Elizabeth Woodville Northamptonshire’s Queen

The life of Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England, was dominated by the drama and intrigue of the Wars of the Roses. Her fortunes ebbed and flowed with political chaos, much of which she created, writes Laura Malpas.

Elizabeth possessed both intelligence and great beauty which she exploited, and even though she ultimately met a lonely end, she led an eventful and extraordinary life. Her story is particularly interesting for us as it begins in Northamptonshire, in the village of Grafton, where the Woodville family’s ancestral manor lay. From here, Elizabeth rose to become the highest woman in the land, and through her oldest daughter, she is an ancestor to over 20 monarchs, including our King, Charles III.

Elizabeth was born in 1437, the oldest daughter of Sir Richard Woodville, a middle-ranking knight and courtier to King Henry VI. Her mother Jacquetta was of far more elevated rank. In her own right she was a Princess of Luxembourg, and as the widow of an English prince, held high status in the English royal court. However, Elizabeth mostly spent her early years at home in Northamptonshire.

As the oldest of thirteen children, she was married early to Sir John Grey of Groby, a middle-ranking knight and a supporter of the Lancastrian cause. Her notable beauty probably made up for her average dowry, for she was described with ‘fayre here’ and ‘as the most beautiful in the Isle of Britain with heavy lidded eyes like those of a dragon.’

However, one of the decisive events during the Wars of the Roses happened locally when in 1460 the Yorkists gained the upper hand at the Battle of Northampton. The following year Sir John Grey was killed in the second Battle of St Albans. As the widow on the losing side of a battle she lost everything, including her estates in Newbottle and Brington. Left with little choice, Elizabeth returned home. Ultimately the House of York was victorious, and King Edward IV was crowned aged only nineteen.

With two young sons from her marriage, widowed Elizabeth struggled to survive financially, and planned to petition King Edward for restitution of her property. Her plans turned out better than she could have dreamed. Legend tells us she heard that the King was staying at Stony Stratford, and likely to be riding through Whittlebury Forest on his way to Northampton Castle.

Elizabeth arranged a ‘chance encounter’ with the young Edward as he passed through the forest near her family home. As she petitioned the king under an oak tree, he was captivated and obsessed with her beauty. Despite the five-year age gap and her widowed status, he insisted on a speedy marriage, and in May 1464 with only her mother Jacquetta and two gentlemen as witnesses, they wed in secret at the Hermitage in Grafton.

The union with a Lancastrian supporter, who was also a widowed commoner with children, shocked the royal court and nobility of England who were critical of both Edward’s impetuousness, and the loss of a potential future marriage alliance with a foreign power. But Edward remained committed to Elizabeth and the following year she was crowned Queen in a lavish coronation.

Elizabeth, now Queen used her influence to seek security for her large family. With two sons from her first husband, and twelve siblings, she arranged political marriages with the most powerful noble families in the country, flooding the court with relatives and making Northamptonshire the heart of the Woodville power base. Elizabeth successfully consolidated her own position with King Edward by giving him ten children, eight of whom survived to adulthood.

King Edward and Elizabeth spent heavily and lived a lavish lifestyle. This did not make Elizabeth popular with the older established English nobility, the Woodvilles were considered upstart interlopers and were not welcomed. Following the recent conflict, a still politically tense situation was made much worse by Elizabeth’s family manoeuvres and Edward’s lavish spending and subsequent debt made them easy to criticise.

The powerful Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, once a staunch supporter of Yorkist King Edward now turned against him and supported the Lancastrian cause, resulting in a turbulent situation for the Royal Family.

In 1483 Elizabeth’s husband King Edward died of a digestive complaint, and Elizabeth knew her young family was highly vulnerable. Her oldest son, now King Edward V, needed protection so she asked her brother to take him and his younger brother to London for the coronation. Her husband’s brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester had been named in the will as Lord Protector until the young boy king reached adulthood, Uncle Richard intercepted both boys on the journey. Eventually Richard took the throne for himself, and the fate of the brothers, “The Princes in the Tower”, have become legend. Neither were heard of or seen again, most likely murdered by their uncle.

Elizabeth claimed sanctuary in Westminster Abbey with her surviving children whilst conflict raged. Richard began to systematically murder most of Elizabeth’s family and powerful allies, leaving her vulnerable.

Richard then declared that Elizabeth’s marriage to his brother King Edward IV was invalid owing to a previous engagement, thus making all the children illegitimate. Richard stripped Elizabeth of her lands and possessions and named her not Dowager Queen, but Dame Elizabeth Grey. Pragmatically, once she understood her sons were lost, Elizabeth acknowledged Richard as King. He promised safety for her and her daughters, offering Elizabeth a position at court, a small pension and dowries for the girls.

But Elizabeth still had a trump card to play. Her oldest daughter, Elizabeth of York was of marriageable age, educated, and possessed her mother’s beauty. She had already been sought as a bride by the French Dauphin, the Portuguese royal heir, and the Neville family, and it seems that the new King Richard was also considering marrying his niece or offering her as a bride to cement a political relationship. Elizabeth Woodville however had other ideas, and began secret negotiations with Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor, the Lancastrian claimant to the English throne.

In 1485, Henry Tudor invaded England and defeated King Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field. King Henry married Elizabeth of York, and rewarded Elizabeth Woodville with the title and honours of Dowager Queen.

Ultimately this ended the Wars of the Roses by uniting the houses of York and Lancaster and establishing the new Tudor Dynasty. This was symbolised by the badge of the Tudor Rose, a bi-coloured bloom combining both the white rose of York, and the red rose of Lancaster.

Following her daughter’s marriage, Elizabeth Woodville retired from public life to Bermondsey Abbey and lived quietly until her death in 1492.

Today Grafton still bears hints of the legacy of its royal daughter. Not much remains above ground, although much of the ancient Church largely built by her ancestors and their funerary memorials would be recognisable to her. Her many royal descendants too have left their mark, there’s even a memorial to a visit made by her distant grandson, our King Charles III, marking his visit to pay his respects to his ancestor.

As you explore the forests and villages of Northamptonshire, it’s good to remember that this was once the landscape of a queen, a woman whose life was as complex and captivating as the times in which she lived.

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