Free Tudor Queens of England by David Loades

to take a bride from one of the princely houses of western Europe, as had been the case with Margaret, Catherine, Anne of Bohemia or Philippa of Hainault. Henry Bolingbroke had married Mary Bohun long before there was any prospect of his becoming king and she had died by 1394. Edward the Black Prince had married Joan, daughter of the Earl of Kent, but he had never come to the throne at all. Consequently the normal protocols did not apply to Edward. There were no diplomatic hints, no cautious reactions and no complex negotiations. No dowry was in question and there were no foreign policy implications, except in a purely negative sense. The King of England had taken himself off the marriage market, so no alliance could be strengthened or peace mediated by that means. Neither Henry V nor Henry VI had seen the girls they were committed to until all the formalities had been completed and the nature of the relationship that followed had to be worked out step by step. Edward married Elizabeth because he wanted her and, if the rumours were true, had sought her as his mistress before he was constrained to marry her. In short their coming together was much more typical of the way in which ordinary young people met and fell in love than it was of a royal marriage – except in one very important respect. An ordinary bride was given away by her kinsfolk in a public ceremony, whereas in this case the marriage was kept so secret that it is not even certain that the bride’s father knew what was happening. Edward was a notorious womanizer and the story that Elizabeth defended her honour with a dagger is credible, but if she traded her body for the status of queen they both did pretty well out of the deal. In a marriage that was to last for 19 years, she presented him with no fewer than ten children, which means that she must have been pregnant or convalescent well over half the time, a factor that needs to be borne in mind when the rest of her activities are assessed.
    Elizabeth was the elder daughter of Sir Richard Woodville, a gentleman of limited means who had been a household knight and servant to John, Duke of Bedford, the younger brother of King Henry V, who had died in 1435. He 44

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    was apparently a very handsome young man, and the Duchess, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, held him in high esteem. So high, indeed, that shortly after the Duke’s death she married him. Jacquetta was the sister of the Count of St Pol, and came of the highest European nobility, so the marriage was a misalliance similar to that which Catherine de Valois had perpetrated in marrying Owain Tudur. There was, however, nothing morganatic about their union, which was publicly acknowledged, much to the rage of the Count and the rest of her family. She was, however, suffi ciently close to the royal family to have needed the King’s licence, and in March 1437 Sir Richard was fi ned the massive sum of £1,000 for having ignored that precaution and for livery of her dower, which was no doubt substantial enough to pay the fi
    ne.1 B y the time that happened Jacquetta must already have been pregnant with Elizabeth, who was born before the end of that year. The nature of her relationship with the duke is unknown but she had borne him no children and her need is plain. The fact that she proceeded to bear Sir Richard fi ve sons and six daughters tells its own story.
    Nothing very much is known about Elizabeth’s upbringing but she presumably received the conventional education of a young gentlewoman, strong on piety and the domestic virtues but not conspicuous for ‘book learning’. She was literate in English and probably in French, but not in Latin, which she only acquired partially and later. Despite her remarriage, her mother was still
    persona grata at court. She was one of the noble ladies sent to escort the young Queen Margaret to England in 1445 and shortly afterwards managed to attach young Elizabeth to the Queen’s household