by Amy Licence
In 1463, Edward’s parliament had passed a series of sumptuary laws designed to reinforce the difference in status between the ranks of the nobility. Cecily had always been conscious of her duty in maintaining her position through the outward show of ceremony. As the Duchess of York, in England, France and Ireland, part of her weaponry lay in her wardrobe and, now, as the king’s mother, she was entitled to express her social standing in exclusive material ways. According to Parliament, these rules had been breached too many times, with men and women wearing ‘excessive and inordinate arrays, to the great displeasure of God’. No knights below the title of lord, or their family, were now permitted to wear ‘eny manere cloth of gold, or any manere corses wrought with gold, or eny furre of sables’ on pain of a £20 fine.5 Nor were they allowed to wear ‘cloth of velvett uppon velvet’ or ‘eny manere cloth of silke being of the Coleur of Purpull’ or ‘saten sugary or eny Furre of Ermyn … damask or sateyn … or girdles harnessed with gold or silver’. Nor were men under the estate of lord permitted to wear shoes or boots that had toes ‘passing the length of eleven inches’.6 It is little wonder that Cecily’s wardrobe, as outlined in 1495, should mostly comprise all these high-status items; clothing then was determined by rank rather than personal inclination or taste and in Cecily’s eyes there had been a serious breach of rank in the family. It was at this time that she started using the title of ‘My Lady the King’s Mother’ and retreated into the royal apartments whenever she was at court.7 It may be true, as Michael Jones suggests, that this, as well as her appellation of ‘Queen by rights’, was a case of ‘one-upmanship’ calculated to display her dislike of the Wydeville family.
In May 1465, Queen Elizabeth was crowned at Westminster Abbey. Whatever Cecily’s feelings about her new daughter-in-law, there was now little she could do to reverse the hasty match or prevent the young woman from stepping into the very shoes she herself had long coveted. At Edward’s side, at the heart of government, Elizabeth would have a far greater personal and political influence than the king’s mother. Cecily’s name does not feature in the lists of those attending the ceremonies, although her sister and some of her children did. Her sister and former jailer, Anne Stafford, Duchess of Buckingham, bore Elizabeth’s train, while George, Duke of Clarence, led the procession. Cecily’s daughters Elizabeth and Margaret were among the party that followed. It is difficult to resist drawing the conclusion from this that Cecily did not attend the coronation. She may have chosen not to, or else been asked to stay away, given her earlier outspoken hostility to the match. It is not impossible, though, that she did attend but simply declined a ceremonial role. As the new queen’s mother-in-law, senior to Elizabeth Wydeville by virtue of her age and Edward being her son, her situation was a complex one. She may have watched from a dignified distance, or from behind a screen, a device often employed by royalty. Margaret Beaufort would observe the coronation of her daughter-in-law from behind such a screen.
Cecily was also absent from another important family occasion that took place in September of the same year. The inauguration feast of her nephew, George Neville, as Archbishop of York, provided a benchmark in Yorkist extravagance, with its – now notorious – thousands of creatures slaughtered to feed the 2,500 guests in style. The antiquarian Leland recorded that something in the region of 4,000 pigeons, 2,000 chickens, 400 swans, 104 peacocks, 1,000 sheep, 2,000 pigs, 1,000 capons, 4,000 mallard ducks, 1,000 egrets, 5,500 pies, 4,000 dishes of jelly, 4,000 baked tarts and 2,000 custards were consumed at Cawood Castle that day. The seating arrangements listed by Leland include Richard, Duke of Gloucester, on the same table as his sister Elizabeth, Duchess of Suffolk; Cecily’s half sister-in-law, the new Countess Westmorland; Cecily’s sister Eleanor, Countess of Northumberland; and Warwick’s daughters, Isabel and Anne. Elizabeth’s mother-in-law, the ‘elder Duchess of Suffolk’ sat in the second chamber, in company with Warwick’s countess, the Countess of Oxford and ladies Hastings and FitzHugh. Other ladies were mentioned in the arrangements but Cecily herself was absent, as were Edward and Elizabeth. However, as the guests were listed under the headings of ‘estates’ and ‘officers’8 there, it may simply be that the record of the presence of the king, queen and king’s mother was excluded, as they were automatically placed on a raised dais, rather than included in the seating plan. Equally, Edward may not have attended, as he would have outranked George Neville, the guest of honour, but Cecily’s absence may have been down to any number of factors.9
The same year, Cecily’s elder sister Katherine made a controversial marriage. Born around 1400, she had already been widowed three times, having conducted illustrious marriages with the 2nd Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Strangeways and Viscount Beaumont, and borne three children. In 1465, she was a wealthy widow of sixty-five but this did not prevent the new queen from considering her a suitable bride for her own nineteen-year-old son John. The pair went through with the wedding that year, and, although their private feelings on the matter are unknown, it forged another royal connection for Catherine and provided the young groom with a considerable fortune. However, the union, for which the bride would go down in history as the ‘diabolical duchess’, was not fated to last. Surprisingly, though, it was Catherine who outlived her husband; she became a widow for the fourth time when John was executed by Warwick after the Battle of Edgecote in 1469.
That autumn Elizabeth Wydeville’s pregnancy with her first child by Edward would have become apparent. Early the following February, she went into confinement in her apartments at Westminster, where she would have been attended by her waiting women, many of whom were the leading ladies of the land. Childbirth was an exclusively female experience, a time of uncertainty and danger when a mother and child hovered between life and death. Something of the rates of infant mortality from the era can be deduced from studying family trees and the records of those who died in childbed, but it is impossible to know exactly how many were lost during the process. Depositions made in the Church courts concerning illegitimacy refer to the delirium of mothers in their vulnerable state, relying on prayer and the support of experienced women in the absence of any pain killers stronger than herbal recipes. It is unsurprising that mothers gathered round them, those experienced women from their circle whose personal knowledge would encompass a range of circumstances. For Elizabeth, custom dictated that, besides her midwife, only high-ranking women were permitted to witness her delivery or help her physically, such as to support her as she rose from her bed. While it appears that Elizabeth’s own mother, Jacquetta, assisted in at least one of her lyings-in, Cecily’s role is less clear. As the other grandmother of a potential new monarch, she may have remained on hand in London, or fulfilled one of the roles assigned to the queen’s ‘gossips’ or supporters, such as visiting her during confinement, offering advice or company, or bringing her various delicacies or medicines. The Duchess of Warwick, wife of Cecily’s nephew, was known to attend women in labour in her area. Cecily’s attendance at the child’s christening suggested that she was on hand in February 1466.
Elizabeth’s daughter, Elizabeth of York, arrived on 11 February. According to tradition, the christening took place a few days later, with Cecily, Jacquetta and the Earl of Warwick acting as godparents. The elaborately formal occasion was recorded by German traveller Gabriel Tetzel, who wrote that eight duchesses and thirty countesses stood in silence in the queen’s presence. Cecily’s daughter Margaret also played a key role, as a central figure at Elizabeth’s court. Given her dislike of Edward’s marriage, and the deference she was required to show to a woman of lower status, this may not have been an easy occasion for Cecily. However, she was intelligent and shrewd enough to realise that this new child represented the continuity of her dynastic line and helped guarantee its security on the throne. She had spent decades in submission to the Lancastrian court; at least the birth and christening represented her own bloodline. That bloodline was further advanced during the 1460s by the births of children to her daughter Elizabeth, Duche
ss of Suffolk. By the end of the decade, she had produced three sons and a daughter, and would go on to bear seven more.
Opportunities now opened up for the marital future of Cecily’s final daughter, Margaret. She had entered Elizabeth’s court as a lady-in-waiting but, as the sister of the king, she was now a valuable commodity on the European market, in a way that her elder sisters never had been. By 1465, Margaret of York was nineteen, a fairly advanced age for an aristocratic woman to remain unwed. That year, she was awarded an income of 400 marks a year ‘until the King shall provide her with a suitable marriage’.10 In 1466, she was betrothed to Peter, Constable of Portugal, but he died in June that same year, forcing Edward to look elsewhere. With his increasing interest in forging even stronger alliances with Burgundy in order to defeat their common enemy in France, the king invited Duke Philip, ‘the good’, to send ambassadors to negotiate a union with his widowed son, Charles. To the annoyance of the Earl of Warwick, the negotiations were largely entrusted to the Wydeville family, who played a prominent role in the Smithfield tournament of 1467. Cecily would have witnessed this extraordinary event, when the ‘Bastard of Burgundy’ famously jousted against Sir Anthony Wydeville, and the marriage seemed so certain that John Paston put a bet of 80 shillings on it taking place. The celebrations were broken up when news arrived, in London that June, of the death of Duke Philip. By February 1468, though, the marriage contract was officially signed and preparations for the bride’s departure began.
An account of Margaret’s pre-marriage ceremonials, written by one of her heralds, is preserved in the Cottonian manuscript Nero, c ix. The pageantry must have greatly pleased Cecily, as she witnessed the most illustrious of all her children’s nuptials, as well as being hopeful for her daughter’s future on a personal level. On Saturday 18 June, Margaret left the Great Wardrobe, where she had been staying, and rode to St Paul’s, where she made offerings ‘with great devocioun’. From there, she was accompanied by Warwick and the Duchess of Norfolk and other ladies and gentlewomen to Stratford Abbey. She passed the night there, with the king and queen. The following day she headed to Canterbury and then to Margate, where she set sail. Where did Cecily say goodbye to her daughter? She is not listed among the family party who waved Margaret off at Margate: ‘the Kyng, the Duc of Clarence, the Duc of Gloucester, the Erle of Warrewick’ with the queen’s father and brother, Richard and Anthony Wydeville, accompanying her on the voyage.11 The bridal party left English shores on 23 June 1468.
With the departure of Margaret, Cecily’s world was about to change once more. The focus fell next upon her income and residences. In July 1468, she was granted £400 yearly from the customs of wool exports from Kingston upon Hull and London, and the right to export sacks of wool from Sandwich and Southampton.12 England was particularly successful in the rearing of sheep, as its wet climate allowed them to graze longer on high-quality grass, producing a better quality of fleece. By 1500, 85 per cent of exports of cloth and fine wool were shipped from London, and they represented a sizeable part of national trade. This would have provided Cecily with a valuable source of revenue. As a thirteenth-century poet wrote, ‘I praise God and ever shall, it is the sheep hath paid for all.’13 The following March, Queen Elizabeth bore her third child by Edward, a daughter whom they named Cecily. The Duchess of York probably acted as her godmother, attending the christening at Westminster. If this was a gesture of goodwill or reconciliation from the royal couple, it may have been too little, too late. Later that year, Cecily’s relationship with Edward would be put to the test.
In 1469, Cecily finally left the castle at Fotheringhay, which had been one of her favourite family homes, and moved to Berkhamsted Castle. According to the grant made at Westminster in March, she had surrendered the manor of Fotheringhay and all her estate by means of a letter to Edward the previous month. In lieu of this, she was given Berkhamsted in Hertfordshire and Kings Langley in Herefordshire, ‘to hold for life’ with all the fees that arose from ‘knight’s fees, advowsons, wards, marriages, reliefs, courts leet, woods, parks, warrens, chases, stews, fisheries, fairs, markets, customs’ and other local sources. If she was ever to be moved again, she would ‘be fairly recompensed’. She was moving to an estate run by Sir John Pilkington, constable of the castle and parker of its grounds.14 This move presents something of a puzzle. Cecily appears to have been devoted to the place and was responsible for a large programme of reglazing in St Mary’s church, cloister and college hall in the 1460s. This incorporated the images and stories of saints with special significance for the York family as well as heraldic devices, which suggests she had no intention of leaving and was expecting to live out the rest of her life there. Instead she was uprooted and sent to an inferior residence.
Berkhamsted was a Norman building, with a traditional motte and an oblong bailey, surrounded by a flint curtain wall and double ditch. Built by a half-brother of William the Conqueror, it was developed greatly by Thomas Becket during his tenure as Lord Chancellor, had been owned by the Black Prince, and had undergone extension and repairs in the fourteenth century. An English Heritage report based on excavations undertaken in 1962 and 1967 described it as a ‘high-status residence’ with a deer park and the administrative centre for extensive estates.15 By the time Cecily arrived, though, its heyday had passed and it was in a state of disrepair, being abandoned on her death in 1495 and described by Leland as in ‘muche ruine’ and unsuitable for royal use. In 1580, the masonry was robbed out to aid the construction of Berkhamsted Place, which was described as having been constructed from flint and Tatternell stone, in the fashionable and expensive chequerboard-pattern style.
Although ruined today, it appears from the surviving stonework at Berkhamsted Castle that the hall, chapel and living quarters were located along the western side. It would have been an extensive but quiet residence for Cecily who, as a widow living alone, no longer required such a large and important manor as Fotheringhay. It may be the case that she chose to leave, or was gently encouraged to go by Edward, over a period of months or years, but she must have left many happy memories behind at her former favourite home. She may have embraced the move as the final phase of her life, as a place of retirement and religious devotion. There is the chance, though, that this was a deliberate slight. There is no question that she was leaving the property most associated with the House of York, defined by its moat, which had been cut in the shape of the Mortimer falcon and fetterlock. Houses were as much a part of the external manifestation of status and wealth as clothing, and this relocation to an inferior home may have been intended to humble the duchess. Perhaps it was a punishment for her attitude towards the queen, or else she may have transgressed in some other way, refusing to accept that her son and his wife wielded joint authority over the ‘queen by rights’. Between 1461 and 1464, Cecily had been the first lady, the dowager queen, with Edward in the palm of her hand; small wonder that she objected to being supplanted by a Lancastrian widow. If the move did happen against her will, her ejection would have been a dramatic step, designed to distance her from the reputation of the dynasty and, to an extent, from the memory and deeds of her husband. If there was some sort of family breach leading up to her move, the subject may have been very close to home. The York family was beginning to fragment.
Cecily’s nephew, Richard, Earl of Warwick, had objected to the Burgundian match, hoping that Edward would take the chance to cement the French alliance he had lost in 1464. His increasing dissatisfaction was marked by several contemporaries, with the Milanese papers recording, in 1467, that he had ‘met with many opponents to his plan’16 and Croyland relating that he was ‘deeply offended’.17 Jean de Waurin suggests that, in the lead up to Margaret’s marriage, Edward had been actively avoiding the French ambassadors, sending his brother George to meet them instead and then retiring to Windsor for six weeks while they remained in London ‘chiefly because the king did not wish to communicate with the French’.18 It was around this time, according to Waurin, that
Warwick lost patience with Edward and began to drive a wedge between him and his brother George:
Then they spoke of the circle round the king, saying that he had scarcely any of the blood royal at court, and that Lord Rivers and his family dominated everything. And when they had discussed this matter, the duke asked the earl how they could remedy this. Then the Earl of Warwick replied that if the duke would trust him, he would make him King of England, or governor of the whole realm. When the Duke of Clarence, who was young and trusting, heard the earl promise so much to him, together with the hand of the earl’s daughter in marriage, he agreed, on these promises that the earl made him, to take her as his wife …19
