Elizabeth Woodville

Elizabeth Woodville was married to Edward IV of England. She was the grandmother of Henry "The Decapitator" Tudor through her daughter Elizabeth of York.

Elizabeth was born sometime in the late 1530's to Richard Woodville and his wife Jacquetta of Luxembourg. Jacquetta was descended from both English and Continental royalty and married twice into the English nobility and royalty. Her first husband was a son of Henry IV and she married Elizabeth's father after his death. Elizabeth's parents had sixteen children, twelve of which survived childhood. After Elizabeth became Queen, her enemies would accuse her mother of witchcraft.

Elizabeth's family were fairly close for English nobility at the time. As an adult, Elizabeth would always do everything in her power to help relatives have success. Elizabeth was seen as extremely beautiful by her contemporaries and had many suitors. As a teenager she married John Grey, a wealthy nobleman, in a marriage that may have been arranged. They had two sons, Thomas and Richard.

John Grey died in 1461 and Elizabeth found herself a young widow with two children in a country torn up by the War of the Roses. The War of the Roses was between the York and Lancaster families, represented by the white and red roses, respectively. Elizabeth's family was on the Lancaster side, as was John Grey. But in 1461, the Yorks had seemingly won, and their heir Edward was placed on the throne as Edward IV.

Elizabeth and Edward first met when she tried to request his help getting lands that belonged to her family that had been seized by the crown upon Edward's victory. Edward was a few years younger than Elizabeth, six foot four, and is considered to have been the tallest King in British history. Considering the average height at the time for men was about five foot five, he towered over everyone. He was also a terrible womanizer who slept with every woman who caught his fancy. He was immediately attracted to Elizabeth and set about trying to get her into bed.

Elizabeth refused his advances repeatedly. At one point, he even held a knife to her throat and tried to rape her. Elizabeth did everything she could to resist his violent "seduction" attempts. FInally, in 1464, Edward asked Elizabeth to marry him. Whether she actually wanted to marry him (to be Queen or because she was a masochist) or just felt obligated to marry her would-be-rapist because her family had been on the losing side of a war and he had the power to have them all decapitated if she refused is a mystery of history. It wasn't fun being a woman in the fifteenth century.

Either way, they were married privately (only her mother and two of her ladies witnessed) at her home on May 1, 1464. The marriage was very controversial; Edward's handlers wanted him to marry a foreign princess to help seal his claim to the throne. Elizabeth's family having supported the Lancasters certainly didn't help. Edward's mother, Cecily Neville, was so pissed off about the whole situation she publicly threatened declare him illegitimate and put one of his brothers on the throne.

Elizabeth and Edward had ten children in fourteen years. Elizabeth had a bit of worrying after her first three were girls, but her fourth and sixth children were both boys. Edward, meanwhile, continued to whore around when ever he wasn't impregnating his wife. Elizabeth passed the hours she wasn't in labor arranging good marriages for her siblings. This made her very unpopular; the Woodvilles were seen as the worst kind of ambitious social climbers.

In 1470, Edward was forced off the throne for a time when it was retaken by the Lancasters and Elizabeth and her children had to hide out in uncertainty, but he managed to get it back. He also killed off as many of the remaining Lancaster claimants as he could get ahold of to make sure nothing like that happened again.

Throughout the 1470's, Elizabeth spent her time having babies and participating in the occasional court intrigue. One of the more interesting ones involved her brother-in-law George. George married one of the prominent Neville sisters (also relatives of his) and was somehow involved in a scheme to overthrow Edward and put himself on the throne. For this he was put in the Tower and eventually executed; possibly by being drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine. He was known to be fond of the drink.

Anyway, in 1583 Edward dropped and Elizabeth was a widow with twelve kids and a kingdom to run. Or so she thought. Turned out the arrangements had been made for her brother-in-law Richard to be regent for her son Edward Jr., who took the throne as Edward V. That lasted for about a month until Richard suddenly "found" a document that proved Edward and Elizabeth's marriage had actually not been legal. Which meant Elizabeth's kids had no right to the throne. Naturally, Elizabeth tried to fight back, but her side lost and her brother and son, Richard Grey, were executed. Elizabeth put herself and her other children in sanctuary. Her oldest son Edward was still being kept in the Tower, where he had been staying to await his coronation, by Richard. Somehow Richard managed to talk Elizabeth into letting her son Richard (not Richard Grey, her son by Edward IV who also happened to be named Richard) join his brother in the Tower so they could play together and stuff.

Sometime in late 1483, both boys "disappeared" and were never heard from again. Now, I'm not going to implicate Richard because he had fangirls who I'm sure would strongly disagree with me if I did. But, I mean, he does seem like a likely suspect. Also a likely suspect was professional hanger-on/wannabe King the Duke of Buckingham who had plenty of access and may have killed them with or without Richard's knowledge.

Though Elizabeth probably had her suspicions given Richard had already done away with her favorite brother and one of her sons, she would never really know what had happened to them. For almost a year after Richard took over, Elizabeth and her daughters hid in sanctuary where Richard couldn't get them. Finally, in 1484, they agreed to come out as Richard had pinky-sweared that he wasn't going to kill anymore of Elizabeth's children. Rumors at the time indicated he wanted to marry his teenage niece, Elizabeth's oldest daughter Elizabeth of York. I can't say how true these were, only that they were very widespread. Richard's wife had recently died and so had his son and he desperately needed an heir. He also thought by marrying his niece he could strengthen his claim to the throne. I'm sure at some point he thought about it (marriages between uncles and nieces weren't uncommon among medieval royalty) but I doubt he was serious once he realized how much backlash he would get. Everyone already thought he killed his nephews.

Richard III wasn't actually a bad King; it was that he was widely believed to be a bad person that proved to be his downfall. Henry Tudor was a relative of the Lancaster family who'd been living in exile for years. His mother, Margaret Beaufort, was a prominent noblewoman in England. Henry decided to take advantage of Richard's unpopularity and stage a rebellion. His mother contacted Elizabeth to see if she would agree to marry her oldest daughter off to Henry Tudor if he got the crown.

She agreed. Henry successfully defeated Richard III in 1485 and became Henry VII. The Tudor dynasty was born and Elizabeth's daughter was Queen. Elizabeth's children were now recognized as legitimate again and Elizabeth hoped she'd have some authority in the new court. She was wrong. Henry Tudor was dominated by his mother, who saw Elizabeth as a threat. Margaret Beaufort didn't like that Elizabeth Woodville outranked her and wanted her to go away. So Elizabeth agreed to go to a nunnery and be quiet, under some duress. She was frequently visited by her children and allowed back at court from time to time to visit her grandchildren, but she was never treated as she deserved.

By the time she died in 1492, she was quickly forgotten as people looked toward the bright future of the Tudor dynasty rather than the questionable past of the Yorks and Lancasters.