Birth of Richard of Shrewsbury, second son and sixth child of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, at Shrewsbury.
Birth of Catherine of York, ninth child and sixth daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, at Eltham Palace, Greenwich. Married to William Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon. After his death on 9 May 1511 she took a voluntary vow of chastitity. Died on 15 November 1527 at Tiverton Castle, Devon.
Public statement outside St Paul’s Cathedral that Edward IV had been married to Eleanor Talbot when he married Elizabeth Woodville, declaring the children of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville illegitimate. This meant that Richard was the next legitimate heir to the throne. He was offered the crown by the Commons and became King Richard III.
Tags: Edward IV, Eleanor Talbot, Elizabeth Woodville, Princes, Richard III
Elizabeth Woodville allows her younger son Richard to quit sanctuary at Westminster and join his brother Edward at the Tower.
Tags: Elizabeth Woodville, Princes
Death of Elizabeth Woodville at Bermondsey Abbey. Her will makes clear that during her last years she lived in relative poverty. For her funeral she was accompanied by only four people, one of them Edward IV’s illegitimate daughter Grace. Her coffin was taken quietly from Bermondsey to Windsor Castle, where she arrived in the middle of the night by just a single priest and a clerk without any formalities. She seems to have been interred virtually immediately next to Edward IV.
Bibliography: David Baldwin, Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower. Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 2002. ISBN 0 7509 3886 2, pp. 123-125
Tags: Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville
Congratulations to Anne Easter Smith who just let us know that she won the 2010 Romantic Times Book Review Magazine Award for Best Historical Biography for The King’s Grace. The Grace of the title is Grace Plantagenet, an illegitimate daughter of Edward IV, her mother is unknown. Indeed all we know about her is that she was one of two mourners (the other is an unnamed “gentilwoman”) on the funeral barge of Elizabeth Woodville in 1492. From this Anne spins a fascinating story about the Perkin Warbeck mystery. For if Perkin Warbeck was indeed Richard of York, this Grace would have been his half-sister.
With the award Anne beat another contender, which also deals with the question of what happened to Elizabeth Woodville’s sons by Edward IV: Philippa Gregory’s The White Queen. Having read both books, I can only agree with the judges. We congratulate Anne on this award. It is her first, but should not be her last. I believe Anne is at present working on a book on Cecily of York, the mother of among others Edward IV, Richard III as well as Margaret of Burgundy. Richard played an important role in Anne’s A Rose for the Crown, while Margaret was portrayed in Daughter of York. Can’t wait for her to bring Cecily to life!
Tags: Books, Cecily Neville, Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville, Richard III
Coronation of Elizabeth Woodville, wife of Edward IV.
Tags: Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville
Death of Mary of York, second daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, at Greenwich Palace, London, buried at St Georges Chapel, Windsor
Tags: Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville
Edward IV secretly and bigamously marries Elizabeth Woodville (born 1437), daughter of Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers, the widow of a Lancastrian
Tags: Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville
Earl Rivers (brother of Elizabeth Woodville), Sir Richard Grey (son from Elizabeth Woodville’s first marriage) and Sir Thomas Vaughan (chamberlain of Prince Edward) were arrested after the failed meeting in Northampton.
