The Woodvilles: The Wars of the Roses and England's Most Infamous Family

by Higginbotham, Susan

  Sutton, Anne F., and Visser-Fuchs, Livia, ‘The Entry of Queen Elizabeth Woodville over London Bridge, 24 May 1465’, The Ricardian, 19 (2009).

  Sutton, Anne F., and Visser-Fuchs, Livia, ‘A “Most Benevolent Queen”: Queen Elizabeth Woodville’s Reputation, her Piety and her Books.’, The Ricardian, 10 (1995).

  Sutton, Anne F., and Visser-Fuchs, Livia, ‘The Provenance of the Manuscript: The Lives and Archive of Sir Thomas Cooke and His Man of Affairs, John Vale’, in Margaret Lucille Kekewich, et al., eds. The Politics of Fifteenth Century England: John Vale’s Book (Gloucestershire: Alan Sutton Publishing Limited, 1995).

  Sutton, Anne F., and Visser-Fuchs, Livia, ‘The “Retirement” of Elizabeth Woodvile and Her Sons’ (in Research Notes and Queries), The Ricardian, 11 (1999).

  Sutton, Anne F., and Visser-Fuchs, Livia, ‘Richard III’s Books: Mistaken Attributions’, The Ricardian, 9 (1992).

  Sutton, Anne F., and Visser-Fuchs, Livia, ‘Richard III’s Books: XI Ramon Lull’s Order of Chivalry translated by William Caxton’, The Ricardian, 9 (1991).

  Thomson, J.A.F., ‘Bishop Lionel Woodville and Richard III’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 59 (1986).

  Vale, Malcolm, ‘An Anglo-Burgundian Nobleman and Art Patron: Louis de Bruges, Lord of la Gruthuyse and Earl of Winchester’, in Caroline Barron and Nigel Saul, eds, England and the Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages, (Stroud, 1995).

  Visser-Fuchs, Livia, ‘The Debate: Elizabeth of York’s Letter’, Ricardian Bulletin, Winter 2004.

  Visser-Fuchs, Livia, ‘English events in Caspar Weinreich’s Danzig Chronicle, 1461–1495’, The Ricardian 7, (1986), pp. 310–20.

  Visser-Fuchs, Livia, ‘Richard Was Late’, The Ricardian, 11 (1999).

  Waters, Gwen, ‘Richard III and Ireland’, The Ricardian, 6 (December 1984), pp. 398–409.

  Williams, Barrie, ‘The Portuguese Connection and the Significance of ‘the Holy Princess’, The Ricardian, 6 (1983).

  Williams, Barrie, ‘The Portuguese Marriage Negotiations: A Reply’, The Ricardian, 6 (1983).

  Williams, Barrie, ‘Rui de Sousa’s Embassy and the Fate of Richard, Duke of York’, The Ricardian, 5 (1981).

  Williams, Daniel, ‘The Hastily Drawn Up Will of William Catesby, Esquire, 25 August 1485’, Leicestershire Archaeological Society Transactions, 1975–76.

  Unpublished Dissertations

  Jones, M.K., ‘The Beaufort Family and the War in France, 1421–1450’, Bristol, 1982.

  Thomas, D.H., ‘The Herberts of Raglan as Supporters of the House of York in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century’, University of Wales, 1967.

  Thomas, Roger Stuart. ‘The Political Career, Estates and “Connection” of Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke and Duke of Bedford (d. 1495)’, University of Wales, University College, Swansea, 1971.

  Online Sources

  Calendar of Papal Registers Relating to Britain and Ireland (British History Online).

  Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts in the Archives and Collections of Milan – 1385–1618 (British History Online).

  Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of Venice (British History Online).

  English Heritage Battlefield Report: Towton 1461 (1995).

  ‘Gregory’s Chronicle: 1461–1469’, The Historical Collections of a Citizen of London in the fifteenth century (British History Online).

  Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII (British History Online)

  Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

  Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707 (University of St Andrews).

  Rymer’s Foedera, vols. 8–10 (British History Online)

  Vergil, Polydor, Anglica Historia (1555 version), ed. Dana F. Sutton (The Philological Museum).

  Victoria County History: A History of the County of Derby (British History Online).

  Victoria County History: A History of the County of Northampton (British History Online).

  CD-ROM Materials

  The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, ed. C. Given-Wilson (General Editor), P. Brand, A. Curry, R. E. Horrox, G. Martin, W. M. Ormrod, J. R. S. Phillips (Scholarly Digital Editions, 2005).

  Notes

  Abbreviations:

  CPR: Calendar of Patent Rolls

  Harleian 433: British Library Harleian Manuscript 433

  Milan: Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts in the Archives and Collections of Milan

  ODNB: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online edition)

  PL: Paston Letters, 2004-05 edition.

  PROME: Parliament Rolls of Medieval England

  VCH: Victoria County History

  Venice: Calendar of State Papers Relating to English Affairs in the Archives of Venice

  1 The Duchess and the Knight

  1 PL, no. 88, part I, p. 162; Fabyan, p. 635; Gregory, 1451–1460; Scofield, ‘Capture of Lord Rivers’.

  2 Monstrelet, vol. 5, p. 56.

  3 Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville, p. 43; Waurin, vol. 4, p. 37; Bedford Inventories, p. 116.

  4 Bedford Inventories, p. 18.

  5 Bedford Inventories, pp. 18–19; E. Carleton Williams, p. 228.

  6 Pascual, p. 70.

  7 Great Chronicle, p. 171.

  8 Coventry Leet Book, p. 52

  9 Gillespie, p. 272.

  10 E. Carleton Williams, p. 237.

  11 E. Carleton Williams, p. 247.

  12 Bedford Inventories, p. 25.

  13 Bedford Inventories, pp. 29–30.

  14 Bedford Inventories, pp. 25, 365.

  15 Jones, ‘Beaufort Family’, p. 318 n.1.

  16 Hicks, ‘Changing Role’ p. 62.

  17 For this and the above, see Jones, ‘Beaufort Family’, pp. 317–20.

  18 CPR, 1436–41, p. 53.

  19 Cokayne, vol. XI, p. 16, ‘Rivers’.

  20 PL, no. 88, part I, p. 162.

  21 Excerpta Historica, pp. 249–50.

  22 Leland, vol. ii, p. 491.

  23 Lee, Dictionary of National Biography vol. XXI, p. 88; Doyle, vol 3, p. 141; Rymer’s Fœdera, vol. 10, January–March 1430; Cokayne, vol. XI, p. 19 & n.i.

  24 Letters and Pages Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France, vol. 2, pt. 2, p. 436.

  25 Chronicles of London, p. 138; 48th Report, p. 312.

  26 Monstrelet, vol. 5, p. 272.

  27 PROME, January 1437, item 16.

  28 CPR 1436–1441, p. 53; Pascual, pp. 72–73. A pardon was issued on 24 October 1437. Rymer’s Fœdera, vol. 10, 1437, pp. 661–81.

  29 CPR 1436–1441, p. 72.

  30 Waurin, vol. 4, p. 257.

  31 48th Report, p. 347; Waurin, vol. iv, p. 326; Chronicles of London, pp. 147–48.

  32 Chronicles of London, p. 146.

  33 Anglo, ‘Financial and Heraldic Records’, p. 193; Chronicles of London, p. 148.

  34 Visitations of the North, p. 58.

  35 TNA: C 140/42/49.

  36 Annales Rerum Anglicarum, quoted in Edward IV: A Source Book, p. 48.

  37 Calendar of Papal Registers, vol. XIII, 7 January 1482.

  38 TNA: C 142/7/2. Though some secondary sources have ascribed an earlier birth date to Katherine, without citation, a later rather than an earlier birth date is corroborated by Elizabeth Woodville’s coronation records, which show that she and her young husband, Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, were young enough in 1465 to be carried around on the shoulders of squires, and by Elizabeth Woodville’s household records. Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville, p. 16; ‘Household of Queen Elizabeth Woodville’, pp. 471, 475.

  39 TNA: C 142/1/36; Scofield, Edward IV, vol. 1, p. 178 n. 1.

  40 CPR 1436–1441, p. 426.

  41 VCH Northampton, vol. 5, ‘Grafton Regis’.

  42 Smith, ‘Notes of Brasses’, p. 178 and plate.

  43 Register of Henry Chichele, vol. 2, p. 608.

  44 Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville, p. 46, citing Add. MS 23938, Computs J. Breknoke.

&n
bsp; 45 Loades, pp. 16–19; R.S. Thomas, pp. 18–21.

  46 Pascual, p. 76.

  47 Cokayne, vol. XI, p. 20; Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville, p. 46.

  48 For an excellent account of these events, see Juliet Barker, Conquest: The English Kingdom in France.

  49 Harvey, pp. 81, 82.

  50 ‘Some Ancient Indictments’, pp. 215–16.

  51 Harvey, pp. 91–95; Griffiths, Henry VI, p. 615.

  52 Griffiths, ‘Duke Richard of York’s Intentions’, p. 192.

  53 Pugh, ‘Richard Plantagenet’, p. 126.

  54 Pidgeon, ‘Antony Wydevile’, pt. 1, p. 10.

  55 Johnson, p. 91–92 & n. 81.

  56 Griffiths, Reign of King Henry VI, p. 707 n. 108.

  57 Harriss, ‘Struggle for Calais’, pp. 31–32.

  58 Three Catalogues, pp. 277–78.

  59 Gardiner, Paston Letters, vol. II, pp. 297.

  60 Griffiths, Reign of King Henry VI, pp. 730–32, Harriss, ‘Struggle for Calais’, pp. 34–39. It seems likely that Richard and Jacquetta’s son Lionel was born during this period, judging from his name.

  61 For what follows see Hicks, Wars of the Roses (2010), pp. 107–12; Hicks, Warwick, pp. 115–17. An excellent account of the battle itself is Andrew Boardman, The First Battle of St. Albans 1455.

  62 PL, no. 1029, part III, p. 162.

  63 Maurer, pp. 128–29.

  64 Coventry Leet Book, p. 300.

  65 Coventry Leet Book, p. 292.

  66 Maurer, p. 144; Hicks, Warwick, p. 132; Pollard, Warwick, p. 201.

  67 Hicks, Warwick, pp. 132–34; Six Town Chronicles, p. 160.

  68 Great Chronicle, p. 190.

  69 Hicks, Warwick, pp. 147–48.

  70 Hicks, Warwick, p. 151; Okerlund, Slandered Queen, p. 47.

  71 Okerlund, Slandered Queen, p. 47.

  72 Hicks, Wars of the Roses, pp. 140–43; Pollard, Warwick, pp. 38–42.

  73 Goodman, Wars of the Roses, p. 29.

  74 Gregory, 196–210; PL, no. 88, part I, p. 162; Fabyan, 635–36; Scofield, ‘Capture’, 253–54.

  75 Gregory, 196–210.

  76 PL, no. 88, part I, p. 162.

  77 PL, no. 888, part 2, p. 540.

  78 Pollard, Warwick, pp. 44–45.

  79 Hicks, Warwick, p. 180.

  80 Johnson, p. 211.

  81 Gregory, http://www.british–history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45559#n17.

  82 Whethamsted’s Register, in Henry VI: A Source Book, p. 99.

  83 PROME, October 1460, Introduction and item 30.

  84 Gregory, pp. 146–210.

  85 Cron. pp. 597–99.

  86 Chronicles of London, p. 173; Milan, no. 65, 22 February 1461. Anthony Woodville had married Elizabeth Scales, the daughter of Thomas, Lord Scales, and his wife Esmania. Scales had been murdered by a London mob in July 1460, after which Anthony had succeeded to his title in right of his wife; he is called Lord Scales in a letter of 4 April 1461 and in a dispatch by the Earl of Salisbury on 7 April 1461. ‘Lady Scales’, then, likely refers to Elizabeth, rather than her mother, who may not have survived her husband. PL, no. 90, part I, p. 165; Milan, 1461, no. 80; Pidgeon, Antony Wydeville, part 2, p. 18.

  87 English Heritage, p. 3.

  88 PL, no. 90, part I, p. 165.

  89 Milan, 1461, nos 80 and 91.

  90 Scofield, Edward IV, vol. 1, p. 178 n. 1.

  91 Milan, 1461, no. 120.

  92 PL, no. 320, part 1, p. 523.

  2 The King and the Widow

  1 Shaw, ‘Early English School of Portraiture’, p. 184.

  2 Hepburn, pp. 54–60.

  3 Hall, p. 365; More, p. 61.

  4 Coronation of Elizabethy Wydeville, p. 27.

  5 ‘Household of Queen Margaret of Anjou’, p. 182 n.2.

  6 ‘Household of Queen Margaret of Anjou’, p. 182 n.2; CPR, p. 353; Coronation of Elizabethy Wydeville, pp. 27–28.

  7 Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville, p. 28; Baldwin, p. 133; MacGibbon, pp. 15–17.

  8 Cokayne, vol. V, pp. 359–61.

  9 Cokayne, vol. V, p. 362 n. c; TNA: C 142/7/2; Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Record Office DR37/2/73/34.

  10 Hall, p. 264. Caspar Weinreich, writing in far-off Danzig, recorded later gossip about the fate of John Grey: ‘People say that [he] was killed in battle; some said he was pushed off the bridge at Rochester; some said that he, too, had been beheaded during the previous parliament’. Visser-Fuchs, ‘English Events’, p. 313.

  11 Hicks, Edward V, pp. 44–45.

  12 Lander, Crown and Nobility, p. 210.

  13 Okerlund, p. 59.

  14 Lander, Government and Community, 237–38 n. 4.

  15 Waurin, vol. V, pp. 352–53; Visser-Fuchs, ‘English Events’, p. 313

  16 More, pp. 61–62.

  17 MacGibbon, pp. 32–33.

  18 Mancini, p. 61; Chronicles of the White Rose, p. 15–16.

  19 Hall, p. 379.

  20 Laynesmith, Last Medieval Queens, p. 52 & n. 126.

  21 Josephine Tey, The Daughter of Time, Chapter 16.

  22 Crowland Chronicle, First Continuation, quoted in Edward IV: A Source Book, p. 10.

  23 Scofield, Edward IV, vol. 1, p. 127 n. 2.

  24 Fahy, pp. 663–64.

  25 Mancini, p. 61.

  26 More, p. 62.

  27 Gregory, pp. 210–239.

  28 Hicks, Edward V, p. 47.

  29 Fabyan, p. 654.

  30 Baldwin, p. 11.

  31 Laynesmith, p. 66.

  32 Hicks, Edward V, pp. 45–46.

  33 Hicks, Edward V, p. 41.

  34 Chronicles of the White Rose, p. 16.

  35 Hicks, Edward V, p. 47.

  36 Fabyan, p. 654.

  37 Milan no. 138; Crowland Chronicle, First Continuation, quoted in Edward IV: A Source Book, p. 44.

  38 Mancini, p. 61–63.

  39 Crawford, Yorkist Lord, pp. 43–44.

  40 Lander, Crown and Nobility, p. 119; Brown and Webster, pp. 80–82.

  41 Ross, Edward IV, pp. 91–92.

  42 Ross, Edward IV, p. 92; Lander, Wars of the Roses, pp. 105–06.

  43 Scofield, Edward IV, vol. 1, p. 364.

  44 CPR, 1446–1452, pp. 311–12.

  45 Annales Rerum Anglicarum, p. 783; Lander, Wars of the Roses, p. 105; PL, no. 742, part II, p. 375.

  46 Annales Rerum Anglicarum, p. 785; CPR 1467–1477, p. 25.

  47 Annales Rerum Anglicarum, p. 785; Rosemary Horrox, ‘Grey, Edmund, first earl of Kent (1416–1490)’; ODNB, 2004.

  48 Annales Rerum Anglicarum, p. 786; Thomas, ‘Herberts of Raglan’, pp. 279–83.

  49 Annales Rerum Anglicarum, p. 785; Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville, pp. 11, 16, 21.

  50 Annales Rerum Anglicarum, p. 783.

  51 Annales Rerum Anglicarum, p. 786.

  52 Annales Rerum Anglicarum, translated from the Latin in Lander, Wars of the Roses, pp. 106–07.

  53 Ross, Edward IV, p. 94.

  54 Archer, ‘Rich Old Ladies’, p. 22; Lander, Crown and Nobility, p. 111.

  55 Ross, Edward IV, p. 93.

  56 Archer, ‘Testamentary Procedure’, p. 19.

  57 Mancini, p. 75.

  58 Lander, Crown and Nobility, p. 114 n. 111; Rawcliffe, The Staffords, p. 28. As Lander also points out, the word ‘forced’ is misleading: ‘His marriage had been disposed of like that of any other child of the feudal classes whether in wardship or not.’

  59 Rawcliffe, p. 28.

  60 Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville, p. 15.

  61 Laynesmith, p. 211.

  62 Hicks, ‘Changing Role’, pp. 67–70.

  63 ‘Household of Queen Elizabeth Woodville’, pp. 451, 473.

  64 Annales Rerum Anglicarum, p. 791.

  65 For the following see Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville, pp. 7–25, 61–64, and Laynesmith, pp. 87–110.

  66 Herald’s Memoir, p. 140.

  67 Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville, p. 12.

  3 The Black Legend of the Woodvilles

&nbs
p; 1 Annales Rerum Anglicarum, p. 785.

  2 Jacquetta came to Windsor on 16 July 1467, probably to be with her pregnant daughter. MacGibbon, pp. 67–68, 85; Scofield, Edward IV, pp. 428, 482–83.

  3 Milan, 12 April 1469, no. 169.

  4 For this and what follows see Travels of Leo of Rozmital, pp. 45–47.

  5 Travels of Leo of Rozmital, p. 47 n. 1.

  6 English Historical Literature, p. 386.

  7 Art Cosgrove in ‘The Execution of the Earl of Desmond, 1468’ offers the most through exploration of the reasons for Desmond’s execution and concludes that they ‘should be sought in his own conduct’. Cosgrove, p. 26.

  8 Cosgrove, pp. 22–23.

  9 Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts, vol. 2, pp. cv–cvii.

  10 Ashdown-Hill and Carson, p. 85 n. 41.

  11 Cosgrove, p. 20; CPR, 1461–1467, p. 340.

  12 Ashdown-Hill and Carson, pp. 85–86.

  13 Ashdown-Hill and Carson, p. 85.

  14 Book of Howth, pp. 186–87.

  15 Cosgrove, p. 25.

  16 Mitchell, pp. 124–25.

  17 Okerlund, pp. 162–63.

  18 Mitchell, pp. 132–33.

  19 The instructions concerning Desmond and other Irish lords can be found in Harleian 433, vol. III, pp. 108–14, as well as in Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III, vol. I, pp. 67–78.

  20 Kendall, Richard the Third, p. 522 n. 21 and p. 532 n. 8.

  21 Waters, p. 402. The elder Desmond’s father, in fact, was Clarence’s godfather. Ashdown-Hill and Carson, p. 72 n. 7.

  22 Ashdown-Hill and Carson, p. 82.

  23 As we shall see, after Jacquetta’s husband and son were murdered in 1469, certainly by men acting under the direction of the Earl of Warwick, she brought an action not only against the earl, but against his followers. These are the sort of men whom Richard likely was allowing the younger Desmond to prosecute.

  24 Ashdown-Hill and Carson, p. 82.

  25 Pollard, ‘Elizabeth Woodville’, pp. 154–56.

  26 Sutton, ‘Sir Thomas Cook’, p. 97.

  27 Hicks, ‘Case of Sir Thomas Cook’, pp. 82, 94; Sutton, ‘Sir Thomas Cook’, pp. 93–94; Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, ‘Provenance’, p. 95; Holland, ‘Cook’s Case’, pp. 23–24. Cook was not ruined by this affair, as some accounts have it; when he died in 1478, he was still very wealthy.