Elizabeth waylaid Edward IV in the forest of Whittlebury, a royal chase, when he was hunting in the neighbourhood of her mother’s dower-castle at Grafton. There she waited for him under a noble tree still known in the local traditions of Northamptonshire by the name of the Queen’s Oak. Under the shelter of its branches the fair widow addressed the young monarch, holding her fatherless boys by the hands, and when Edward paused to listen to her, she threw herself at his feet and pleaded earnestly for the restoration of Bradgate, the inheritance of her children. Her downcast looks and mournful beauty not only gained her suit, but the heart of the conqueror.
The Queen’s Oak, which was the scene of more than one interview between the beautiful Elizabeth and the enamoured Edward, stands in the direct track of communication between Grafton Castle and Whittlebury forest.2
Despite several errors in Strickland’s account (Grafton was not Jacquetta’s dower-castle, but the ancestral home of the Wydevilles), the meeting beneath the oak tree rings true. The legend still lives today. A public footpath between Potterspury and Grafton Regis leads to the charred ruins of an oak tree on a farm whose gatepost sign proudly reads ‘Queen’s Oak Farm’. Sue Blake, an historian who lives in the village of Grafton Regis, dismisses the claim that the tree stump remaining after five centuries and innumerable lightning strikes is the same tree that stood tall in 1461, but she finds the meeting of the couple under a tree in the royal forest to be quite credible. Oral history sometimes preserves details lost in the written documents.
But surely, this meeting would not have been the first between Elizabeth and Edward. The prominence of the Wydevilles in Henry VI’s court and the long association of Sir Richard Wydeville with the Duke of York during the French campaigns would have assured that their children met much earlier. The families of Lancaster and York, after all, were on the same side until 1455, attending the same court functions and spending time together in France. Even after the first battle of St Albans, the Duke of York remained superficially loyal to Henry until his 1459 rebellion at Ludford Bridge. The encounter by the oak tree must have renewed a long-standing acquaintance.
The written records provide tantalising facts. At the battle of Towton on 29 March 1461, Richard Wydeville, Lord Rivers led a Lancastrian force of 6,000–7,000 Welshmen who drove Edward’s troops back about eleven miles. Elizabeth’s brother Anthony, Lord Scales, was another Lancastrian leader prominent enough to be listed incorrectly among the dead by William Paston3 and in five separate dispatches sent to continental courts, including one to Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan.4 Despite their efforts at Towton, the Lancastrians suffered a disastrous defeat, after which Lord Rivers accompanied King Henry, Queen Margaret and Prince Edward in retreat to Newcastle.5
Edward IV immediately began confiscating Lancastrian property. As prominent supporters of Henry VI, both Rivers and Scales were high on his list. On 14 May 1461, a commission was issued to ‘Robert Ingleton, escheator in the counties of Northampton and Rutland, to take into the king’s hand all the possessions late of… Richard Wydevyll, knight’, one of twenty individuals whose property was seized.6
Edward IV may well have remembered an earlier encounter with the Wydevilles. In January 1460, Lord Rivers and his eldest son, Anthony, were at Sandwich organising Lancastrian troops and ships to attack Calais, then under control of Warwick’s Yorkist faction. In a surprise raid, Warwick’s troops, led by Sir John Dynham, sailed from Calais and attacked Sandwich between 4 a.m and 5 a.m.7 Fabyan’s Chronicle reports:
[Dynham] took the Lord Rivers in his bed and won the town, and took the Lord Scales, son unto the said Lord Rivers with other rich preys, and after took of the King’s navy what ships them liked and after returned unto Calais.8
Gregory’s Chronicle adds that Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, was captured with her husband.9 The prisoners were transported to Calais and turned over to the three rebel leaders: Warwick, Lord Salisbury (Warwick’s father), and the seventeen-year-old Edward, Earl of March.
William Paston’s letter of 28 January 1460 describes how Warwick, Salisbury and March taunted the Wydevilles for their low-class origins:
My lord Rivers was brought to Calais and before the lords with eight score torches. And there my Lord of Salisbury reheted [scolded] him, calling him knave’s son, that he should be so rude to call him [Salisbury] and these other lords traitors, for they shall be found the king’s true liegemen when he [Rivers] should be found a traitor.
And my Lord of Warwick reheted him and said that his father was but a squire and brought up with King Henry the Fifth, and sithen himself made by marriage, and also made lord, and that it was not his part to have such language of lords being of the king’s blood.
And my Lord of March reheted him in like wise. And Sir Anthony was reheted for his language of all three lords in like wise.10
These ad hominem slurs by political bullies may mark the beginning of the slander that has so discredited the Wydeville name. Ironically, Paston’s letter failed to note that the titles of both Warwick and Salisbury were also gained by right of their wives, a point John Rous took care to emphasize in The Rous Roll: ‘Dame Anne Beauchamp, a noble lady of the blood Royal… by true inheritance Countess of Warwick, which good lady had in her days great tribulation for her lord’s sake, Sir Richard Neville,… by her title Earl of Warwick…’.11
If Salisbury and Warwick proudly traced their royal blood back to John of Gaunt, they conveniently overlooked the fact that their maternal ancestor Katherine Swynford had been the family governess who bore Gaunt’s children illegitimately before the Duke was free to marry their mother, and that the Beaufort family name came from Gaunt’s minor castle in Champagne. Further, the men of the Neville family had traditionally gained their titles through marriages to better-endowed heiresses. This would not be the last time, however, that the pot would call the kettle black.
Neither did Paston note that the language for which his detractors scolded Anthony reflected an erudition that put those of ‘the king’s blood’ to shame. Anthony – whose translation of The Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres would become the first book published in England by Caxton – possessed an eloquence that even at this early age was apparently resented by his tormentors. His eloquence angered these men of ‘the king’s blood’, whose slurs stuck and were repeated by enemies and historians alike until a bully’s slander turned into ‘truth’ for those who knew only part of the story.
No surprise, then, that Wydeville property was confiscated by a victorious Edward IV. A letter to Francesco Sforza, dated 31 July 1461, reports the imprisonment of both men:
I have no news from here except that the Earl of Warwick has taken Monsig. de Ruvera [Rivers] and his son [Anthony] and sent them to the king who had them imprisoned in the Tower. Thus they say that every day favours the Earl of Warwick, who seems to me to be everything in this kingdom, and as if anything lacked, he has made a brother of his, the Archbishop, Lord Chancellor of England.12
This news was old, however, since a Writ of Privy Seal on 12 June had already pardoned Lord Rivers of all offences and trespasses, an order recorded in the Patent Rolls on 12 July 1461: ‘General pardon to Richard Wydevill, knight, of Ryvers of all offences committed by him, and grant that he may hold and enjoy his possessions and offices.’13 On 23 July 1461, the King ordered ‘The like to Antony Wydeville, knight, of Scales.’14
The timing is interesting. Six weeks after Towton, the King confiscated Wydeville property, but less than a month later he pardoned Lord Rivers and within two months restored all his property. On 10 December 1461, Edward IV confirmed that Jacquetta would continue to receive her dowry, granting ‘to Richard Wydewyll, lord Ryvers, and Jaquetta, duchess of Bedford, his wife, for the life of the latter of the dower assigned to her on the death of John, late duke of Bedford, her husband’. The list enumerates almost 200 properties, providing to the Duchess ‘a third part’ of their profits or a designated rent. The grant also restores to Lord Rivers the land and buildi
ngs in Calais ‘granted to Richard his father and Joan, wife of the latter, both deceased, by letters patent dated 22 April, 9 Henry VI, for a term of 90 years’. The southern boundary of the property, ‘a little lane on the side of the prince’s lodging’, indicates that Wydeville contiguity to the court was geographical as well as political and personal.15
On 12 December 1461, a ‘Grant for life to Richard Wydevill, lord of Ryvers’ restored him to
the office of chief rider of the King’s forest of Saucy, in the county of Northampton, with all trees and profits, viz. dry trees, dead trees, trees blown down, old hedges or coppice-hedges, boughs fallen without date, chattels, waifs, strays, pannage of swine, ‘derefall wode’, ‘draenes’, brushwood and brambles, perquisites of courts, swainmote and other issues within the forest, from the time when he had the same by letters patent of Henry VI.16
Although Edward IV pardoned some Lancastrians as he unified the nobility and won over his enemies, the pardons and restoration of property to Lord Rivers and the Duchess of Bedford seem extraordinary, especially in the context of their personal history (see Timeline p.274).
What could have happened to change Edward’s mind about the Wydevilles? By July 1461, the chiding at Calais and the fighting at Towton had been forgiven by both sides. The Yorkist King had pardoned Rivers and Scales for a lifetime of Lancastrian loyalty. In turn, Lord Rivers, the Duchess of Bedford and Lord Scales became solid Yorkists, an allegiance that remained unwavering until their deaths in service to Edward IV (unlike Warwick, whose allegiances shifted with the sand dunes of power). In May 1462, Anthony, Lord Scales, and his wife Elizabeth received a grant of the manor ‘called le Syche’ and other lands in South Lynn.17 By December 1462, his friendship with Edward IV was firm enough for Anthony to join the siege at Alnwick Castle near the Scottish border.
The part played by Lady Elizabeth Grey, née Wydeville, in securing the King’s pardons and restoring the family lands may not pertain at all. Or it may explain everything. All we know is that Edward departed Towton for Durham on 5 April 1461, ‘the feast of Easter accomplished’. After ‘setting all things in good order in the North’, he travelled southwards, reaching his manor of Sheen (in Richmond) on 1 June.18 The records indicate a two-day stopover at Stony Stratford, when an encounter under the oak tree may have changed history.
Not until two years later does Lady Elizabeth Grey re-enter history. On 26 May 1463, the property dispute over the land granted as part of her marriage dowry was settled in her favour.19 One year later, on 1 May 1464, King Edward IV and Lady Elizabeth exchanged vows and consummated their marriage in utmost secrecy. Thomas More claims that Edward’s courtship involved ‘many a meeting, much wooing, and many great promises’, a claim corroborated by Caspar Weinreich’s Chronicle of 1464: ‘The king fell in love with [a mere knight’s] wife when he dined with her frequently’.20 Clandestine the courtship clearly was, but its duration we do not know. The secrecy, however, indicates that Edward well understood the powerful obstacles, both political and personal, that stood in the way of marrying the woman he loved.
Perhaps the most formidable obstacle was Edward’s mother, the powerful Duchess of York. Like most mothers, Cecily Neville believed that her son could do better in choosing a wife. The young, handsome, charming King of England could take his pick of the European matrimonial market, where a plethora of princesses would bring dowries and political power to the nation. Thomas More eloquently summarises the mother’s distress, imagining her thoughts and words in the manner typical of historians of his era:
The Duchess of York, his mother, was so sore moved therewith that she dissuaded the marriage as much as she possibly might, alleging that it was his honour, profit, and surety also, to marry in a noble progeny out of his realm, whereupon depended great strength to his estate by the affinity and great possibility of increase of his possessions… And she said also that it was not princely to marry his own subject, no great occasion leading thereunto, no possessions, or other commodities…21
Edward, who clearly had learned logic at his mother’s knee (or from the flow of More’s pen) responded with idealistic conviction:
Marriage being a spiritual thing, ought rather to be made for the respect of God where his Grace inclines the parties to love together, as he trusted it was in his, than for the regard of any temporal advantage. Yet nonetheless, [it] seemed that this marriage, even worldly considered, was not unprofitable. For he reckoned the amity of no earthly nation so necessary for him, as the friendship of his own. Which he thought likely to bear him so much the more hearty favour in that he disdained not to marry with one of his own land. And yet if outward alliance were thought so requisite, he would find the means to enter thereinto much better by other of his kin, where all the parties could be contented, than to marry himself [to one] whom he should happily never love, and for the possibility of more possessions… For small pleasure taketh a man of all that ever he hath beside, if he be wived against his appetite.22
The Duchess did not retreat. She reminded her son that Warwick was negotiating a marriage with Lady Bona of Savoy, sister-in-law of Louis XI of France. To marry someone else would not only alienate the French, but would embarrass the cousin whose power and money had won the crown for Edward. But Edward had an answer for that argument:
And I am sure that my cousin of Warwick neither loves me so little to grudge at that I love, nor is so unreasonable to look that I should in choice of a wife rather be ruled by his eye than by mine own, as though I were a ward that were bound to marry by the appointment of a guardian. I would not be a king with that condition to forbear my own liberty in choice of my own marriage.23
Those words would haunt Edward’s future. Warwick, whose alienation began when Edward married Elizabeth, would indeed turn against the King, whose throne had been won with the help of Warwick’s sword. Though not immediately, they would become enemies until Warwick’s death on the battlefield at Barnet, fighting against Edward’s army.
Edward understood the larger consequences of his decision. The issue was one of control. Would he, as King, make his own decisions or must he defer to others? In resisting the Duchess of York, Edward’s enumeration of Elizabeth’s advantages over other women revealed a wit that would charm anyone but a mother:
That she is a widow and hath already children, by God’s Blessed Lady, I am a bachelor and have some too, and so each of us hath a proof that neither of us is like to be barren. And therefore, madam, I pray you be content. I trust in God she shall bring forth a young prince that shall please you.24
The Duchess was not amused. These words, too, would return to haunt Edward’s family after his death. The question of a prior commitment to marry, an oath that would invalidate any subsequent marriage, was apparently of sufficient concern for the bishops of the Church to investigate. More names the lady in question as Dame Elisabeth Lucy, but years later the Titulus Regius of Richard III would claim a prior contract with Dame Eleanor Butler. According to More:
Dame Elisabeth Lucy was sent for. And albeit that she was by the King’s mother and many other put in good comfort to affirm that she was ensured unto the King, yet when she was solemnly sworn to say the truth, she confessed that they were never ensured. Howbeit she said his Grace spoke so loving words unto her that she verily hoped he would have married her. And that if it had not been for such kind words, she would never have showed such kindness to him to let him so kindly get her with child. This examination solemnly taken, when it was clearly perceived that there was no impediment, the King with great feast and honourable solemnity married Dame Elisabeth Grey…25
If Edward’s decision was ill-advised – a questionable supposition, given the nineteen harmonious and loving years that he and Elizabeth shared – it was not made hastily. Neither was Edward naïve about the benefits of a politically advantageous marriage. For years, negotiations had been ongoing in search of an appropriate wife for the Yorkist King. In the autumn of 1461, an embassy from England had approached
Philip of Burgundy about a marriage with his niece, Catherine of Bourbon. Philip rejected that match, perhaps because Henry VI and his son Edward were still alive and Burgundy was unsure that Edward IV’s throne was sufficiently secure. Mary of Gueldres, mother of King James II of Scotland, had earlier been proposed by Warwick as a possible consort, but she was much older than Edward, making the production of children uncertain. That liaison was also complicated by Scotland’s ongoing collaborations with France, and the marriage negotiations soon ended.
Isabella of Castile was offered by her half-brother, Henry the Impotent, in February 1464, an alliance rejected by Edward himself. Since Edward married Elizabeth on 1 May 1464, his reason for declining the thirteen-year-old Isabella may be obvious. Nevertheless, Isabella apparently harboured resentment about her rejection for years, telling the ambassador of Richard III that she was ‘turned in her heart from England in time past, for the unkindness the which she took against the king last deceased, whom God pardon, for his refusing of her, and taking to his wife a widow of England’.26
Against both political and maternal forces, Edward IV chose Lady Elizabeth Grey – a stunning act of independence that defied his mother, his chief military commander, and the King’s Council. That he was aware of the consternation his decision would cause is best indicated by the secrecy maintained even after the marriage. The chronicler Fabyan records the event:
In most secret manner upon the first day of May, King Edward spoused Elizabeth, late the wife of Sir John Grey, Knight… which spousals were solemnised early in the morning at a town named Grafton near unto Stony Stratford. At which marriage was no persons present, but the spouse, the spousess, the Duchess of Bedford her mother, the priest, two gentlewomen, and a young man to help the priest sing. After which spousals ended, he went to bed, and so tarried there upon, two or three hours, and after departed & rode again to Stony Stratford, and came in manner as though he had been on hunting, and there went to bed again.
Elizabeth Page 3
