Wherefore it was after told, that this Master Dominic, to the intent to have great thanks and reward of the king, he stood in the second chamber where the Queen travailed that he might be the first that should bring tidings to the King of the birth of the prince; and lastly when he heard the child cry, he knocked or called secretly at the chamber door, and frayned [asked] what the Queen had. To whom it was answered by one of the ladies, ‘Whatsoever the Queen’s grace hath here within, sure it is that a fool stands there without’. And so confused with this answer, he departed without seeing of the King for that time.1
While the desire of Master Dominic for a prince was shared by all, Edward IV welcomed his new daughter with love and royal rites.
The Lady Princess was christened Elizabeth, the first time that name was used for a female child born into English royalty, but a name destined to become famous in subsequent centuries. The christening was conducted by George Neville, Archbishop of York and brother to Earl Warwick. Her godfather was Earl Warwick himself. Perhaps Edward was attempting to mollify the Neville clan by conferring these great privileges on them, and perhaps they in turn were hiding their growing animosity to the King and Queen. In 1466, harmony seemed to prevail throughout the House of York. Even the Duchess of York overcame her anger at Edward’s choice of wife to stand as godmother to the Lady Princess, along with the child’s maternal grandmother, the Duchess of Bedford.
In late March, the churching of Queen Elizabeth took place. An elaborate ritual that usually occurred a month after the birth of a child, ‘churching’ cleansed the mother of the sin that medieval religion attached to the body and to sex. The month of sequestration and abstinence permitted both physical recovery and reflection by the unclean and unholy woman about the curse of Eve and the sinful act that had created the newborn child. Eve’s curse had caused the fall of man, and every new mother had to expiate her share in that sin before rejoining society.
The churching ceremony required the new mother to wear a veil to hide her shame, and to sit in a special pew, usually attended by her midwife. The ceremony of penance and purification began with the mother kneeling at the altar and making offerings. It ended in communal thanksgiving that welcomed – indeed, allowed – the woman back into the Church and into society. Blessed for surviving the perils of childbirth and cleansed of all impurities, the mother could now resume her role in the world and once more engage in sexual relations with her husband.
This joyous religious ceremony was followed by as great a celebratory feast as a family could manage. At the lower end of the social scale, celebrants would adjourn to the local tavern for hours of eating and drinking. The elaborate and sometimes raucous revelries caused the town of Leicester to pass regulations in 1568 to control churching celebrations: ‘For the eschewing of the superfluous charge and excess of the inhabitants… there shall be no feasts made at any churching within the said town saving only one competent mess of meat provided for gossips and midwives’.2
The revelry was amplified by the fragility of life in a world where childbirth was perilous for both mother and baby. In the absence of medical knowledge and general sanitation, the postpartum mother was vulnerable to infections that frequently led to sepsis and death. Wealth and rank offered no protection, as the death of Isabel Neville after giving birth to Clarence’s son would soon remind the nobility. Even fifty years later, all the Tudors’ potency could not save Jane Seymour, who died after delivering Henry VIII’s long-awaited son. Royalty offered no immunity to childbed fever.
Equally problematic was the creation of a healthy newborn child, in an era when prenatal care was nonexistent. A diet of meat and ale failed to provide vitamins and minerals essential to healthy babies. The wives of Edward IV’s brothers, Clarence and Gloucester, suffered several miscarriages and stillborn babies and together produced only three children who survived the perils of birth and early childhood. Two generations later, multiple miscarriages, three stillborn babies and two infant deaths cost Catharine of Aragon both her husband and her crown. The miscarriages of Anne Boleyn led to accusations of witchcraft, treason, and ultimately to the executioner’s axe.
The birth of a healthy, beautiful royal child, therefore, was cause for special jubilation. And no one knew how to celebrate better than Edward IV. He would announce to the world that the Yorkist dynasty had begun. The timing was propitious, since the Queen’s churching coincided with a visit to England by a group of Bohemian travellers, who could spread the news throughout Europe on their way home! Even without the visitors, the King of England would have planned a churching and banquet for his Queen that displayed the English court in all its plenitude and promise.
The Bohemian visitors recorded their wonder and awe at the wealth and ceremony they encountered throughout all of England. The travel diary of Gabriel Tetzel of Nuremberg, part of the retinue of Leo, Lord of Rozmital, who was brother to the Queen of Bohemia, fairly quivers with hyperbolic compliments: ‘We saw with what extraordinary reverence [the King] was treated by his servants. Even mighty counts had to kneel to him… The King is a handsome upstanding man and has the most splendid court that could be found in all Christendom’.3 Tetzel was equally impressed with the Queen’s churching:
The Queen left her child-bed 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, who had been summoned. Then came a great company of trumpeters, pipers, and players of stringed instruments. The king’s choir followed, forty-two of them, who sang excellently. Then came twentyfour heralds and pursuivants, followed by sixty counts 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, and, having left the church, she returned to her palace in procession as before. Then all who had joined the procession remained to eat. They sat down, women and men, ecclesiastical and lay, each according to rank, and filled four great rooms.4
The Bohemian visitors were conducted into the King’s hall, where the nobles, but not the King, were dining. There were
…carvers, buffets and side tables in profusion… Everything was supplied… in such costly measure that it is unbelievable that it could be provided… While we were eating, the King’s gifts were distributed among his trumpeters, pipers, jesters and heralds, the heralds alone receiving 400 nobles. All those who had received gifts went about the tables crying out what the King had given them.5
After the nobles had eaten, the visitors were conducted to ‘an unbelievably costly apartment where the Queen was preparing to eat’. Tetzel’s description of that dinner caused much damage to Elizabeth’s subsequent reputation:
The queen sat alone at table on a costly golden chair. The Queen’s mother and the King’s sister 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 the Queen’s mother and the King’s sister be seated. The ladies and maidens and all who served the Queen at table were all 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 the others was most costly. Much might be written of it. Everyone was silent and not a word was spoken. My lord and his attendants stood the whole time in the alcove and looked on.
After the banquet they commenced to dance. The Queen remained seated in her chair. Her mother knelt before her, but at time the Queen bade her rise. The King’s sister danced a stately dance with two dukes, and this, and the courtly reverence they paid to the Queen, was such as I have never seen elsewhere, nor have I ever seen such exceedingly beautiful maidens. Among them were eight duchesses and thirty countesses and the others were all daughters of influential men. After the dance the King’s
choristers entered and were ordered to sing. We were present when the King heard mass in his chapel. My lord and his company were let in and I do not think that I have heard finer singing in this world…6
Malcolm Letts, the translator of this account, comments: ‘Elizabeth Woodville’s head must have been turned by her sudden elevation in rank. I have sought in vain for confirmation of this picture of extravagant etiquette at this time’.7 Harsher critics have jumped to conclusions about Elizabeth’s hauteur, extravagance and arrogance, pointing especially to her own mother kneeling before her.
Such conclusions ignore both the elaborate rituals of the English court and the religious significance of churching the Queen who had just produced the first Yorkist heir to the throne. Kneeling before the Queen was not unusual, as indicated by Raffaelo de Negra’s letter to the Duchess of Milan in 1458. In describing Margaret of Anjou’s court, he lists nine noblemen in attendance, then reports:
Their wives are at Court also, and when the wife of the Duke of Petro a Baylito, the king’s son, and all the duchesses speak to the queen, they always go on their knees before her.8
Instead of criticising Queen Elizabeth for her mother’s kneeling, critics might note that ‘at time the Queen bade her rise’, perhaps in consideration for her mother’s discomfort and a desire to release her from ritualistic requirements. To place such ceremony firmly in its medieval context, it is useful to note Tetzel’s report of a subsequent dinner at the home of two earls who served ‘an indescribably splendid meal with sixty courses according to their custom’. Medieval ceremony defies modern comprehension. When George Neville was enthroned as Archbishop of York in 1465, his banquet required sixty-two cooks to prepare a dinner of
one hundred and four oxen, six wild bulls, a thousand ‘muttons’, three hundred and four ‘veals’ and as many ‘porks’, two thousand pigs, more than five hundred stags, bucks, and roes, a dozen porpoises and seals, four hundred swans, a hundred and four peacocks, two thousand geese and as many chickens, a hundred dozen quails, four thousand pigeons, and many other unlucky birds and beasts… while the jellies and tarts and custards numbered thirteen thousand.9
This food was washed down with three hundred tuns of ale, a hundred tuns of wine, and a pipe of hippocras. [The pipe of spiced wine amounted to about 125 gallons.] As another instance, Margaret of Anjou’s journey to England for her marriage to Henry VI cost £5,563 17s 5d for the fiftysix ships filled with provisions of men and supplies, including ‘five barons and baronesses, thirteen knights, forty-seven esquires (each with his own valet), eighty-two valets, twenty sumptermen, and others’.10 Seven trumpeters announced exits and entrances. A lion was added to the Queen’s collection of exotic animals in the Tower of London. A new hall was built at Eltham Palace for the scullery, saucery and serving areas, and a new gatehouse and garden wall were added at Sheen Palace. Westminster Palace was remodelled, including the Great Chamber, the Queen’s Lodging, the Parliament Chamber and the Painted Chamber. A coronation scaffold was erected in Westminster Abbey. Money spent on jewels and clothing alone for Margaret’s coronation amounted to £7,000.11
Pomp, circumstance and splendour have always defined British royalty – to the great delight of commoners, nobles and critics alike. And the birth of Elizabeth of York in 1466 mandated an extraordinary and symbolic display of Edward IV’s dynastic power. Queen Elizabeth would give birth to ten royal children, but this first deserved a very special ceremony.
Had the Bohemian visitors known that the newly born Lady Princess Elizabeth would marry King Henry VII and give birth to the Tudor dynasty, they might better have appreciated the gratitude and respect that honoured her mother. The blood of this newborn child flows in the veins of every subsequent English monarch – even until today. In retrospect, the grand celebration after the churching of the baby’s mother seems merely appropriate.
CHAPTER NINE
Fun, Games and Politics at Court
A year would go by before another magnificent occasion excited all of England. Just before the Queen’s coronation, her ladies-in-waiting had set in motion a chivalric tournament when they tied a gold collar around the thigh of her brother, Anthony, Lord Scales, and asked him to issue a challenge to a worthy opponent. Anthony’s challenge was accepted by ‘Messire Antoine Bastard de Bourgougne, Comte de la Roche en Ardenne’, more popularly known as the Bastard of Burgundy. Wars on the continent delayed the event, but by spring 1467 both opponents were ready for the encounter. Edward had used the intervening years to develop ideas about his foreign policy, and now he shrewdly used the tournament to strengthen England’s alliance with Burgundy.
The Comte de la Roche, an illegitimate son of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, enjoyed a status and stature in northern Europe second only to his legitimate brother, Charles, Count of Charolais. Bastardy was neither disreputable nor degrading on the continent, where Philip’s many illegitimate children enjoyed high status at court, received their own livery of grey, and collected generous allowances from the richest duchy in Europe. The Duke’s illegitimate daughters married high nobles of the duchy, and his bastard sons achieved influential positions in the court, the military, and especially the Church.
The most illustrious and erudite of Philip’s bastards was Anthony, Comte de la Roche. Renowned for his military prowess, he was made Knight of the Golden Fleece in 1456. His stipend of £3,840 in 1462 allowed him to patronise the arts by augmenting his impressive collection of illuminated manuscripts, even while leading a crusade on behalf of Philip. The crusade ended after the death of Pope Pius II in 1464 and never went beyond the south of France, but the Bastard exemplified the chivalrous knight of medieval legend by serving both his lord and his Church in war and peace.1 In later years, he would become a loyal member of his brother’s court, with custody of the ducal seal and key to the ducal bedchamber.2
The tournament with Anthony, Lord Scales was delayed because the Bastard was fighting in a civil war between King Louis XI of France and the Dukes of Burgundy and Brittany. During that conflict, Edward IV negotiated with both France and Burgundy to increase trade with England, playing the two powerful states against each other politically and economically. The London merchants preferred a close alliance with Burgundy, a lucrative market for their cloth trade and a source of money from the financial centres of Bruges and Lille. At the same time, France also offered great commercial potential. The residual hatred of the English for the French and Edward’s proclaimed title as ‘King of France’, however, created barriers to an alliance with France. The French civil war ended with Louis XI gaining the upper hand, although Burgundy and Brittany retained much of their power and even gained territory ceded by Louis XI to achieve peace.
With the war concluded, the games could begin. Edward IV, ever the politician, used the magnificent festival of pomp and pleasure to display England’s wealth and civility to this influential Burgundian knight. The splendid event so caught the popular imagination that every contemporary chronicler mentioned it. Sir John Paston, an ever-enterprising and upwardly mobile lawyer from Norfolk, commissioned a detailed account for his edification and records. Probably written by Thomas Whiting, Esquire, Chester Herald, the narrative gives us a ringside seat to observe the elaborate rules and rituals that governed medieval tournaments, from the initial challenge to the jousting on the tilting field.
Comparable to the modern Olympic Games in promoting national pride and popular interest, this tournament involved as much politics as fun and games. Edward IV co-ordinated the event with the opening of Parliament, thus assuring that all estates were present in London to witness England’s splendour after six years of Yorkist rule. The Bastard of Burgundy arrived at Greenwich on Saturday 30 May 1467, accompanied by 400 ‘noble lords, knights, squires and others’.3 The Constable of England, with a flotilla of seven barges and a galley filled with ‘lords, knights, squires, and many aldermen and rich commoners of the City of London’, escorted the Bastard from Greenwich to the City, where the Bisho
p of Salisbury housed him and his retinue at his London home in Fleet Street and his country house in Chelsea.
On Tuesday 2 June, the King rode from his palace at Sheen towards the city, where he was met two miles outside of London by ‘many Princes, Dukes, Earls, Barons, Knights, Esquires, the Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs, and Commoners of the City,… Kings of Arms, also Heralds and Pursuivants in coats of arms… with the sound of clarions, trumpets, shawms and other’. The Constable carried the King’s staff of office on the right hand with the Earl Marshall on the left. Anthony, Lord Scales, bore the King’s sword between the two. The group rode to St Paul’s, where the King was met by a ‘procession solemn of bishops, many mitered, with incense’ who escorted him to the altar where he made an offering.
From St Paul’s, the procession rode through Fleet Street with Anthony, Lord Scales bearing the sword before the King. Sensing that the Bastard of Burgundy was watching, Anthony ‘turned his horse suddenly and beheld him, the which was the first sight and knowledge personally between them’. The procession rode on to Westminster, where Parliament began the next day.
On 3 June, the Bastard attended the opening of Parliament in the Painted Chamber at Westminster, where he and Lord Rivers, representing his son Anthony, asked the King to set the date for the tournament. The King consulted his counsellors, scheduled the games to begin on St Barnaby’s Day, Thursday 11 June 1467, and recessed Parliament from the Wednesday before until the Monday after, so that all could attend. The King then commanded the Constable of England to marshal the Kings of Arms and Heralds in providing lists for the combat. The Mayor and sheriffs of London prepared a tilting area in Smithfield ninety yards long and eighty yards wide, surrounded by a fence with posts sunk three feet into the ground and extending seven feet high. Between the posts ran three rails, each five inches wide and three-and-a-half inches thick, details carefully specified by the King’s orders.
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