Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World by Alison Weir


  20. Sutton and Visscher-Fuchs: “A ‘Most Benevolent Queen’ ”; Women and the Book

  21. Stonyhurst MS. 37; Tudor-Craig

  22. Royal MS. 14, EIII; Wilkins; McKendrick, Lowden and Doyle

  23. Garrett MS. 168; Quaritch; Okerlund: Elizabeth of York

  24. Hinde

  25. Paston Letters; Additional MS. 6113

  26. Croyland Chronicle

  27. Only some masonry and the vaulted undercroft, which housed the domestic offices, survives of Edward III’s palace.

  28. Hedley

  29. “Narratives of the Arrival of Louis of Bruges”; Kingsford: English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century

  30. Green

  31. Brigden

  32. Mancini

  33. Rous

  34. More

  35. Calendar of Patent Rolls: Edward IV, 1467–77; B.L. Additional MS. 14289, f. 12; Lowe

  36. Shears

  37. Hicks: Edward V; Exchequer Records E.101/412/9-11; Harleian MS. 158, ff. 119v, 120v; Additional MS. 6113, ff. 97–98v, 111–12

  38. Foedera

  39. Commines; Foedera

  40. Commines

  41. Cotton MSS.

  42. Commines

  43. Additional MS. 6113

  44. Calendar of Close Rolls: Edward IV. This infant was possibly named for her aunt, Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter, or for her great-grandmother, Anne Mortimer, Countess of Cambridge, through whom the House of York claimed its senior descent from Edward III. Edward IV also professed a special devotion to St. Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary.

  45. Cokayne

  46. Leland: Itinerary

  47. Croyland Chronicle

  48. A detailed account of the proceedings by Thomas Whiting, Chester Herald, is in Excerpta Historica. See also Sutton and Visscher-Fuchs: Reburial

  49. At the Reformation the college was dissolved and half the church dismantled. Visiting the ruined choir in 1573, Elizabeth I was appalled to see that the tombs were much decayed, and ordered that new Renaissance-style monuments be built in the church to house the remains of Edward, Duke of York; Richard, Duke of York; Cecily Neville (who had been buried at Fotheringhay in 1495); and Edmund, Earl of Rutland. These are the sepulchres that can be seen today in the sanctuary. The once splendid castle where Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed in 1587, was pulled down in 1627, and all that remain are the twelfth-century earthworks, and a fragment of masonry.

  50. Plowden: Tudor Women. Holinshed, writing of Edward’s later plan of 1483 to marry Elizabeth to Henry Tudor, states the marriage had been suggested some years earlier, but Elizabeth was betrothed to the Dauphin at the time.

  51. André

  52. Commines

  53. CSP Milan

  54. He was born at Windsor—Edward IV refers to him as “our son, George of Windsor” (Calendar of Close Rolls: Edward IV)—not, as is sometimes stated, at the Dominican friary in Shrewsbury where his brother Richard had been born. The first mention of him is in a document of July 6, 1477, appointing him Lieutenant of Ireland.

  55. Calendar of Close Rolls: Edward IV

  56. The Register of the Most Noble Order of the Garter

  57. Hedley

  58. Croyland Chronicle

  59. Ibid.

  60. Anne Mowbray was reburied in the Poor Clares’ convent at Stepney. Her coffin was found during excavations in 1965, and after examination her remains were reburied later that year as close as possible to her original burial place in Westminster Abbey. A photograph of her remarkably preserved hair is in the Museum of London.

  61. The Narrative of the Marriage of Richard, Duke of York; Illustrations of Ancient State and Chivalry

  62. Rotuli Parliamentorum

  63. Mancini

  64. Hicks: False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence

  65. Mancini; Great Chronicle of London; Commines, Molinet, Roye, Vergil; Stow: Annals

  66. Calendar of Patent Rolls: Edward IV, 1467–77

  67. Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the Fourth, in PPE

  68. Hicks: False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence

  69. Cited Jones: Psychology of a Battle: Bosworth, 1485

  70. Westervelt; Hicks: Richard III; Hicks: False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence; Crawford: The Yorkists

  71. Croyland Chronicle; Vergil; More

  72. Vergil

  73. Ibid.

  74. Ross: Edward IV

  75. Calendar of Close Rolls: Edward IV

  76. Ibid.

  77. CSP Milan

  78. CSP Venice

  79. Harleian MS. 336, in Leland: Collectanea

  80. Warner

  81. Harleian MS. 336, in Leland: Collectanea

  82. Harleian MS. 4780

  83. Green; Platt

  84. Account of Garter King of Arms, in Additional MS. 6113, ff. 49, 74–74v; PPE

  85. Foedera

  86. Hall

  87. Foedera

  88. College of Arms MS. I, 11, f.21r-v; Sandford.

  89. Jones, in Women of the Cousins’ Wars; André

  90. Rous

  91. Foedera

  92. Kendall: Louis XI

  93. Croyland Chronicle

  94. Wardrobe Accounts of Edward the Fourth, in PPE

  95. Croyland Chronicle

  96. Ibid.

  3: “THIS ACT OF USURPATION”

  1. More

  2. Croyland Chronicle

  3. Vergil

  4. Commines

  5. Excerpta Historica

  6. McKelvey

  7. Calendar of Papal Registers

  8. Cotton MS. Cleopatra

  9. Mancini; Vergil

  10. Mancini

  11. Croyland Chronicle; Mancini

  12. Mancini

  13. Ibid.

  14. Ibid.

  15. Vergil

  16. Mancini

  17. Ibid.

  18. More

  19. Mancini

  20. Dockray: Richard III: A Source Book

  21. Crawford: The Yorkists

  22. Mancini

  23. Vergil

  24. Croyland Chronicle

  25. Shears

  26. Mancini

  27. More

  28. Mancini

  29. More

  30. Mancini

  31. Fabyan

  32. Croyland Chronicle; Great Chronicle of London; Fabyan; More; Vergil

  33. Vergil

  34. More; Hall

  35. Antiquarian Repertory

  36. Hall

  37. More

  38. Stonor Letters

  39. Mancini

  40. More; Hall. More relates a detailed conversation between the Queen and the Archbishop, but he almost certainly invented the speeches, basing them on what he knew had passed between them. This was a common practice in historical writing at that time.

  41. More

  42. Mancini

  43. André

  44. Rous

  45. Croyland Chronicle

  46. Registrum Thome Bourgchier

  47. Paston Letters; McSheffrey

  48. Warkworth

  49. This Sir John Mortimer married, after 1485, Margaret, daughter of John Neville, Viscount Montagu, and sister of the George Neville, who had at one time been affianced to Elizabeth; Margaret Neville later married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.

  50. Tudor-Craig; Catalogue of Western Manuscripts and Miniatures. The manuscript was in the collection of Colonel Bradfer-Lawrence, but was sold at Sotheby’s in 1983.

  51. Croyland Chronicle

  52. Guildhall MSS.

  53. York Civic Records

  54. Croyland Chronicle

  55. Ibid.

  56. Mancini

  57. Ibid.; Croyland Chronicle

  58. Fabyan

  59. André

  60. Mancini

  61. Buck, ed. Kincaid; Kendall: Richard the Third; Black; Edwards: “The ‘Second’ Continuation of the Crowland Chronicle”

  62. Mancini

  63. Croyland Chronicle


  64. Commines

  65. Okerlund: Elizabeth Wydeville

  66. Ashdown-Hill: “The Fate of Edward IV’s Uncrowned Queen, the Lady Eleanor Talbot, Lady Butler”; Hampton; Mowat; Calendar of Patent Rolls: Edward IV, 1467–77; Rotuli Parliamentorum; Okerlund: Elizabeth Wydeville; Okerlund: Elizabeth of York. Ashdown-Hill argues that the story was true and that Edward did make a valid marriage with Eleanor Butler.

  67. Helmholz. I am grateful to Professor Anthony Goodman for sending me this reference.

  68. Croyland Chronicle

  69. Ashdown-Hill: Eleanor, the Secret Queen

  70. The Croyland Chronicle is the only source correctly to report Edward’s supposed precontract with Eleanor Butler.

  71. Crawford: The Yorkists

  72. Arrivall

  73. Excerpta Historica

  74. Hicks: Robert Stillington

  75. Mancini

  76. Fabyan

  77. Mancini

  78. Rous

  79. Fabyan

  80. Croyland Chronicle

  81. Ibid.

  82. Mancini

  83. Croyland Chronicle

  84. Loades: The Tudors

  85. Myers: “The Princes in the Tower”

  86. Brigden

  4: “THE WHOLE DESIGN OF THIS PLOT”

  1. Croyland Chronicle

  2. Ibid.

  3. Cely Letters; Smyth

  4. Croyland Chronicle

  5. Ibid.

  6. Dockray: Richard III: A Source Book

  7. More

  8. Mancini

  9. More

  10. Rawcliffe, citing D. 1721/1/11, f. 5–9, Staffordshire Record Office

  11. Ross: Richard III

  12. Rotuli Parliamentorum

  13. Croyland Chronicle

  14. The matter is discussed extensively, and the sources evaluated, in my book The Princes in the Tower (1992); although my conclusions are substantially the same, I have revised some aspects in this book.

  15. More; Great Chronicle of London; Vergil. For a balanced, academic view, see Hicks: Edward V, who points out that three sources are usually sufficient evidence for academic historians. For More’s sources, see The Princes in the Tower.

  16. The basis of the British Library.

  17. For a full discussion of Buck’s sources, see A. N. Kincaid’s edition of his work.

  18. Cited by Kincaid, in his edition of Buck.

  19. Chambers; Markham

  20. Hicks: Edward V

  21. Ibid.

  22. Cotton MS. Vitellius A XVI

  23. Croyland Chronicle

  24. Rowse: Bosworth Field

  25. Hall

  26. Jones, in Women of the Cousins’ Wars

  27. Vergil

  28. Calendar of Papal Registers

  29. Vergil

  30. Ibid.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Croyland Chronicle

  33. André

  34. Caxton; The Caxton Project; Gill

  35. Dictionary of National Biography

  36. Croyland Chronicle

  37. Ibid.

  38. Ibid.

  39. Baldwin: Elizabeth Woodville

  40. Croyland Chronicle

  41. Vergil

  42. Stonyhurst MS. 37; Tudor-Craig

  43. Vergil

  44. Hicks: Edward V

  45. Vergil

  46. Croyland Chronicle. The original Parliament Roll was destroyed in 1485, but a transcript of the act survives in the Croyland Chronicle.

  47. Herlihy

  48. Peter Clarke; Hicks: Anne Neville

  49. Croyland Chronicle

  50. St. Aubyn. I can find no contemporary evidence to support this statement.

  51. Harleian MS. 433, f. 308; Original Letters Illustrative of English History

  52. Cheetham

  53. Croyland Chronicle

  54. Rotuli Parliamentorum

  55. Smyth

  56. Baldwin: Lost Prince; Harleian MS. 433; Smyth

  57. Mcmahon; Pevsner; Wiltshire Community History

  58. Victoria County History: North Yorkshire

  59. PPE

  60. Smyth

  61. Baldwin: Lost Prince; Victoria County History: North Yorkshire; Smyth. John Nesfield had died by April 1488, when his widow, Margaret Assheton, was granted letters of administration.

  62. Calendar of Patent Rolls: Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III

  63. For example, Kendall in Richard the Third

  64. Harleian MS. 433, III

  65. Ibid.

  66. Pierce

  67. Richard III: Crown and People

  68. For example, Myers in “The Princes in the Tower” and Kendall in Richard the Third

  69. Pierce

  70. Commines

  71. Buck; Strickland

  72. Croyland Chronicle. An empty tomb bearing the worn effigy of a boy in Sheriff Hutton Church, Yorkshire, has long been claimed to be Edward of Middleham’s. It once bore the Neville arms (as Anne Neville is shown wearing in the contemporary Salisbury Roll) and the royal arms differenced, so the identification may be correct. Hicks: Anne Neville.

  73. Croyland Chronicle

  74. Great Chronicle of London

  75. Gristwood

  76. Croyland Chronicle

  5: “HER ONLY JOY AND MAKER”

  1. Croyland Chronicle

  2. Ibid.

  3. Rous

  4. Croyland Chronicle

  5. The passage has also been translated to read that Queen Anne and Elizabeth were of similar coloring and shape, but that would hardly have given rise to such comments and speculation.

  6. Hicks: Anne Neville

  7. Letter of Thomas Langton, Bishop of St. David’s, cited by Ross: Richard III

  8. Pollard

  9. Dockray: Richard III: A Source Book

  10. Croyland Chronicle. The words “gratify an incestuous passion” can also be translated as “gratify his incestuous passion” or “complete his incestuous association.”

  11. Peter Clarke: “English Royal Marriages and the Papal Penitentiary in the Fifteenth Century”

  12. Cited by Baldwin in Richard III

  13. Baldwin: Richard III

  14. Hicks: Anne Neville

  15. Buck

  16. Stow: Annals

  17. Croyland Chronicle

  18. Helmholz; Sheppard-Routh

  19. Croyland Chronicle

  20. Acts of Court of the Mercers’ Company

  21. Croyland Chronicle

  22. Ibid.

  23. Lopes

  24. Warrants for Issues, E. 404/78/3/47

  25. For the Portuguese negotiations, see Wilkins; Sanceau; Barrie Williams: “The Portuguese Connection and the Significance of the ‘Holy Princess’ ”; Lopes; Santos; Marques; Ashdown-Hill: The Last Days of Richard III; Baldwin: Richard III. Joana was canonized in 1693.

  26. Lamb, citing Harleian MS. 433, states that Elizabeth was proposed as a bride for James FitzGerald, Earl of Desmond (1459–87). Harley 433 does contain a letter sent in September 1484 by Richard III to the earl, offering to find a suitable bride for Desmond if he ceased conducting himself violently in Munster, adopted English attire, and returned to his allegiance—but Elizabeth is not mentioned. I am indebted to the historian Josephine Wilkinson, who double-checked this for me and confirmed that there is no reference at all to her in connection with Desmond.

  27. Cited by Vergil’s editor, Dennis Hay, from Vergil’s unpublished manuscript. Buck’s editor, A. N. Kincaid, suggests that the reason why this was omitted from Vergil’s published history was that it reflected Elizabeth’s views on marrying Henry Tudor rather than Richard III, but Vergil wasn’t writing in reference to Henry VII, and it is more likely that he left out this passage because he knew his master was sensitive about the matter.

  28. Reproduced by Kincaid in “Buck and the Elizabeth of York Letter: A Reply to Dr. Hanham.”

  29. Egerton MS. 2216; Bodleian MS. Malone 1; Fisher MS., Universit
y of Toronto; Additional MS. 27422

  30. For a full discussion of these texts, see A. N. Kincaid, in Buck.

  31. Kincaid: “Buck and the Elizabeth of York Letter: A Reply to Dr. Hanham”; Horrox

  32. Buck, ed. Kincaid

  33. Ibid.

  34. Hicks: Anne Neville

  35. Kincaid, in Buck

  36. Hervey; Kincaid’s edition of Buck; Ricci

  37. Kincaid, in Buck

  38. Memoir in PPE

  39. Gairdner

  40. For the debate see Kincaid, in Buck; Horrox; and the articles by Hanham and Kincaid in The Ricardian.

  41. See also Okerlund: Elizabeth of York

  42. Ashdown-Hill: The Last Days of Richard III; Ashdown-Hill: Richard III’s “Beloved Cousyn”

  43. Kincaid: “Buck and the Elizabeth of York Letter: A Reply to Dr. Hanham”

  44. Baldwin: Elizabeth Woodville

  45. Baldwin: Richard III

  46. For example, by me in The Princes in the Tower, although I have now revised that view in light of further research.

  47. Croyland Chronicle

  48. Royal MS. 20, A, f. XIX

  49. Harleian MS. 49

  50. Gristwood

  51. Weir: The Princes in the Tower; Visser-Fuchs: “Where did Elizabeth of York find consolation?”; Baldwin: Lost Prince; Okerlund: Elizabeth of York

  52. Vergil

  53. Ibid.; Griffiths and Thomas

  54. Gristwood

  55. Acts of Court of the Mercers’ Company

  56. York Civic Records; Letters of the Kings of England

  57. Croyland Chronicle

  6: “PURPOSING A CONQUEST”

  1. Aside from Gairdner, who compared all the versions of the poem, most historians have based their assessments on Heywood’s edition; however, it differs considerably from the earlier texts.

  2. Letts

  3. Probably a reference to the Clare inheritance, which should have descended to Elizabeth as her father’s heiress.

  4. Meaning the common people of his affinity.

  5. Cokayne

  6. Leland: Itinerary

  7. Ibid.; Todd; Camden. Sheriff Hutton Castle was much decayed by the reign of James I, when it was partially dismantled, and today only the stark ruins of two towers and the gatehouse remain on its grassy mound.

  8. Bacon’s work was based on printed sources that are still available today, and on manuscript sources, such as those in Sir Robert Cotton’s library and documents in the records office in the Tower of London and the Crown Office. His contemporary, John Selden, praised his work as one of only two histories that contained “either of the truth or plenty that may be gained from the records of this kingdom” (cited by Vickers in his edition of Bacon).

 
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