Anglesey: The Tudors' Mystical Island

by Nancy Bilyeau

View from a cliff on Anglesey Island [wikimedia commons, photo by Eric Jones]

After the army of  Henry Tudor, earl of Richmond, defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth on August 22, 1485, an effort swung into action to make Henry seem as kingly as possible. It wasn't enough that Richard must be seen as the blackest villain ever to draw breath. Henry himself, to hold the throne, must be venerated as royal.

It wasn't going to be easy.

Henry's mother, Margaret Beaufort, was descended from the great John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, and while that gave him the right to call himself a Lancastrian heir, the Beauforts were the children of Gaunt's mistress, Katherine Swynford. True, Gaunt married her after the five children were born and Henry IV had them legitimized. Still, no less than an act of Parliament barred a Beaufort from ever succeeding to the throne. Serious obstacle, that.

Henry VII [wikimedia commons, public domain]

So the Tudor propaganda machine got busy with building up the reputation of the last Lancaster king, Henry VI. In life he suffered complete nervous breakdowns, was led by his relatives and his wife, and would have been far better off as a monk than a king during the vicious family disputes later known as the War of the Roses. In 1471, defeated, he was murdered in the Tower of London by the triumphant Yorks. Some say that he was the worst king of the medieval era.

But Henry VI was the half-brother of Edmund Tudor, father of the new King Henry VII. He was family. Some serious revision was in order.

So in the inaugural pageants of Henry VII, prominence was given to his dead uncle, the "Martir By Great Tormenting." Stories circulated of King Henry VI's miracles, such as curing the blind and saving children from fires. Strenuous efforts were made to persuade the Pope to make Henry VI a saint.

Sainthood notwithstanding, the Tudors' connection to Henry VI was not as straightforward as might seem at first glance. Henry VI's half-brother, Edmund Tudor, did not possess one drop of Plantagenet blood. Edmund's mother was Catherine of Valois--a French princess who was briefly married to Henry V and gave birth to Henry VI--and his father was Catherine's handsome Welsh servant, Owen Tudor. The legend goes that the young widow spotted Owen swimming naked in a river. Catherine secretly married Owen and they had four or five children.

Catherine of Valois marrying first husband Henry V [wikimedia commons]

When he came to the throne, Henry VII's Welsh descent was honored, of course. After all, Henry Tudor and his uncle Jasper (Edmund's younger brother) purposefully landed in Wales with their army and made a popular appeal for support as they marched toward England. The Welsh flocked to his cause, and his army flew the flag of the red dragon of Cadwallader,  the legendary Welsh ruler. After he won the battle, the new King Henry VII proclaimed himself as heir to the 7th century Cadwallader, a new king whose rise was foretold in the misty prophecies of Merlin.

As for the king's far more recent, undoubted Welsh background, not much was said about that. After all, when it was discovered years ago, the secret marriage was an embarrassment. Queens didn't marry their servants. Following the death of Catherine of Valois, her oldest child, Henry VI, committed the non-saintly act of sending his stepfather, Owen Tudor, to Newgate Prison (he was later pardoned and pensioned).

But the Tudor family--which did give its name to England's most memorable dynasty--should not be ignored pre-Bosworth. They were a family of genuine achievement and for centuries they lived on a remarkable island, Anglesey, off the northwest coast of Wales. It was a place of mystical power...and a spirit of ferocious independence.

The beautiful island [wikimedia commons, photo by Stephen Elwyn Roddick]

We learn of Anglesey (its Welsh name is Ynys Môn) through the writings of Roman historians.  Roman rulers feared its occupants. That's right, feared. At its height, the Roman empire controlled land lived on by 50 million people. Yet Anglesey held a special place among the strategies of the caesars.

It was because of the Druids. Anglesey was the last Druid sanctuary.

The revival of the Druid religion in the 18th century confuses our understanding of the original. We may envision robed figures dancing in the moonlight, swathed in wreaths. That's Druids 2.0. The Romans encountered something else.

Julius Caesar fought the Celts for eight years in modern-day France. The Gallic Wars gave him fame and fortune but he didn't win easily. The priestly, educated class of the Celts in France, England and Ireland were the Druids, and he was fascinated by the mysterious spiritual leaders of his adversaries.  Julius Caesar wrote:

"The Druids are in charge of all religious matters, superintending public and private sacrifices, and explaining superstitions....The whole nation of the Gauls is greatly devoted to ritual observances, and for that reason those who are smitten with the more grievous maladies and who are engaged in the perils of battle either sacrifice human victims or vow so to do, employing the druids as ministers for such sacrifices. They believe, in effect, that, unless for a man's life a man's life be paid, the majesty of the immortal gods may not be appeased; and in public, as in private life they observe an ordinance of sacrifices of the same kind. Others use figures of immense size whose limbs, woven out of twigs, they fill with living men and set on fire, and the men perish in a sheet of flame. They believe that the execution of those who have been caught in the act of theft or robbery or some crime is more pleasing to the immortal gods; but when the supply of such fails they resort to the execution even of the innocent."

Whether or not Druids oversaw human sacrifice is hotly debated. Historians long dismissed it as Roman gossip, but recent findings suggest otherwise. "Lindow Man," found in the peat bog of Cheshire, was a young Celtic of high status who was strangled and then had his throat cut, during the first century AD.

What cannot be disputed is that when the Romans struggled to conquer Britain, they targeted the Druids as those who fomented rebellion.  They were 1st Century freedom fighters. The Romans could not subdue the people for long; frustrated, they decided to wipe out the Druids to break the people's spirit. To do that, they must march on Anglesey, the Druid stronghold.

What do we know about the lives of the Druids? Very little. The Druids left no written records. Researchers believe it took twenty years for a student to become a Druid. They honored the winter and summer solstices. The conjecture is that the Druids believed in the immortality of the soul and that after death it found a new body. According to the Museum of Wales, between 300 BC and 100 AD, chariots, weapons, tools and decorated metalwork were cast into a lake at the site of Llyn Cerrig Bach on Anglesey.

Whatever the Druids were doing, the Romans set themselves to wipe it out. Tacitus wrote vividly of the slaughter of Druids on Anglesey, some of them women, led by Roman commander Suetonius Paulinus in 61 AD:

"On the beach stood the adverse array, a serried mass of arms and men, with women flitting between the ranks. In the style of Furies, in robes of deathly black and with dishevelled hair, they brandished their torches; while a circle of Druids, lifting their hands to heaven and showering imprecations, struck the troops with such an awe at the extraordinary spectacle that, as though their limbs were paralysed, they exposed their bodies to wounds without an attempt at movement. Then, reassured by their general, and inciting each other never to flinch before a band of females and fanatics, they charged behind the standards, cut down all who met them, and enveloped the enemy in his own flames."

Menai Straits, where the Romans crossed
[wikimedia commons, photo by Mark Chambers]

Little more is heard of the Druids. Rome did its horrific job. Moreover, as Wales accepted Christianity, the Druids as a priestly class were bound to become extinct, probably by the 7th century.

But for the people who remained on the island, the defiant spirit of Anglesey was not broken. After Rome fell, waves of invasion by Saxons and Vikings took their toll across England. Wales for the most part stayed true to its Celtic origins. (Anglesey was taken by Irish warlords for a time, before throwing them off.) The "Kingdom of Gwynedd" rose in Wales, its rulers declaring themselves "Kings of the Britons," and for several centuries the town of Aberffraw, on Anglesey Island, was this kingdom's power base.

Then came Edward I. 

As far as Anglesey was concerned, the kings of England, first Norman and then Plantagenet, weren't English at all. They spoke French, for starters. The Welsh maintained their independence throughout the rules of families based in far-away London, until Edward I launched war, using strategies nearly as horrific as the Romans. When the last king of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, died in battle in 1282, Edward I sent his severed head to London to be displayed, mockingly, with a crown of ivy and then mounted over the gate of the Tower of London. 

It's during this turbulent time that the Tudor name first appears in historical record. For four centuries, the Tudor family served the independent Welsh kings of Gwynedd in high positions, resisted English attempts at subjugation and, even after Edward I's brutalizing wars, continued to support revolt.  Henry Tudor's known ancestor was Edynyfed Fychan ap Cynwrig, a seneschal of Llywelyn the Great in the early 13th century. The Tudor seat on Anglesey was the village of Penmynydd, which means top of the mountain in Welsh. They were undoubtedly a leading family.

The rocky coastline [wikimedia commons, photo by Lesbardd]

So how did Owen Tudor end up working as a servant for a widowed English queen? By the time of his birth, the island of Anglesey was worn down by generations of fighting the English. The Tudors were on the front lines of the latest struggle. Owen's father, Maredudd ap Tudor, and uncles were key combatants in the Glyndŵr Rising, also known as the Last War of Independence. The Tudors were fierce guerrilla fighters during that long revolt, and were left impoverished at its end in 1415. The victorious English crown fined the defeated rebels and seized their land. Seeing no choice, Owen's father took his family off the island.

There is some speculation Owen Tudor fought under Henry V as a soldier at Agincourt and won royal notice that way. After the death of the wife they shared, Catherine of Valois, Owen supported the rights of Henry VI. He was descended from men who rebelled against the English kings for decades. Now he was the stepfather of such a king.

Owen was fighting in the army of his own son, Jasper, when the Lancasters lost to the future Edward IV at the Battle of Mortimer's Cross and he was captured. The Yorkists decided to execute Owen immediately. Shortly before he was beheaded on February 2, 1461, Owen Tudor said, "That hede shalle ly on the stocke that wass wonte to ly on Quene Catheryn's lappe."

When, more than a century later, Queen Elizabeth defied Spain and roused England to defend itself from the Armada, historians see the character of her parents, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, in the Queen's courage and eloquence.

Elizabeth said to her soldiers:

"Let tyrants fear, I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust."

And maybe, just maybe, we can hear in her words an echo of the spirit of the many freedom fighters of Anglesey Island.

Island of Anglesey [wikimedia commons; photo by Lesbardd]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nancy Bilyeau is the author of a trilogy of novels set in 16th century England featuring Dominican novice Joanna Stafford: The Crown, The Chalice and The Tapestry.  The books were published by Touchstone (Simon & Schuster) and are on sale in nine countries. The Crown was an Oprah pick. The Tapestry was a finalist for the Daphne du Maurier Award for Best Historical Romantic Suspense at RWA in 2016. For more information, go to www.nancybilyeau.com.

Margaret Pole’s Wild Ride on Fortune’s Wheel

by Samantha Wilcoxson

Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, is possibly best known for her botched execution. One of the last victims of Henry VIII’s temper and insecurities, Margaret was sent to her death without trial at the age of sixty-seven. However, if that is all you know of this dynamic woman, you are missing out on an adventurous story.

Painting of unknown woman
believed to be Margaret Pole

In the late medieval world, faith was an important element of daily life but it was sprinkled with superstition. One of these philosophies related to Rota Fortunae or the Wheel of Fortune that was blindly spun and could drastically affect the life of any person, great or small. We might call it twists of fate or destiny, but the idea is the same. While the poor might pray for an unexpected rise in fortune, the great could be quickly brought low. Few endured greater shifts in fortune than Margaret Pole.

Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium showing Lady Fortune spinning her wheel.

She was born August 14, 1473, to George of Clarence and Isabel Neville. He was the brother of King Edward IV, and she was the oldest daughter of the Earl of Warwick, the man most credited with placing Edward upon the throne. George was no longer heir presumptive, since Elizabeth Woodville had recently presented Edward with one son and another would join him within days of Margaret’s birth. Still, George’s position was a favorable one, and Margaret had every reason to anticipate a bright future.

George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence

Before Margaret was old enough to know what was happening, the Wheel of Fortune made the first of many turns in her life. The Duke of Clarence had betrayed his brother even before Margaret’s birth, but he had always been forgiven. In 1477, the king was pushed too far. Wild with grief over his wife’s death after childbirth that he convinced himself was a poisoning, George once again rebelled. By the spring of 1478, Margaret and her younger brother Edward were orphans. Many theories revolve around George of Clarence’s execution, but to these small children the only thing that mattered was that their father was gone, executed by his own brother.

Despite their status as the orphaned children of an attainted traitor, Margaret and Edward enjoyed the remainder of the Plantagenet dynasty within households of royal cousins and may have believed that Fortune’s Wheel was creeping its way back upward. Then came the year 1485.

After Henry Tudor was victorious at Bosworth, the royal children who had been tucked away at Sheriff Hutton were brought south to London. Margaret and Edward were among them. We have no way of knowing whether their cousin, Elizabeth of York, was eager to meet the new king to whom she was betrothed, but all of the York children must have been anxious to learn what the future would hold and which way Fortune’s Wheel would turn for them.

At this point Margaret’s path veered away from her brother’s. Edward was imprisoned in the Tower for his excess of royal blood, while Margaret was married to a distant relative of Margaret Beaufort. Richard Pole was a faithful supporter of Henry Tudor, and, as such, he and Margaret were soon sent to serve Prince Arthur at Ludlow. During this time, Margaret formed a close relationship with Arthur’s bride, Catherine of Aragon.

Edward, never more than a pawn in older men’s games, had been executed in 1499 in order to clear the way for Catherine’s arrival, but Margaret does not seem to have held it against her. The two remained lifelong friends well beyond the brief time at Ludlow. After the deaths of their husbands, Margaret and Catherine shared a low point on the Wheel of Fortune. Both women, accustomed to rich lifestyles, were left in relative poverty by King Henry VII. Gifts from his wife, Elizabeth of York, would help ease their burden that was only to be lifted with the ascension of Henry VIII.

King Henry VIII
by unknown Anglo-Netherlandish artist, NPG 4690

By marrying Catherine and bestowing an old family title upon Margaret, Henry VIII appeared to be the women’s savior. For a time. The Countess of Salisbury thrived during this high point on Fortune’s Wheel. Building projects, advantageous marriages for her children, and a coveted place at the queen’s side occupied her time. She mourned with Catherine over the loss of the queen’s babies, one after another, until the birth of a healthy auburn haired girl. In a few years, Margaret became Princess Mary’s governess.

Queen Mary I

by Master John, NPG 428 

Her place must have seemed entirely secure when the whispering began in the mid-1520s. Henry had a new love. He did not believe that Catherine could give him the son he wanted. Needed. Margaret had a decision to make. Stand by her queen and the princess she had grown to love as much as her own children, or look to her own future and rally to the side of her cousin the king?

She attempted a balancing act, which worked for some time. Margaret would not give up her friend or her religion, but neither did she antagonize the king. That job was left to her son.

Reginald Pole had enjoyed the patronage of both Henry Tudors, and the education that they had provided him with placed him close to the Pope. Henry hoped that Reginald would support his case and convince the pope to approve his divorce. Instead, Reginald took advantage of the safety provided to him by his distance from England to speak vociferously against Henry’s Great Matter, eventual multiple marriages, and self-proclaimed status as Head of the Church of England.

Henry’s rage could not bring Reginald within his reach, so he lashed out at his family instead in a devastating turn of the Wheel of Fortune for Margaret Pole. The final blow began with the arrest of her youngest son, Geoffrey, and grew into the legalized mass murder known as the Exeter Conspiracy in 1538. In this vicious blow against the York remnant, Henry executed Margaret’s oldest son, Lord Montague, along with several others. Montague’s son, a young boy named Henry, was also taken to the Tower, never to be seen again. Geoffrey attempted to commit suicide.

Margaret was first placed under house arrest, then taken to the Tower herself, though no charges were ever brought against her. There she would endure this low point, knowing that her family was being torn apart, until she was informed that Henry was done with her. On May 27, 1541, Margaret was informed that her execution would take place that morning. She had committed no crime and been given no trial, yet she prepared herself with the royal dignity she was born to.

Tower of London

After her brutal beheading by an unprepared and inexperienced executioner, these words were found on the wall of Margaret’s Tower cell:
For traitors on the block should die;
I am no traitor, no, not I!
My faithfulness stands fast and so,
Towards the block I shall not go!
Nor make one step, as you shall see;
Christ in Thy Mercy, save Thou me! 

Margaret Pole Memorial

Additional Reading:
Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541: Loyalty, Lineage and Leadership by Hazel Pierce

Image credits:

Painting of unknown woman believed to be Margaret Pole. Public Domain(?),  by Unknown

Boccaccio's De Casibus Virorum Illustrium showing Lady Fortune spinning her wheel. Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=466545, FortuneWheel.

George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, by Lucas Cornelisz - [1], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7500733

King Henry VIII, by unknown Anglo-Netherlandish artist, NPG 4690, CC BY-NC-ND

Queen Mary I, by Master John, NPG 428, CC BY-NC-ND

Tower of London. Author's personal photo

Margaret Pole Memorial. Author's personal photo

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author Bio:
Samantha Wilcoxson is a first generation American with British roots. She is passionate about reading, writing, and history. Her novel, Plantagenet Princess, Tudor Queen: The Story of Elizabeth of York has been recognized as an Editors’ Choice by the Historical Novel Society. Her next book, Faithful Traitor: The Story of Margaret Pole, is currently available for pre-order and will be released June 14, 2016.

Samantha has also published two middle grade novels, No Such Thing as Perfect and Over the Deep: A Titanic Adventure.

When not involved in reading or writing, Samantha enjoys traveling and spending time at the lake with her husband and three children. You can connect with Samantha on her Blog, Twitter,  Goodreads, Booklikes, and Amazon.
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The battle before the battle

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

We are often proud to announce that England has not been successfully invaded since 1066, but this is not entirely true, and there have been many battles taking place on English soil over the centuries. Henry Tudor invaded in 1485 with an army both financed and principally comprising French mercenaries, and William of Orange did, in one sense, invade although it was comparatively bloodless. Bloodiest of all were the battles of the so-called Wars of the Roses and the later Civil War.

But there was another war, rarely mentioned and rarely considered. This was something that brought more ruin to the general population, and surely mattered more to them than the problem of which king wore the crown. And that was the battle behind each and every battle that took place in this country, and of course, also in others.

The lords who were called to fight for their faction came from all over the land, and they mustered their troops from their own vast estates, wherever those were situated. Then these mustered armies, sometimes comprising trained soldiers and archers but usually simply of ordinary men, farmers, tradesmen, and craftsmen, tramped across the countryside behind their leaders, making for whatever distant area had been designated as a meeting place. Sometimes this involved crossing hundreds of miles, and several thousand tired men striding across fields and through small villages, could cause devastating damage. Depending on their leader, these men might be disciplined and given food – or they might very likely be left to feed themselves. A  farmer’s crops and animals were frequently seized, taken for the cook pot or to roast over the campfire at night, with recurring demands for free food and drink from the local folk. Women might be abused, and fights and skirmishes would break out along the route. These were men facing possible death, and their consideration for the lands through which they passed would be low.

For example, the ferocious and tragic Battle of Towton, 1461, was fought in Yorkshire. But the men who joined the battle had come from all over England, tramping mile by mile, summoned by their lord to fight for his cause and ambition. The weather was freezing. Men who faced death from hunger before they even arrived at Towton, would take what they needed along the way. One estimate of those killed at Towton stands at nearly 30,000 men. So first the muster brought its own devastation of the countryside, and then the horrific slaughter left a host of widows and fatherless children in wretched penury and with the utter misery of such awful loss without even the opportunity to bury the hosts of the dead.

Men called upon to risk life and limb, ready to slaughter or be slaughtered, were not always on their best behaviour, nor were they all the sweetest of polite gentlemen. There were the prickers, for instance. These were mounted men armed with pitch-forks and employed to gallop the outlying limits of a battlefield and force back into action any attempted deserters. I doubt if such men were too careful concerning their manners as they marched the long miles to the battlefront.

There would also be heavy wagons loaded with supplies and arms, followed by women and trailing families, children ready to help deliver arrows on the outskirts once fighting started, and prostitutes hoping to make a little money and a little friendship. No lightweight procession then – trundling across the land, searching for food as they went, and looking for places to camp.

Henry V

But the worst damage came from foreign armies. They could devastate the land they crossed. Burning as they went, many foreign soldiers hoped to force their enemy into surrender by ensuring all farmland and food crops were eradicated as they passed. A starving enemy would be weak and more willing to lay down their arms. Such ruthless cruelty became more and more commonly accepted. The so-called hero of Agincourt, King Henry V, adopted this scorched-earth strategy, and left utter misery and destitution behind him when he invaded France. And it was the common folk, not the lords, who suffered most and whose depleted livestock and burned fields might take years to recover, ensuring bitter hunger and poverty long after the actual battle was won or lost.

When Henry Tudor led an army consisting mostly of soldiers from England’s greatest enemy, France,  across the country from Wales to Warwickshire and Leicestershire, they left a trail of devastation behind them. The French had no love for the English and would not have treated either the people or the land with respect. Besides, many of the French army were mercenaries, or criminals released from prison in exchange for their willingness to fight. The weather was hot and the miles long and sweaty. Robbery, violence and rape would certainly have occurred along the way. Some cities opened their gates to Henry’s troops, which seems unsurprising. Better to invite them in and treat them well, rather than risk the utter desecration of crops, farmland and outlying homesteads by refusing all succour.

Foreign armies could bring little with them in the way of food and comfort. Wagonloads of arms would be hard enough to transport overseas since shipping was not a simple matter in those days. So the whole army needed feeding – thousands of men twice a day. And men had other desires. No camp-followers or prostitutes would have voluntarily served a foreign army and so the troops would simply have taken what they found along the route. The long standing enmity between the English and the French at that time – strongly expressed in both battle and peacetime – could not have ensured any peaceful trudge through those summer lanes. The fields, about to be harvested would have been stripped or trampled underfoot.

Henry Tudor

There are some contemporary indications of the devastation that occurred in this manner. For instance, Henry Tudor, once he claimed the crown, paid compensation to the farm owners whose lands had been wrecked where the battle actually took place and where his army had camped the previous night. But there is no mention of restitution made for the whole journey from the west coast to the east and nor would the leaders of any foreign invasions ever offer restitution for the purposeful destruction of the peaceful lands they crossed. Later, the Pretender ‘Perkin Warbeck’ when accompanied by a Scottish army marching into England to do battle for his claim as Prince Richard, Duke of York, soon abandoned his invasion because he could not accept the terrible violence he saw done to the local people, destruction of crops and brutality of the men he led as they tramped through the English counties.

There is also considerable evidence of later armies abroad, those of Napoleon for example, and the appalling misery they left behind them across Europe and Russia – not during battle alone – but simply during the passage of such mighty armies through peaceful and suffering country-sides.

So we read of the great battles of the past and we cheer for the heroes, but there was another destruction that went unrecorded, and that was suffered by the ordinary citizens, many of whom would have no chance to recover. This was what hurt the common man, who probably cared little for which king sat snug and smug upon the throne. The heroic victors of historical battles were often exactly those who had inflicted the most appalling disservice to the very folk they sought to rule.

Barbara Gaskell Denvil was born in Gloucestershire, England and later moved to London where she grew up surrounded by books, paintings and antiques. Her Scottish father was an artist and playwright, her Australian mother was a teacher, and elder sister, a successful author first published at age 16. The classic Victorian author Mrs Elizabeth Gaskell was a great, great, great aunt, so a bookish family. When birthdays came around, no one was asked what they wanted. As a child she never owned a bike or scooter, the question was simply, "Which book do you want this year?"

Her passion is for late English medieval history and this forms the background for many of her historical novels. She also write fantasy, yet both fantasy and historical fiction take us into new worlds and Barbara's books do exactly this - being multi-layered, and rich in atmosphere and depth of characterisation. Barbara can be found on her website and on Amazon

Elizabeth of York - Mother of a Dynasty

by Judith Arnopp

Elizabeth of York
All images rom Wikimedia*

Unlike her son Henry VIII and the granddaughter named in her honour, Elizabeth of York isn’t a household name. When viewed against the back drop of other Tudors she is far less splendid than her children; she is conventional and appears obedient, even cowed perhaps. Her portraits show a pretty, plump, and resigned looking woman who doesn’t adhere to our imagined picture of the mother of a king, the grandmother of a king and two queens. But, although her meek expression belies her harsh experiences she was in fact, the founder of a dynasty.

Elizabeth was born on February 11^th 1466 into the bloody era now known as the Wars of the Roses. She was the first child of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. To everyone but the couple involved, this was an unconventional and unpopular match but, unlike other queens, Elizabeth Woodville was to prove satisfactorily fertile.

King Edward IV

It was a time of upheaval and when Edward was forced to flee into exile in Burgundy, the Queen, along with her daughters, fled into Sanctuary at Westminster Abbey.  There, safe from conflict but estranged from the exiled King, the first of the younger Elizabeth’s brothers was born. (The boy Edward would later earn his place in history by ‘disappearing’, along with his brother Richard, from the Tower of London, igniting a mystery that continues to burn today.)

Meanwhile, boosted perhaps by the good news, the exiled king gathered his forces and with the aid of his brother-in-law, Charles the Bold of Burgundy, returned to England to resume the battle for his throne, finally defeating Warwick and Margaret of Anjou and having the old King Henry VI murdered in the Tower. This initiated a time of relative peace.

For Elizabeth, now five or six years old, it was time for her education to begin. As well as the skills of running a huge household, she was also taught to read and write and given some instruction in accounting. Contemporary reports describe her as pious, obedient, and loving, and dedicated to helping the poor.

In 1475 when Edward made his peace with France, it was arranged as part of the treaty that on her twelfth birthday she would go to France to prepare for marriage to Dauphin Charles. But, before this could take place, France reneged on the deal and married his son to Margaret of Austria instead.

Elizabeth Woodville

Things ran smoothly for a while, or as smoothly as they ever do in royal circles, until, on the unexpected death of the King in 1483, Elizabeth fled once more with her mother into Sanctuary at Westminster. Richard of Gloucester took his place as Lord Protector and Elizabeth's brother, the Prince of Wales, was brought to London to await his coronation, as was tradition, in the royal apartments at the Tower. 

Shortly afterward it emerged (whether true or not is another question) that Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous due to a prior contract of marriage. All children of the union between Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville were pronounced illegitimate. As we all know, Gloucester was declared King Richard III, and at some point between 1483 and 1485, Elizabeth’s brothers disappeared from the record. (That is not proof however that they disappeared from the Earth – there are any number of possible explanations).

The Princes in the Tower

How must this have been for Elizabeth? One moment she is the Princess of the realm, Dauphine of France, and the next an illegitimate nobody living in exile from court in the squalor of sanctuary.

And what of her brothers' fate? She would have been ignorant of that, and the resulting uncertainty mixed with grief for her father can only have been hard. It is possible that her mother knew or believed the boys to be safe. Why else, after scurrying into the safety of Westminster in fear of her life, would she suddenly hand her daughters into the care of the very man suspected of injuring her sons? 

We cannot know the answer to that, but the uncertainties provide very tasty fodder for the authors of fiction.

Elizabeth and her sisters returned to court to serve Richard’s Queen, Anne Neville, where they were treated with every courtesy. Queen Anne was ailing and clearly dying. It was at this time that rumours emerged of a relationship between Richard and his niece, Elizabeth. It is now impossible to be certain of the truth behind the allegation, but at the time gossip was strong enough for Richard to publicly deny the accusation. Whether the claim was true or not, Elizabeth would have suffered some degree of shame, but she seems to have continued to be prominent at court, serving the Queen until her death in March 1485. 

In August, when invasion was looming, Elizabeth and other children from the royal nursery were sent north for safety while the King dealt with the threat from Henry Tudor.

Henry Tudor

Henry Tudor, the Lancastrian heir, was aided throughout his exile by his mother, Margaret Beaufort in England. Margaret had devoted her life to her son’s cause. She  untiringly devised methods to secure the throne she saw as rightfully her son’s. Prior to his invasion, in order to muster support from the Yorkist faction, Henry promised that, if he became king, he would marry Elizabeth of York and unite the warring houses of York and Lancaster, putting an end to the Wars of the Roses forever.

After Richard III’s defeat at Bosworth in 1485 Elizabeth was taken to Margaret Beaufort’s house at Coldharbour, but Henry was slow to marry her and slower to crown her. We should consider the logistics of arranging a royal wedding at short notice, but it not something that Henry VIII found an obstacle in the next reign. To some it is almost as if he wished to deny that Elizabeth had any influence on his claim at all. They were married in January 1486. Elizabeth gave birth to their first child, a son whom they named Arthur, in September of the same year scarcely nine months later. She had no further children until two years after her coronation which took place in November 1487.

Perkin Warbeck

Henry Tudor’s reign was fraught with rebellion. Pretenders emerged throughout, some were swiftly dealt with, but one in particular, Perkin Warbeck, claiming to be Elizabeth’s younger brother, Richard, harried the king for years. We will never know his real identity, although the King went to great lengths to provide him with a lowly one.

Elizabeth is always described as a dutiful wife and devoted mother. She took no part in ruling the country, and there are no reports of her ever having spoken out of turn or ‘disappointing’ the King. Henry appears to have been a faithful husband; his later relationship with Katherine Gordon, wife of Warbeck, was possibly no more than friendship, but Katherine did very well, both in status and financially, at Henry's court.

Although Prince Arthur was raised, as convention dictated, in his own vast household at Ludlow, Elizabeth took an active role in the upbringing of her younger children, teaching them their letters and overseeing their education.

Prince Arthur

When Arthur, the Prince of Wales, died suddenly in 1502, both Henry and Elizabeth were distraught, the King thrown into insecurity at having been left with just one male heir. Reports state that the King and Queen comforted each other and, although there are some hints of a possible estrangement between the royal couple, Elizabeth promised to give Henry another son. She fell pregnant quickly and, ten months later, gave birth to a girl, Katherine, but succumbed to puerperal fever and died on her birthday, 11^th February 1503.

Elizabeth of York

Elizabeth deserves more credit. There is as much strength in resilience as in resistance, and I believe she was both strong and resolved, bound by duty to serve her country as best she could.

Her union with Henry negated the battle between York and Lancaster, and the many children she bore strengthened political unions with France, Scotland, and Spain. Ultimately, she died doing her duty to England.

When a king puts aside personal desire for the sake of his country or dies on the battlefield defending it, he becomes a hero; often, if he is on the right side, he is honoured throughout history.

Yet Elizabeth did all those things. She married dutifully; she quickly produced an heir, a spare, and several daughters to increase the king’s bargaining powers. At the tragic loss of the Prince of Wales, despite her age and the suggestion of medical problems, she took the most dangerous decision to try to give the King another son. She died a hero, in service of her King and country.

Images:
*http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/95/Elizabeth_of_York_from_Kings_and_Queens_of_England.png
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/48/King_Edward_IV.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Elizabeth_woodville.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c0/Princes.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Henry_Tudor_of_England_cropped.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Perkin_Warbeck.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Anglo-Flemish_School%2C_Arthur%2C_Prince_of_Wales_%28Granard_portrait%29_-004.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Elizabeth_of_York%2C_right_facing_portrait.jpg

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Elizabeth is the subject of my shortly to be published book A Song of Sixpence, in which I suppose that the younger of the princes was in fact rescued from the Tower in 1483 and re-emerges some years later as the man Henry names 'Perkin Warbeck'. 

The novel considers the division of loyalties a princess, born to the house of York, might have suffered in her union with the House of Lancaster. Would her support be for husband and her sons, or her long lost brother?

This is a massive issue to deal with in one blog, and I would encourage you to read more about Elizabeth in Alison Weir's book Elizabeth of York: The First Tudor Queen and Amy Licence's Elizabeth of York. 

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