Although Clarence’s alliance with Warwick and Henry VI had constituted nothing less than treason, Edward completely forgave him after his exemplary service at Tewkesbury and, always indulgent of his younger brother, welcomed him back into the family.14 Now, with Warwick’s death, Clarence was anticipating the huge inheritance that his wife, Isabel Neville, would receive from her father. But the youngest of the York brothers, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had proposed marrying Isabel’s younger sister, Anne, a widow since the death of Prince Edward of Lancaster at Tewkesbury. To Clarence’s dismay, Gloucester expected his half of the Warwick family fortune. Furious at the thought of dividing Warwick’s estates, Clarence responded with devious plots that would foretell his ultimate and sad end. Victory in the wars of the cousins now led to a new battle between two Yorkist brothers.
Both Clarence and Gloucester had grown up as childhood friends of the Neville sisters. At the age of nine, Gloucester moved to his cousin Warwick’s Middleham estate, where he lived for three years.15 At that point, Isabel was ten years old and Anne five. In 1472, when Gloucester was proposing to marry Anne, he was nineteen and she, already widowed, was fifteen. Clarence and Isabel, who had been married for three years, were twenty-two and twenty. These brothers with such bright, wealthy futures ahead turned their passions against each other. Perhaps too many battlefields during their childhood and adolescence had created a character that glorified conflict and nurtured rancour. Whatever the cause, Clarence resorted to combat tactics and kidnapped Anne to prevent his brother from marrying her. He disguised his sister-in-law as a servant and hid her in a house in London. Gloucester found Anne and took her to sanctuary.
Edward IV was called upon to negotiate peace. Concerned that the entire Neville inheritance in Clarence’s hands would lead to more mischief, he approved the marriage of Richard to Anne and decreed that the inheritance should be divided between the daughters. Missing from the negotiations was the girls’ mother, Anne, Countess of Warwick, who legally retained all rights to the property during her widowhood. The Countess had fled to sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey after Warwick’s death, and from there she wrote desperate pleas in her own hand, trying to regain her property. In one letter, the Countess directs her
…labours, suits, and means to the King’s Highness, soothly also to the Queen’s good Grace, to my right redoubted Lady the King’s mother, to my Lady the King’s eldest daughter, to my Lords the King’s brethren, to my Ladies the King’s sisters, to my Lady of Bedford mother to the Queen, and to other Ladies noble of the realm.16
The women of the realm, however, could not counteract the avarice and ruthlessness of Clarence and Gloucester.
The Warwick inheritance provides a useful touchstone for evaluating the charges of greed levelled against the Wydevilles, a family easily outclassed by the avarice of the York brothers who were declared sole heirs to
…possess and enjoy as in the right of the said wives all possessions belonging to the said Countess [Warwick’s wife, Anne Beauchamp] as though she were naturally dead and that she should be barred and excluded therefrom, that they should make partition of the premises and the same partition should be good in law, that the said dukes should enjoy for life all the possessions of their wives if they should outlive the latter.17
After cautioning the brothers not to meddle in each other’s inheritance, the settlement provides that Richard, even if he divorced Anne and did not remarry, ‘should enjoy as much of the premises as should appertain to her during his life’.18
Richard also became ‘Constable of England’ and ‘Warden of the Forest north of the Trent’. To compensate Clarence for his losses, Edward IV appointed him ‘Great Chamberlain and Lieutenant of Ireland’ and granted him a slew of manors, castles, tenements and mills.19 It was not enough. Clarence’s resentment at losing half of the Neville fortune simmered towards boiling point, and he would soon take steps that would cause him to lose all.
In the wrangling, no one paid any attention to the violations of canon law and biological imperative that these marriages flouted. Both husbands and wives were first cousins once removed; worse, they descended from ancestors whose intermarriages placed the health of any children at serious risk. While the medieval world lacked knowledge of modern genetics, the Church knew enough about the consequences of consanguinity to forbid marriage among close relatives. Unfortunately, the Church often ignored its own precepts when powerful, rich men petitioned for marriages aimed at preserving their fortunes within the family. It would be only a matter of time until the children produced by the two ill-advised unions of the cousins York and Neville would suffer the folly of their fathers’ greed. The blood royal of which Warwick was so proud produced grandchildren of limited vigour.
Throughout these contretemps within the family, Queen Elizabeth was preparing for the arrival of the fifth royal heir, Margaret, who was born at Windsor on 19 April 1472. The choice of the baby’s name is interesting: was Elizabeth paying tribute to her predecessor Queen, who was living in Oxfordshire under the supervision of the Duchess of Suffolk? Within a month, on 30 May, Elizabeth’s beloved mother, the Duchess of Bedford, died at the age of fifty-six. She had outlived her husband by just three turbulent years. With both parents gone, Elizabeth’s personal loss was profound, but the absence of Jacquetta’s loving presence and astute intelligence must have been particularly devastating.
Royal duties required the Queen’s attention, however, and in autumn 1472 she helped Edward IV repay the hospitality he and his small band of exiles had received while in Burgundy. Lord Louis of Gruuthuyse, Governor of Holland and host of the English exiles at his Bruges Palace, was invited to England, where the royal household reciprocated in kind. Remembering the tapestries and paintings, the library of books and manuscripts at Gruuthuyse Palace, Edward tried to exhibit equivalent luxury at Windsor Castle where the Burgundians began their royal visit. Unfortunately, the chapel of St George at Windsor, newly commissioned to replicate the Flemish architecture Edward had so admired during his exile, was not yet built.
The Gruuthuyse visit, described in ‘The Record of Bluemantle Pursuivant’, provides a rare and fascinating glimpse into the ritual and everyday activities of Edward’s court. After greetings by the King and Queen, the Gruuthuyse party dined in ‘two chambers richly hanged with cloths of Arras and with beds of estate’, before revisiting the King in his chambers. Edward immediately escorted the visitors to
…the Queen’s chamber, where she sat playing with her ladies at the morteaulx [a game similar to bowls], and some of her ladies and gentlewomen at the Closheys of ivory [ninepins], and dancing. And some at divers other games according. The which sight was full pleasant to them.
Also the King danced with my Lady Elizabeth, his eldest daughter. That done, the night passed over, they went to his chamber. The Lord Gruuthuyse took leave, and my Lord Chamberlain [Hastings] with divers other nobles accompanied him to his chamber, where they departed for the night.20
The next day began with Mass in the King’s private chapel, following which Edward IV lavished gifts on his former host: a cup of gold garnished with pearl, in the midst of which was ‘a great piece of an Unicorn’s horn to my estimation vii inches compass. And on the cover was a great sapphire’. After breakfast, the King went into the quadrant with Prince Edward, almost two years old, who was carried by his chamberlain, Sir Thomas Vaughan, to greet Lord Gruuthuyse. They rode off to the King’s nearby park, where Edward let Lord Gruuthuyse ride his horse before making a gift of the horse to his visitor. He also presented Gruuthuyse with ‘a royal Crossbow the strings of silk, the case covered with velvet of the King’s colours, and his arms and badges thereupon’. The heads of the crossbow bolts were gilt. Before dinner at the hunting lodge, a captured doe was given to the servants of Lord Gruuthuyse. After dinner, the hunt resumed with half a dozen bucks slain and given to Lord Gruuthuyse himself. Before returning to the castle, Edward showed his visitors his garden and ‘vineyard of pleasure’. Then:
Item, there was a side table, at which sat a great view of ladies, all on the one side. Also in the outer chamber sat the Queen’s gentlewomen, all on one side. And at the other side of the table against them, sat as many of the lord of Gruuthuyse’s servants…
And when they had supped, my lady Elizabeth the King’s eldest daughter, danced with the Duke of Buckingham, and divers other ladies also. And about nine of the clock, the King and the Queen, with her ladies and gentlewomen, brought the said Lord Gruuthuyse to three chambers of Pleasure, all hanged with white silk and linen cloth, and all the floors covered with carpets. There was ordained a bed for himself, of as good down as could be gotten, the sheets of Raynes, also fine fustians [blankets]; the counterpoint cloth of gold, furred with ermine, the Tester and the Ceiler [canopy] also shining cloth of gold, the curtains white sarsenet; as for his bed sheet and pillows [they] were of the queen’s own ordinance.
In the second chamber was another [bed] of estate, the which was all white. Also in the same chamber was made a Couch with feather beds, hanged with a Tent, knit like a net, and there was a Cupboard.
Item, in the third chamber was ordained a Bayne [bath] or two, which were covered with Tents of white cloth. And when the King and Queen, with all her ladies and gentlewomen, had showed him these chambers, they turned again to their own chambers, and left the said Lord Gruuthuyse there, accompanied with my lord chamberlain, which dispoiled [undressed] him and went both together in the Bayne… And when they had been in their Baynes as long as was their pleasure, they had green ginger, divers Syrups, Comfits and Hyppocras [spiced wine]; and then they went to bed.
And on the Morn he took his Cup of leave of the King and the Queen, and turned to Westminster again, accompanied with certain knights, esquires, and other of the King’s servants, home to his lodging. And the Sunday next following the King gave him a gown of cloth of gold furred.21
The court also moved to Westminster for the opening of the October Parliament which would honour Lord Gruuthuyse:
On the feast of St. Edward, our most dread and liege lord the King Edward the iiiith, which was the xii year of his most noble Reign, kept his Royal estate in his palace of Westminster. And about 10 of the clock afore noon, the King came into the Parliament Chamber in his parliament robes, and on his head a cap of maintenance, and sat in his most Royal majesty, having before him his lords spiritual and temporal, also the speaker of the Parliament, which is called William Alynton.22
After ritual greetings, Speaker Alynton especially praised Queen Elizabeth for her conduct during Edward’s exile:
The intent and desire of his Commons specially in the commendation of the womanly behaviour and the great constancy of our Sovereign Lady the Queen, the [King being] beyond the sea. Also the great joy and surety to this his land [by] the birth of my Lord, the Prince.23
The Speaker then praised ‘the constant faith of my lords Rivers and Hastings’, along with other nobles and yeoman who had accompanied Edward into exile. After formal thanks from the Commons to Lord Gruuthuyse for his hospitality to ‘his Highness when he was in the counties of Holland and Flanders’, the Commons adjourned, and preparations began for the King to create Lord Gruuthuyse as Earl of Winchester:
This done the King went into the Whitehall, whether came the Queen crowned. Also my Lord the Prince in his robes of estate, which was borne next after the King by his Chamberlain called Mr. Vaughan and so proceeded forth into the Abbey church and so up to the shrine of St. Edward, where they offered.24
After giving thanks to St Edward, all returned to Whitehall for a celebratory banquet.
The splendour of this ceremonial visit masked the harsh reality of life in the fifteenth century. As the end of 1472 neared, Edward and Elizabeth’s newborn daughter Margaret died, on 11 December 1472, before reaching eight months of age. Like most children of the era, the baby was buried with no knowledge of what might have caused her death. Even if the illness were diagnosed, no medicine existed to treat it. As the royal couple settled into their married life, they had to confront the eternal problems that afflict all humanity. Family and human nature would bring more pain to the Royals.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Problems in Paradise
Married eight years, the royal couple could just now begin to settle into life together. As with all couples everywhere, the relationship was not consistently ideal. While Edward IV always treated Elizabeth with utmost respect, treasured her intelligence and good sense, and perhaps loved her as deeply as it is possible for man to love woman, he also exercised his royal and masculine prerogative to live the life that pleased him best. The King’s closest associates, most notably William, Lord Hastings, constituted a rival interest to Elizabeth and her family. Thomas More describes Hastings as the ‘Lord Chamberlain against whom the Queen especially grudged, for the great favour the King bore him, and also for that she thought him secretly familiar with the King in wanton company’.1
Edward IV had always possessed a roving eye and boasted about his bastard children. It is unfair, therefore, to blame Hastings for the King’s indiscreet escapades. But Hastings undoubtedly accompanied the King in his pleasure-seeking forays, and perhaps served his master in arranging them. Edward’s infamous and long-term mistress, Elizabeth Shore, popularly known as ‘Jane Shore’, was acquainted with both men, and after Edward’s death became Hastings’s mistress. Described by More as ‘honestly brought up’ but married when too young, Mistress Shore’s unhappiness initially
…made her incline unto the King’s appetite when he required her… The respect of his royalty, the hope of gay apparel, ease, pleasure and other wanton wealth was able soon to pierce a soft, tender heart. But when the King had abused her, anon her husband (as he was an honest man and… not presuming to touch a King’s concubine) left her up to him all together. When the King died, the Lord Chamberlain took her. Which in the King’s days, albeit he [Hastings] was sore enamoured upon her, yet he forbare her, either for reverence, or for a certain friendly faithfulness.2
Hastings’s complicity in the King’s sexual excursions undoubtedly caused Elizabeth concern.
Yet the degree of animosity between the Queen and Hastings is unclear and may be exaggerated by historical tradition. The 1464 indenture that betrothed Elizabeth’s eldest son to Hastings’s unborn daughter was, indeed, abrogated when Sir Thomas Grey instead married Anne Holland. But if that change in plans created any alienation, Elizabeth and Hastings apparently reconciled their differences. In July 1466, Elizabeth appointed Hastings and his brother Ralph as ‘overseers of vert and venison’ in her forest at Rockingham.3 When Anne Holland died in 1467, Thomas Grey married Hastings’s stepdaughter Cecily Bonville, aged thirteen, in July 1474. Further, that agreement stipulated that his brother Richard Grey would marry Cecily if Thomas died ‘without carnal knowledge of her’.4 The Hastings and Grey families were thus united by marriage contract at the midpoint of Edward IV’s reign. In 1476, Hastings nominated both Sir Thomas and Sir Richard Grey for membership in the Order of the Garter.5
The Queen’s feelings about Edward’s sexual adventures are unknown – and difficult to ascertain from our differing perspectives. Illegitimate children were commonplace among nobility and were frequently awarded familial status, if not inheritance rights. At Elizabeth’s own funeral in 1492, her body was attended by ‘Mistress Grace, a bastard daughte
r of King Edward’, one of only two women in the small funeral cortege.6 Mistress Grace appears nowhere else in historical references, and this sudden mention of her existence suggests that other bastards of Edward IV remain unknown. Certainly, all of England knew about Edward’s profligacy, and Elizabeth surely must have regretted her husband’s boasting about his exploits:
The King would say that he had three concubines, which in three diverse properties diversely excelled. One the merriest, another the wiliest, the third the holiest harlot in his realm, as one whom no man could get out of the church lightly to any place, but it were to his bed.7
While More identifies the merriest as Elizabeth Shore, he declines to identify the other two ‘somewhat greater personages’. Others have suggested that Elizabeth Lucy, the mother of Edward’s illegitimate son Arthur Plantagenet, was the holiest, but given Edward IV’s propensities, a number of women unknown to history might equally qualify.
The Queen’s own family may have participated in Edward’s debauchery. After the King’s death, Gloucester accused Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, of inheriting Elizabeth Shore as his paramour, a claim that may, however, have originated in Richard’s propaganda discrediting the Queen’s family as he pursued the throne.8 Polydore Vergil’s Tudor chronicle refers to Dorset as a ‘good and prudent man’. Rumours that the Queen’s second son, Sir Richard Grey, and her brother Sir Edward Wydeville indulged in the general dissipation of the court must remain exactly what they are: rumours unsubstantiated by evidence.
The royal family interacted with the gentry in ways that are tantalisingly obscure in the fragmented evidence that survives from the period. The Stonors, for instance, were a family of established country gentry and merchants, who grew rich from their extensive estates and the wool trade. A letter probably written by Jane Stonor to her daughter discusses the girl’s distress at being placed with a noble family at the request of Queen Elizabeth. Mother Stonor hopes that her daughter knows how to conduct herself in her new home, believed to be that of the Duchess of Suffolk, sister of Edward IV, since ‘you wot [know] well you are there as it pleased the Queen to put you’.9 The Stonor mother and father are concerned about maintaining good relationships with the Queen, who was ‘right greatly displeased with us both; all be it we know right well it came not of her self’. The source and cause of the Queen’s displeasure remain a mystery, as does the statement that the Queen’s actions ‘came not of her self’. Despite that, the mother offers to have her daughter return home if ‘my husband or I may have writing from the Queen with her own hand, and else he nor I neither dare nor will take upon us to receive you, seeing the Queen’s displeasure before; for my husband sayeth he hath not willingly disobeyed her commandment here before, nor he will not begin now’.10
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