Anne Neville: Richard III's Tragic Queen

by Licence, Amy

  Since March 1484, Anne’s household had contained the ‘sweet and beautiful’ Elizabeth of York. She and her four younger sisters probably travelled with them to the North that spring and had been present when the bad news arrived from Middleham. As the eldest child of Edward IV, the blonde eighteen-year-old had spent the majority of her life at Greenwich and Westminster, having been raised in the full expectation of marriage to a king or prince. It had been no secret that the rosy-cheeked little girl had been the favourite of her father, with her even temper and gentle ways. She was equally beloved of the people of London, who had turned out to cheer her whenever she made a public appearance. For a number of years she had been referred to as the Dauphine, following her betrothal to Charles, son of Louis XI, but that match had been abandoned by the time her father died. The death of her brothers should have made her the direct Yorkist heir, had Titulus Regius not declared her illegitimate as the result of reputed discrepancies in the marriages of her parents and grandparents. One condition of her release from sanctuary, by her mother, had been Richard’s promise to suitably bestow her. She was now well past what was considered the necessary year of consent and had reached the age at which both Anne and Elizabeth Wydeville herself had contracted their first matches. As her uncle and guardian, it was Richard’s responsibility to find her a husband, but, as her king, he needed to make a very careful choice. Since the Wydeville–Beaufort plot of 1483, Elizabeth’s significance in Henry Tudor’s invasion plan had become clearer, culminating in the oath he had sworn to marry her on Christmas Day 1483. The ‘Ballad of Lady Bessye’, probably written by Humphrey Brereton during the reign of Henry VII, describes her in the usual literary conventions as ‘white as any milke’ and ‘faire on mold’. One later ambassador called her ‘very handsome’, while another commented on her large breasts and comely figure which promised health and fertility. The epitome of a princess, Elizabeth was beautiful, eligible and available, yet twelve months after Tudor’s pledge, she remained unwed. What did her king have in mind for her?

  Elizabeth Wydeville’s agreement to release her daughters from sanctuary into the care of their uncle has raised speculation for centuries. The disappearance of her sons, Edward and Richard, in the Tower, in the summer of 1483, has never been satisfactorily explained and probably never will be. Some have taken Elizabeth’s ‘surrender’ as evidence that she did not believe Richard capable of having murdered them, although this simplifies the situation she found herself in and her need to provide for her surviving daughters. The king did have a motive for procuring the deaths of the boys, although this does not imply guilt, but he could hardly have derived any benefit from removing Princess Elizabeth and her sisters. As women, unable to directly inherit, they were far more useful to him alive, as marriageable commodities. By swearing the oath, Richard bound himself ‘in surety of their lives’ and would suffer no hurt done to them ‘by way of ravishment or defiling contrary their wills’. He would put them ‘in honest places of good name and fame … to have all things requisite and necessary’, to marry them suitably as his kinswomen. He did this publicly, in front of an assembly of the nobility, clergymen and leading Londoners. To break his word would have incurred serious consequences.

  In fact, the wording of the oath suggests the dowager queen did believe in Richard’s guilt but was faced with little choice, given her confinement at Westminster and the continual, increasing pressure he put on her to leave it. It may seem hard for a modern reader to accept that she would trust her daughters to the care of their brothers’ murderer but the situation was complex and necessity dictated her actions. Her sons were beyond her reach. She could act now only for the benefit of her children still living. Her posthumous reputation has contributed to the misunderstanding of her motives and needs to be unravelled. The late sixteenth-century Holinshed accused her of being won over by Richard with ‘glorious promises and flattering words’, which made her ‘blot out the old committed injurie and late executed tyrannie’, as she was but a ‘weake woman of timorous spirit’. In contrast, More presents a powerful image of her distress: ‘the quene sat alone on the rushes all desolate and dismayed’. More has her call Richard ‘he that goeth about to destroy me and my blood’. According to Vergil, she ‘fell into a swoon and lay lifeless a good while … she wept, she cried out loud and with lamentable shrieks made all the house ring. She struck her breast, tore and cut her hair … prayed also her own death … condemning herself for a madwoman … for [sending her younger son] to be murdered by their enemy.’ It seems unlikely, as the Victorian Gairdner asserted, that the ‘queen dowager had been completely won over by Richard’. Elizabeth Wydeville has been accused of ambition and arrogance but there is nothing to suggest that she was unintelligent. There seems little reason to doubt the sincerity of the bereaved mother’s grief or the lack of choices that now forced her into a corner. It would have been wise for the ex-queen to concede to Richard’s wishes in early 1484, as she was not blessed with foresight and could not have predicted the success of Henry Tudor’s invasion the following year. As far as she knew, Richard may retain the throne for decades and the fortunes and lives of herself and her daughters depended on his favour; as such, she can hardly be blamed for making a ‘deal with the devil’. Her two eldest daughters were of marriageable age and could not be kept indefinitely in sanctuary. Elizabeth made her decision in 1484 as a mother. She could no longer do anything to help her sons, so she wisely did the best she could for her girls, who were now included in Anne’s household. Perhaps she was counting on the influence of the new queen to keep them safe.

  The loss of their son may not have brought Richard and Anne closer. In fact, it may have had the opposite effect, as their movements in the second half of 1484 are suggestive of physical and emotional distance. Her exact location during this time is unclear but his busy schedule could well have excluded his wife, even if she was staying relatively close at Sheriff Hutton. Given that she only had months left to live, Anne may have already been suffering for poor health or exhaustion, choosing to remain in one of their residences, perhaps at home in Middleham, while he was on official business. She may have consulted her physician, who would have bled her and suggested changes in her diet. Perhaps his diagnosis was one of melancholia, the intense grief caused by her loss and the sense of failure at her low fertility. However tempting it is to speculate, records of her illness do not emerge until the winter. It is possible that, during those summer months, she had not yet experienced any symptoms that caused concerns regarding her health or, at least, they were not too severe.

  If Lisa Hilton is correct in her diagnosis of tuberculous endometritis, which affects the fallopian tubes, Anne’s illness would have produced few external signs. She may have experienced some abdominal pain, irregular or heavy bleeding and perhaps mucus discharges, which contemporary medicine would have seen as an imbalance of the humours. The damage would have been internal, with scarring, calcification and deformation of the uterus. Very rare in the modern era, it more commonly occurs in older, post-menopausal women, often secondary to other forms of tuberculosis. It can, though, be the result of a bacterial infection or, even, of sexually transmitted disease.2 To suggest that Anne had contracted some sort of venereal disease is a step too far, though. Records of the spread of such conditions are infrequent if they exist at all; the first recorded case of syphilis was in 1494, when it swept across Europe, claiming up to 6 million victims. Diseases of this kind were poorly understood and proved untreatable. Anne only had two sexual partners. While the extent of Prince Edward’s experience is unknown, although probably very limited, Richard had certainly been sexually active before his marriage. As far as can be ascertained, he experienced good health and did not display any symptoms of infection, although his early death meant they may not have had a chance to develop. Throughout his reign, his punishing schedule and wide travel about the kingdom do not suggest he was at all unwell. If Anne was experiencing any symptoms during the summer of 1484, as a res
ult of tuberculosis in any form, she may have seen them within the context of her general health. Those months may have passed peacefully in retreat in the countryside, awaiting her reunion with Richard.

  However, Edward’s death had brought her health more into focus, especially if Richard’s complaints about Anne’s infertility, as reported by Archbishop Rotherham, are to be believed. His criticism of her, in the aftermath of Edward’s death, may have been unguarded comments made in the extremes of grief. Equally, it may have tapped into an existing source of grievance which he had previously voiced in private. Low fertility and infertility were largely considered, at the time, to be the fault of the female, and the existence of Richard’s illegitimate children may have seemed, to him, to validate this. The inability to produce a surviving male heir could tear apart what would, under other circumstances, have been a happy marriage, as Catherine of Aragon was to discover with Henry VIII in the 1520s and 30s. According to Alison Weir, Richard’s intention to put his wife aside and remarry in order to father an heir was already widely spoken of. Holinshed relates that Richard complained to ‘diuerse noble men of the realme, of the infortunate sterilitie and barennesse of his wife, bicause she brought foorth no fruit and generation of hir bodie’ and shunned her company. In Yorkshire, Anne may have been sheltered from such gossip but when the king returned to London in November, Anne may have travelled south with him. Alternatively, she may have gone on ahead of him to Greenwich, as her activities in the summer of 1483 proved that she had an independent household and had previously made the journey to the capital independently of him. Anne settled back into her Westminster apartments for the Christmas season, which provided many opportunities to surround herself with her nieces and nephews during the devotions, feasting and festivities. At some point, she became aware of rumours that were circulating the court regarding her own health. Worse still, people were also hinting at a possible liaison between her husband and Elizabeth of York. Perhaps a trusted lady-in-waiting passed on what was being whispered in the corners of the hall. Did Anne give them any credence?

  The truth of Anne’s relationship with Elizabeth is hard to ascertain. As the girl’s aunt, only ten years her senior, Anne would have known the girl during her childhood, seeing her at court on the occasions when she visited with Richard. During the 1470s and early 80s, the position between them would have been reversed, with Elizabeth’s rank as royal princess placing her higher in status than her aunt, a duchess. The girl’s mother, Elizabeth Wydeville, had been very conscious of the protocol surrounding such gradations of privilege and would have raised her daughter in the full understanding of the deference due to her. This is not to suggest any arrogance or vanity on the part of either Elizabeth; it is simply how the strictly hierarchical court operated, at all levels, from the king down to the scullion. Edward’s family had suffered a number of falls from their high position, plunging the princesses first into sanctuary and now supposed illegitimacy. At the court of 1484, Elizabeth was required to defer to her aunt, previously her inferior, yet she may still have held out hopes of gaining a crown for herself. Even though Henry Tudor had declared his intention to marry her and invade England, those events lay in the future and could not be predicted, no matter what ‘The Ballad of Lady Bessye’ says. Brereton wrote of Elizabeth’s prophetic abilities in 1486, once she was married to the Tudor conqueror. As far as Elizabeth knew, Richard was to be her king for years to come. She had to carve out the best future path for herself in his reign. Anne, though, may have been another matter.

  As Elizabeth’s elder by a decade, the queen may well have seen herself as fulfilling the role of substitute mother, sister or guardian. The nature of their bond would depend on Elizabeth’s feelings towards her uncle and her understanding of the queen’s role in the events of 1483. Did the princess believe her uncle responsible for the murder of her brothers? If so, did she believe that Anne knew the truth, or had colluded with his plans? On Anne’s side, her guardianship of the princess may have been affected by the need to keep her under observation as the target of Tudor’s intentions. One possibility is that the two women may have been wary of each other, distrustful and distant; by another, they may have become close friends and confidants. Weir asserts that the princess ‘was ranked familiarly in the queen’s favour, who treated her as a sister’. As an older woman, experiencing the trials of queenship that Elizabeth had been raised to expect, she may have been something of a role model. Alternatively, it may have been difficult for the princess to forget the comparison between the new queen and her mother, who had remained in sanctuary in order to buy her daughters’ freedom. Elizabeth Wydeville would still have been influencing her daughter’s behaviour, directly or indirectly. The oath she had imposed on Richard that May implies that she did not trust him and believed that her sons had been killed in the Tower on his orders. Still, she recognised the need to come to terms with him for the future of her surviving children. It is impossible, now, to ascertain the feelings of aunt and niece that would provide the essential context in which the events of Christmas 1484 need to be interpreted.

  The celebrations began along traditional lines. Fabyan described how the ‘feast of the Nativity was kept with due solemnity at the Palace of Westminster’, after which, the more lively Epiphany was held ‘with remarkable splendour’. Reminiscent of his London Coronation, Richard appeared in the Great Hall wearing his crown, in his royal state of ‘potency and splendour’. The doors would have been decked with ivy or holly, box and broom, which was also wrapped around frames and suspended from the ceiling. A multitude of candles would have been lit to ward off the gloom, games played and carols sung. Richard may have appointed his own Lord of Misrule to entertain the court with jokes and jests; besides this, there would be the inevitable disguisings and plays that followed dinner and ended with dancing. Presents were exchanged, but the fact that the king gave Elizabeth his copy of The Romance of Tristan as a gift can hardly be construed as evidence of an affair. A later poem of 1580 describes the type of fare that would have been provided that season, which had not significantly changed in a century and still sounds familiar today:

  Good bread and good drinke, a good fier in the hall

  brawne, pudding and souse, and good mustard withal.

  Beefe, mutton and pork, shred pies of the best,

  pig, veal, goose and capon, and turkey well drest;

  Cheese, apples and nuts, joly carols to heare,

  as then in the countrie is counter good cheare.3

  Not everyone had much appetite for the revelry. The hostile Croyland, writing in 1486, described himself as ‘grieved to speak’ that ‘far too much attention was given to dancing and gaiety’ but he adds that Elizabeth was sent, with her four sisters, ‘to attend the queen at court’. Over the twelve days of Christmas, Elizabeth apparently attracted her uncle’s attention in a way that ‘caused the people to murmur and the nobles and prelates greatly to wonder thereat’. Perhaps he had always found her appealing but the loss of Edward turned his mind to the need to father a new legitimate heir. The occasion that prompted speculation was the fact that Anne and her niece wore similar clothing. The potential threat to the queen lies more in the interpretation of this line than the description. Their ‘vain changes of apparal’ were not uncommon in a period of festivity, nor was the co-ordination of clothing between family members on ceremonial occasions. Croyland was not present in Westminster that season, yet he records that ‘many’ said the king was ‘bent … on the anticipated death of the queen … or else … divorce’ in order to marry Elizabeth. ‘Many’ may have believed this. How ‘many’? The apparent identical appearance of the women, ‘being of similar colour and shape’, has been taken to imply the substitution of one for the other, yet this must have been suspected within the context of other interactions between the king and his niece. Croyland does hint at other ‘things so distasteful, so numerous that they can hardly be reckoned’ which were ‘pernicious and perfidious’ and were ‘shameful t
o speak of’. The ‘anticipated death’ of Anne is also sinister, giving rise to the allegations of murder that find fruition in Shakespeare’s play. Frustratingly, the chronicler goes no further, leaving the modern reader wondering exactly what happened between Richard and Elizabeth at Christmas that year.

  The most significant piece of evidence used to argue for Richard’s relationship with Elizabeth has been a seventeenth-century copy of a letter, known as Buck’s letter. Buck was an historian, born around 1560, who found a copy of Titulus Regius folded within the Croyland manuscript and produced his own history of Richard III’s life and reign. Buck claimed to have seen Elizabeth’s letter in 1619, then in the keeping of the Howard family, who were patrons of his work. Apparently written by Elizabeth of York herself in February 1485, to John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, Buck stated that the letter asked for the duke’s assistance in her intended marriage to the king and expressed impatience that the queen, her aunt, was not yet dead. Assuming for a moment this letter’s authenticity, it would mean that Elizabeth and Richard had come to some sort of understanding and that the whole court, including Anne, was aware that her illness was terminal. Either that, or that her death was imminent.