by Charles Ross
Any prospect of a continental marriage alliance, however, was soon wrecked by Edward’s own impulsive action, the first major blunder of his political career. On his way north to meet the threat from the Lancastrians, Edward stopped at Stony Stratford on 30 April 1464. Very early the next morning, he slipped away from his entourage and rode over to Grafton Regis, the home of Richard Woodville, Lord Rivers, and his wife, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, widow of John, duke of Bedford. There, on May Morning, in the presence of Jacquetta and no more than four or five others, he married her daughter, Elizabeth Woodville, who was herself a widow: her former husband, Sir John Grey, son of Edward Grey, Lord Ferrers of Groby, had died fighting for Henry VI at St Albans in February 1461. Immediately after the ceremony (if we can trust the details given much later by Robert Fabyan), Edward went to bed for a short time, and then returned to Stony Stratford, pretending that he had been hunting, and complaining sorely of fatigue, and went to bed again. Shortly afterwards he returned to Grafton for three days, where Elizabeth was brought secretly to him each night, before resuming his journey to the north.5
No one knows when Edward had first met and become enamoured of Elizabeth, still less why he should have chosen to make her his queen.1 The best explanation may also be the simplest – that it was the impulsive love-match of an impetuous young man. This was evidently the belief of the chronicler, Gregory, writing between 1468 and 1470; he uses Edward’s marriage to point the moral: ‘Now take heed what love may do, for love will not nor may not cast no fault nor peril in no thing.’2 But another explanation was popular both at the time and later – that Edward married her as the only way to obtain her favours. He came to enjoy a very considerable reputation as a successful womanizer. Commynes went too far in ascribing Edward’s loss of his throne in 1470 to his excessive devotion to pleasure.3 But there is ample testimony from other and less critical sources. In his flattering portrait of Edward – deliberately heightened by contrast with Richard Ill’s villainy – Sir Thomas More was emphatic on this point: ‘He was of youth greatly given to fleshly wantonness’ (from which, More tolerantly adds) ‘health of body in great prosperity and fortune, without a special grace, hardly refraineth. This fault not greatly grieved the people….’4 The shrewd Mancini had the same impression: ‘he was licentious in the extreme…. He pursued with no discrimination the married and the unmarried, the noble and lowly: however, he took none by force.’5 The Croyland Chronicler, no less observant or well informed, remarked on the astonishment of Edward’s subjects that he was able to combine a grasp of business with a passion for ‘boon companionship, vanities, debauchery, extravagance and sensual enjoyments….’6 Equally, Edward’s reputation for lechery was well known on the Continent in his own lifetime.7
If much of this evidence comes from Edward’s later years, there is no good reason to suppose his tastes had changed very much. Indeed, Gregory’s Chronicle, the most immediately contemporary narrative, remarks that ‘men marvelled that our sovereign lord was so long without any wife, and were ever feared that he had not been chaste of his living’.8 More certainly believed that he had bastard children, and tells a neat – if apocryphal – story to prove it.1 This is the background against which reports of Elizabeth’s virtuous resistance to the king’s advances must be judged. The successful philanderer, confronted by a rejection of his suit so obstinate as to survive threats at the point of a dagger, concedes marriage as the only means to achieve his ends. Hitherto this story has been known to us from later authorities, such as Mancini, More and Edward Hall, but a recent discovery has shown that it was already current on the Continent as early as 1468, when a Milanese courtier-poet, Antonio Cornazzano, made it the basis for a tale of virtue triumphant.2 It has a certain plausibility.
Modern attempts to read a political motive into the marriage are very unconvincing.3 Edward scarcely needed to marry this unsuitable widow in order to assert his independence of Warwick and the Nevills: had he wished to avoid the French marriage advocated by Warwick, there was no shortage of suitable brides, even amongst the higher ranks of the English nobility. Still less did he need to promote her relatives to create a counterpoise to the Nevills: a court party was already being formed before 1464, and the promotion of the Woodvilles added rather to its unpopularity than to its strength.
If Edward’s motives in making this remarkable misalliance remain a matter for awestruck speculation, its consequences were a matter of high political concern, and ultimately contributed largely to the downfall of the Yorkist dynasty.4 The immediate disadvantages were obvious to all. Elizabeth had nothing to recommend her except her obvious physical attractions. Her rather cold beauty was not offset by any warmth or generosity of temperament. She was to prove a woman of designing character, grasping and ambitious for her family’s interests, quick to take offence and reluctant to forgive.1 For the present, however, her personal defects were less important than the political problems arising from her marriage.
This impoverished Lancastrian widow might have made a fitting wife for a member of the Northamptonshire gentry, or even for one of Edward’s newly-created barons. She was far from suitable as a queen. Too much should not be made of her Lancastrian connections. Although her father, Richard, Lord Rivers, and her brother, Anthony, Lord Scales, had fought with Margaret at Towton, both had been quickly pardoned, and received minor grants from Edward, and Rivers was a member of the royal council by March 1463. The advancement of her family at the Yorkist court did not begin with Elizabeth’s marriage.2 On her father’s side, she was of relatively humble origin, for Sir Richard had been no more than the son of the duke of Bedford’s chamberlain when he married the duke’s wealthy widow. Jacquetta herself, however, belonged to the high nobility of Europe. Her father, Pierre, count of St Pol, was a powerful French magnate, and through him she could claim descent from the Emperor Charlemagne himself. Her first husband, Sir John Grey of Groby, was related to the Greys of Ruthyn, and by marriage to the Berkeleys, the Bourchiers and the Mowbrays. A recent writer has rightly emphasized that the social status of the family ‘was not as lowly as many historians have assumed’.3 But any temptation to argue that by birth and social degree she was a suitable queen must be resisted. The Burgundian chronicler, Jean de Waurin, however unreliable as to details, can be trusted for his sense of contemporary social nicety, and his account of the council’s reaction to the news probably puts the point fairly enough:
… they answered that she was not his match, however good and however fair she might be, and he must know well that she was no wife for a prince such as himself; for she was not the daughter of a duke or earl, but her mother, the Duchess of Bedford, had married a simple knight, so that though she was the child of a duchess and the niece of the count of St Pol, still she was no wife for him.4
Edward scarcely needed anyone to point out this truth to him, for he had taken part at Calais in 1460 in the ‘berating’ of the captured Rivers and Scales by the Yorkist earls. In a display of aristocratic snobbishness, Warwick had roundly told Rivers that
his father was but a squire and brought up with King Henry the Fifth, and sithen himself made by marriage, and also made lord, and that it was not his part to have language of lords, being of the king’s blood.1
In an age of sharpening social distinction, for a king to marry at this level was both impolitic and unprecedented.2
That Edward was painfully conscious of his problem is proved by the extreme secrecy of his marriage and the long delay before it was made public. Even William, Lord Hastings, perhaps his closest friend, seems to have been kept in the dark.3 Edward could expect trouble on three counts. First, there were obvious repercussions for the negotiations for a French marriage now in progress. Secondly, he might expect some hostile reaction from Warwick and the lords in general, not only for his choice of wife but also for his having married without consultation and advice, as would have been normal practice in an affair of such public concern. Thirdly, he had to find provision for Elizabeth’s horde of
relatives. The new queen brought with her formidable liabilities – two sons by her first marriage, five brothers, and seven unmarried sisters, all of whom might expect some improvement of their rather lowly condition, as befitted the kinsfolk of a queen.
Edward increased his difficulties by his refusal to face these issues squarely and without delay. Instead of making an immediate declaration of his marriage, he hung on, waiting for a favourable moment, until the diplomatic events of the summer of 1464 finally forced his hand.4 Louis XI of France was now anxious for a closer rapprochement with England, and had already begun a systematic flattery of the earl of Warwick, through whom he hoped to bring about an Anglo-French alliance. Warwick himself was taking an increasing interest in foreign policy. In March 1464 he and Wenlock had pushed forward the negotiations which led to the signing of a truce with France at sea on 14 April. He planned to attend a conference arranged in the previous autumn to meet at St Omer on 21 April, to discuss a longer truce with France and perhaps a marriage treaty and alliance. The news that Edward was looking for a wife had first reached the sharp ears of the Milanese ambassador in France in September 1463. King Louis, he reported, had been asked to give his daughter, Anne, as bride to the English king. Louis refused, for the child was only three years old, but he offered his sister-in-law, Bona, daughter of the duke of Savoy, in her place.1 This was the marriage alliance which Louis and Warwick were now anxious to bring about. Though Louis had expected him, the earl was kept in England by the disturbances in the north and the negotiations with the Scots, and the conference at St Omer was postponed until 8 June, when only Lord Wenlock and Warwick’s lieutenant at Guines, Richard Whetehill, appeared for England. The conference was further postponed until 1 October 1464.
During September Edward met his council at Reading to discuss, among other things, English policy at the forthcoming conference.2 Warwick and Wenlock had been authorized to lead the English delegation, and were now in urgent need of instructions. His councillors pressed Edward to make clear his intentions about the French marriage. Clearly Edward could keep silent no longer. By 4 October rumours had begun to reach King Louis, who was in Picardy awaiting the arrival of the English embassy, and by 10 October he had learnt the truth. The English envoys never came, and the St Omer conference was abandoned. Yet Edward’s marriage in itself had little effect on Anglo-French relations. Louis XI was not discouraged in hoping for a treaty with England, and, despite his chagrin, Warwick also continued to press actively for a French alliance. It was rather the gradual decline of Warwick’s influence over his master, and Edward’s wish for a closer association with Burgundy and Brittany, which finally wrecked their plans.
Immediate English reactions to the news of the king’s marriage cannot be readily assessed. The accepted view that it caused considerable displeasure amongst the lords and angered Warwick especially has recently been challenged on the grounds that the evidence is either biased or late.3 There is, however, no good reason to suppose that it was received without dismay. Edward’s lords could scarcely have been other than astonished at the news, and probably resented his failure to consult even his closest advisers on an important matter of state.1 Their confidence in his political judgement probably received a sharp shock. Edward had shown himself willing ‘to be led by blind affection, and not by rule of reason’.2 Warwick, too, had good reason for annoyance. Even if he had not been made to look a fool in the eyes of the French,3 he could justifiably resent Edward’s failure to confide in him, who had contributed so much to the success of the Yorkist cause. It may have been as much Edward’s secretiveness as the affront to his foreign schemes which aroused the earl’s anger.
The strength of Edward’s position lay in the fact that the marriage was an accomplished fact, and could not be undone. Even his sharpest critics could accept it only with as good grace as possible unless they wished to forfeit the king’s goodwill: as Warwick’s friend, John, Lord Wenlock, remarked, ‘We must be patient despite ourselves’.4 Warwick was certainly not too angry to join Clarence in escorting the new queen into the chapel of Reading Abbey on Michaelmas Day 1464, when she was first publicly introduced to the royal court. It is hardly likely that there was enough initial disapproval of Edward’s marriage to alienate any section of his supporters, not even Warwick himself. Yet the whole episode inevitably raised doubts in political circles about the future of a king who could so rashly indulge himself. Nor did the further implications of the marriage strengthen confidence in Edward as ‘the man to give nervous politicians the political stability they desired’.5
Edward has been accused of making matters worse by his inordinate promotion of the queen’s relatives. The prominence at his court of so many grasping parvenus, it has been argued, served only to alienate the aristocracy and was especially offensive to Warwick. Recent reexamination of the evidence, however, has shown these criticisms to be excessive in many respects.6 Promotion of the Woodvilles was achieved largely by a series of advantageous marriages – so rapid and numerous as temporarily to corner the aristocratic marriage market. These began immediately after Edward’s public recognition of Elizabeth as his wife. In October 1464 Margaret, the queen’s next sister, was betrothed to Thomas, Lord Maltravers, son and heir of the Earl of Arundel, and a nephew of Warwick. In January 1465 the queen brought off a less suitable match – the marriage of her younger brother, John Woodville, then aged about twenty, to the very wealthy dowager duchess of Norfolk, Katherine Nevill, who was then ‘a slip of a girl’ (juvencula) of at least sixty-five, who had already survived three husbands. The marriage of elderly widows to much younger men was not without precedent, but this was an extreme example, and even a chronicler hostile to the Woodvilles had some justification for calling it a maritagium diabolicum.1 There is a certain irony in the fact that the oldlady (who was last seen alive at the coronation of Richard III in 1483) was to survive her youthful bridegroom by more than fourteen years.
Aristocratic husbands were soon found for three more of the queen’s sisters. Their betrothals or marriages seem to have taken place soon after the baptism of the royal couple’s first child, Elizabeth of York, who was born on 11 February 1466. Katherine Woodville married Henry Stafford, grandson and heir of the duke of Buckingham; Anne became the wife of William, Viscount Bourchier, eldest son and heir of the earl of Essex; and Eleanor married Anthony Grey, son and heir of the earl of Kent. Then, in September 1466, Mary Woodville was betrothed to William Herbert, son of William, Lord Herbert, and the young man was allowed to assume the style of Lord Dunster. Finally, in October 1466, the queen paid 4,000 marks to Edward’s sister, Anne, duchess of Exeter, for the marriage of her elder son, Thomas Grey, to the duchess’s daughter and heiress, Anne Holland, who was already betrothed to Warwick’s nephew, George Nevill, son and heir of John Nevill, earl of Northumberland.
Two points emerge from this remarkable series of marriages. First, three of them are said to have given direct offence to the earl of Warwick.2 He could reasonably resent the exploitation of his aged aunt, Duchess Katherine.3 The Holland match was a direct affront to his family’s dignity, no less so since the king presumably assented to it. The Buckingham marriage is also said to have caused him secret displeasure. Moreover, he was reported to have taken offence at the elevation of the young William Herbert to the title of Lord Dunster: he had wanted the lordship of Dunster for himself when it was given to the Herberts in 1461. More generally, he could justly feel aggrieved about the implications of these marriages for the prospects of his own heirs, his two daughters, Isabel and Anne Nevill, now both approaching marriageable age.1 Warwick was England’s premier earl and greatest magnate; his daughters were the wealthiest heiresses in the realm. Suitable husbands for them could come only from the major English families, and the marriages of the queen’s kinswomen had preempted all likely candidates. This probably explains the earl’s anger at the appropriation of the young Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham, who might otherwise have made an admirable husband for Isabel Nevil
l. Only the king’s brothers, the dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, could now provide fitting consorts for the Nevill girls. Warwick’s plan to marry his elder daughter to Clarence was a logical consequence of the series of Woodville marriages. The king’s persistent refusal to approve this match merely added further to Warwick’s mounting grievances.2
Secondly, it is worth noticing that other Yorkist noblemen had no scruple about allowing their sons or daughters to marry the queen’s kinsfolk. Henry, duke of Buckingham, who was a minor in the king’s wardship at the time of his marriage, is said to have complained later that he had been ‘disparaged’ by being wedded to an upstart Woodville.3 Such sentiments do not seem to have been voiced by the several other peers who had a free choice in their children’s marriages. It is reasonable to infer that the Yorkist nobility accepted the consequences of the king’s marriage without difficulty, and some saw a Woodville connection as a useful link with power in high places. Warwick, the chief sufferer, is also the chief exception.
Provision for the Woodvilles was largely achieved without impoverishing the Crown. Apart from the seven great marriages, the queen’s kinsfolk got little in the way of tangible rewards. Certainly, Edward made every effort to do honour to the new queen and her family. No expense was spared to make Elizabeth’s coronation on Sunday, 26 May 1465, an especially impressive and splendid occasion. Large sums were spent on cloth-of-gold, costing £280, cups and basins of gold, jewellery, scarlet and crimson robes for the kings of arms and heralds, and bay and white coursers for the queen’s chairs. In January the duke of Burgundy had been invited to send over the queen’s uncle, Jacques de Luxembourg, to represent him at the coronation and to call attention to her high connections on her mother’s side. On 23 May at the Tower of London Edward created forty or more new Knights of the Bath, a larger number than had been knighted at his own coronation.1 Amongst them were the queen’s brothers, Richard and John Woodville, and three of her new brothers-in-law, Buckingham, Maltravers and Anthony Grey. The City of London mounted pageants in her honour. Her coronation by the archbishop of Canterbury was conducted with pomp. Nearly all the high nobility of England, together with their ladies, took part in this and later ceremonies. The only notable absentees were the earl of Warwick and Lords Hastings and Wenlock, who had departed a fortnight before on an embassy to Burgundy. The occasion was rounded off with banquets, and a tournament in which Burgundian knights in the train of Jacques de Luxembourg took part, though the honours of the day were carried off by Thomas, Lord Stanley. Arrangements had already been made for a further tournament between the queen’s brother, Anthony, Lord Scales, and Anthony, Bastard of Burgundy, who had a great chivalrous reputation, though it did not actually take place until June 1467. This too represents a calculated use of chivalric pageantry to impress the people and focus attention on the high connections of the Woodville family.2