Elizabeth of York

• 1. Introduction

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  Elizabeth of York died on the same calendar date she was born. It was the 11th of February, and she turned 37 that day. In the years between 1466 and 1503, an act of Parliament declared her illegitimate. Her two younger brothers vanished from the Tower of London and were never seen again. Rumor even held that the uncle who took her family's throne wanted to marry her himself. She ended her life as the wife of Henry VII and the mother of Henry VIII, founder of a royal dynasty whose name is still familiar even to people who have never heard hers. How did a princess from the losing side of a civil war become the queen credited with ending it? And what kind of woman survived a childhood of broken engagements and a decade of upheaval to build what her husband's biographers describe as a genuinely happy marriage?

• 2. Broken Betrothals

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  Elizabeth arrived at the Palace of Westminster as the eldest child of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. Westminster Abbey hosted her christening, sponsored by her grandmothers Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Duchess of Bedford, and Cecily Neville, Duchess of York. A royal governess, Elizabeth, Lady Darcy, took charge of her early upbringing. Historians generally regard her as heiress presumptive to the English throne from birth, though she was never formally proclaimed as such. Her father's claim rested on being Edward III's most senior descendant through cognatic primogeniture, a claim she inherited by default as his eldest child.

  In 1469, at only three years old, Elizabeth was betrothed to George Neville, who was created Duke of Bedford in anticipation of the marriage. His father, John, later joined the Earl of Warwick's rebellion against Edward IV, and the betrothal collapsed. In 1475, King Louis XI of France agreed that nine-year-old Elizabeth would marry his son Charles, the Dauphin. Louis broke that promise in 1482. In 1477, at eleven, she was named a Lady of the Garter alongside her mother and her aunt, also named Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk.

  Neither the Neville match nor the French one would matter in the end. Her father's death would arrive before any of them bore fruit, and it would open the way for a very different kind of alliance.

• 3. The Vanishing Princes

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  On the 9th of April 1483, Edward IV died unexpectedly, thrusting his son onto the throne as the boy-king Edward V. Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Edward's uncle, was named regent and protector. Gloucester intercepted the new king while he traveled from Ludlow, his residence as Prince of Wales, toward London for his coronation. Two men escorting him, his uncle Anthony Woodville and his half-brother Richard Grey, were arrested and sent to Pontefract Castle. Elizabeth Woodville fled with her younger son Richard and her daughters into sanctuary at Westminster Abbey. Thomas Bourchier, the Archbishop of Canterbury, eventually persuaded her, under duress, to let young Richard join his brother inside the Tower of London.

  Two months later, on the 22nd of June 1483, Parliament declared Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville invalid. The claim was that Edward had already been secretly married to Lady Eleanor Butler. Parliament's bill, called Titulus Regius, stripped Edward's children of any claim to the throne and named Gloucester the rightful king instead. Anthony Woodville and Richard Grey were executed on Gloucester's orders on the 25th of June. Gloucester was crowned Richard III on the 6th of July 1483. Edward and Richard disappeared from the Tower soon afterward. Rumors of murder spread quickly, some reportedly originating overseas.

  What became of the two princes has never been settled. What is certain is that their sister, still confined with her mother and sisters, was about to become useful to two rival kings at once.

• 4. An Uncle's Ambitions, A Rival's Oath

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  Elizabeth and her sisters spent ten months in sanctuary before returning to Richard III's court. It was rumored that Richard was plotting to marry his niece himself. According to the chronicler Polydore Vergil, Elizabeth Woodville had by then allied herself with Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of the Lancastrian claimant Henry Tudor. Henry's own claim to the throne was thin. Letters Patent issued by Henry IV in 1407 had barred the throne to descendants of his great-great-grandparents, John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. Whether those Letters Patent still carried legal force remained disputed. Vergil records that the two mothers agreed Henry should seize the crown and then marry Elizabeth to strengthen his claim. In December 1483, in the cathedral at Rennes, Henry Tudor swore an oath to marry her and began planning an invasion.

  In March 1484, Elizabeth Woodville and her daughters were persuaded to leave sanctuary. The Crowland Chronicle says they did so under 'frequent intercessions and dire threats.' Richard III swore publicly that they would 'not suffer any manner hurt,' and that he would not imprison them in the Tower or any other prison. The same chronicle records that Richard was later forced to deny rumors that he intended to marry Elizabeth himself. Those rumors grew louder as his wife, Anne Neville, fell ill. She died without leaving him a surviving heir. Soon after Anne's death, Richard sent Elizabeth away from court to Sheriff Hutton Castle. He opened negotiations with King John II of Portugal instead. The proposal was a double match. Richard would marry John's sister Joan, and Elizabeth would marry their cousin, the future King Manuel I of Portugal.

  Neither Portuguese match would ever take place. An army was already gathering across the water in Wales.

• 5. Bosworth and a Reluctant King

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  Henry Tudor landed in Wales on the 7th of August 1485 and marched inland with his army. On the 22nd of August, his forces met Richard III at Bosworth Field. Richard commanded the larger army, but one of his most powerful nobles, William Stanley, switched sides during the battle. Richard III died there, the last English king ever killed in combat, and Henry took the crown by right of conquest.

  Henry was slow to make good on his promise. When he finally moved to marry Elizabeth, he did so firmly on his own terms. He wanted to be seen as ruling by conquest, not merely as the husband of the House of York's rightful heiress. He had Titulus Regius repealed, restoring the legitimacy of Edward IV's children and formally acknowledging Edward V as his predecessor. Henry and Elizabeth were both descended from John of Gaunt, through his son and his younger brother Edmund. Canon law therefore required a papal dispensation before they could marry. Two applications went to Rome; the second took months to return an answer. Pope Innocent VIII's bull, issued in March 1486, formally approved what it called the marriage involving 'the noble Princesse Elyzabeth of the house of Yorke.'

  Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, presided over the wedding of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York on the 18th of January 1486. The papal bull confirming the marriage had not even arrived yet. Their son Arthur was born on the 20th of September 1486, eight months later. Elizabeth was crowned queen on the 25th of November 1487. She would give birth to several more children, but only four survived infancy: Arthur, Margaret, Henry, and Mary.

  The marriage that joined York's white rose to Lancaster's red still had to prove itself as an actual partnership.

• 6. A Marriage of Faithful Love

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  Historian Thomas Penn concludes that the marriage, despite its pragmatic origins, gradually blossomed over eighteen years of uncertainty and upheaval. He calls it a marriage of 'faithful love', of mutual attraction, affection and respect. Penn adds that Henry himself seems to have drawn great strength from it.

  Elizabeth's sisters, Cecily and Anne of York, were married to Lancastrian men loyal to Henry. So was her cousin, Margaret Pole. The marriages were part of an effort to fold the Yorkist and Lancastrian factions into one settled court. Richard III had used a similar tactic before him. He married Cecily to Richard Scrope after Titulus Regius had already stripped her and her sisters of legitimate status. Elizabeth had good reason to want these marriages to succeed, for her sisters' sake. She had no way to guarantee, though, that they would deliver lasting peace.

  Elizabeth reportedly went into debt more than once, from giving away money and alms in such large quantities. She also supported monks and religious orders generously. Henry, meanwhile, kept meticulous financial records, many signed personally 'Henry R,' documenting both his own spending and the realm's finances in careful detail.

  Greenwich Palace's rebuilding began in 1498, with Elizabeth taking a hand in its design. In 1502, the master mason Robert Vertue was paid for work following what records call 'the new platt of Greenwich which was devised by the Queen.' The palace was well suited to large-scale entertaining. Surviving records describe raucous, lively Christmas courts stocked with imported wine, roasted meats, and entertainers. Henry frequently bought gifts and expensive cloth for his wife and children.

  Elizabeth's hand in shaping Greenwich hints at an influence that rarely showed up anywhere else in her public life.

• 7. Books, Dice, and Little Power

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  Lady Margaret Beaufort, Henry's formidable mother, held enough sway at court that Elizabeth exercised little political influence of her own as queen. One recorded exception stands out. Henry once chose Elizabeth's candidate for a vacant bishopric over his mother's choice. It was a small sign of how much weight her preferences carried with him. Contemporaries described Elizabeth as gentle, kind, and generous toward her relations, servants, and benefactors.

  William Caxton, the English printer, received Elizabeth's patronage during her years as queen. In 1502, she paid the composer Robert Fayrfax twenty shillings to write an antiphon honoring Mary and St Elizabeth. Away from her devotions, Elizabeth enjoyed dancing and gambling, a pastime she shared with her husband. She also kept greyhounds.

  As queen, Elizabeth arranged the education of her younger children, including the future Henry VIII. In 1500, she accompanied her husband to Calais for his diplomatic meeting with Philip I of Castile. She also corresponded directly with Queen Isabella I of Castile, ahead of a planned marriage between their children.

  On the 14th of November 1501, Elizabeth's fifteen-year-old son Arthur married Catherine of Aragon. She was the daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. The newlyweds were sent to Ludlow Castle, the traditional seat of the Prince of Wales. Arthur died there in April 1502. Henry broke down in grief at the news, afraid for his dynasty as much as mourning his son. Elizabeth comforted him. She reminded him that he alone had survived, among his own mother's children, to become king. She told him they still had a son and two daughters, young enough for more children to come. Once she returned to her own rooms, though, Elizabeth broke down herself. Her attendants had to send for Henry, who came to comfort her in turn.

  Neither Henry nor Elizabeth could have known how little time was left to keep that promise of a son and two daughters growing into more children.

• 8. A Sudden Ending

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  Elizabeth became pregnant again in 1502 and spent her confinement inside the Tower of London. Her embroiderer, a craftsman named Robynet, made her a new bed with curtains decorated in clouds and roses for the occasion. On the 2nd of February 1503, she gave birth to a daughter, Katherine, who died only days later. Elizabeth herself succumbed soon after to a postpartum infection.

  One biographer writes that Elizabeth's death 'broke the heart' of her husband and left him 'shattered.' Another account says Henry 'privily departed to a solitary place and would no man should resort unto him.' Within a little over two years, Henry had buried his eldest son, his wife, and his infant daughter. He also honored the Treaty of Perpetual Peace by sending his surviving daughter Margaret off to Scotland.

  A manuscript called the Vaux Passional, once owned by Henry VII, resurfaced in the National Library of Wales in 2012. One image shows Henry receiving the book in mourning robes, his face doleful, while his daughters Mary and Margaret stand behind him in black veils. In the same picture, an eleven-year-old Prince Henry is shown weeping into the sheets of his mother's empty bed.

  Henry considered remarrying, to renew ties with Spain. He weighed matches with Joanna, Dowager Queen of Naples, Joanna, Queen of Castile, and Margaret, Dowager Duchess of Savoy. He died a widower in 1509 instead. Each year, on the anniversary of Elizabeth's death, he ordered a requiem mass sung, church bells tolled, and a hundred candles lit in her memory. He also kept her minstrels employed every New Year for the rest of his reign.

  Henry was laid to rest beside Elizabeth beneath their effigies in his chapel at Westminster Abbey. When workers opened her tomb in the 19th century, they found that the wooden casing around her lead coffin had been removed. The space had been cleared to make room for one more burial inside: that of her great-great-grandson, King James VI and I.