20. ODNB, Hicks, ‘Clarence’.
21. Davis 1, p.279.
22. George’s first recorded appointment to a commission of the peace for Norfolk was in 1466. However, on 12 August 1461 he was appointed to a commission to enquire into all treasons, insurrections and rebellions in South Wales. See CPR 1461–1467, p.38.
23. Wilkinson, Richard: The Young King to Be, p.95, citing the chronicler John Stone.
24. FFPC, pp.13–14.
25. FFPC, p.15.
MATRIMONIAL PROBLEMS,
PART 1
Edward IV’s relationship with Eleanor Talbot, which may have started with an initial meeting in 1460, nevertheless seems to have lasted only quite a short time. As we have seen, they were probably married in June 1461. But towards the end of 1461 or early in 1462 the king became involved in an affair with Elizabeth Wayte (Lucy), a girl from an aristocratic Hampshire family who bore him an illegitimate daughter – Edward’s first known child.1 The fact that Elizabeth Wayte rapidly became pregnant by the king while Eleanor did not, coupled with the knowledge that Eleanor had also borne her previous husband no children, may have been significant for the future of Edward IV’s relationship with his secret bride.
No public statement was ever made by the king about his wedding with Eleanor, and there are several possible explanations for this. Perhaps the king feared the reaction of his family – in particular, that of his mother, the dowager Duchess of York.2 A second possibility is that he always merely intended to dishonourably deceive Eleanor – in which case, their secret marriage may have been little more in his eyes than a means of getting her into his bed. There is absolutely no doubt that Edward IV was deceitful on occasion.3 However, the third, and perhaps most significant, possibility is that the king was following the ancient tradition of coupling first and awaiting results. According to this premise, had Eleanor become pregnant, he would then have acknowledged their marriage. Interestingly, his subsequent secret contract with Elizabeth Woodville may well have followed precisely this pattern (see below).
Eleanor, however, did not conceive. Like her first, her second marriage remained childless.4 Meanwhile, in terms of public awareness, since there had been no official announcement of the Talbot marriage, the young king apparently remained available. Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (Edward IV’s cousin and Eleanor Talbot’s uncle) unaware of any commitment on the part of the king, therefore commenced negotiations for a royal diplomatic alliance with the King of France’s sister-in-law, Bona of Savoy. Warwick, who was one of Edward’s strongest supporters at this stage, evidently thought to use his power to influence the important choice of a royal bride, and he worked assiduously on this project during 1463 and 1464. Warwick may have been dimly aware that his wife’s niece, Eleanor, had attracted the king’s attention soon after the latter’s accession but, owing to a dispute over the Beauchamp inheritance, the relationship between Richard Neville and his Talbot relatives-by-marriage was not a close one. At all events, it is obvious from his conduct in 1463–4 that the earl had absolutely no notion that the king might have contracted a marriage with Eleanor. In itself, of course, that proves nothing. After all, Warwick also remained completely ignorant of Edward’s second secret ‘marriage’ – with Elizabeth Woodville – until the king publicly announced it. It is absolutely clear that Warwick was taken completely by surprise by the king’s eventual announcement of the Woodville marriage, and that the revelation infuriated him. Edward’s statement that he was already married to Elizabeth Woodville, when it came, was a major embarrassment for Warwick, because it made the earl look a fool at the French court.
Edward IV and his signature (centre), Eleanor Talbot (left) and Elizabeth Woodville (right).
It was probably in mid to late September 1464, at a meeting of the royal council in Reading, when Warwick was urging the king to conclude his proposed dynastic alliance with Bona, that the king responded by announcing that he was already married.5 One contemporary source claims that the announcement was made somewhat later, on All Saints Day (1 November), but this appears to be an error.6 On hearing the news, the whole council was flabbergasted. As for Warwick himself, as we have seen, the earl was reportedly furious. Curiously, however, despite his anger, it was Warwick, together with George, Duke of Clarence, who formally presented Elizabeth Woodville to the nobility and people as queen. Later evidence implies that Edward IV may have asserted his authority in this matter by forcing the most outspoken opponent of his Woodville marriage and his existing heir to jointly take on the role of the new queen’s patrons.7 In the longer term, it may have been an error on Edward’s part thus to push his younger brother and his cousin Warwick together. Nevertheless, the immediate result was that ‘on Michaelmas day [29 September 1464] at Reading the Lady Elizabeth was admitted into the abbey church, led by the Duke of Clarence and the Earl of Warwick, and honoured as queen by the lords and all the people.’8
The few people who were aware of the king’s attachment to Eleanor Talbot may well have found themselves even more astonished than Warwick, because of the identity of the secret bride whom the king was now acknowledging. This group presumably included Canon Stillington, together with certain members of the Talbot/Butler households, families, and client networks, some of whom we shall be meeting later. Members of Eleanor’s family who knew of the relationship probably included her sister, Elizabeth, Duchess of Norfolk, and possibly also Elizabeth’s husband, John Mowbray. At this point Canon Robert Stillington was Edward IV’s Keeper of the Privy Seal. However, he was also an expert in canon law, and if he sought fuller details of the king’s Woodville wedding then he must have been worried by what he discovered. Since Edward’s secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville had reportedly been solemnised several months previously, on 1 May 1464, it apparently post-dated by approximately three years the king’s marriage to Eleanor.9 It was therefore bigamous. Under canon law it would have been considered invalid by a church court – a decision that would have automatically rendered illegitimate any children born of the Woodville union.10 The king, who was not an expert in canon law, may have assumed that his public acknowledgement of the Woodville wedding sufficed to establish its validity; if so, he was in error.
Some historians have voiced astonishment that Canon Stillington took no action in respect of Edward IV’s marital muddle. This merely demonstrates how very widespread is the modern misunderstanding of the practice of medieval canon law in such situations. Stillington had no locus standi in the case. Only Eleanor – the supposedly wronged party – could have cited Edward IV before the church courts. But while many medieval English women in similar disputed marital circumstances successfully sought legal remedy in the church courts – thereby substantiating their married status – Eleanor took no such action. For her, this may never have seemed a realistic option.11
It was probably late in 1463 – or possibly very early in 1464, according to modern dating – that Edward IV first met Elizabeth Woodville. She was the eldest child of Jacquette of Luxembourg, dowager Duchess of Bedford, by her second husband, Richard Woodville (Lord Rivers). Elizabeth, who is thought to have been born in 1437, possibly in France, may even have been conceived before her parents were married. Like Eleanor Talbot, she was slightly older than Edward IV, and she has also been described as a beauty. She is sometimes said to have had very fair hair, and some manuscript illustrations do depict her with golden hair. However, a portrait believed to be from life at Queens’ College, Cambridge, appears to show dark auburn hair,12 so the details of her colouring remain doubtful. When she met the king, Elizabeth (like Eleanor before her) was a widow. Unlike Eleanor, she was also already a mother.13
It is widely believed that Elizabeth’s motive for coming to see the king was to ask him to return land he had confiscated following the death in battle of her Lancastrian first husband. However, this is incorrect. Despite his Lancastrian allegiance, Sir John Grey’s land had not been confiscated by the new king. The truth is that there was an acrimonious ong
oing dispute over the property between Elizabeth Woodville and her mother-in-law. To improve her chances of success in this family quarrel, Elizabeth sought the help of her distant relative, Lord Hastings, who agreed to present her and her case to the king, in return for a share of the property if and when she won.14
Sir Thomas More offers the most complete surviving account of the story of Edward IV’s first meeting with Elizabeth Woodville. More reports that Edward, captivated by Elizabeth’s beauty, asked her to sleep with him. In return, he promised to grant her suit in respect of her jointure. However, Elizabeth rejected the king’s illicit sexual advances. Edward therefore decided to contract a secret marriage with her as a means of getting his way. The enormous similarity between this story and the surviving accounts of Edward’s earlier relationship with Eleanor Talbot is obvious.
The Woodville secret marriage is said to have been contracted at the manor house of Grafton Regis, Northamptonshire – the home of Elizabeth’s parents. The marriage is often said to have been celebrated in the presence of the bride’s mother, Jacquette, Duchess of Bedford. However, there are alternative versions, which report that the ceremony took place ‘in the presence only of the priest, two gentlemen, and a young man to sing the responses’, the celebrant having been ‘the Dominican Master Thomas Eborall’.15 The wedding is traditionally dated to Tuesday 1 May 1464, but in reality the date of the wedding – like the identity of the witnesses – is uncertain. In the fifteenth century ‘1 May, or May Day, was already associated with romantic love.’16 Since we have no definite information as to what exactly took place or when, or who witnessed the marriage contract, in actual fact the details of the Woodville marriage are just as uncertain as those of the Talbot wedding.17 Indeed, had the Woodville marriage remained secret throughout Edward IV’s lifetime, there is very little chance that later historians would have believed in it. As with the Talbot marriage, its authenticity would have been questioned.
However, there are two important differences between the Talbot and Woodville marriages. The first is that Elizabeth Woodville bore Edward IV many children, while Eleanor produced none. The second important difference is that – possibly because Elizabeth became pregnant (see below) – after a few months of silence, Edward IV gave the Woodville marriage his public recognition. Of course, if Edward had previously contracted a secret marriage with Eleanor, then his later Woodville ‘marriage’ was always a bigamous contract, with the result that his children by Elizabeth Woodville were all illegitimate. It is clear, however, that at this stage Elizabeth Woodville had no notion that Edward might have contracted an earlier secret marriage with someone else. As we shall see, Elizabeth only found out about Eleanor some thirteen years later, in about 1477.
Precisely why Edward should initially have kept his Woodville marriage a secret and then decided to publicly reveal and acknowledge it is yet another of the many mysteries in this complex case. Speculation regarding his motives for finally deciding to acknowledge the Woodville union has included witchcraft (Elizabeth Woodville’s mother was prosecuted on these grounds in 1469–70 – see below), or that Edward was eager to avert the proposed marriage with Bona of Savoy (but surely he could simply have said ‘no’),18 or that Elizabeth Woodville may have been pregnant in September 1464 (but in that case she must subsequently have miscarried, since her first recorded child by the king was not born until February 1466). The mystery of what prompted the king to act as he did in September 1464 cannot now be resolved for certain. It is interesting, however, to note that, while Elizabeth was acknowledged as queen in September 1464, she was not crowned until May 1465 – eight months later. Maybe this delay was caused by the fact that the newly acknowledged queen was pregnant in autumn 1454, but that, in the end, her first pregnancy by Edward IV did not run to its full term, or the child was stillborn.19
The story of the Woodville marriage very clearly shows that Edward IV’s marital conduct was consistent only in its irrationality and unpredictability. Apparently his behaviour in this respect owed absolutely nothing to any of the normal, politically correct considerations that underpinned royal marriage policy and its related diplomacy. However, Edward’s strange conduct with Elizabeth Woodville makes the possibility of similar and equally strange conduct earlier, in the case of Eleanor Talbot, all the more probable. Edward IV may have been a consistent victim of his own libido.
Whatever Edward’s motivation, in September 1464, at the royal council held in Reading, he formally recognised Elizabeth Woodville as his queen. His brother, George, Duke of Clarence, was then rapidly approaching his fifteenth birthday. The king’s announcement carried with it an implicit warning to George that his role as heir to the throne was approaching its end. What was George’s reaction to this, and how did he feel about the Woodville family?
Domenico Mancini, an Italian secret agent of the French government writing nineteen years after the event, reported:
Though Edward’s brothers, two of whom were then living, were both seriously concerned at the deed – nevertheless, the Duke of Clarence, the one born second after Edward, clearly showed his ill humour, openly denouncing the obscurity of Elizabeth’s family, while proclaiming that the king’s marriage to a widow (when he should have married a virgin) was contrary to ancestral practice. But the other brother, Richard (who was then Duke of Gloucester, and who reigns now), both because he was more capable of disguising his feelings, and also because he had less influence (being the younger), neither did anything nor said anything which could be held against him.20
The facts behind Mancini’s sometimes colourful language appear to be that Richard said nothing against the Woodville marriage in 1464. George, on the other hand, openly displayed his displeasure. It is true that there is no strictly contemporary evidence to back up Mancini’s slightly later account. Nevertheless, it is absolutely certain that, whatever he may have done when he first learned of Edward’s Woodville union, in the longer run, George, like much of the old aristocracy, deeply resented the new queen’s parvenu family, and clearly displayed his resentment. Moreover, whatever George felt about Elizabeth Woodville’s background in 1464, he can hardly have been unaware of her potential threat to his position as heir to the throne. Since her royal marriage had now been publicly acknowledged, and since no legal question had as yet been raised against it, as things stood in 1464, if Elizabeth produced children for Edward, logically these would displace George in the order of succession.
The general reaction to the announcement of Edward’s Woodville marriage seems to have been widespread disapproval. In political terms, the marriage served no useful purpose – offending foreign royalty (in Castile and in France) and effectively throwing away Edward’s most valuable playing card, the English consort’s crown, which could otherwise have been used (as indeed Warwick had been trying to use it) in foreign policy negotiations. The new queen’s numerous and ambitious but impoverished relatives were seen as another significant disadvantage. The fact that the queen was not a virgin was viewed askance, and from the first there were suspicions in some quarters that it was only by witchcraft that Elizabeth could have ensnared Edward. The initial secrecy of the marriage contract was also a cause for concern.
Later it became clear that significant members of the royal family were strongly opposed to the Woodville match. Edward’s cousin Warwick was against it from the start. As we have seen, Mancini later reported that George, Duke of Clarence was of the same opinion as Warwick in 1464. Whether or not Mancini is correct, there is no doubt that by 1469 George and Warwick were as one on this point. While George may not have shared Warwick’s concern that in international politics the marriage announcement made him look a fool, nevertheless he must have seen his brother’s marriage as a threat to his own status. If he was too young and inexperienced in 1464 to perceive this point for himself, then Warwick – or his own mother – probably enlightened him.
For George’s mother, Cecily, Duchess of York, was also opposed to the Woodville union. Mancini’s
account, written nineteen years later, goes so far as to say that the furious Cecily ‘asserted that Edward was not the offspring of her husband’.21 No clear evidence of this, or of her opposition, survives from 1464–5. Nevertheless, ‘it is very likely that Duchess Cecily had a blazing row with her son … and it is difficult not to believe that her other children took their mother’s view of the king’s new wife’.22
As Mancini later indicated, initially Richard Duke of Gloucester probably took no stance against the union. After all, he was still not quite 12 years old when the marriage was announced: very young to express – or even have – an opinion. Later, Richard seems to have been close to Sir John, Lord Howard, and there is some evidence that, to begin with, Howard accepted the Woodville marriage. The draft of a letter from him to the queen’s father, Lord Rivers, survives. It was written a week after the announcement of the marriage in Reading, and in the letter Howard reported that he had been sounding out opinions on the marriage in the eastern counties, ‘to feel how the people of the country were disposed; and in good faith they are disposed in the best wise and glad therof’.23 It is perhaps not surprising that when landowners were directly questioned, face-to-face, as to their views of the new queen, they were inclined to express polite approval! However, Howard reported that there was one great estate in the eastern counties that was not well disposed to Elizabeth Woodville. He does not name the household in question, but it may well have been that of Howard’s own cousin, the Duke of Norfolk, whose sister-in-law was Eleanor Talbot. Later, Howard himself was also to change his mind about the new queen. In fact, even on ‘New Year’s Day’ (1 January – see below) 1464/5, Howard’s gift to the new queen was not notably generous, and he seems to have received nothing from her in return.24
The Third Plantagenet: George, Duke of Clarence, Richard III's Brother Page 10