As a result of the feminine parley between Margaret and Jacquetta, Margaret limited Lancastrian entry into London to a symbolic force of four knights and 400 men. That fateful decision destroyed her cause and allowed the troops of Edward, Earl of March to enter the city just days later. On 4 March 1461, Edward IV was triumphantly declared King. Jacquetta would benefit years later when the city fathers remembered her role at St Albans and protected her and her daughter, then Queen Consort Elizabeth, from accusations of sorcery by Warwick’s henchmen. But that victory, too, would be temporary.
Even in 1461, Jacquetta’s plea had its touch of irony. Margaret’s victory at St Albans had taken the life of the captain of her Lancastrian cavalry. Sir John Grey, husband of Jacquetta’s daughter Elizabeth, died leading the cavalry charge against Warwick. The Lancastrian victory left Elizabeth a widowed mother with two small sons, even as it reunited Margaret with her husband, Henry VI, and her son, Edward, Prince of Wales.
The ironies of the cousins’ wars were just beginning.
CHAPTER FIVE
Consternation and Coronation
Between Edward IV’s pardons for Elizabeth’s family in July 1461 and the announcement of his marriage in September 1464, Elizabeth Wydeville lived in obscurity. Edward IV was busy solidifying his claim to the throne and restoring the nation’s political, financial and social stability. With Henry VI and his family in exile in Scotland, Edward IV’s fame and fortune grew. The Milanese ambassador wrote to Duke Francesco Sforza: ‘This new king is young, prudent and magnanimous’.1
A report to the Duke of Milan on 30 August 1461 in the aftermath of Towton provides a rare outside glimpse of Wydeville prominence in England:
The lords adherent to King Henry are all quitting him, and come to tender obedience to this King, and at this present, one of the chief of them has come, by name Lord de Rivers, with one of his sons, men of very great valour. I held several conversations with this Lord de Rivers about King Henry’s cause, and what he thought of it, and he answered me that the cause was lost irretrievably.2
The Milanese ambassador did not mention the daughter of Lord de Rivers, Lady Elizabeth Grey, née Wydeville.
Neither did Edward’s counsellors comprehend the importance of this woman to their King. Only Edward’s closest confidant, William, Lord Hastings, perhaps knew of the impending marriage. Just eighteen days before her wedding, Elizabeth contracted with Hastings to marry one of her sons by Sir John Grey to a still-unborn daughter of Hastings. This agreement is particularly intriguing in light of the political antagonisms between the Lancastrian Greys of Groby and their Yorkist neighbours, the Hastings of Kirby Muxloe and Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Was the contract designed to make peace between traditional adversaries before the wedding? The indenture of 13 April 1464 reads:
…made between Elizabeth Grey, widow of Sir John Grey, knight, son and heir of Edward Grey, late Lord Ferrers, and William, Lord Hastings for the marriage of Thomas Grey, her son or in case of his death of Richard his brother, with the eldest daughter to be born within the next five or six years to Lord Hastings; or failing such a daughter with one of the daughters to be born within the same period to Ralph Hastings, his brother, or, failing such a daughter with one of the daughters of Dame Anne Ferrers his sister. If any manors or possessions once belonging to Sir William Asteley, knight, called ‘Asteley lands’ or any of the inheritance of dame Elizabeth ‘called Lady Ferrers of Groby’ (save all manors, lands and tenements in Nobottle and Brington, co. North hants. and Woodham Ferrers, co. Essex) were at any time recovered in the title and right of Thomas or Richard from the possession of any other person having an interest in them, half of the rent and profits thereof while Thomas or, if he died, Richard, was under the age of twelve years was to belong to Lord Hastings and half to dame Elizabeth. Lord Hastings to pay her the sum of 500 marks for the marriage, but if both Thomas or Richard died before such marriage, or if there was no female issue as above she to pay him the sum of 250 marks.3
This contract would achieve in Northamptonshire the unity of Lancaster and York that Edward was pursuing on a national level.
No evidence proves that Hastings knew of the impending marriage between Elizabeth and the King, or that Edward IV was aware of this indenture. But it is inconceivable to think that either was uninformed. As Lord Chamberlain and intimate friend to Edward IV, Hastings was the logical one to facilitate the King’s visits to Grafton, keeping the larger court ignorant of Edward’s inamorata. Someone within his court had to explain the King’s absences and cover his tracks. Who else but his chamberlain? Similarly, the King surely knew about – perhaps even arranged – the Hastings-Grey indenture. Elizabeth would never have endangered her impending marriage by excluding the King in negotiating such an important bond. It is equally inconceivable that Hastings would have contracted with Elizabeth without the King’s approval.
Edward’s other advisors responded with amazement and consternation when he announced his marriage during a Council meeting at Reading in September 1464. Jean de Waurin wrote in his Chronique that Lady Elizabeth Grey ‘was not his match, however good and however fair she might be… He must know well that she was no wife for such a high prince as himself’.4 Dismissing the qualities of goodness and fairness as irrelevant to a Queen, as Waurin does, reflects the attitude of subsequent gossips and historians who not only ignore the positive influence Elizabeth exerted on her husband, but the aristocratic lineage of her mother and baronage of her father. Ignoring Lord Rivers’s standing and service in the court and the Duchess of Bedford’s rank among peers, Waurin’s quote tarnished the Wydeville reputation forever after. The family became falsely and unfairly labelled as ‘popinjays’ who overreached their designated place in the established order. Opinion replaced fact.
The element of surprise – of being excluded from the King’s intimate business – infuriated those who found themselves uninformed. Warwick, in particular, was politically humiliated, not merely by the thwarting of his negotiations for a French wife, but by his protégé making a decision and acting without consulting the master. Clearly, Warwick’s authority had been undermined, his expectations betrayed. His hatred focused on the Wydevilles, the cause of Edward’s rebellious behaviour. Warwick’s anger would fester until it erupted in open rebellion against his young cousin.
Edward was undeterred. He proudly and formally introduced his Queen to his court on St Michael’s Day, 29 September 1464. Elizabeth was led into the chapel of Reading Abbey for presentation to the King’s Council on the arms of the King’s brother George, Duke of Clarence and his cousin, Richard Neville, Earl Warwick. If Warwick was unhappy at the honour, he was much too politically astute to rebel just yet. The couple spent their honeymoon at Reading Abbey, the first of many times that Elizabeth would retreat to a religious setting for privacy and seclusion. While the newlyweds resided within the Abbey, the third largest and the wealthiest in England at the time,5 news of the marriage swept across the land. Advisors and friends were stunned.
Knowing the value of symbolism, Edward IV planned a coronation for his Queen that would signify his reign’s stability and solidify its permanence. At his own coronation hard on the heels of Towton, Edward’s empty coffers had forced him to borrow money to fund the limited ceremonies. Four years later, Edward’s treasury had been augmented by lands and manors seized from Henry VI and the defeated Lancastrians. His Queen’s coronation offered an opportunity to display his wealth, glory and grandeur to his nation and the world. Edward staged a splendid celebration that presented his beautiful Queen as a jewel ensconced in a setting of regal pomp and circumstance. The King himself began the rituals at the Tower of London on Ascension Day, 23 May 1465, by inducting forty-three worthy men into the Knights of the Bath. Included among the newly designated Knights were the Queen’s brothers Richard and John Wydeville, along with nobles who already were or would be married into the Wydeville family: the Duke of Buckingham, Anthony Grey de Ruthin and Lord Maltravers.6
The nex
t day, the Queen made her way from Eltham Palace near Greenwich to the Tower of London in a procession that was then, as it would be now, majestic and grand. Silk covered the Queen’s chair, saddle and pillion. Jewels and precious stones adorned her clothing. Citizens crowded the roads to cheer their Queen as she passed by. As she neared Southwark, London’s Lord Mayor and aldermen, dressed in flaming scarlet, joined the procession at Shooters Hill to escort her across London Bridge.
The bridge, lined with houses and shops on both sides, had been carefully prepared for the occasion. For days carpenters and painters had built stages and prepared scenery for the pageants that greeted the Queen as she entered the city of London. The Bridgemaster’s accounts cite purchases of paint that included 11lb of vermillion, ½lb of indigo, 1lb of verdigris, 6lb of white lead, 6lb of red lead and 18lb of black chalk. Red and purple buckram covered one stage floor. Other decorations required 3 gross tinfoil, 900 ‘party gold’, 200 ‘party silver’, plus reams of gold, red, green, white and black paper. 12lb of glue held all the decorations in place. In completing their work, the painters bought ‘pots and dishes of earth’, pig’s bristles for making brushes, four pairs of scissors, flour to make paste, and 4lb of candles for working at night.7
Eight images representing two angels and six virgins provided the background setting for one pageant. Hazelwood rods created the frames for the female figures, adorned by 3lb of flax for hair, 2oz of saffron to dye the flax, eight pairs of gloves for their hands, 1lb of flock to stuff the gloves, plus a thousand pins to hold the clothes in place. Six kerchiefs adorned the virgins, while 900 peacock feathers created wings for the angels.
John Genycote received 3s for writing and limning (illuminating) six ballads presented to the Queen on her approach, and John Thompson 8d for writing ‘6 ballads on tablets fixed to the pageant on the bridge’. The workers who made the announcement, placed on the bridge before the Queen’s arrival, lightened their labours with ‘one kilderkin of ale’ (half a barrel). Another 46s 10d paid the workmen’s expenses incurred at the Crown alehouse next to the Bridgehouse gate. Just before the day of the coronation, the bridge was fumigated and covered with forty-five loads of sand to hide the mud, dirt and droppings of its incessant traffic of people and horses.
The Queen crossed the bridge accompanied by the singing of groups stationed along the way. Clerks had hired a room at the Staple of the bridge from which they greeted her with song. A choir of twenty-five, led by the Master of the Society of Clerks, sang at the drawbridge. The Clerk of the Church of St Magnus led his boys’ choir in singing as the Queen passed by. Another choir of boys sang at the door of the Chapel of St Thomas à Becket, patron saint of the city of London.
The pageant that greeted the Queen featured Robert, Clerk of the Church of St George, playing the role of St Paul. Edmund Herte acted the part of Mary Cleophas, whose vigil day it was. Salamon Batell represented St Elizabeth, patron saint of the Queen, and delivered the official speech welcoming Queen Elizabeth to the city of London. The Queen then progressed to the Tower of London, where monarchs historically spent the night preceding their coronation. Edward IV, who had arrived two days earlier, greeted his Queen.
On Saturday 25 May, the procession, augmented by the newly made Knights of the Bath, departed from the Tower. Riding in front of Elizabeth, the bright blue gowns and white silk hoods of the Knights created brilliant expectations for the Queen who followed. Elizabeth, seated on a litter carried by two bay horses, regally made her way through Cheapside to Westminster Palace where she spent the night of Saturday 25 May.
On Sunday 26 May 1465, Elizabeth Wydeville was crowned Queen of England.
A contemporary manuscript, edited by George Smith in 1935, records with remarkable detail the coronation rituals and subsequent banquet. The ceremonies began with the Duke of Clarence, Edward IV’s brother and Steward of England, riding into Westminster Hall on horseback, ‘his courser richly trapped head and body to the ground with crapsiur richly embroidered and garnished with spangles of gold’. Clarence was accompanied by the Earl of Arundel, Constable and Butler for the Feast, and by the Duke of Norfolk, Marshall of England, both on horses ‘richly trapped in cloth of gold to the ground’. Their job involved crowd control, as they rode around the hall opening a corridor for the entrance of the Queen.
The Queen entered, walking under a canopy held at its corners by four Barons of the Cinque Ports. Clothed in a mantle of purple and with a coronal upon her head, Elizabeth carried in her right hand the Sceptre of St Edward and in her left the Sceptre of the Realm. She walked between the Bishop of Durham on her right and the Bishop of Salisbury on her left. Behind the Queen, and also under the canopy, walked the Abbot of Westminster.
At the lower step of the door leading to Westminster monastery, Elizabeth removed her shoes and walked barefoot ‘upon ray cloth [striped fabric] into the monastery’. Here she was met by the Archbishop of Canterbury and ‘divers Bishops and abbotts’. Going before her, now on foot, were the Duke of Clarence, the Earl of Arundel and the Duke of Norfolk. The ten-year-old Duke of Buckingham, traditionally Constable of England but too young to fulfil that role, was carried on the shoulders of a squire.
Following the Queen into the monastery were her attendants. The Duchess of Buckingham ‘the elder’ (Anne Neville, sister of Edward IV’s mother) carried the Queen’s train. Next followed the Duchess of Suffolk (Elizabeth Plantagenet, sister of Edward IV), Lady Margaret of York (Edward IV’s sister who later married Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy), and the Duchess of Bedford (Elizabeth’s mother). Elizabeth’s ten-year-old sister, Katherine, child bride of the Duke of Buckingham, was carried on the shoulders of an unnamed person. They were followed by a richly-dressed procession of thirteen duchesses and countesses in red velvet and ermine, fourteen baronesses in scarlet and miniver (fur, perhaps squirrel), and twelve ladies baronettes in scarlet.
The procession entered through the north door of Westminster monastery and moved through the Choir to the High Altar, where the Queen kneeled while the Archbishop of Canterbury ‘read over her’ the appropriate solemnities. Then she ‘lay before the altar while certain supplications was said over her’. After anointing her head, the Archbishop crowned her, assisted by the Archbishop of York who held the ‘holy unction’. She was then conveyed to her throne ‘with great reverence and solemnity’, with the Abbot of Westminster carrying the Sceptre Spiritual and the Earl of Essex the Sceptre Temporal.
At the beginning of the gospel, the sceptres were given Elizabeth to hold during its reading. They were then returned to the Abbot and the Earl, who carried them before the Queen as she walked to the Altar for the offering. The Duchess of Suffolk and the Duchess of Bedford accompanied her to attend to the crown, holding it on her head during her responses to the Mass. All this while, the Queen was barefoot. The Mass concluded with the Queen returning to her throne where she ‘sang solemnly Te Deum’. Then ‘from the Monastery she was led crowned between the said two Bishops under the Canopy and the said Abbot with them under the same’. The Duke of Suffolk on her right carried the Sceptre of St Edward, and the Earl of Essex on her left carried the Sceptre of England. The entire procession exited the monastery through the Great Hall, whereupon Elizabeth was led to her chambers where she ‘was new revested in a surcoat of purple’ for the traditional coronation banquet.
The rituals of the banquet began as the Queen returned to the Great Hall, conducted by the two Bishops. First, ‘the Queen did wash’, with the Duke of Suffolk standing at her right hand and the Earl of Essex at her left, bearing the Sceptres. The Earl of Oxford served the water for washing, with the Duke of Clarence holding the basin and testing the water’s purity before the Queen dipped her fingers.
The Queen sat crowned ‘in her estate’ at the high table flanked by the sceptre bearers, kneeling. The Archbishop of Canterbury sat on the Queen’s right, the Duchess of Suffolk and Lady Margaret of York on her left. Kneeling on the Queen’s left were the young Countess of Shrewsbury and t
he Countess of Kent, who held a veil before the Queen when she ate. Elizabeth herself removed her crown while eating and replaced it when she had finished.
Below the Queen, three long tables of guests were arranged in precise seating patterns. At the middle table on the right side sat, in descending order, thirteen bishops and abbots, beneath whom sat the chief judges of the King’s Bench and of the common pleas, the Chief Baron and fellow judges, and ‘Barons, Sergeants and divers others’. On the left side sat the Duchess of Bedford, the Countess of Essex, the Duchess of Norfolk (the elder), the Duchess of Buckingham (the elder), the Duchess of Buckingham (the younger), and ‘of Countesses and Baronesses many others’. Beneath them at the same table were ‘the Knights of the Bath new made’.
The table next to the right wall included the Barons of the Cinque Ports and their fellowship dressed in ‘their livery of ancient time due and accustomed for the day’. Beneath them sat the Clerk of the Rolls, and the Masters of the Chancery. At the table next to the left wall sat the Mayor of London along with the aldermen, officers and distinguished citizens of the City.
The serving of each of the three courses began with elaborate ceremony and processionals. Trumpets sounded as the earls, barons and knights entered on foot, followed by Clarence, Steward of England, the Earl of Arundel, Constable, and the Duke of Norfolk, Marshall, riding on horses ‘richly trapped to the ground’. The ‘Knights of Bath new made’ followed with the procession of dishes, of which the first course had seventeen. Splendour and clatter created an exciting atmosphere as the Knights made their way to each table with sufficient platters to serve the hundreds of diners.
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