Tudor Queens of England (10 page)

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Edward must have expected this reaction. The reason for his delay in making the news public was less embarrassment at having acted on impulse than a desire to give her time to acclimatize herself to the idea before being exposed to the role of royal consort. In other circumstances he might have waited a lot longer, but in the summer Louis XI started signalling that he wanted closer contacts with England. He began, not perhaps very wisely, to fl atter the Earl of Warwick, seeing in him the real manager of English policy. It was through negotiations that were so initiated that the marriage offer of Bona of Savoy arose. Bona was not strictly a member of the royal family, being the daughter of the Duke of Savoy, but she was Louis’ sister in law, and thus of his extended kindred. The offer was attractive to Warwick, who made positive signals, but he was not authorized to negotiate so important a matter on the King’s behalf. The discussions were postponed, fi rst to 8 June and then until the 1 October. During September, therefore, Edward had to declare himself, and either issue instructions for the marriage to be concluded

– or not. The King met his Council about the middle of the month and revealed his true situation. On Michaelmas Day, 29 September, Elizabeth was formally presented to the court as Queen in Reading Abbey

.5

Politically, the reaction was not as hostile as Edward might have feared. As Waurin makes clear, there was a great deal of ‘tutting’. Both the Queen Mother and the Duke of Gloucester are supposed to have been offended but as the Duke was barely 12 years old at the time his opinion need not be taken too seriously. Both the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence took part in the Queen’s

‘coming out’ and although Warwick is later supposed to have been seriously antagonized he did not show much sign of it at the time. The person who had the best reason to be upset was Louis XI, but he seems to have shrugged the whole affair off as diplomatic hitch and continued to pursue the idea of an alliance. It was 10 October before he fi nally learned that his conference was not going 48

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to resume but he was not unduly discouraged and kept up his contacts with Warwick. It is possible that both the King of France and the Earl began to look askance at the King of England at this time but their overt hostility came much later and in other political circumstances. Elizabeth was crowned with due pomp at Westminster on 26 May 1465, when Edward made the most conscientious efforts to elevate her in the public estimation. Not only were large sums spent on cloth of gold, and upon scarlet and gold uniforms for the heralds, but more than 40 new knights of the Bath were created (more than at Edward’s own coronation) and the occasion was graced with the attendance of the Queen’s uncle, Jacques de Luxembourg. Jacques played a prominent part in the coronation tournament but the real purpose of his presence was to emphasize Elizabeth’s European status, via her mother.

6 She m
ust have been in the early stages of pregnancy at the time of her crowning because the eldest child of her second marriage was born on 26 February 1466. The young Elizabeth’s baptism was used as an occasion for a display of ‘togetherness’, perhaps aimed at a sceptical public. Her godmothers were her two grandmothers, Cecily Duchess of York and Jacquetta of Luxembourg, who were popularly supposed not to be on speaking terms, while the godfather was none other than the Earl of Warwick. The fact that she was a daughter may have caused a certain amount of headwagging because both of Elizabeth's children by her fi rst marriage had been sons but the opportunity for a little family solidarity was not lost. However, two years into her marriage to the King, she had not yet presented him with an heir.

It has sometimes been suggested that Edward immediately set out to build up his wife’s large family into a political faction, capable of balancing the Nevilles, or his own brothers, but there is little sign of that. What he did was to establish an aristocratic context for Elizabeth by securing marriages for her numerous unprovided sisters. Over the next few years Margaret was wedded to Thomas, Lord Maltravers, the heir to the Earl of Arundel; Anne to William, Viscount Bourchier, heir to the Earl of Essex, Jacquetta to John, Lord Strange of Knockin; Catherine to Henry Stafford, grandson and heir to the Duke of Buckingham; Mary to William Herbert (Lord Dunster), heir to Lord Herbert and Eleanor to Anthony, Lord Grey of Ruthin, heir to the Earl of Kent. Not all these unions were obtained without a certain amount of arm twisting and it was alleged that the Woodville girls had exhausted the pool of eligible young noblemen. However the kinship established through their wives did not in any sense pull these men together into a coherent party and apart from causing a certain amount of resentment among other noblemen with daughters to dispose of – notably the Earl of Warwick – its impact upon the political scene was negligible. No doubt it was more noticeable at court, but none of these ladies appear to have been

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the dominant parties in their several relationships. The Queen’s involvement in brokering these deals varied but it was undoubtedly she who brought about the union between her 20-year-old brother, John, and the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, who was about 65. Katherine de Mowbray (nee Neville) was extremely wealthy and had already survived three husbands. She was also the aunt of the Earl of Warwick and it may well have been this shameless piece of exploitation, which took place in January 1565, which turned Warwick against the Queen, rather than her marriage to Edwar

d.7
Elizabeth also seems to have been entirely responsible for a deal in October 1466 whereby she paid the King’s sister Anne, Duchess of Exeter, 4000 marks to marry her daughter and heir (also Anne) to her own elder son, Thomas Grey. At the time Anne was already betrothed to Warwick’s nephew, George Neville, the son and heir to the Earl of North
umberland.8
The Earl of Warwick was not directly involved, but again the rather heavy-handed tactics that were employed argues a distinct lack of sensibility to Neville’s interests – and honour – on the part of the Queen. At the same time, when the Earl sought to marry his eldest daughter to the Duke of Clarence, the King refused to give his consent – and so the tally of niggling grievances built up.

Apart from these matrimonial manipulations, Edward neither directly nor indirectly did much to favour the Woodville clan. Most obviously the Queen’s father, Richard, was appointed to the lucrative offi ce of Treasurer of England in March 1466 and created Earl Rivers in May. In August 1567 he succeeded the Earl of Worcester as Constable of England, and these offi ces together are calculated to have brought him an income of about £1,300 a year.

9
However he received no lands, and the increase in his wealth did not compare with the increments awarded to the Nevilles, or to Lord Hastings in the fi rst year or two of the reign. Perhaps the King judged that the massive dower lands of the Duchess Jacquetta were more than suffi cient to uphold the status of the King’s father-in-law. Anthony, Richard’s eldest son, was already married to Elizabeth, the heiress of Thomas Lord Scales and became Lord Scales in right of his wife when Thomas died. In November 1466 he was given the Lordship of the Isle of Wight and the Keepership of Carisbrooke castle but this was no more than a modest token of confi dence. Anthony’s younger brothers, Sir Edward and Sir Richard Woodville, seem to have gained nothing from their sister’s elevation. The youngest member of the family, Lionel, was a priest who became dean of Exeter in 1478 at the age of 25 and Bishop of Salisbury four years later, both of which appointments he owed to the King’s patronage.
10
Consequently, it cannot be fairly claimed that Edward either drained the resources of the Crown to provide for his wife’s kindred, nor that he sought to create a party out of them to balance the Nevilles. In fact in 1465–6 he was still making far greater grants to the latter than ever came the 50

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way of the Woodvilles. No one had been starved of royal patronage to feed the Queen’s relations.

Nor were the Queen’s own revenues granted with a lavish or ill considered hand. After careful consultation with the Council, dower land to the value of

£4,541 was settled on her, drawn mainly from the Duchy of Lancaster.

11
This was signifi cantly less than the 10,000 marks (£6,600) that had been awarded to her predecessor, but it was secure revenue, and was several times adjusted upwards. With careful management Elizabeth was able to maintain her household on a lavish scale, and to dispense her own patronage generously. The main benefi ciaries were her servants, to whom she remained conspicuously loyal, and the remoter members of her family – cousins usually – who did not come within the range of direct royal bounty. Apart from securing his marriage, and his rights of inheritance, there was not much at this time that she could do for Thomas, her elder son, who was only about 10 years old, and Richard, the younger, does not feature at all. Yet despite all this evidence of restraint and good management, Elizabeth undoubtedly remained very unpopular, and the question remains as to why this should have been so. Her direct political infl uence was very slight. She stood for no programme and had no agenda and yet the evidence of dislike is contemporary and does not depend upon later Yorkist and Tudor mythology. This was partly due to sheer snobbishness against her parvenue status. Despite all that Edward could do, and despite the fact that Richard had been created a baron by Henry VI in 1448, Elizabeth was seen and represented as the daughter of a

‘mere knight’. It was also partly due to her own personality. In spite of her obvious sex appeal, she seems to have been a chilly and unamiable creature, very much wrapped up in her own affairs. Her patronage was always calculated to enhance her own position and the unattractive side of her good household management was a tight-fi sted acquisitiveness. She was a generous patron of Queens’ College, Cambridge and is seen as its co-founder, but that seems to have been occasioned less by an enthusiasm for education than from a desire to blot out the memory of her predecessor. With the possible exception of Lord Scales, the rest of her family showed similar characteristics, as the persecution of Sir Thomas Cook by Lord Rivers and his wife in 1468 appears to demonstrate. Cook, a former Lord Mayor of London, seems to have had Lancastrian sympathies, although in what ways these had been manifested is not clear. He was accused of treason at the instance of Lord Rivers and imprisoned. While he was in prison his house was ransacked by servants of Rivers and various property was stolen, apparently for the benefi t of Lady Rivers. When he was brought to trial, Cook was acquitted, but found guilty of the lesser crime of misprision and fi ned £5,000. In response to his complaint, an independent commission was then appointed to assess the damage

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infl icted by Rivers and set it against his fi ne, but before this reported the Queen demanded the ancient (but largely forgotten) right of ‘Queen’s gold’ to the tune of another £600, which he was compelled to pay. Not surprisingly, Cook became an even more enthusiastic Lancastrian and petitioned the readeption parliament in 1470 for losses of £14,666. The source of this story is Robert Fabyan’s

Chronicle
, so it cannot be accepted entirely at face value.
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However, Fabyan claims to have been Cook’s apprentice at the time and as told it is full of circumstantial detail. The villain was clearly Rivers, but neither Edward nor Elizabeth emerge with any credit. It may not be irrelevant that the rebels executed the Earl in 1469 but there is no trace of the ill feeling that might have been expected to result between London and the King. What is most signifi cant is that a story against the Queen’s family, although almost certainly distorted and exaggerated, should have been relayed and accepted in such an authoritative way. It is probably fair to conclude that, although the King took no steps to convert the Woodville family into an aristocratic affi nity, they nevertheless saw themselves in that light. There is some supporting evidence for that in the marriage agreements concluded on behalf of the Queen’s sisters, which show Rivers trading favours on terms of equality with the great houses into which the young ladies were marrying. They may not have been particularly powerful in fact, but their pretensions grated and they did not carry their good fortune graciously.

When Edward was suddenly overwhelmed by rebellion in the summer of 1469, Elizabeth was safely ensconced in the Tower. The Earl of Warwick’s objective seems to have been to recover control over the King, as though he had been no more

compos mentis
than Henry VI, but all he managed to achieve was the resolution of his private vendetta against the Woodvilles and their allies. On 25

July he had the better of a confused and sanguinary battle near Banbury, captured the King and executed (without any semblance of judicial process) the Earl of Devon, Earl Rivers, Sir John Woodville and Sir Thomas Herber

t.13 W
arwick’s more general political objectives are obscure. He endeavoured to call a parliament to York and may have been intending to depose Edward in favour of his brother the Duke of Clarence but he was not really in command of the situation and when Edward escaped from Middleham Castle in September, it seems that he decided to settle for a bargain. He had demonstrated that although he could obtain a temporary ascendancy, he could not obtain suffi cient support to remove Edward

– least of all in favour of Clarence. Moreover he had no appealing agenda. There were grievances out there to be exploited but he made no attempt to do so. His aims, as one scholar has observed, remained entirely and obviously selfi sh. On the other hand his lawless behaviour had earned him no punishment, because the King was bent on reconciliation.