rejoice the case that I am in, My gladness is such that giveth me no pain, And so to sorrow never shall I blynne, (validate) And though I would I may not me refrain; My heart and I so set 'tis certain We shall never slake, but ever new begin For I rejoice the case that I am in. Deliver'd from sorrow, annex'd to pleasance, That all my joy I set as aught of right, To please as after my simple suffisance To me the goodliest, most beauteous in sight; A very lantern to all other light, Most to my comfort on her remembrance Deliver'd from sorrow, annex'd to pleasance. Of all comfort having abundance, As when that I think that goodlihead Of that most feminine and meek countenance Very mirror and star of womanhead; Whose right good fame so large abroad doth spread, Full glad for me to have recognisance Of all comfort having abundance. This joy and I, I trust, shall never twin, So that I am so far forth in the trace, My joys be double where others' are but thin, For I am stably set in such a place, Where beauty 'creaseth and ever willeth grace, Which is full famous and born of noble kin This joy and I, I trust, shall never twin. Source: https://www.jstor.org/stable/376931?read-now=1&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents
This is the bed-head of the marriage bed of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. A friend of ours was instrumental in its discovery and identification.
I am trying to catch up with myself this coming week, and have a lot of writing to pin down. The Beltane sections of the Blessings of the Celtic Year will be coming at the end of the month, and Imelda Alqvist and myself still need to settle on the day when we will have our public conversation on ‘We Are Not the Goddesses.’
Our latest newsletter is now up, giving all our courses, books and events for the year to come. http://www.hallowquest.org.uk/resources/april24.pdf
Fascinating. I wonder to what extent her qualities were carried forward by her granddaughter, Elizabeth?
Thank you so much for your great article on Elizabeth of York. She's always intrigued me because although she was the daughter, niece, wife, mother and grandmother of monarchs, not much is written about her. From the little that is out there she seemed like a kind lady as she awarded pensions to her elderly servants who could no longer work despite the fact that her husband was extremely parsimonious. I absolutely love that she read Arthurian books to her children. And another thing I didn't know about her that you mentioned was that she wrote poetry. I did see her tomb effigy years ago when I visited London and I was very touched.