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“The Most Illustrious Maid of York”

The royal palace of Westminster extended along the Thames shore, southwest of the City of London. A royal residence had stood on this site opposite Westminster Abbey since the sainted King Edward the Confessor had rebuilt both in the eleventh century, and the magnificent Westminster Hall had been completed by William II in 1099; in the late fourteenth century, Richard II increased the height of its walls and added the splendid oak hammer-beam roof. The sprawling palace in which the Queen was to be confined was the work of successive medieval kings, and the chief seat of royal government until much of it was destroyed by fire in 1512. Parliament often met within its walls, usually in the Painted Chamber, the White Hall, or St. Stephen’s Chapel. Westminster Hall was used for state occasions and ceremonies, and also for coronation banquets. Daily, it was a hive of industry, housing the busy law courts and stalls selling books and other goods.

The rambling old palace was much in need of upgrading, and Edward IV had set about converting part of it into new royal lodgings, which Elizabeth of York would come to know very well. They included a privy kitchen for the preparation of royal meals, a wardrobe for the storage of royal possessions, and something very traditional in royal domestic arrangements: separate ranges of private apartments for the King and Queen.

The creation of a new “Queen’s side” for Elizabeth Wydeville, which was begun in 1464, may have come about because the King’s mother, the disapproving Cecily Neville, was living at court and appropriate accommodation was needed for both ladies. The apartments built for Queen Elizabeth included a withdrawing chamber and wardrobe; a great chamber would be added in 1482.¹ It was in these new lodgings that the Queen was to bear her child.

For married women in those days, pregnancy was often an annual event, with all the risks it entailed. Contraception was rudimentary and would not have been practiced by royal couples, for whom a large family meant sons to secure the succession and daughters to forge political marriage alliances. It was a son, naturally, that the King wanted, and although, by medieval custom, male physicians did not attend pregnant women, Dr. Dominic de Sirego, Elizabeth Wydeville’s physician, was determined to “be the first that should bring tidings to the King of the birth of the prince,” for messengers conveying such glad news often received “great thanks and reward.” Only women were allowed into the birth chamber, so when the Queen went into labor, Dr. Sirego had perforce to wait in the “second chamber.” The baby was a girl: “this year [1466], the eleventh day of the month of February, was Elizabeth, first child of King Edward, born at Westminster.”² She was the first princess born to an English monarch in over a century.

The waiting physician, hearing the child cry, “knocked or called secretly at the chamber door” and asked “what the Queen had,” whereupon her attendants, much amused, called back, “Whatsoever the Queen’s Grace hath here within, sure it is that a fool standeth there without!” Whereupon Dr. Sirego hastily “departed without seeing the King that time.”³

That same month, “my Lady Princess” was baptized “with most solemnity” in a new font set up in St. Stephen’s Chapel in Westminster Palace by her kinsman, George Neville, Archbishop of York,⁴ just as if she had been the desired prince. She was given her mother’s name; it was a happy coincidence that the Queen had a special devotion for St. Elizabeth.⁵ The name Elizabeth was not new in the royal line: it had been given to daughters of Henry I and Edward I, and to a granddaughter of Edward III. It had also been borne by Elizabeth de Burgh, the heiress who married Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence (Edward III’s second son), and brought the rich Ulster inheritance to the royal House of York.

Tradition decreed that the King and Queen did not attend the christening, but Edward IV made it the occasion for a show of solidarity, even though the players were privately at odds or disapproved of his marriage. The baby princess’s sponsors were her grandmothers, the Duchesses of York and Bedford, and the Earl of Warwick. Walter Blount, Lord Mountjoy, Treasurer of England, received 1,000 marks [£152,250] for his diligence at the baptism, then was promptly told to resign his office to the Queen’s father, Lord Rivers.

The King bought his wife a jeweled ornament costing £125 [£62,550] “against the birth of our most dear daughter Elizabeth.” Even though she had only borne a daughter, Elizabeth Wydeville’s churching ceremony that followed in late March was attended by great magnificence. The Queen left her childbed that morning and went to church in stately order, accompanied by many priests bearing relics and by many scholars singing and carrying lights. There followed a great company of ladies and maidens from the country and from London. Then came trumpeters, pipers, and players of stringed instruments. The King’s choir followed, forty-two of them, who sang excellently. Then came twenty-four heralds and pursuivants, followed by sixty earls and knights. At last came the Queen, escorted by two dukes. Above her was a canopy. Behind her were her mother and maidens and ladies to the number of sixty. Then the Queen heard the singing of an office. Following the service of purification that marked her return to society after her confinement, “she returned to the palace in procession, as before. Then all who had joined the procession remained to eat.” So many guests were present—clearly a prince had been anticipated—that they “filled four great rooms” of an “unbelievably costly apartment.”⁶

Elizabeth Wydeville might have been deemed an unsuitable bride for the King, but she was determined that no one should remember it, and the etiquette that surrounded her on this occasion was rigorous. “The Queen sat alone at table on a costly golden chair. The Queen’s mother and the King’s sister [Anne, Duchess of Exeter] had to stand some distance away. When the Queen spoke with her mother or the King’s sister, they knelt down before her until she had drunk water. Not until the first dish was set before the Queen could [they] be seated. The [sixty] ladies and maidens and all who served the Queen at table were of noble birth, and had to kneel so long as the Queen was eating; the meal lasted for three hours. The food which was served to the Queen, the Queen’s mother, the King’s sister, and others was most costly. Everyone was silent and not a word was spoken.” Afterward, no doubt to everyone’s relief, there was dancing, with the ladies curtseying elegantly to the silent Queen, and glorious singing by the King’s choristers. A foreign observer noted: “The courtly reverence paid to the Queen was such as I have never seen elsewhere.”⁷

Like all babies in those days, the infant princess was swaddled in tight bands with a close-fitting cap on her head, and she would have remained swaddled for the first eight or nine months of her life to ensure that her limbs grew straight. She was assigned a stately household that included a nurse (each of the royal children had a separate nurse) and a wet nurse, for queens did not suckle their children. The household was under the charge of a lady mistress, or governess, Margaret, Lady Berners,⁸ who received a salary of £100 [£50,000]. Under her were pages of the chamber, a “knight of the trencher,” and rockers to watch over the princess in her cradle.

The kingdom into which Elizabeth of York was born was a land of prosperity, according to an Italian observer writing in 1500: “The riches of England are greater than those of any other country in Europe. This is owing, in the first place, to the great fertility of the soil, which is such that, with the exception of wine, they import nothing from abroad for their subsistence.” The export of tin brought large sums into the realm, “but still more do they derive from their extraordinary abundance of wool. And everyone who makes a tour in the island will soon become aware of this great wealth, for there is no small innkeeper, however poor and humble he may be, who does not serve his table with silver dishes and drinking cups, and no one who has not in his house silver plate to the amount of £100 [£50,000]. But above all are their riches displayed in the church treasures … You may therefore imagine what the decorations of these enormously rich Benedictine, Carthusian, and Cistercian monasteries must be. These are, indeed, more like baronial palaces than religious houses.”⁹ And all, of course, would be swept away within seventy years of Elizabeth’s birth, on the orders of her son. But for now, England was celebrated as “the ringing isle” because of its many churches, abbeys, and priories.

Much more of the land was covered by forest and woodland than it is now. The country was largely rural and given over to agriculture; as the Italian perceived, it had become prosperous through the export of wool and, latterly, woolen cloth. The people were often turbulent, unruly, and vociferous—especially when it came to new taxes—and it was said that while the French vice was lechery, the English vice was treachery. The latter were perceived to be lazy—“it is received as a prescript that they should sweat by no means”—and gluttonous: “though they live in hovels, they eat like lords.” Most people lived in the country, and society was generally localized. It was the upper classes and merchants who traveled.

Elizabeth would have learned early in life that she was a very special little girl. Her father was the King, whose person was regarded as sacred. Divinely appointed to rule, he had been invested at his coronation with a sanctity that set him apart from ordinary mortals and bestowed on him the grace to govern with a wisdom denied to others. The royal prerogative was believed to be the will of God working through the will of the King.

The court over which King Edward presided, and in which Elizabeth grew up, was a magnificent one—“the most splendid court that could be found in all Christendom.”¹⁰ The royal family was its central focus, so Elizabeth would have grown up with a sense of her importance in the world. It would have seemed a crowded world to a young child—Edward IV’s household numbered about eight hundred persons or more, not counting the members of his queen’s separate establishment. The court was itinerant, with the King dividing his time between a dozen of his palaces (most of them in the Thames Valley), according to the demands of state, the hunting to be had, or the need for cleansing a house after hundreds of courtiers and servants had tested its capacity for drainage to the limits.

Elizabeth would have become used to travel from infancy. The royal household would regularly wend its cumbersome way about the country, taking with it a long train of servants, carts, and packhorses laden with furniture, tapestries, personal belongings, and state papers, all packed in chests, coffers, and bags. The royal women and children traveled either by barge—the Thames being the main highway through London—or in covered horse-drawn coaches, like wagons, with four wheels, which could not have been very comfortable, as they were unsprung; or in smaller versions called litters, chariots, or “chairs.” A household could travel an average of twenty-six miles a day, depending on the state of the roads. Most were little more than tracks, with a few surviving Roman exceptions, and their condition depended on the weather and the public-spiritedness of the parish authorities or landowners who were supposed to maintain them. It was for this reason that royalty often preferred, where possible, to travel by river.

In his tastes, King Edward followed the dictates of the court of Burgundy, which at that time led the rest of northern Europe in art, architecture, style, dress, manners, and court ceremonial. He understood the value of magnificence that underpinned Burgundian court culture, and spent lavishly on clothing, jewels, plate, and tapestries from the Low Countries, but it was not until later in his reign that he was able to patronize the arts and indulge his passion for building. Today, the Perpendicular-style glory of St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, and the great hall at Eltham Palace, bear witness to the largely vanished splendors of his reign.

Elizabeth grew up to know these places well, especially the Palace of Westminster. Opposite stood Westminster Abbey, where kings were crowned and many of her royal forebears were buried. Elizabeth would have grown up knowing the neighboring City of London well too. “All the beauty of this island is confined to London,” wrote the anonymous Italian in 1500.¹¹ It was one of the greatest cities in Christendom, prosperous and teeming, its skyline dominated by the soaring Gothic edifice of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the spires of over eighty churches. About 60,000 to 75,000 of England’s estimated population of three or four million people lived in the City, which possessed “all the advantages to be desired in a maritime town” and was a flourishing mercantile center. “On the banks of the Thames are enormous warehouses for imported goods; also numerous cranes of remarkable size to unload merchandise from ships … Whatever there is in the City, it all belongs to craftsmen and merchants,”¹² such as would supply Elizabeth with luxury goods all her life.

In buildings of timber or brick, “the Londoners live comfortably.” The City abounded “with every article of luxury, as well as with the necessaries of life. In a single street, named the Strand, there are fifty-two goldsmiths’ shops.” This was especially remarkable to a foreigner because the citizens were not noblemen or gentlemen, but “persons of low degree and artificers,”¹³ many made wealthy by trade. The City authorities were fiercely protective of their liberties.

Around 1500, the Scots poet William Dunbar was so impressed by London, “sovereign of cities,” that he wrote a long poem in praise of it, of which this is an extract:

Strong be thy walls that about thee stand;

Wise be the people that within thee dwell;

Fresh be thy river with his lusty strands;

Blithe be thy churches, well sounding be thy bells;

Rich be thy merchants in substance that excels;

Fair be their wives, right lovesome, white and small;

Clear be thy virgins, lusty under kirtles;

London, thou art the flower of cities all.

The luxurious court in which the princess grew up was dominated by two opposing factions: Warwick and the Wydevilles. The latter, and their connections, were especially prominent in the Queen’s household, and their influence on the young Elizabeth and her siblings should not be underestimated.

Her mother, Queen Elizabeth, was confounding her critics and adapting to her role with grace and dignity. In every respect but her background she was a model consort. As the years passed, she proved that she could fulfill her royal duties as well as any born princess and use her influence in beneficial ways. She was pious and charitable; she ran her household efficiently and lived within her means. She enjoyed the King’s absolute trust, and, having resolved to turn an unseeing eye to his many infidelities, she retained his respect and affection. Thus she was highly influential behind the scenes—and it was this that Warwick and others continued to resent, along with the power enjoyed by her kinsmen.

Not since the aggrandizement of the Savoyard relatives of Henry III’s unpopular consort, Eleanor of Provence, in the thirteenth century, had the English court witnessed such large-scale promotion of a queen’s relations.¹⁴ For the King was advancing his legion of in-laws by securing for them the best matches the aristocracy could offer. He built up the power of the Wydevilles by these marriages, and by bestowing on them titles and offices, while the Queen “attracted to her party many strangers, and introduced them to court, so that they alone should manage the public and private business of the crown” through their power to “give or sell offices, and rule the very King himself.”¹⁵ That power was steadily increasing, “to the exaltation of the Queen and the displeasure of the whole realm.”¹⁶ While some nobles were eager to mate with the new queen’s relations, seeing such marriages as a means to advancement and royal favor, others—especially Warwick—were scandalized and resentful, for they regarded the Wydevilles as too lowborn for such honors¹⁷ and influence, which was then considered the privilege of the nobility, not of upwardly mobile parvenus.

Naturally, the Queen was blamed for leading the King astray; she was seen as grasping and interfering, and responsible for the aggressive promotion of her relations and their undue influence with Edward. The Duke of Milan was informed that, “since her coronation, [the Queen] has always exerted herself to aggrandize her relations. She has five brothers and as many sisters, and has brought things to such a pass that they have the entire government of this realm, to such an extent that the rest of the lords about the government were one with the Earl of Warwick, who has always been great, and deservedly so.”¹⁸ Even though there may have been some exaggeration in foreign reports of the 1460s, twenty years later we find that the Wydevilles were still “detested by the nobles because they, who were ignoble or newly made, were advanced beyond those who far excelled them in breeding and wisdom,”¹⁹ a viewpoint in keeping with the social and cultural sensibilities of the age.

The unpopularity of the Wydevilles centered chiefly upon the aggrandizement of the Queen’s father and elder brothers (and later her sons by her first marriage), which led to the whole family being vilified. Yet the Wydevilles were not without virtues or political strengths, even if they were rapacious. Of Elizabeth’s uncles, Anthony, the Lord Treasurer of England, was an erudite man of many talents, and Lionel, who became Bishop of Salisbury, was an Oxford-educated canon lawyer.

The power of the Wydevilles was everywhere acknowledged. Appearing one day in 1469 equipped with walking boots and a staff, King Edward’s fool jested to his master’s face, “Upon my faith, sir, I have passed through many countries of your realm, and in places that I have passed the Rivers have been so high that I could barely scape through them!”²⁰ Yet the Wydeville men were loyal to Edward IV and served him well in the various capacities to which he appointed them; and they did not dominate in his counsels to the exclusion of all others, for Warwick, William, Lord Hastings, and John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, remained highly influential in Edward’s inner circle of advisers.

Elizabeth’s grandparents were an attractive couple. Lord Rivers had been “renowned for being the most handsome knight in England”²¹ and Jacquetta of Luxembourg was “an exceedingly handsome gentlewoman.”²² She had retained her title and rank, and remained first lady in the land until Henry VI married Margaret of Anjou in 1445. She had borne Wydeville sixteen children, of whom Queen Elizabeth was the eldest. During the first phase of the Wars of the Roses, the Wydevilles had naturally supported the House of Lancaster: Lord Rivers and his eldest son, Anthony, had fought for Henry VI at Towton. After Edward IV became King in 1461, they speedily changed sides, and Edward pardoned Rivers for “all manner of offenses and trespasses done against us.” Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, was frequently at court during Elizabeth’s childhood, so the princess must have come to know her grandmother well.

She probably grew up with only dim memories of her maternal grandfather, Richard Wydeville, who died when she was three. He had been created Earl Rivers in the year of her birth, to “the displeasure of the whole kingdom.”²³ Having distinguished himself fighting in France under Henry V and Bedford, he had since risen high on his own abilities. Yet his enemies never allowed this man whom Warwick’s father had sneeringly called “knave’s son” to forget his humble origins, and there were accusations that he had been “made by marriage.”²⁴ His reputation was compounded by his being rapacious and vengeful, and he was not above using extortion to get what he wanted.

Elizabeth Wydeville was to bear the King ten children. On August 11, 1467, at Windsor Castle, she was delivered of the second, another daughter, Mary, fair-haired and blue-eyed.²⁵ The Queen’s mother, the Duchess of Bedford, came to court to assist at the lying-in. The new princess was baptized at Westminster in the presence of the French ambassador, with Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, acting as one of the sponsors.

On October 9, 1467, at Westminster, the King granted “for life” to his twenty-month-old elder daughter, “the Princess Elizabeth, the manor of Great Linford, county of Buckingham, lately belonging to James [Butler], Earl of Wiltshire, and in the King’s hands.”²⁶Butler had been executed in 1461 and his titles confiscated to the crown. It is unlikely that Elizabeth ever visited Great Linford; the King would have assigned it to her so that the manor rents could maintain her during her childhood. She held it until 1474, when it was sold to Gerard Caniziani, a London merchant.²⁷

The manor of Sheen, a royal palace in Surrey, had been granted to the Queen in 1467, for life, probably as a nursery for her children, and by October 9, 1468, the two little princesses, Elizabeth and Mary, were living at Sheen Palace in the care of Margery, Lady Berners, their lady mistress. On that date, the Queen was granted £400 per annum [£200,200] for their expenses until such time as they married.²⁸

The Italian visitor was not the only foreigner struck by “the want of affection strongly manifested” by the English toward their children; “for everyone, however rich he be, sends his children into the houses of others … And on inquiring the reason for the severity, they answered that they did it in order that their children might learn better manners.”²⁹ There was some concept of the innocence of childhood, but fifteenth-century parents were more concerned about civilizing their children and preventing them from falling into sin and wantonness; they recognized that mothers might not be as strict as others less close to their children: “let not the feminine pity of your wives destroy your children, and pamper them not at home … Dandle them not too dearly lest folly fasten on them.”³⁰There were also, of course, many advantages to be gained from placing offspring in great establishments, even as apprentices.

Royal children were not sent into noble households, as aristocratic children were, but at an early age were assigned households of their own, away from the court, and their day-to-day upbringing was supervised, not by their parents, but by the lady mistress. Giving royal children separate establishments not only reflected the magnificence of a ruler, but protected his infant offspring from the health hazards they risked in London and the court. Nursery palaces were usually outside the City “because, the air [in the country] being somewhat at large, the place is healthy; and the noise not so much, and so consequently quiet.”³¹

Sheen Palace dated from the early fourteenth century, when the original manor house had been owned by Isabella of France, wife of Edward II. After her death in 1358, her son, Edward III, had spent a fortune converting it into a fabulous palace. It became his favorite residence, and he died there in 1377. Appropriately, the name “sheen” meant “beautiful” or “bright.” In 1395, after his beloved queen, Anne of Bohemia, had died there of plague the year before, Richard II had the palace “utterly destroyed.” In 1414, on an adjacent site, Henry V erected what his chronicler, Thomas of Elmham, described as a “delightful mansion, of skillful and costly architecture, becoming to the royal dignity.” Completed by Henry VI, and moated, it was built of Caen stone around two courts, with the royal Privy Lodgings overlooking the River Thames, and was decorated in brilliant hues with stained-glass windows in azure, red, and purple tones. Edward IV’s rose-en-soleil badge featured prominently in the ceiling moldings alongside “antelopes, swans, harts, hinds,” and lions.³² This was the house in which Elizabeth spent part of her childhood.

The daily regimen followed by Elizabeth and Mary was probably similar to that later laid down by the King for their brother, the future Edward V, when he was three years old, and the routine described in the household ordinances of their paternal uncle, George, Duke of Clarence, Edward IV’s younger brother.³³ The children would have been roused around 6:00 A.M., so that they could “get up at a convenient hour according to [their] age” in time to attend Matins in their bedchamber. Then the bell rang for them to go to Mass, which was sung by the household chaplain in their chapel or their closet. The regular observance of the liturgical services was seen as essential for the children of the King. Immediately after Mass they had breakfast, which might have consisted of bread, butter, ale, fish, meat, or eggs. Dinner was at 10:00 or 11:00 A.M.; it was “honorably served” with dishes “borne by worshipful folks” and liveried esquires, and might have lasted for up to two hours. During mealtimes, edifying and noble tales would have been read out to the royal sisters. That the young princesses lived in some state is evidenced by the appointment of a knight of the trencher and a page of the chamber to be in continual attendance upon them.³⁴

After dinner, the girls would have been expected to wash and perhaps have a nap. Later, drinks and bread were served before the bell summoned everyone to Evensong. Supper would be served at 4:00 P.M. Evening was customarily a time of “honest disports,” recreation such as games and music, until bedtime, which for Elizabeth and Mary was probably at 8:00 P.M., after a snack called “all night” (comprising bread, ale, or wine) had been served. Although their attendants were no doubt ordered to “enforce themselves” to make the children “merry and joyous toward bed,” household accounts of the period contain barely any references to toys.³⁵

After the traverse—the door curtain—was drawn at 8:00 P.M., no one but the princesses’ own attendants might enter their chamber. At night, a candle or cresset would be left burning there, and they slumbered safely, for the outer gates were barred at 9:00 P.M. in winter and 10:00 P.M. in summer, porters were on watch, and watchmen patrolled three or four times a night, checking every chamber. Their brother would have someone watching over him all night, lest disease rob the King of his “precious son and gift,” and it follows that his older sisters’ attendants watched over them too.³⁶

Religious instruction began at a very early age, and children were expected to know their psalter by the age of four.³⁷ Feast days—notably Candlemas, Easter, St. George’s Day, Whitsun, All Hallows, and Christmas, as well as a crowded calendar of saints’ days—were marked by special services in chapel, sermons, and entertainments, and the children made offerings at Mass on holy days. On Maundy Thursday the girls would have given gifts to the poor; on Good Friday they would have been taught to creep to the Cross on their knees. During Lent and Advent they were expected to fast or abstain from meat. At New Year they would have received Yuletide gifts, as was customary; on Twelfth Night they would have been allowed to join the feasting and revelry; and no doubt they laughed at the antics of the Lord of Misrule on the Feast of the Epiphany. Such was the cycle of their year.

Religion played a major role in Elizabeth’s upbringing. The great houses in which she was reared had chapels, oratories, and closets with sumptuous furnishings and tapestries, brilliant stained glass, illuminated psalters, primers, missals, offices, and other devotional books, rich altar cloths, bejeweled crucifixes, statues of the Virgin and the saints, painted retables, gleaming vestments, gold and silver chalices and candlesticks, carpets, chairs for the King and Queen, and an organ. Often the royal pew was in a gallery above the body of the chapel where the household worshipped. Elizabeth’s day would have been punctuated by bells announcing Mass and the liturgical hours, her ears regularly assailed by the singing of antiphons and polyphony, her nose used to the smell of incense. Small wonder that she grew up to be deeply pious.

Sometimes the little princesses were brought to court, to be paraded at festivals and state visits. There they joined their mother’s retinue, learning by her example (and that of her ladies) manners, music, singing, dancing, embroidery, and anything else considered needful to prepare them for their future roles as royal wives and mothers and the ornaments of courts. They would have been dressed in miniature versions of the luxurious attire worn by ladies of high rank, learning as they grew older to manage heavy fabrics, long court trains, and elaborate headdresses. Good deportment was taught from an early age.

To the young princesses, their parents—whom they did not see often—would have appeared as awe-inspiring figures, distant and worthy of the highest reverence, not only because they were royal, but also because children were brought up to revere, honor, and obey their parents, and be dutiful toward them all their lives. How much more daunting that would have been when your parents were the King and Queen! Each evening, whenever they were together, they would kneel before their father and mother and crave their blessing, which was given “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.”³⁸

Good manners and courtesy were drummed into them. The Babees’ Book of 1475, a manual of courtesy for the young, exhorts children to cut their bread with a knife, eat quietly, wipe their mouths and hands after drinking, share the dishes served to them with guests, “and in your feeding look ye appear goodly, and keep your tongue from jangling, and always advance yourself in virtue. Sweet children, always have your delight in courtesy and in gentleness, and eschew boisterousness with all your might.” The young were taught that they must never lean their elbows on the table, pick their noses, teeth, or nails at mealtimes, eat food with their knives, or pick up meat with their fingers. The humanist scholar and theologian, Desiderius Erasmus, insisted that a child should have “a kind, modest, and honest look”; it should not speak unless spoken to, have a furrowed brow or a dirty nose—signs of bad breeding—or wipe its nose on its clothing, or suck in or puff out its cheeks, stick out its tongue, yawn, laugh immoderately, spit, or be seen with messy hair or uncleaned teeth. Swearing was seen as particularly offensive, and children and servants were often punished for it. Elizabeth’s elders would have enforced rules like these. Naughty children were often beaten, and it was felt that indulging or spoiling a child would lead to the need for physical chastisement later: “who spareth the rod hateth the child.”³⁹

Edward IV’s officers were instructed to restrain the chatter of young guests at the King’s table. There is some evidence that royal mealtimes were kept in silence, or possibly only a low murmur of conversation was permitted. The King was insistent that no “customable swearer, brawler, backbiter, common hazarder, or adulterer” be allowed to work in his children’s households, and all conversation in their presence was to be of “virtue, honor, cunning, wisdom, and deeds of worship [renown].” Those who came late to Matins were punished by being served only bread and water at dinner, and any who drew weapons in the household, or went to law without the permission of the Queen’s council, were to be clapped in the stocks or dismissed.⁴⁰

Like most females, the princess and her sisters would have been reared to an awareness that they had been born of an inferior sex, and that consequently their freedoms were limited—although the example of their mother would have demonstrated that women of rank could be enormously influential, albeit with the consent of their menfolk. Medieval women were regarded variously as weak and passive; or as domineering harridans, temptresses, or whores. It was held that young girls needed to be protected from themselves so that they could be nurtured as chaste and submissive maidens and mothers.

The princesses would have grown up thinking it normal that their marriages would be arranged for them, and that it was their duty to render obedience first to their parents, and later to their future husbands. Marriage was seen as a desirable estate for both sexes, and for most women it defined their role in life, for with monasticism in decline, relatively few became nuns in this era. It was expected that royal and aristocratic women would marry, and marry well; and it was rare to find one who died a spinster, unless she had become a nun. Thus the upbringing of girls was geared toward finding a suitable husband, one of the right social class and standing, and it was incumbent largely upon mothers to ensure that they did, and to see that their daughters grew up chaste, discreet, humble, pious, and obedient. In the early years, queens, of course, delegated much of this role to the lady mistress of the nursery, but they did usually take a keen interest in preparing their daughters for marriage.

A girl’s future status, happiness, and success depended largely on the marriage she made, her relationship with her husband, and her ability to perform her wifely duties. Most aristocratic brides brought with them dowries consisting of lands, property, and perhaps money; if they were royal, their persons would be used to cement political treaties between princes, to secure peace, prosperity, or an ally in war. A father marrying off his daughter would also look to her future financial security, negotiating a jointure, or living, for her maintenance during her married life and in the event of her widowhood; often it comprised rents from estates, of which even a queen’s jointure was largely made up. Upon marriage, a woman’s property and title (if she had one) transferred to her husband; she retained no control over any of it.

The desirability of a wife therefore lay not in her looks or character, but in her wealth and breeding. Marriage was essentially a contract. Love was not a prime consideration: it was hoped that it would develop after marriage, and indeed it was the duty of a wife to love her husband and to remain unquestionably faithful. Nevertheless, there is evidence that many parents did care that their children were happily married: they allowed the prospective spouses time to get to know and love each other, and on occasions would not even proceed with the wedding if either objected. At the other end of the scale there were parents who beat their daughters into submission,⁴¹ while nearly all frowned on clandestine marriages, and kept idle hands and minds busy to avoid them from being unsuitably diverted by bold and importunate young men.

Once wed, a married woman had no legal identity of her own. She was expected to render obedience to her husband as her lord and head, for he was to be to her as Christ was to the Church, and he had the legal right to punish and chastise her. Toward him she was to show love, gentleness, and submission.

Nevertheless, women of Elizabeth’s class could exercise power, patronage, and authority; they might even venture into politics. Yet all these advantages came only through marriage: what influence and autonomy they enjoyed was entirely at the discretion or behest of their husbands, and not all husbands were prepared to allow their wives such leeway.

Such was the future that awaited Elizabeth of York, but the most important event on her horizon at this time was not some distant marriage but the arrival of her sister, Cecily, on March 20, 1469, at Westminster. The birth of a third daughter, despite her being “very handsome,” was a disappointment to the King. He and his lords “rejoiced exceedingly, though they would have preferred a son,”⁴² especially now, when Edward’s throne was under threat. With a son to follow him, a monarch’s position was invariably more secure. No one imagined for a moment that Elizabeth, the King’s eldest daughter, might rule after him as Queen. Her value was purely matrimonial.

Events of which the young Elizabeth can have had little awareness, but would adversely affect her life, were gathering momentum. By 1468 rumors were rife of conflict between “the Earl [of Warwick] and the Queen’s blood.” Warwick could not stomach “the great rule which the Lord Rivers and his blood bare at that time within the realm,”⁴³ and could not conceal his anger when, in 1468, the King married his sister Margaret to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Warwick, who pursued Charles the Bold for years “with a most deadly hatred,”⁴⁴ had favored an alliance with France, Burgundy’s enemy, but the Wydevilles had used “their utmost endeavors to promote the marriage, and were favoring other designs to which he was strongly opposed.” This finally alienated the earl,⁴⁵ and drove him, in 1469, to form an alliance with the King’s disaffected younger brother, George, Duke of Clarence, whom Elizabeth had displaced in the line of succession; whereupon the two men began intriguing against Edward IV.

Clarence was then twenty, tall, fair, and regal. He had a surface charm and “a mastery of popular eloquence,”⁴⁶ but these barely masked a weak, discontented, and vicious character. Edward had been very generous to him, but Clarence was jealous and hungry for power. Warwick now bolstered Clarence’s pretensions by offering to overthrow Edward, make him King, and marry him to Isabella, the elder of his two daughters; as Warwick had no son, these girls were the greatest heiresses in England. Edward’s brothers, Clarence and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had repeatedly sought them in marriage, but the King had consistently refused, foreseeing that such alliances would enhance the already disconcerting power of the Nevilles. Naturally this had given Warwick further cause for grievance.

In July 1469, Clarence openly defied the King and married Isabella Neville in Calais, where Warwick was captain. Then he and Warwick sailed back to England, where they rose in arms against Edward IV, whom they took prisoner at the Battle of Edgecote in August 1469. They then spread the story that the King was a bastard, the son of Cecily, Duchess of York, and an unnamed English archer.

This story has been much debated in recent years, after historian Dr. Michael Jones claimed in 2002 that it was the truth.⁴⁷ His theory naturally has a crucial bearing on the legitimate right of Edward IV and his children, including Elizabeth, to inherit the crown. Sensationally, Dr. Jones asserted that Edward’s bastardy compromised every sovereign’s title since 1461, and that the true king of Great Britain should be Michael Abney-Hastings, an Australian forklift-truck driver who is descended from George, Duke of Clarence. But in 1485, Henry VII was confirmed as King by Parliament, before he married Elizabeth of York, the Yorkist heiress. His title did not legally depend on hers, and thus he and his descendants were—and still are—the lawful occupants of the throne.

Dr. Jones claimed that Edward IV, who was born on April 28, 1442, was conceived when Richard, Duke of York, was away fighting the French at Pontoise, near Paris, at which time Cecily Neville was allegedly having an affair with an English archer called Blaybourne, of the Rouen garrison. What Dr. Jones discovered was an entry in the registers of Rouen Cathedral under the year 1441, showing that York’s campaign in Pontoise lasted longer than historians had previously thought. The registers also revealed that Edward was christened in the private chapel of Rouen Castle, while his brother, Edmund, born in May 1443, also at Rouen, was afforded a bigger christening in the cathedral—from which Dr. Jones inferred that he was probably the true heir.

York must have known about the contrast between the christenings; it was probably his decision to make more of Edmund’s, as he had named his second son heir to his French lands, so a high-profile baptism in Rouen was appropriate. It is scarcely credible that, knowing Edward was not his son, he arranged a grander christening for the true-born Edmund—thus publicly proclaiming his cuckoldry to the world. He is more likely to have disowned Edward, and his failure to do so would be incomprehensible in an age in which the laws of inheritance were rigidly observed and enforced by the aristocracy, and blood descent was of prime importance. The landed classes took such a serious view of adultery in a noblewoman that the law provided for her to be executed at her husband’s behest, and even kings acknowledged that the husband’s word was law, and preferred not to interfere.⁴⁸ It is hard to believe that York, who was proud of his royal lineage, would have overlooked the presence of a cuckoo in the nest who stood to inherit everything he had.

The quiet baptism can easily be explained by a need for haste, if there was concern because the infant was premature or too weak or sickly to survive. In support of this, we have Cecily’s obstetric history. Before Edward was born, she had produced two children, one of whom had died soon after birth in 1441; four of the children she bore later would also die young. The loss of five children out of twelve, while not uncommon for the time, might suggest that there was a history of premature birth, which may be one reason why Edward was christened quietly.

There are other problems with Dr. Jones’s theory, not least of which is the fact that Cecily’s whereabouts in the crucial period are unknown. There is no primary evidence from the 1440s that mentions Blaybourne. The earliest historical reference to Edward IV’s alleged bastardy occurs in 1469,⁴⁹ when Warwick and Clarence used—and probably invented—it as propaganda in order to have him deposed. No one seems to have taken their assertion seriously. Warwick had earlier spread false rumors that Margaret of Anjou’s son was the fruit of adultery. Clarence, it seems, was ready to seize on any pretext to impugn his brother’s line so that he could claim the throne, and even asserted that Edward IV’s marriage was invalid because he had violated “established custom” by marrying a widow.⁵⁰

According to Philippe de Commines, in 1475 a lord entertaining Louis XI of France by impersonating Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, had the duke asserting that Edward’s father had been an archer called Blaybourne; this was in the wake of Edward making a profitable treaty with Louis, Charles’s enemy, and it sounds more like a joke or malicious gossip than a statement of fact. In 1478, when Clarence’s allegation about Edward’s bastardy was raised in Parliament, the King publicly refuted it. In 1483, when Edward’s youngest brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, raised the matter again and defamed his mother in a bid to seize the throne,⁵¹ Londoners gave the allegation such short shrift that he quickly had to come up with another pretext.

For some the Blaybourne story is bolstered by a tale told by Dominic Mancini, the Italian who visited England in 1483 and wrote that year: “the story runs”—which suggests he gave it little credence—that in 1464, outraged at Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Wydeville, Cecily Neville “fell into such a frenzy that she offered to submit to a public inquiry, and asserted that Edward was not the offspring of her husband, the Duke of York, but was conceived in adultery, and therefore in no wise worthy of the honor of kingship.” We do not know how Mancini learned of Cecily’s outburst of nearly twenty years earlier, but his account reads as if he himself knew it was merely farfetched gossip. Certainly this was a strange claim for the King’s mother to make, however angry: one that compromised her son’s title to the throne, her own reputation, and the rights of any grandchildren born of the King’s marriage; and it seems inconceivable that she would publicly brand herself an adulteress. Maybe Cecily, who was used to “ruling the King as she pleases”⁵² and was incensed at his misalliance, was so hysterical with rage that she said the first thing she could think of that could hurt him—if, of course, she said anything at all, for Mancini probably picked up on propaganda deliberately circulated in 1483 in support of Richard of Gloucester’s claim to the throne: the official line then was that Richard was the only true surviving son of his father.

Gloucester, short, slight, and dark, was said to have resembled Richard, Duke of York, in looks; Edward, tall and fairer in coloring, did not. This was said to be evidence that he was not York’s son. But Edward was very like his sister Elizabeth in appearance, if the similarity between his portraits and her tomb effigy in Wingfield Church, Suffolk, is anything to go by. Possibly they both favored their mother.

Finally, there is the matter of dates. If Edward was a full-term baby, conception would probably have taken place between August 2 and 10, 1441; but if he was premature, obviously it would have occurred later. York was campaigning in Pontoise from July 14 to August 21, after which he returned to Rouen in triumph. It is well within the bounds of probability that, in the flush of reunion, he got his wife pregnant with a child who was born prematurely. That is the likeliest theory, given the dates and the quiet, possibly hurried, christening. The fact that Edward survived to be a healthy adult may be due to the fact that he was only about two weeks premature. A margin of what might have been only eleven days cannot have any credible bearing on his paternity.

Without any evidence of her whereabouts, it cannot just be assumed that Cecily was staying in Rouen during the Pontoise campaign. The diverse birthplaces of her twelve children show that she often traveled around with her husband, which suggests that they were close and wanted to be together. Even if York was a hundred miles away, it was possible for a rider to cover that distance in a short time; in 1202, for example, King John marched an army more than eighty miles in two days. Cecily could have traveled to be near her husband, even if he could not visit her.

The most crucial piece of evidence is to be found in Cecily’s will, made shortly before her death in 1495, in which she refers to her husband York as “father unto the most Christian prince my lord and son, King Edward IV.”⁵³ Her other sons, George and Richard—the ones who had impugned her reputation by publicly alleging her adultery—are not mentioned in that document.⁵⁴ It is unlikely that the devout Cecily, knowing she was soon to face divine judgment, would have set forth such a falsehood in her last testament.

At the time of Edgecote, Elizabeth Wydeville was visiting Norwich with at least two of her daughters, of whom Elizabeth was probably one. They had been received with pageants, banners, songs, and ceremony, and were lodged in the house of the Friars Preachers. There they received the dreadful news that Warwick had not only emerged victorious at Edgecote, but had taken the King prisoner and had the Queen’s father, Lord Rivers, and her brother, John Wydeville, beheaded without trial.

Having a grandfather beheaded was shocking enough—although, at three, one hopes that Elizabeth was spared too many details—but the impact on her mother must have been profound, and it was compounded by the arrest that same month of the Duchess Jacquetta, who was accused of witchcraft. It was said she had used leaden images to bring about her daughter’s marriage to the King and encompass Warwick’s destruction. There was a political agenda to this, of course, but Jacquetta had sufficient friends to take up her cause with the King’s council. Soon afterward the case was dismissed because a crucial witness refused to come forward to testify to having seen the images, but this unpleasant episode, and Rivers’s execution, showed how far Edward’s enemies were prepared to go to bring down the Wydevilles. Nevertheless, during Warwick’s brief spell of power in August 1469, the Queen and her children were left unmolested, although Elizabeth Wydeville was permitted to keep only “scant state.”⁵⁵

Before long, however, Edward was a free man. There was little support for Warwick, and early that autumn problems on the Scottish border engaged his attention and his resources, forcing him to release the King. In September, Edward entered London in triumph, then began scheming to regain the support of the nobles. Although Elizabeth was not yet four years old, he had her proclaimed his heiress apparent—a move calculated to upset Clarence⁵⁶—and dangled the carrot of her hand in marriage to his advantage. It was the fate of princesses to be the subject of alliances beneficial to the realm and to their royal fathers, but Elizabeth’s marriage was a matter of prime importance, as she was the heiress to the throne until such time as the Queen bore a son. She might normally have been affianced to some great foreign prince, or the heir to a throne, but in the wake of the rebellion, urgent political considerations dictated the King’s policy. In the autumn of 1469, in a bid to retain the loyalty of a powerful ally, Edward created Warwick’s brother, John Neville, Marquess of Montagu, and offered Elizabeth as a bride for Neville’s five-year-old son George—all in the hope that, were he himself to be killed, Neville would ensure that Elizabeth and George were crowned before Clarence could seize the throne. But this proposed marriage did not weigh heavily in the balance with Warwick.

By Christmas, Warwick and Clarence had been pardoned and were back at Westminster. But Edward clearly did not trust them, and still suspected Clarence of having designs on his crown. On January 5, 1470, Elizabeth was formally betrothed to George Neville, whom Edward created Duke of Bedford the same day.⁵⁷ It is unlikely, however, that he ever intended that the marriage should go ahead; it was a desperate measure born of a desperate situation, and scant faith was placed in the union of these two children ever taking place.⁵⁸

By the spring of 1470 the King had regained control of the government and denounced Warwick and Clarence as traitors. They fled abroad, only to begin plotting with Louis XI for the restoration of Henry VI. Louis, known as “the Universal Spider” because of the skill with which he manipulated his enemies, was always eager to exploit Edward IV’s troubles, and persuaded the exiled Margaret of Anjou into an unlikely alliance with Warwick.

On Friday, June 8, 1470, the Queen arrived with Elizabeth, then four, at Canterbury to join the King (who had come two days earlier) for a great celebration of the feast of Pentecost. Prior John Oxney and his monks received them all at the great door of the Abbey of St. Augustine, and a service of thanksgiving followed. Elizabeth’s uncle, Anthony Wydeville, Earl Rivers, arrived the next day, with other distinguished guests, and on the Sunday, the princess went in procession with her parents to High Mass, celebrated by Thomas Rotherham, Bishop of Rochester. Monday was spent at the abbey, attending High Mass and Vespers, then the Queen traveled back to London with Elizabeth, while Edward journeyed east to inspect the fortifications at Dover and Sandwich before rejoining them.⁵⁹

During her visit to Canterbury, Elizabeth would surely have seen the shrine of St. Thomas Becket, the martyred archbishop, which was adorned with jewels and valuable offerings, illuminated by candles, and surrounded by a floor bearing the imprints of the knees of thousands of pilgrims. It would have made a lasting impression on a young child, especially if she was told of the many miracles the saint was said to have wrought. There is evidence that Elizabeth’s devotion to St. Thomas remained with her to the end of her life.⁶⁰

In July, wanting to consolidate his alliance with Margaret of Anjou, Warwick urged the marriage of his fourteen-year-old daughter, Anne Neville, to Prince Edward of Lancaster. But Margaret was reluctant because, she said, “she should find a more profitable advantage with England. And indeed, she showed unto the King of France a letter which she said was sent to her out of England last week, by the which was offered to her son my lady the Princess.”⁶¹

Elizabeth was, of course, betrothed to George Neville, and Edward IV would not break that betrothal until later, when George’s father had gone over to Warwick;⁶² but marrying Elizabeth to Edward of Lancaster would have been one way to prevent the marriage with Anne Neville, and might have averted a further war between Lancaster and York. No doubt Margaret envisaged her son being acknowledged as Edward IV’s heir, for want of one of his own, and perhaps ascending the throne on the King’s death. But Queen Elizabeth was expecting another child that might this time be a son, and there is no other evidence that Edward IV made such an approach to Margaret at this time;⁶³ her remark was probably a bluff, intended to extract better terms from Warwick. In July 1470, after King Louis and Warwick had put pressure on Margaret, her son married Anne Neville.

Elizabeth was four when her father was forced to flee his realm. In September 1470, as he prepared to deal with an invasion by the combined forces of Warwick and Queen Margaret, she and her sisters were taken by their mother to the Tower of London for safety. Anticipating such a crisis, the Queen had arranged for the Tower to be “well victualed and fortified.”⁶⁴ Elizabeth Wydeville was then seven months pregnant with her fourth child. A luxurious chamber in the royal apartments was made ready for her confinement, but she was destined never to use it, for when Warwick invaded, his brother Montagu deserted Edward, and early in October the news was cried in London that the King and his youngest brother Gloucester had fled to the Low Countries with only the clothes on their backs. Hard on the heels of this came tidings that Warwick and Clarence were marching on London.

It must have been bewildering for Elizabeth and her sisters to be hurried in secrecy and silence by their mother and grandmother into a barge in the middle of the night and rowed upstream to Westminster. There, they made their way past the palace to Westminster Abbey, where the distraught Queen “registered herself as a sanctuary woman.”⁶⁵ She was eight months pregnant and must have been “almost desperate of all comfort”⁶⁶ to have come to a place like St. Peter’s Sanctuary.

The sanctuary building was situated in the northwest corner of the abbey precincts, at the end of St. Margaret’s churchyard, where Westminster Guildhall now stands. It had been built in the eleventh century by King Edward the Confessor, and was constructed of thick stone walls strong enough to withstand a siege; they were demolished only with difficulty in 1750, by which time the practice of claiming sanctuary had long fallen into disuse. One stout oak door led into a cruciform-shaped interior consisting of two chapels, one above the other. Debtors used the upper level, common felons the lower. At Westminster, the right of sanctuary extended to the adjoining close and churchyard.

Since the seventh century, anyone fleeing justice, oppression, or the hostility of those in power could claim the right of sanctuary in a consecrated place, for there was a strong belief that holy ground was inviolable, and that anyone forcibly removing someone from sanctuary was guilty of sacrilege. Violation of the protection of sanctuary was punishable by excommunication.

The right of sanctuary was originally confined to churches, but later its limits were extended to church precincts, and sometimes even to a larger surrounding area. By Norman times there were two kinds of sanctuary in England: a general right of sanctuary conferred on every church, and a peculiar one granted by royal charter. General sanctuaries afforded forty days’ protection only to those guilty of felonies. A convicted felon who sought sanctuary was afforded protection for thirty to forty days, after which, subject to certain severe conditions, he had to leave the kingdom within a specified time and take an oath not to return without the King’s leave. Peculiars gave immunity for life, even to those accused of high or petty treason. The latter was enjoyed by at least twenty-two churches, including Westminster Abbey, which was the foremost sanctuary in England. Elizabeth was to spend, in total, more than a year of her life here.

The sanctuary was almost deserted when Elizabeth Wydeville arrived with her three daughters and her mother⁶⁷ and placed them and herself in the charge and protection of Thomas Milling, the Abbot of Westminster. A kindly, hospitable man, he would not hear of them lodging in the common sanctuary building, where they would rub shoulders with murderers and thieves; instead, he insisted they stay as his guests in his house, Cheyneygates, by the West Door of the abbey, placing the three best rooms at their disposal and providing the Queen with several items “for her comfort.”

Parts of medieval Cheyneygates survive today, notably two splendid rooms over the entrance to the cloisters—sufficient, despite wartime bombing and heavy restoration, to show that the Queen and her daughters were luxuriously housed while in sanctuary—and the sumptuous Jerusalem Chamber, the abbot’s principal apartment, then hung with rich tapestries, which was one of the rooms assigned to Elizabeth Wydeville. All date from the fourteenth century, making Cheyneygates the oldest surviving medieval house in London. The rest of the house, which now comprises the Deanery, has been rebuilt. The stone fireplace in the Jerusalem Chamber is Tudor, with a later overmantel, but the original ceiling displays Richard II’s crowned initial. The paneling is nineteenth century. Henry IV, first sovereign of the House of Lancaster, had died in this room in 1413. Now it was to serve as the Queen’s great chamber; she also had use of the abbot’s great hall with its minstrels’ gallery, a privy chamber, probably used as a bedchamber, and the courtyard, which would afford Elizabeth and her sisters their only means of enjoying fresh air for some months to come. Had they but known it, they were effectively prisoners in a gilded cage, for their mother dared not leave—and with good reason.

Law and order had broken down in London, which seethed with unrest as felons left sanctuary to infest the streets, prisons were broken open, and mobs looted and rioted unchecked—all in the name of Warwick. The Queen, alarmed, immediately sent Abbot Milling to entreat the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London not to resist Warwick’s forces or do anything to provoke him, lest he force his way into the abbey “to despoil and kill her.”⁶⁸

On October 6, Warwick and Clarence entered the City and took control of the Tower, whereupon the Lord Mayor had no choice but to come to terms with them. They speedily restored order and proclaimed the feeble Henry VI to the throne once more, transferring him from his prison in the Tower to the opulent rooms vacated by the Queen. He would be formally restored to the throne on October 30.

Warwick had little reason to love “the Queen that was,”⁶⁹ but he did not persecute women. Instead, he issued a proclamation forbidding his followers to defoul churches and sanctuaries in London and elsewhere, upon pain of death.⁷⁰ Despite this, the Queen evidently felt it was safer to stay in sanctuary with her daughters for the present; with the situation so volatile and uncertain, no one could predict how long they would have to remain there. Worse still, she was “in great penury, forsaken of all her friends”⁷¹ and “in great trouble,”⁷² lacking even “such things as mean men’s wives have in superfluity.” A London butcher, John Gould, came to her rescue. He loyally donated “half a beef and two muttons weekly for the sustention of her household.” A kindly fishmonger provided victuals for Fridays and fast days. As the Queen neared her confinement, Elizabeth Greystoke, Lady Scrope, was appointed by Henry VI’s council to wait on her, and paid £10 [£5,000] for her services.⁷³ Marjory (or Margaret) Cobb, who had delivered Princess Cecily and been rewarded with a pension,⁷⁴ was brought in to act as midwife, and the Queen’s own physician, Dr. Dominic de Sirego, was permitted to attend her.

On the feast of All Saints, November 1, 1470,⁷⁵ in Cheyneygates, the Queen “was delivered of a son, in very poor estate.”⁷⁶ It seemed ironic that the long-awaited heir should be born during his father’s exile, yet “from this circumstance derived some hope and consolation for such persons as remained faithful in their allegiance to Edward.” King Henry’s adherents, however, “thought the birth of the child of no importance.”⁷⁷

The little prince was christened in the abbot’s house by the sub-prior, “without pomp,” and “with no more ceremony than if he had been a poor man’s son”; the Duchess of Bedford and Lady Scrope were godmothers at the font, while the abbot and the prior, John Eastney—in the absence of anyone of higher rank—stood as godfathers. Young Elizabeth bore the chrisom—the robe put on a child after baptism to symbolize its purification from sin. The infant was named Edward, after his father.

Elizabeth and her mother and siblings had “a long time abode and sojourned at Westminster”: they were to endure another five months in sanctuary, “in right great trouble, sorrow, and heaviness.” The Queen was painfully aware that her son might be seen as a threat to the new régime. She knew that “the security of her person rested solely on the great franchise of that holy place.” But Warwick left them largely unmolested, and the Queen “sustained” her ordeal “with all manner of patience belonging to any creature, and as constantly as ever was seen by any person of such high estate to endure.”⁷⁸ Yet “what pain had she, what labor and anguish did she endure? To hear of her weeping it was great pity,” and “when she remembered the King she was woe”⁷⁹—and doubtless Elizabeth was too, witnessing her mother in such distress.

Spurred on by news of the birth of his heir, and enriched by funds provided by the Duke of Burgundy, Edward IV began gathering a fleet and raising an army, intent on reclaiming his kingdom. In the spring of 1471 he invaded England, which fell to him shire by shire. Clarence abandoned Warwick and made peace with his brother. On April 9, marching south from Dunstable, Edward sent “very comfortable messages to his Queen”⁸⁰ in sanctuary, giving her great cause for hope that he might prevail over his enemies. Two days later he marched into London unhindered and reclaimed his throne in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Henry VI was again deposed, and returned to the Tower.

That day, after Edward had given thanks in Westminster Abbey for his victory, and come in procession to the Palace of Westminster, the Queen and her children were escorted there from the sanctuary. There followed a joyful reunion, which proved almost too much for Elizabeth Wydeville, and Edward had to comfort her, for she had been deeply affected by her long ordeal in sanctuary. “Ne’theless, she had brought into the world, to the King’s greatest joy, a fair son, a prince, wherewith she presented her husband at his coming, to his heart’s singular comfort and gladness.”⁸¹ Edward was to refer to his son and heir as “God’s precious sending and gift, and our most desired treasure.”

Elizabeth must have been overjoyed to see her father again. A contemporary poem celebrated this touching reunion:

The King comforted the Queen and other ladies eke [also],

His sweet babes full tenderly he did kiss;

The young Prince he beheld, and in his arms did bear;

Thus his bale [anguish] turned him to bliss.

After sorrow, joy, the course of the world is.

The sight of his babes released part of his woe;

Thus the will of God in everything is do.⁸²

In July 1471 the King would appoint Abbot Milling chancellor to Prince Edward in reward for his kindness to the Queen and her children while they were in sanctuary, and in 1474 he made him Bishop of Hereford. In return for his “true heart,” Butcher Gould was given permission to load his ship, The Trinity of London, at any port and to trade freely with her for a year. Dr. de Sirego was paid £40 [£20,000] for attending the Queen’s confinement, and Mother Cobb received a pension of £12 [£6,000] for her services.⁸³ In 1478, in thanksgiving for the safe delivery of her son in the most difficult circumstances, the Queen founded a chapel in Westminster Abbey dedicated to St. Erasmus, the protector of women in childbirth.

That night “the King returned to London, and the Queen with him,” and their children. They stayed at Baynard’s Castle, the London residence of Edward’s mother, Cecily Neville, Duchess of York.⁸⁴ There, young Elizabeth found herself enjoying her first taste of freedom in over five months. In the evening, the King and Queen attended divine service, and the next day, April 11, the royal family kept Good Friday with all solemnity.⁸⁵

Afterward the King “took advice of the great lords of his blood and others of his council” on his next strategy,⁸⁶ and later that day the Queen, her children, her mother, and the Duchess of York, accompanied by Earl Rivers and the Archbishop of Canterbury, moved to the royal palace in the Tower of London for safety, while the King marched north to meet his enemies. On Easter Sunday, April 13, Edward defeated Warwick’s forces at the Battle of Barnet, leaving the mighty Warwick, whom men had called “Kingmaker,” dead on the field. Warwick’s brother, Lord Montagu, whose son Elizabeth was to have wed, was also slain.

But Queen Margaret and her son were still at large, recruiting men. Relentlessly, Edward’s forces marched west, pursuing them toward the River Severn, to prevent them from linking up with Lancastrian supporters in Wales, and on May 4 he decisively defeated them at the Battle of Tewkesbury. Edward of Lancaster was slain after the battle—probably killed by Clarence and Gloucester on King Edward’s orders⁸⁷—and Queen Margaret was taken prisoner. The King then marched in triumph to London, his throne secure at last.

Even now “the fury of many of the malignants was not averted.”⁸⁸ The last days of this first phase of the Wars of the Roses were not without terrifying drama—and young Elizabeth was at the center of it. On May 12, Thomas Neville, the Bastard of Fauconberg, Warwick’s cousin, Vice Admiral of the Fleet and one of Queen Margaret’s most zealous supporters, made a bid to free Henry VI from the Tower. Having sailed up the Thames with a force of seventeen thousand men of Kent and “the remains of Warwick’s mercenaries, mariners, and pirates,”⁸⁹ he arrived at the gates of London Bridge—“a very famous bridge built partly of wood and partly of stone [and on it] houses and several gates”⁹⁰—intending to “subject this most opulent city to their ravages.”

Declaring that he had come to dethrone the usurper Edward and restore King Henry, he demanded permission from the Lord Mayor to march through the City and promised that his men should commit no disturbance or pillage. Then he showed the Lord Mayor and the citizens his commission from Warwick, only to be told it was no longer in force as Warwick was dead. Fauconberg was stunned by this news; he would not believe it, and persisted in his demands, but the City fathers resisted him, closed their gates, and began building barricades. They also, “with right great instance, moved the King in all possible haste to approach and come to the City, to the defense of the Queen, then being in the Tower of London, my Lord Prince and my ladies his daughters, all likely to stand in the greatest jeopardy that ever was.”⁹¹

The Bastard had his cannon ranged along the shore. He ordered his men to set fire to London Bridge, and simultaneously bombarded Aldgate and Bishopsgate, “where they made most furious assaults and laid waste everything with fire and sword.”

“God gave the Londoners stout hearts”:⁹² they bravely defended their bridge, while the cannon from the Tower thundered out in response to the attack. But the Bastard sailed downstream and unloaded five thousand men below the Tower, with the intention of attacking the City from the east. There was a real danger that these troops and the Lancastrian artillery might breach the Tower’s defenses; the Bastard’s men had already fired beer-houses near the fortress. In retaliation “the citizens lodged their great artillery against their adversaries and with violent shot thereof so galled them that they durst not abide in any place along the water side but were driven even from their own ordnance.”⁹³

In the Tower, five-year-old Elizabeth would have heard the bombardment and the noise; it was the closest she ever got to a battle. It must have been a terrifying episode—and one she probably never forgot. Outside, men were dying as the rebel assault was repelled, but now her uncle, Earl Rivers, accompanied by the Lieutenant of the Tower, Edmund Grey, Earl of Kent, led forth a force of five hundred men out of the Tower Postern and went to the aid of the citizens, “falling at the head of his horsemen upon the rear of the enemy” until they were overcome, and then chasing them as far as Stratford and Stepney. Seven hundred insurgents were killed in the fighting, and hundreds more taken prisoner afterward.

Fauconberg was forced to retreat across the Thames to where his ships were waiting, and fled.⁹⁴ “Everyone rejoiced” at the vanquishing of these rebels, and soon after, “King Edward entered London in state for the third time, with a retinue far greater than any of his former armies, and with standards unfurled and borne before him. There was now no enemy left for him to encounter.”⁹⁵

But Edward was taking no chances. “And the same night that King Edward came to London”—May 21, 1471—“King Henry was put to death between eleven and twelve o’clock,”⁹⁶ struck down while at prayer, according to a very old tradition. The chronicler John Warkworth noted that the King’s youngest brother, Gloucester, was at the Tower at that time. It was given out that Henry had died “of pure displeasure and melancholy” on hearing of the fate of his wife and son.⁹⁷

The body of the King was “chested” and displayed at St. Paul’s Cathedral, “and his face was open that every man might see him, and he bled on the pavement there.” Then his corpse was moved to the Blackfriars, where it bled again, before being conveyed to Chertsey Abbey for burial.⁹⁸ In 1910, Henry’s skull was examined, and it was noted that it was “much broken” as if it had been crushed by a blow, and still had attached to it hair that was “apparently matted with blood.”⁹⁹

Richard of Gloucester—who was to play a fateful part in Elizabeth’s life—was then eighteen, and while he may not personally have struck the blow that killed Henry VI—for it must have been Edward IV who had “chosen to crush the seed”¹⁰⁰—he was probably sent to the Tower by the King to convey the order and ensure that the deed was done. But there were rumors. “The common fame was that the Duke of Gloucester was not all guiltless.”¹⁰¹ Gloucester, asserted Commines, “killed poor King Henry with his own hand, or else caused him to be killed in his presence.”

Richard of Gloucester’s formative years had been overshadowed by war, treachery, and violent death. He was eight when his father and brother Edmund were killed in battle. He grew up in an insecure, ever-shifting world, and twice suffered the misery of exile. He saw the King his brother betrayed by Warwick, who had been as a father to Richard. By now, Richard had become hardened to the realities of political expediency.

It was after Tewkesbury that Richard’s ruthlessness first became apparent, when, as Constable of England, he had exercised his right to try and sentence to death Edmund, the last Beaufort Duke of Somerset, and other prominent Lancastrians, including one in holy orders who was entitled to immunity from the death penalty. Whether he struck the fatal blow that killed Henry VI or not, Richard, at an impressionable age, had been shown that it was prudent, even necessary, to eliminate the threat posed by the continued existence of a deposed king, and that the end—peace and stable government—justified the means.

Richard was undoubtedly an able man, hardworking and conscientious. He had in him that which inspired loyalty, and his share of the Plantagenet charisma, as well as “a sharp courage, high and fierce.”¹⁰² In many respects he was a typical late medieval magnate: acquisitive, hungry for wealth and power, brave in battle, tough and energetic. He took a keen interest in warfare and heraldry, and loved hunting and hawking. He was loyal to his brother, King Edward, and to his own followers, but would not scruple to ride roughshod over the rights of others.

His treatment of his future mother-in-law, the widowed Anne Beauchamp, Countess of Warwick, was a case in point. In 1471 the countess sent letters to the five-year-old Elizabeth—“my lady the King’s eldest daughter” (among others)—pleading for the restoration of her lands,¹⁰³ which Richard and Clarence were determined to appropriate. She received no reply. Evidently the King did not think it politic for his daughter to respond. Under pressure from Richard, he was soon to sanction the division of the Warwick estates between his brothers as if the countess were dead.¹⁰⁴

The deaths of Henry VI and his only son brought to an end the first phase of the Wars of the Roses. Clarence had submitted to Edward IV and, at the mediation of the duchess their mother, was forgiven. The House of Lancaster had been vanquished. But there remained a distant sprig of the family tree in the person of Henry Tudor, the posthumous son of Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond. Henry had inherited his claim to the throne through his mother, Margaret Beaufort.

Born in 1443, Margaret was the daughter of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and through him descended from King Edward III in a line tainted with bastardy. Margaret’s grandfather, John Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, had been the oldest son of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and Katherine Swynford. Their four Beaufort children had been born before their marriage in 1396, but were legitimated the following year by a statute of Richard II. Yet in 1407, Henry IV, in letters patent confirming their legitimacy, added a qualification that the Beauforts could not inherit the crown. Although letters patent could not overturn a statute, a doubt remained, and the question of the Beauforts’ right to the succession greatly exercised legal minds during the fifteenth century.

Margaret Beaufort was only twelve when she was married to Edmund Tudor in 1455. He did not spare his young bride: he got her pregnant immediately, but died of plague in 1456 before his son was born. Many regarded the Tudors themselves as bastard stock. Edmund Tudor had been the offspring of a liaison—there is no good evidence that it was a marriage—between Queen Katherine of Valois, widow of Henry V, and Owen Tudor, a Welsh squire. Owen Tudor, or Tewdwr, came from an obscure Anglesey family of landed gentry that could trace its descent back only to the thirteenth century. The genealogies later commissioned by Henry Tudor to show that the Tudors were descended from ancient Welsh and British princes through Rhys ap Tewdwr, Prince of Deheubarth, Wales (d. 1093),¹⁰⁵ cannot be substantiated.

The whole procedure of pregnancy and birth seems to have been traumatic for Margaret Beaufort, and the child she bore on January 28, 1457, at Pembroke Castle was to be her only one. She was then thirteen, and had been a widow for twelve weeks. “Like Moses, [Henry] was wonderfully born and brought into the world by the noble princess his mother, who was very small of stature, as she was never a tall woman. It seemed a miracle that, at that age, and of so little a personage, anyone should have been born at all, let alone one so tall and of so fine a build as her son.” But the infant Henry was weak, and it was thanks only to his young mother’s devoted care that he survived.¹⁰⁶ He spent his earliest years with her at Pembroke Castle, under the protection of his uncle, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke.

In 1461, when Edward IV became King, Pembroke Castle fell to the Yorkists, and Margaret Beaufort and her son were placed under the guardianship of William Herbert, a staunch Yorkist. Henry was raised as Herbert’s ward at Raglan Castle. He had been Earl of Richmond from birth, but the King deprived him of this title in 1462. Already, he recognized the five-year-old boy as a potential rival for the throne.

By then Margaret Beaufort had grown up to be an erudite, pious, and virtuous woman of strong character. By 1464 she had married a loyal Yorkist, Sir Henry Stafford. Because of her Lancastrian affiliations, Edward IV had shown himself hostile toward her, but this new marriage changed things, and she was now treated with the deference due to one of royal blood. Young Henry saw little of her during these years, but Herbert proved a kindly guardian and had the boy well educated; Henry’s tutor, Andreas Scotus, observed that he had never seen a child so quick in learning. A marriage was planned between Henry and Herbert’s daughter Maud.

But Henry’s childhood was not easy. Later, he would recall to Commines that “from the time he was five years old he had been either a fugitive or a captive.” In 1468, Jasper Tudor having fled abroad, Herbert was given his earldom of Pembroke. In 1469, Warwick, now in rebellion against Edward IV, had Herbert executed for treachery. The following year, Henry was reclaimed by Jasper Tudor, who had been returned to favor after the restoration of Henry VI, and who took him to court to meet the King; it was his one and only visit prior to his accession.

In 1471, Margaret Beaufort’s husband, Henry Stafford, died, probably of wounds received fighting for Edward IV at the Battle of Barnet. Newly widowed, Margaret had to face a long parting from her fourteen-year-old son, for after the Lancastrian defeat at Tewkesbury Jasper Tudor fled into exile, taking Henry with him. Still styling himself “Earl of Richmond,” Henry spent his youth in penury at the court of Brittany. Both he and Jasper remained stoutly loyal to the House of Lancaster, and after the death of Henry VI, Henry Tudor was regarded by some as his natural heir; indeed, he was the only viable Lancastrian claimant. Henry always deferred to his mother, Margaret Beaufort, as the heiress of the House of Lancaster, but neither of them ever contemplated her actually ruling, because she was a woman. All Margaret’s ambitions were for her son, but clearly Edward IV did not perceive him as much of a threat, since he made only sporadic attempts to capture him. It would be many years before Henry’s claim was taken seriously by the Yorkist kings.