We may suppose that Elizabeth tried to appear outwardly calm as the tired rider blurted out his story, but her thoughts would have been in turmoil. Life was bound to become more difficult, and her troubles multiplied when her mother-in-law, Lady Ferrers, attempted to recover three Grey family manors which her own late husband had settled on John and Elizabeth in 1456. Lady Ferrers feared that the properties would be all but lost to her if her daughter-in-law lived to a ripe old age or remarried; and although Elizabeth was able to establish her right to them it was unlikely to be the end of the matter. Disappointed litigants often resorted to threats and violence when the law ruled against them, and Lady Ferrers had greatly strengthened her hand by marrying Sir John Bourchier, a son of the Earl of Essex and King Edward’s aunt Isabel. There was a very real possibility that she would make the dispute an excuse to settle her family lands on her new husband and any children she might have by him (giving them priority over John and Elizabeth’s offspring), and Elizabeth turned to William Lord Hastings, King Edward’s viceroy in the Midlands, for help. On 13 April 1464 they signed an agreement by which Hastings promised to do what he could to ensure that her son Thomas’s right to inherit the estates was not frustrated, on condition that Elizabeth shared the profits with him and Thomas married his (as yet unborn) daughter. He drove what one historian has described as a ‘very hard bargain’; but his good offices were no longer needed when she married his royal master only eighteen days later on 1 May.
It would be fascinating to know when and where Edward and Elizabeth first met, and how long they had been romantically involved with each other. Stories of a handsome young king’s liaison with a beautiful, older widow were bound to grow with the telling, and we will probably never know if the ‘Queen’s Oak’ ever spread its branches over them, or if they really were married on May Day. What is clear, however, is that the speed of events must have surprised even Elizabeth, since she would not have sought Hastings’s assistance (or anyone else’s for that matter), if she had known she was about to become Queen of England. She may have felt that she could not abruptly terminate her negotiations with him without arousing suspicion: but the indications are that this was the briefest of courtships; in one author’s words, ‘the impulsive love match of an impetuous young man’.
Lord Rivers had been forgiven his allegiance to Lancaster and had become a member of the Yorkist royal council, so it is likely that King Edward would have visited Grafton when, from time to time, he journeyed northwards to mop up pockets of resistance. Elizabeth had returned to her family home after her husband’s death, and would have been able to speak to him on one of these occasions without having to waylay him in a forest. Edward always had a roving eye for a pretty girl, and probably assumed that if he spoke kindly to her she would become his mistress. Any rejection of his advances would have only increased his determination to have her, and Jacquetta, wise woman that she was, would have readily appreciated how the royal passion could be turned to her daughter’s – and indeed, her whole family’s – advantage. The chroniclers record that she was the only family member present when they were secretly married at Grafton, and that she brought Elizabeth to Edward’s bed (without, apparently, even her husband knowing of it), whenever he happened to be in the vicinity. Concealment was dangerous in that the validity of a private, clandestine wedding could always be challenged later, but it was a risk she had to take.
The king’s choice of bride – a widow with two sons whose family had fought against him – would have raised a few eyebrows even in the twenty-first century, but to contemporaries it was both startling and illogical. A ruler could have affairs with attractive ladies who took his fancy, but his marriage was an entirely different matter. A foreign-born queen would bring with her a large dowry and the expectation of an alliance with her native country, advantages that would both be lost if the king defied convention by marrying one of his own subjects. Edward’s councillors reasoned that he would not have put his private feelings before his duty to his country unless his normally good judgement had been affected by witchcraft or another malign influence. It was a slur that would haunt Elizabeth for the rest of her days.
ELIZABETH AND THE KINGMAKER
Edward kept his marriage secret for as long as he could, only revealing it to his startled courtiers after five months of subterfuge. When the council met at Reading Abbey in September 1464, he was asked to confirm that he would marry a high-born French lady, and had to admit that he was married already. No chronicler described the scene – perhaps the anger was too palpable – but however much the assembled nobles and prelates disliked the arrangement they could do nothing about it. The king was not obliged to marry in public or give his advisers prior notice of his intentions; and Warwick’s close associate John Lord Wenlock spoke for many when he remarked ‘we must be patient despite ourselves’.
These men might look down on Elizabeth and bemoan missed opportunities, but Edward’s choice was not entirely without merit. Her ability to fulfil her new role would only become apparent later, but no one could deny that she was beautiful (in an age when beauty was associated with goodness), or that she was likely to give her new husband an heir. Her father’s comparatively humble origins were, arguably, compensated by her mother’s descent from the House of Luxembourg, and her Lancastrian antecedents sent a clear message to Henry VI’s supporters that they too had a place in the new Yorkist England. Edward had broken with convention because he loved Elizabeth, but perhaps he was not as heedless of the consequences as some thought.
A more serious disadvantage was that, by marrying Elizabeth, Edward had effectively made himself responsible for her large family. No self-respecting king could allow his wife’s relatives to live in genteel poverty, and many of her five surviving brothers, seven sisters, and the two sons of her first marriage had to be promoted or found marriage partners of appropriate status. Margaret, who is sometimes described as her eldest sister, was married to Thomas Lord Maltravers, the Earl of Arundel’s heir, in October 1464, and their siblings Anne, Joan, Jacquetta and Mary were all wed or betrothed to the sons of senior noblemen within the next two years. Her father Lord Rivers was appointed to the lucrative office of Treasurer before being created an earl, and in October 1466 Elizabeth bought the marriage of the heiress of the Duke of Exeter for her eldest son Thomas. Anthony, her eldest brother, was given the lordship of the Isle of Wight, while Lionel, one of the younger members of the brood, was fast-tracked to high office in the Church.
The problem, of course, was that lords who had hoped to secure these and other positions and marriages for their own sons and daughters were disappointed, and some were positively outraged when King Edward allowed Elizabeth’s brother John, who was aged about twenty, to marry the sixty-something Dowager Duchess of Norfolk. This was an age in which impoverished young men often made their fortunes by marrying rich widows, but the arrangement so offended contemporary sensibilities that the chronicler was moved to describe it as a maritagium diabolicum (no translation needed!). In the event, John was executed in 1469, and so the already thrice-married duchess outlived him too.
The Dowager Duchess of Norfolk was the Earl of Warwick’s aunt, and Warwick had every reason to feel aggrieved at the way in which Edward and Elizabeth’s schemes had affected his plans for his own family. He had hoped to secure the Exeter heiress for his nephew (he had no son), and was further disappointed when the young Duke of Buckingham, whom he regarded as a potential husband for his elder daughter, Isabel, was married to Elizabeth’s sister Katherine. Matters were not improved when King Edward refused to allow Isabel to marry his own brother and heir apparent George Duke of Clarence and then rubbed salt in the wound by depriving Warwick’s brother George Archbishop of York of the chancellorship. Warwick had always favoured a French alliance, and Edward’s decision to wed his sister Margaret to Charles Duke of Burgundy (the King of France’s enemy and Elizabeth’s continental relatives’ overlord), was, in the opinion of the well-informed Croyland chroni
cler, the last straw.
Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the ‘Kingmaker’, and his wife Anne Beauchamp, from The Rous Roll
Edward had been a mere nineteen-year-old stripling when Warwick had promoted his successful bid for the throne in 1461, and was bound to become increasingly his own man as he grew in confidence. It was almost inevitable that monarch and minister would sometimes favour different policies, but what irked Warwick was the fact that he had made Edward king while the upstart Woodvilles – who now enjoyed his favour – had been fighting for Lancaster. Elizabeth was only indirectly responsible for her husband’s decisions and could not be blamed for being part of such a large family, but the fact remained that if she had not married Edward few, if any, of these things would have happened. The king’s fool might jest that the Rivers had become so high that he could not ‘scrape’ through them, but Warwick would not have been amused.
Warwick swallowed hard, even helping to escort Edward’s sister Margaret to Margate, from where she was to embark for her marriage to Charles of Burgundy, but he had probably already decided to bring his royal master to heel. The Middle Ages had no concept of what we today call ‘loyal opposition’ – no permitted mechanism by which a subject could seek to frustrate royal or ‘government’ policy – and so he had to tread carefully, working through proxies he could disown in the event of failure. The popular uprising known as Robin of Redesdale’s rebellion, which broke out in Yorkshire in June 1469, was led by men loyal to the Nevilles, and seemed initially to accomplish its purpose. Warwick seized the opportunity to marry his daughter Isabel to George of Clarence, and Edward, who was then at Nottingham, told Elizabeth’s father and brothers to make a run for it shortly before the main royal army was defeated at Edgecote, near Banbury. He knew only too well that the Woodvilles would bear the brunt of the rebels’ anger, and would have been more saddened than surprised when he learned that Earl Rivers and his son John had been hunted down and executed on Warwick’s orders. No legal process is recorded, presumably because capital charges could not be brought against them when they were loyal to a king whom Warwick himself still recognised. It was an act of private vengeance on the earl’s part.
Elizabeth was at Norwich when she heard that King Edward had been taken into ‘protective custody’ by Archbishop George Neville at Olney in Buckinghamshire, and learned of the deaths of her father and brother. The wars had again turned her life upside down, and there can be little doubt that henceforward she regarded Warwick and his new son-in-law George of Clarence (her own brother-in-law) as her mortal enemies. She would have spent many sleepless nights wondering what the future held for her family – what would happen to them if, in the worst-case scenario, her husband was forced to reject her as the price of keeping his throne – but found that she had less to fear than she expected. Warwick soon realised that he could not rule through Edward – few would accept orders that did not come from the king personally – but he was not held to account when he released him and allowed him to return to his capital. On the contrary, Edward was at pains to placate the Nevilles, even betrothing his eldest daughter to Warwick’s nephew, and Elizabeth would have been obliged to receive them at court and smile as though nothing had happened. Her private feelings would have all but overwhelmed her, but public duty came first.
Warwick had eliminated some of his rivals, but found that the episode had not improved his ability to change the king’s policies or influence his choice of ministers. His thoughts began to turn towards replacing Edward with George, and in March 1470 he stirred another uprising, this time in Lincolnshire. Edward did not immediately suspect treason and even asked Warwick and George to raise troops to help deal with the trouble; but they could not deny their involvement after the leaders of the Lincolnshire men were routed at ‘Losecote Field’ – so called because the rebels discarded their heavy padded jackets as they ran for safety – and confessed that the earl and his son in-law were the ‘partners and chief provokers of all their treasons’. The scheming pair accepted that they had lost this round of the contest, but rebuffed King Edward’s offers of pardon. They fled to France, leaving Elizabeth with the satisfaction of knowing that her husband would not readily trust them again.
The king and queen hoped that the troublemakers’ departure signalled an end to their problems, but they were soon to be disillusioned. In France, Warwick and George were reconciled with the exiled Lancastrian queen, Margaret of Anjou, and agreed to help her restore her imprisoned husband, King Henry, to the throne. King Edward was away in the north when the rebel lords returned to England on 13 September, and found that he had no answer to their popularity. Warwick was able to pose as a ‘leader of the opposition’ to a government that had spent nearly a decade disappointing its subjects, and the desertion of his brother John Neville (whom the king had continued to trust) proved devastating. Edward and a few loyal friends made a dash across Lincolnshire, narrowly escaping drowning in the Wash before commandeering several fishing boats they found at Lynn. Their little flotilla was chased by hostile ships but managed to reach the friendly coast of Holland where the king, who had no money with him, rewarded the master of his vessel with a fine furred gown. Warwick took charge of the government, and the hapless Henry VI was brought out of the Tower of London to resume his long-interrupted ‘reign’.
When news of Warwick’s return reached Elizabeth in London, she began to provision the Tower to withstand a siege, but abandoned the stronghold when it became apparent that the situation was hopeless. She was eight months pregnant and afraid that Warwick’s men would force the Westminster sanctuary where she took refuge with her mother and three young daughters; but the Kingmaker ordered that all such places were to be respected and her first son by Edward was safely delivered there on or shortly after 1 November. In normal circumstances, a person claiming sanctuary had forty days to surrender to the authorities or leave England, but no pressure seems to have been brought to bear on Elizabeth. She was allowed to receive gifts of food and other essentials from the abbot and from sympathetic Londoners; the new government paid Elizabeth Lady Scrope £10 to ‘attend’ (presumably to supervise) her; and she could anticipate an occasional, smuggled, letter from her husband. Boredom would have been her worst enemy, but she was with her mother and her young children and was not unused to looking after herself and coping with difficult situations. Perhaps she found the cramped conditions less irksome than if she had been a high-born princess.
Elizabeth could not have anticipated how long she would have to remain in the sanctuary or what might, or might not, become of her. Her rival, Queen Margaret, had spent many years as a fugitive and in exile before the opportunity to reclaim her throne presented itself, and Elizabeth too could do nothing but wait and hope that somehow her husband would be able to regain the initiative. King Edward returned to England with some men and equipment supplied by Duke Charles, his sister Margaret’s husband, on 14 March 1471, and found that luck, and boldness, favoured him. He gained access to York by claiming (implausibly) that he had come only to reclaim his father’s duchy, and found that neither of Warwick’s two northern armies seemed inclined to intercept him. Henry Percy, who commanded one of them and whom Edward had restored to his forfeited earldom of Northumberland less than a year earlier, had already been asked to at least remain neutral, and the uncertainty seems to have affected his supposed ally John Neville, who decided not to intervene until Percy’s attitude became clearer. Unchallenged, Edward marched southwards gathering troops as he went, and on 3 April was formally reconciled with his brother George of Clarence. Warwick’s new-found commitment to the House of Lancaster had effectively destroyed George’s hopes of becoming king himself one day, and the chronicler describes how his mother, sisters, and some leading churchmen joined forces to persuade him that his future lay with his Yorkist brothers. When Edward met him on the Banbury road there was ‘right kind and loving language betwixt them’ and their two armies became one.
The Earl of Warwick shut hi
mself up in Coventry and refused to fight until reinforcements arrived, so Edward struck out for London, partly to reclaim his capital but also to rescue his wife and new-born son. In the words of the chronicler he
then went to the Queen and comforted her that had a long time abiden and sojourned at Westminster, assuring her person only by the great franchise of that holy place, in right great trouble, sorrow and heaviness, which she sustained with all manner patience that belonged to any creature, and as constantly as hath been seen at any time any of so high estate to endure; in the which season nevertheless she had brought into this world, to the King’s greatest joy, a fair son, a prince, where with she presented him at his coming, to his heart’s singular comfort and gladness.
Elizabeth’s relief must have been considerable, but next day, Good Friday, the royal couple were informed that Warwick and the hitherto uncertain John Neville were advancing southwards. Leaving his wife in London, Edward drew up his forces at Barnet on the Saturday evening, and next day – Easter Sunday, 14 April – won a stunning victory over his old mentor. A mist that concealed his own movements caused confusion in the ranks of his enemies, and his smaller army overcame the greater numbers ranged against it. Warwick and John Neville were both killed, the former as he tried to escape, and their lifeless bodies were displayed publicly at St Paul’s.
The rest of the story can be briefly told. Queen Margaret only landed in England on Easter Sunday, and was devastated when news of Warwick’s defeat at Barnet was brought to her. Edward lost no time in setting off in pursuit of the new army her friends were raising in the West Country, and after covering thirty-six miles in one period of twenty-four hours (twice as fast as an army normally marched), cornered her at Tewkesbury on 3 May. Next day he destroyed her forces and killed her son, the Lancastrian Prince Edward, but Elizabeth would have been unaware of this when the ‘Bastard of Fauconberg’, a natural son of Warwick’s late uncle Lord Fauconberg, raised the standard of rebellion in Kent and threatened London. Her brother Anthony (now Earl Rivers) drove Fauconberg’s men back from the Tower, where she was living, and held out until reinforcements from the king’s army reached the capital, but the danger had been all too real while it lasted. If the counter-attack had faltered she was, in the words of a contemporary, ‘likely to stand in the greatest jeopardy that ever she stood’.
The Women of the Cousins’ War Page 14