The Last Medieval Queens: English Queenship, 1445-1503

THE LAST MEDIEVAL QUEENS

THE LAST MEDIEVAL QUEENS E N G L I S H QUEEN SHIP

1445-1503

J. L. Laynesmith

OXFORD U N I V E R S I T Y PRESS

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan South Korea Poland Portugal Singapore Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Joanna Laynesmith 2004 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2004 First published in paperback 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddies Ltd., King's Lynn, Norfolk ISBN 0–19–924737–4 978-0-19-924737-0 ISBN 0–19–927956–X (Pbk.) 978–0–19–927956–2 1 3 5 7 9 1 08 6 4 2

For my grandparents, Joan and Ramsay Matthias

Acknowledgements

In the eight years since I began my D.Phil. research on fifteenth-century queenship I have received so much support that it would be impossible to name everyone I should like to, from friends who have offered their homes in London or Oxford during research trips to the staff at many libraries. The thesis would not have been possible without a generous grant from the Humanities Research Board of the British Academy which funded my D.Phil. research, and I am also grateful to the Richard III and Yorkist History Trust for funding occasional research trips. The thesis was written at the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York, and I should like to thank my fellow students there for so many useful conversations and references, principally Joel Burden, Kim Phillips, Katherine Lewis, Cordelia Beattie, Debbie O'Brien, Christian Liddy, Sue Bianco, Sue Vincent, David Hall, and Amba Kumar. My chief debts of gratitude are to my thesis supervisors, Felicity Riddy and Mark Ormrod, for years of inspiration, and to Jeremy Goldberg for guiding me into postgraduate research on medieval women. I would particularly like to acknowledge valuable criticisms, encouragement, and information from Richard Marks, Bonita Cron, Derek Neal, Helen Maurer, Tony Pollard, Miri Rubin, Michael Hicks, Anne Sutton, and Joel Rosenthal. I am grateful to Jim Binns and Elizabeth Shields for correcting my translations of the coronation liturgies; to Sally Backhurst for her interpretation of Cornazzano; to David Smith for translating my Wordperfect files into something I could use; to Peter and Carolyn Hammond and Jane Trump for their help through the Richard III Society library; and to Ruth Parr for her patience as my teaching commitments repeatedly came before my book deadline. For helping me to keep life in perspective, I must thank Anna and Nick Macdonald, especially for the daily emails from Kosovan refugee camps as I neared my D.Phil. deadline. My family and family-in-law have been a hugely important support, especially my parents, Judith and David Chamberlayne,

viii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

who first introduced me to the fascinating world of fifteenth-century politics, and my husband, Mark, whose academic and practical contributions have been immense and with whom it has been great fun to share this journey. J.L.L. St George's Day, 2003

Contents

List of Illustrations

xi

List of Abbreviations

xiii

Genealogical Tables

xiv

Introduction

1

1. Selecting Queens During the Wars of the Roses

28

2. Rituals of Queenship

72

3. Queens as Mothers

131

4. The Queen's Family

181

5. Court and Household

220

Conclusion

262

Select Bibliography

267

Index

287

Illustrations

(Between pp. 142—143) 1. Margaret of Anjou receives a collection of romances and treatises from the earl of Shrewsbury, 1445. BL MS Royal 15 E.VI, fo. 2. Reproduced by permission of the British Library 2. The prayer roll of Margaret of Anjou, third quarter of the fifteenth century. Bodl., MS Jesus College 124. I am grateful to the Principal and Fellows, Jesus College, Oxford, for permission to reproduce this image 3. Margaret of Anjou, from the Guild Book of the London Skinners' Fraternity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, 1475. Held at the Guildhall Library, London. Reproduced in J.J. Lambert (ed.), Records of the Skinners of London, Edward I to James I (London, 1933), facing p. 88.1 am grateful to the Skinners' Company and Guildhall Library, Corporation of London, for permission to reproduce this image 4. Elizabeth Woodville, from the Guild Book of the London Skinners' Fraternity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, c.1472. Held at the Guildhall Library, London. Reproduced in J. J. Lambert (ed.), Records of the Skinners of London, Edward I to James I(London, 1933), facing p. 82.1 am grateful to the Skinners' Company and Guildhall Library, Corporation of London, for permission to reproduce this image 5. Anthony Woodville, Lord Rivers, presents his translation of the Diets and Sayings of the Philosophers for Edward, prince of Wales to the king, 1477. Lambeth Palace, MS 265, fo. viv. I am grateful to Lambeth Palace Library for permission to reproduce this image 6. A woman presents a Book of Hours of the Guardian Angel to a Queen Elizabeth, late fifteenth century. Liverpool Cathedral Library, Radcliffe MS 6, fo. 5, on deposit at the University of Liverpool Library. I am grateful to the University of Liverpool Library for permission to reproduce this image 7. Genealogy showing the marriages of Anne Neville, from the Beauchamp Pageant. BL, MS Cotton Julius E.IV, fo. 28. Reproduced by permission of the British Library

xii

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

8. Elizabeth of York, Henry VII, and their children kneeling before Joachim and Anna at the Golden Gate, from the Ordinances of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception, London, 1503. Christ Church, Oxford, MS 179, fo. I. I am grateful to the Governing Body of Christ Church, Oxford, for permission to reproduce this image

Abbreviations

Add. BIHR BJRL BL Bodl. CChR CCR CLRO CPL CPR CSP Milan

CSP Venice

DNB EETS EHR GEC

PRO Rot. Parl. RS TRHS

Additional Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research Bulletin of the John Rylands Library British Library, London Bodleian Library, Oxford Calendar of the Charter Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 6 vols. (London, 1903-27) Calendar of the Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 47 vols. (London, 1892-1963) Corporation of London Records Office Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, 18 vols. (London, 1912-94) Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office (London, 1891- ) Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts Relating to English Affairs Existing in the Archives and Collections of Milan, ed. A. B. Hinds (London, 1912) Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts Relating to English Affairs Existing in the Archives and Collections of Venice, and in Other Libraries of Northern Italy 1202—1509 (London, 1864-1947) Dictionary of National Biography, ed. S. Leslie and L. Sidney, 63 vols. (London, 1885-1900) Early English Text Society English Historical Review G. E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom: Extant, Extinct or Dormant, rev. and enlarged V. Gibbs et al., 13 vols. (London, 1910-59) Public Record Office, London Rotuli Parliamentorum, 6 vols. (London, 1783) Rolls Series Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

TA B L E

I.

hThe Plantagenet Claims To The Throne Edward 111 = Philippa of Hamault

Edward = of Woodstock

|3|

Richard 11

Joan of Kent

Lionel of Antwerp

=

Roger = Philippa Mortimer countess of Ulster

|1|

1

Elizabeth de Burgh

= Blanche = John of Lancaster of Gaunt

Mary = Bohun

1

Henry IV

2

2

Katherine Swynford

John Beaufort

= Joan of

=

Edmund duke of York

Margaret Holland

1 =

Katherinc of Valois

|2|

= Owen Tudor

John duke of Beford

=

1

Jacquetta de St Pol

2

=

Richard Woodville Earl Rivers

Isabella of Castile

= Eleanor Thomas of Woodstock Bohun

Anne 2

Richard * earl of Cambridge

Navarre

Richard * = Anne Henry V carl of Cambridge

=

Humphrey duke of Gloucester

John duke of Somerse

=

Margaret Beauchamp

=

Edmund carl of Stafford

I lumphrey = Anne duke of Neville Buckingham

See Table 4 Cecily = Richard Neville duke of York

Margaret of Anjou

=

Henry VI

Elizabeth * Woodville

See Table 3 Edward IV =

|2|

Elizabeth* Woodville

Edmund Tudor = Margaret Beaufort Richard 111 =

[2]

Anne = Neville

1

Edward of Lancaster * Repeated Names

Edward of Middleham Edward V of Westminster

Katherine Woodville

Elizabeth of York = Henry Vll

Note: For the sake of clarity not all offspring of each match have been included.

1 =

Henry duke of Buckingham

XV

T A B L E 2.

The House of Anjou

Louis II duke of Anjou = Yolande of Aragon

Charles Vll = Marie of France

Louis 111 duke of Aniou

Rene = Isabella of Lorraine duke of Anjou

Charles

Louis XI of France

Marie dc _ John of Bourbon Calabria

Louis

Yolande

Margaret = Henry VI I of England Edward of Lancaster

Note: For the sake of clarity not all offspring of each match have been included.

T A B L E 3.

The House of York

Richard, duke of York = Cecily Neville

Henry Holland duke of Exeter

1

Anne 2

Thomas St Leger

1

John Grey

Elizabeth 2 = Edward TV Woodville

John earl of Lincoln

Anne

Anne =

1

Thomas marquis of Dorset

Elizabeth = Henry ofYork

2

VII

CecilyBonvillie

Mary

Arthur = Katherine of Aragon

Edmund earl of Suffolk

William

Margaret = Charles duke or Burgundy Richard

George duke of Clarence

Richard Pole = Margaret

Isabel Neville

Richard III = Anne Neville

Edward earl of Warwick

Edward of Middleham

Richard Grey

2

John Viscount Welles

Elizabeth

Elizabeth = John de la Pole

Cecily

3

= Thomas Kymc

Anne Richard

Margaret = James IV of Scotland

Henry VIII

Edward V

Margaret

Richard = Anne duke of Mowbray York

Marjorie

Mary

Note: For the sake of clarity not all offspring of each match have been included.

George

Anne = Thomas Howard duke of Norfolk

Katherine = William Courtenay

Henry

Edward

Margaret

Bridget

T A B L E 4.

The Woodvilles, Greys, and Hautes Richard Woodvillc

John duke = of Bedford

1

Jacquetta de St Pol

2

Jane = William IIaute

= Richard Woodvillc Earl Rivers William

James

Edward

John = 1 Elizabeth Grey

Thomas

1

2

Anne Holland Cecily Bonville

Thomas

2

= Edward TV

Jacquetta = John Lord Strange

Margaret = Thomas carl of Arundel

Anne

1

= William Bourchier 2 = George carl of Kent

Katherine

Richard Anne

1

2

3

Richard

Anthony 1 2nd Earl Rivers 2

Elizabeth Scales Mary Fitzlewis

Richard 3rd Earl Rivers

John = Kathenne duchess of Norfolk

Note: For the sake of clarity not all offspring of each match have been included.

Edward

Nicholas

Richard = Eleanor Roos Alice = John Fogge

= Henry duke of Buckingham = Jasper Tudor = Sir Richard Wingfield

Mary = William Herbert

Lionel bishop of Salisbury

Eleanor = Anthony Grey of Ruthin

xviii T A B L E 5. John of Gaunt

3

2

John = Margaret Beaufort Holland

The Nevilles

Katherine Swynford

Joan Beaufort

2

See Table 1

Ralph Neville earl of Westmorland

Richard Alice carl of Montacute Salisbury

Richard earl of Warwick

Anne Beauchamp

Isabel = George duke of Clarence

Edward

Margaret

Cecily = Richard duke of York See Table 3

George archbishop of York

Edward =

1

Anne 2 = Richard III

of

Lancaster

Edward of Middleham

Note: For the sake of clarity not all offspring of each match have been included.

Introduction

What did it mean to be a queen in fifteenth-century England—a period in which so many kings were violently cast from the English throne in so short a space of years? While scholars have long argued over the implications of these events for the nature of kingship, their impact upon the role of the kings' wives has not been considered. Yet the questions of legitimate inheritance or of the appropriate and rightful exercise of authority which lay at the heart of the Wars of the Roses inevitably impinged also upon those who shared the king's throne and his bed. This book is not a traditional biography of women who were married to kings but an examination of the office of queenship in one of the most turbulent periods of England's history. What sort of woman was chosen to be a queen? What behaviour was expected of her? What power or authority was granted to her? How did the king use her in the exercise of kingship? And what happened when kingship was in crisis or the queen could not live up to the ideals expected of her? These are the questions driving the investigation in this book. During the period under analysis, 1445-1503, the office of queen was held by four very different women. The first, Margaret of Anjou, was a kinswoman of the French king who was eventually forced by the inadequacies of her king, Henry VI, to take a far more publicly political role than was traditional for queens. Her successor, Elizabeth Woodville, was an English gentlewoman and the widow of a Lancastrian knight whose secret marriage to Edward IV caused controversy at the time and was declared invalid by Edward's brother, Richard III, on Edward's death.1 Richard Ill's queen was an English noblewoman, Anne Neville, already his wife before he took the throne from his nephew, 1 1 have adopted the modern spelling of'Woodville' because it is the version most commonly used by historians. In the i5th century it was usually written as 'Wydeville' or similar and 'Elizabeth' was usually written 'Elysabeth'.

• INTRODUCTION

2

•

Edward V. Anne's successor, in contrast, was an English princess, Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. Elizabeth of York's marriage to Henry VII was designed, according to royal propaganda, to bring an end to the Wars of the Roses, although not all her kinsmen were persuaded. In a profoundly male-dominated world the queen's position as sharer in the royal dignity, potentially more intimate with the sovereign than any other, made her an anomaly in the political structure. Ideas and assumptions about women in general were often contradictory in medieval society. Notions of women as weak, passive, nurturing, and conciliatory contrasted with fear of them as temptresses with a potential for creating chaos and tongues that could do the devil's work. These fears and expectations were enhanced by the public position occupied by the woman who was queen and they shaped all attempts to establish what her role meant.

D E F I N I N G MEDIEVAL Q.UEENSHIP: PAST AND P R E S E N T

Fifteenth-Century Approaches Historians looking for popular definitions of kingship in fifteenth-century England have a wealth of sources in the literature of advice on good government known as 'Mirrors for Princes'.2 Such texts, however, made little mention of queenship. The most widely read mirror in fifteenth-century England was the Secreta Secretorum, attributed to Aristotle, which made no reference to the role of queens at all, but warned princes against 'carnal comyxtyon' with women.3 Giles of Rome's De Regimine Principum, a text produced in thirteenth-century France for the future Philip IV, was almost as popular in late medieval England as the Secreta Secretorum and provided the inspiration for many subsequent such mirrors.4 Giles argued that all wives, and especially queens, ought to be noble, beautiful, virtuous, temperate, chaste, and not given to idleness, but emphasized that women's advice was rarely worth listening to 2

G. L. Harriss, 'Introduction: The Exemplar of Kingship', in Harriss (cd.), Henry V: The Practice of Kingship (Oxford, 1985); J. Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge, 1999), 15^39. 3 Only in the i6th century did a version of this work give advice about the choosing of queens; M. A. Manzalaoui (ed.), Secretum Secretorum (Nine Rnghsh Versions), EETS 276 (Oxford, 1977), 135, 457-8; see also Watts, Henry VI, 55. 4 Giles of Rome, The Governance of Kings and Princes: John Trevisas Translation of the De Regimine Principum ofAegidius Romanus, ed. D. C. Fowler, C. F. Briggs, and P. G. Remley (London, 1997), p. ix. A book which included De Regimine Principum was given to Margaret of Anjou as a wedding present; BL, MS Royal 15 E VI.

• INTRODUCTION •

3

because they were childlike in their reasoning.5 One of the longest accounts of a queen's role appeared in a widely read mirror whose English edition was dedicated to Elizabeth Woodville's brother-in-law George duke of Clarence. This was the Game and Playe of the Chesse, published by Caxton in 1475, although originally written almost two centuries earlier by the Italian Dominican Jacobus de Cessolis. According to de Cessolis, A Quene ought to be chaste, wyse. of honest peple well manerd and not curyous in nounsshynge of her children her wysedom ought not only tappere in feet and werkes but also in spekynge that is to wete that she be secrete and telle not suche thynges as ought to be holdcn secrete ... A Qucnc ought to be well manerd & amongc allc she ought to be tymcrous and shamcfast.6 Slightly more practical advice was offered in a rather less well-known mirror which was a fifteenth-century translation of a French tract of 1347, probably composed for the future King John II by Geoffroi de Charny.7 This was The III Considerations Right Necesserye to the Good Governaunce of a Prince and it emphasized a queen's duty to have good and due regarde to such thinge as toucheth the profyte and the honeure of hir lordc and hir self. And she shuldc take in handc noo greet maters with outc licence or congic [permission] of hir lord, ancnts [as regards] wham at all tymcs she owcth to bcrc reverence and oncurc.8 The king was warned not to disclose great matters and secrets of estate to her or to be governed by her in his decisions, and finally it asserted that 'The Prince and the lady shulde fulle diligentlye advertise and well take heede that theire children ben well noryshed and well induced ... in good wyse and faire maners.'9 Yet even this advice might equally be offered to any noblewoman. The only equivalent mirror specifically for women was Christine de Pizan's Le Livre du tresor de la cite des dames of 1405.10 This included queens among the high-born ladies to whom advice was addressed and it was dedicated to Margaret of Nevers, the 12-year-old bride of the French dauphin.11 However, it was not translated into English in this period and although evidence of the 5

Giles of Rome, The Governance of Kings and Princes, 186-208. Jacobus dc Cessolis, Game, and Playe of the Chesse, trans. W. Caxton, cd. W. E. A. Axon (St Lconards-on-Sca, 1969), 27, 32. 7 J.-P. Genet (ed.), Four English Political Tracts of the Later Middle Ages, Camden Society, 4th sen, 18 (London, 1977), 174—209. 8 Ibid. 204. 9 Ibid. 205. 10 Christine de Pisan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies; or, The Book of the Three Virtues, trans. S. Lawson (Harmondsworth, 1985). 11 Ibid. 20. 6

4

• INTRODUCTION •

popularity of de Pizan's Le Livre de la cite des dames among women of the English royal court may suggest that Le Livre du tresor would also have been familiar to English queens, this is by no means certain.12 Moreover, this work is quite exceptional: the scant reference to queens in the vast majority of fifteenth-century advice literature implied that essentially a queen's role was no different from that of any other woman. In avoiding any attempt to define queenship more specifically, late medieval political commentators were able to ignore the potentially subversive implications of an office at the heart of the political structure which could only be filled by a woman. Themes in Modern Scholarship Until the latter half of the twentieth century historians too failed to address medieval queenship as an office or a status unique in women's experience. Instead queens were only studied as individuals. They were most commonly referred to in the context of the political negotiations surrounding their marriages and for their ability to bear children. Occasionally queens appeared as the subject of narrative biographies which focused on their lives rather than their roles and tended to present their stories as a topic of marginal interest apart from mainstream political history.13 Only those queens who publicly assumed a position independent from their kings, such as Eleanor of Aquitaine or Margaret of Anjou, received serious treatment in general histories, but this was as individual players on the political stage, not in the context of their office.14 The one aspect of queenship which did arouse attention during the first half of the twentieth century was the queen's household, its structure, and resources, in relation to wider administrative history.15 12

The mother and mother-in-law of Elizabeth Woodville are both associated with copies of Cite des dames; C. M. Meale, ' " . . . alle the bokes that 1 have of latyn, englisch, and frensch": Laywomen and Their Books in Late Medieval England', in Meale (ed.), Women and Literature in Britain 7/50—7500 (Cambridge, 1993), 135, 143. 13 The classic example is A. Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, 6 vols. (London, 1840-9), in which most of the medieval queens' biographies were actually written by Agnes's sister Elizabeth. For a brief survey of the popularity, value, and limitations of this work, see J. C. Parsons, Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth-Century England (Basingstoke, 1994), 240—7; but see also D. Dunn, 'Margaret of Anjou: Monster Queen or Dutiful Wife?', Medieval History, 4 (1994), 208-10. 14 e.g. Margaret of Anjou in E. F. Jacob, The Fifteenth Century, rjyy-r^Sj (Oxford, 1961), 508-32, 564-9. 11 H. Johnstone, 'The Queen's Household', in T F. Tout (ed.), Chapters in the Administrative History of Mediaeval England, 6 vols. (Manchester, 1920-33), v. 231-89; ead., 'The Queen's Household', in J. F. Willard and W. A. Morris (eds.), The English Government at Work, rj2-/-rjj6, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1940—50), i. 250—99; A. R. Myers, Crown, Household and Parliament in Fifteenth-Century England, ed. C. H. Clough (London, 1985), 93-229, 251-318; F. D. Blackley and G. Hermansen (eds.), The Household Book of Queen Isabella of England (Edmonton, 1971).

• INTRODUCTION •

5

It was only with the rise of feminism, and its influence on historical scholarship, that medieval queenship as an office 'with prerogatives, norms, [and] limits within which each incumbent functioned' was first explored by Marion Facinger in 1968.16 The focus of Facinger's study was Capetian France, 987-1237. She argued that the queen was genuinely 'the king's "partner" in governing' during the tenth century, and that queenly influence steadily increased until the first quarter of the twelfth century, but that thereafter the queen's political role gradually diminished so that by the beginning of the thirteenth century the public office of queenship had been 'shorn of all functions except the decorative and symbolic', although privately, as the king's wife, she might still exert influence.17 This development Facinger attributed primarily to the increasing bureaucratization of government as the Capetian dynasty strengthened its hold on France, explaining that 'So long as the court was small and itinerant... so long as the physical locus of administration was the hall or "common room" where the king and court ate, slept, and governed, so could the queen share every aspect of her husband's suzerainty except the military campaign.'18 She concluded that 'by the close of the twelfth century the office of queen had assumed its ultimate shape', as a patroness of the arts and literature, and 'the social companion of the king in the ritual performance of regal rites'.19 Five years later Jo Ann McNamara and Suzanne Wemple extended this argument to the whole of western Europe, tracing the economic, political, and ecclesiastical developments which eroded the role of families as units of power, allowing men to participate in new public institutions and consigning women to increasingly unimportant households.20 It is consequently unsurprising that the majority of scholarship on medieval queenship focused initially upon the period prior to the thirteenth century.21 The most prominent example of this was Pauline Stafford's 1983 study of the 16

M. Facinger, 'A Study of Medieval Queenship: Capetian France 987—1237', Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 5 (1968), 3-48. 17 Tbid. 4, 40. 18 Ibid. 27. 19 Ibid. 47. 20 J. A. McNamara and S. Wemple, 'The Power of Women Through the Family in Medieval Europe, 500—1100', Feminist Studies, i (1973), 126—41; repr. rev. in M. Erler and M. Kowalcski (cds.), Women and Power in the Middle Ages (Athens, Ga., 1988), 83—101. 21 W. W. Kibler (ed.), Eleanor of Aquitaine: Patron and Politician (Austin, 1976); J. L. Nelson, 'Queens as Jezebels: The Careers of Brunhild and Balthild in Merovingian History', in D. Baker (ed.), Medieval Women, Studies in Church History, Subsidia i (Oxford, 1978), 31—77; P. Stafford, 'The King's Wife in Wessex', Past and Present, 91 (1981), 56—78; L. L. Huneycutt, 'Images of Queenship in the High Middle Ages', JJaskins Society Journal, i (1989), 61—71; ead., 'Medieval Queenship', History Today, 39/6 (1989), 16—22.

6

• INTRODUCTION •

king's wife in the early Middle Ages, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, in which she examined her subjects not within the context of their dynastic history but comparatively, through the stages of their lives, encompassing far more than Facinger's narrow focus on questions of political power.22 Several essays on both late and early medieval queenship appeared in the 19805, but the 19905 saw an explosion of interest in the subject, with conferences, essay collections, and biographies which have established a number of major themes in the study of the subject, themes which provide the context for this present book.23 For late medievalists, the importance of the household has continued to be a principal focus of attention. Margaret Howell has recently challenged Facinger's claim that queenly power was in decline in her assertion that a thirteenth-century English queen, Eleanor of Provence, very effectively used her household structure to exert influence at court and within the realm at large.24 Howell, perhaps deliberately in order to stress that Eleanor was a subject worthy of the same treatment as kings and earlier queens, scarcely touched on the rituals which Facinger maintained were so central to later queenship; but these have been addressed by John Carmi Parsons.25 He maintained that the rituals and symbols of queenship throughout the later Middle Ages were constructed to position the queen outside the male political arena and were often suggestive of her submission to the king, but that such rituals and symbols nonetheless acknowledged a degree of power and influence exerted in an unofficial sphere, primarily through the motif of intercession.26 22

P. Stafford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers: The King's Wife in the Early Middle Ages (London, 1983). 23 e.g. D. Parsons (ed.), Eleanor of Castile, 1290—1990: Essays to Commemorate the yooth Anniversary of Her Death, 28 November T2yo (Stamford, 1991); E. O. Eradenburg (cd.), Women and Sovereignty (Edinburgh, 1992); P. Strohm, Ilochons Arrow: The Social Imagination of Fourteenth-Century Texts (Princeton, 1992), 95—119; D. D. R. Owen, Eleanor of Aquitame: Queen and Legend (Oxford, 1993); J. C. Parsons (cd.), Medieval Queenship (Stroud, 1994); A. Crawford (cd.), Jitters of the Queens of England 1100-1547 (Stroud, 1994); D. Dunn, 'Margaret of Anjou, Queen Consort of Henry VI: A Reassessment of Her Role, 1445—1453', in R. E. Areher (ed.), Crown, Government and People in the Fifteenth Century (Stroud, 1995), 107—43; L. L. Huneycutt, 'Intercession and the High-Medieval Queen: The Esther Topos', and J. C. Parsons, 'The Queen's Tntereession in Thirteenth-Century England', in J. Carpenter and S.-B. MacLean (eds.), Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women (Urbana, Til., 1995), 126—46, 147—77; ^- ^ Sutton and L. Visser-Fuehs, A "Most Benevolent Queen": Queen Elizabeth Woodville's Reputation, Her Piety and Her Books', The Ricardian, 10/129 (1995), 214— 45; A. J. Duggan (ed.), Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe (Woodbridge, 1997); P. Stafford, Queen Emma and Queen Edith: Queenship and Women's Power in Eleventh-Century England (Oxford, 1997); M. Howell, Eleanor of Provence: Queens/yip in Thirteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1998). 24 Howell, Eleanor of Provence, 266—73. 25 J. C. Parsons, 'Ritual and Symbol in the English Medieval Queenship to 1500', in Eradenburg (ed.), Women and Sovereignty, 60—77; Parsons, 'The Queen's Tntereession'. 26 Parsons, 'Ritual and Symbol' and 'The Queen's Intercession'.

• INTRODUCTION •

J

Intercession as a potential avenue to power has received considerable attention. Lois Huneycutt argued that in the high Middle Ages churchmen particularly focused on the intercessory role as an appropriate queenly ideal, repeatedly comparing queens with the biblical heroine Esther.27 According to Parsons, the 'Esther topos' gave way to Marian imagery in thirteenth-century constructions of queenly intercession, a device whereby the queen's persuasive abilities could be divorced from the dangerous implication that a king might be subject to a woman's Eve-like charms.28 Such imagery also served to bind a queen's intercessory power to her expected role as mother, the Virgin Mary's primary function. Using fourteenth-century instances, Paul Strohm has shown that in practice the notion of queen as intercessor could be used in male politics as a device to enable a king to change his mind or become reconciled with his subjects, her humble pleading allowing men to avoid losing face and instead to appear gracious.29 Strohm further argued that for such contemporary writers as Richard Maidstone and Geoffrey Chaucer queenship involved 'tempering... kingly power by good advice. In their works, queenship not only supplements and confirms male power but acts . . . as "a powerful reminder of its limits".'30 Patronage of the arts and literature was, according to Facinger, another potentially influential characteristic of post twelfth-century queenship. However, Madeline Cavmess has recently explored this subject in relation to both abbesses and queens, concluding that their decreasing power and wealth during the thirteenth century gradually eroded their patronage of books for themselves and of artistic commissions such as windows for churches, reaching 'something like a nadir' in the fourteenth century.31 Nonetheless, Parsons's study of Eleanor of Castile revealed a late thirteenth-century English queen whose literary patronage was extensive and which was significantly related to periods of crisis and transition in which her 'ability to deploy the written word could invest her actions with greater consequence'.32 27

Huneycutt, 'Images of Quccnship', and 'The Esther Topos'. Parsons, 'The Queen's Intercession'. 29 Strohm, Ilochoris Arro<w, 95—119. 30 Ibid. 119. His reference is to John Coakley's work on relations between rjth-century friars and holy women, in which the women's prayers for the friars' work supplied a 'male lack'; J. Coakley, 'Female Sanctity as a Male Concern Among Thirteenth-Century Friars', unpub. paper, 103. A version of Coakley's paper has since been published: J. Coakley, 'Friars, Sanctity and Gender: Mendicant Encounters with Saints, 1250—1325', in C. A. Lees (ed.), Me.dte.val Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages (Minneapolis, 1994), 91—110. 31 M. H. Caviness, Anchoress, Abbess and Queen: Donors and Patrons or Intercessors and Matrons?', in J. H. McCash (ed.), The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women (Athens, Ga., 1996), 143. 32 J. C. Parsons, 'Of Queens, Courts and Books: Reflections on the Literary Patronage of Thirteenth-Century Plantagenet Queens', in McCash (ed.), Cultural Patronage, 177—88. 28

8

• INTRODUCTION •

The importance of family has also remained a central, albeit evolving, theme in studies of queenship.33 Charles Wood argued that for queens, and for all medieval women, the bonds of loyalty to marital and natal families could sometimes be contradictory, and focused on Elizabeth Woodville's apparent assumption that her family should share her own good fortune as a prime example of the destructive consequences of this dual loyalty.34 In contrast, Howell has recently suggested that the success of Eleanor of Provence's Savoyard uncles was due less to the queen's favour than to their own abilities, and that their strength then helped her to exert more influence.35 Howell also maintained that this queen's children were a significant source of power for her as well as the motivation for much of her involvement in politics.36 In connection with this, Parsons has contested the traditional notion that royal daughters were isolated from their parents and valued only for their marriageability. In a study of several Plantagenet mother-and-daughter relationships, he argued that queens were closely involved with their daughters' upbringing, and in their children's marriages, and that these roles were central to queens' self-definition as part of the shared experience of royal women.37 In the majority of queenship studies an underlying theme has been the limitations and the potential of womanhood in the context of kingship. Louise Fradenburg in her 1991 introduction to Women and Sovereignty suggested that there was a 'plasticity of gender in the field of sovereignty'.38 This was as a result both of'sovereignty's urge toward totality, inclusiveness, and exemplar ity (its need to gain a purchase on both sexes and on all the cultural functions with which they are severally associated)' and of sovereignty's need to establish its otherness from its subjects.39 The consequent implication that a woman was a necessary element in the working of kingship does not necessarily indicate that this woman's position was personally empowering, but that an understanding of her role is integral to a proper understanding of kingship and sovereignty. In this context, Facinger's focus on measurable political influence as the criteria for adducing a 'diminution' in the 'office of queenship' is seen to 33

J. C. Parsons, 'Introduction: Family, Sex and Power: The Rhythms of Medieval Queenship', in Parsons (ed.), Medieval Queenship, i-n. 34 C. T. Wood, 'The First Two Queens Elizabeth', in Fradenburg (ed.), Women and Sovereignty, 127. 33 Howell, Eleanor of Provence, 49—70. 36 Ibid. 48, 61, 79, 101-3, 153, 220. 37 J. C. Parsons, 'Mothers, Daughters, Marriage, Power: Some Plantagenet Evidence, 1150-1500', in Parsons (ed.), Medieval Queenship, 63—78. 38 L. O. Fradenburg, 'Introduction: Rethinking Queenship', in Fradenburg (ed.), Women and Sovereignty, 2. 39 Ibid.

• INTRODUCTION •

9

be highly limiting.40 It is the purpose of the present study, therefore, to establish a broad definition of English queenship in the latter half of the fifteenth century, delineating the interrelationship of political, domestic, economic, ritual, and ideological aspects of the office. The period chosen for this study is particularly fruitful in highlighting the expectations, limitations, and potential of medieval queenship due to the contemporary crises in kingly authority and to the very different backgrounds of the women in question.

THE

E N G L I S H QU E E N S OF 1445-1503:

HISTORYAND

HISTORIOGRAPHY

The historiography of these four women varies profoundly. Margaret of Anjou and Elizabeth Woodville were both subject in their lifetimes to vigorously antagonistic propaganda campaigns and have since been the subject of numerous biographies and recent attempts to redeem their reputations.41 In contrast, Elizabeth of York's only twentieth-century biographer 'adapted some techniques of the novel' in framing her narrative while the known facts of Anne Neville's life are so few that only short articles have been devoted to her life.42 The only systematic attempt to consider English queenship across the fifteenth century is Anne Crawford's 1981 article examining 'the consequences 40

Facinger, 'Medieval Queenship', 4. For studies of the propaganda against them, see P. A. Lee, 'Reflections of Power: Margaret of Anjou and the Dark Side of Queenship', Renaissance Quarterly, 39 (1986), 183-217; Dunn, 'Monster Queen or Dutiful Wife?', 199-217; A.J. Pollard,'Elizabeth Woodville and Her Historians', in D. Biggs, S. D. Michalove, and A. Compton Reeves (eds.), Traditions and Transformations in Late Medieval England (Leiden, 2002). Biographies inelude M. Baudier, An History of the Memorable and Extraordinary Calamities of Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England (London, 1737); A. F. Prevost d'Exiles, The History of Margaret of Anjou Queen of England, trans. (London, 1755); M. A. Hookham, The Life and Times of Margaret of Anjou, 2 vols. (London, 1872); J. J. Bagley, Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England (London, 1948); P. Erlanger, Marguerite d'Anjou et la Guerre des Deux Roses (Paris, 1961), trans. E. Hyams as Margaret of Anjou, Queen of England (London, 1970);}. Haswell, The Ardent Queen: Margaret of Anjou and the Lancastrian Heritage (London, 1976); K. Davies, The First Queen Elizabeth (London, 1937); ^- MacGibbon, Elizabeth Woodville (1437—1492): Her Life and Times (London, 1938); T). Baldwin, Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower (Stroud, 2002). Recent attempts to redeem their reputations have been made by Dunn, 'Margaret of Anjou: A Reassessment'; B. Cron, 'Margaret of Anjou: Tradition and Revision', MA thesis (Massey, 1999); H. E. Maurer, Margaret of Anjou: Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2003) and Sutton and Visser-Fuehs, A "Most Benevolent Queen'". 42 N. L. Harvey, Elizabeth of York, the Mother of Henry F777 (New York, 1973), p. xiii. For Anne, see Strickland, Lives of the Queens, in. 429—48. Eleanor Mennim has written a 'biography' of Anne, but this includes invented conversations and fictional characters; E. rAenmm,Anne Nevill 1456-1485: Queen of England (York, 1999). 41

10

-INTRODUCTION-

of royal marriage'.43 Yet even this work falls into the trap of repeating the stereotyped images of queens that have dominated their histories for the past five centuries. She sums up her article with the assertion that, As an object lesson in how not to behave as queen consort, the French princess [Margaret of Anjou] and the English gentlewoman [Elizabeth Woodvillc] could hardly be bettered. In their personal lives, each paid a bitter price for their behaviour. In contrast, Elizabeth of York was probably everything a fifteenth-century Englishman could have hoped for in his queen—beautiful, fertile, pious and good, with apparently no thoughts beyond her God, her husband and her children, and above all, not a foreigner but an English princess.44

As Parsons noted in his study of Eleanor of Castile, while traditional notions of good and bad kings have long been rejected by historians, their queens are often still depicted as they were by Victorian moralists and their predecessors, most notably by Agnes and Elizabeth Strickland in their Lives of the Queens of England, published in the iS/i-OS.45 For Margaret of Anjou and Elizabeth Woodville the case is somewhat more complex because, during the course of the Wars of the Roses and in subsequent years, conflicting stories about them were composed by those on opposing sides of the political divide. These stories tended to describe stereotypically good or bad queens, developing contradictory portraits which later historians would try to integrate without necessarily questioning the validity of the original traditions. A brief outline of the women's histories will demonstrate the political turmoil which profoundly shaped their queenship and their subsequent reputations. Margaret of Anjou, a daughter of Rene, duke of Anjou, arrived in England in April 1445 at the age of 15, having already married the 22-year-old Henry VI by proxy the previous year.46 Henry had inherited the English throne in August 1422, when only 8 months old, and the French throne just two months later. In Henry's infancy England was governed by a regency council and his French territories by his uncle John, duke of Bedford. Precisely when Henry's minority ended has been a matter for much debate and K. B. McFarlane maintained that in effect it never did: 'second childhood succeeded first 43 A. Crawford, 'The King's Burden? The Consequences of Royal Marriage in Fifteenth-Century England', in R. A. Griffiths (cd.), Patronage., the Crown and the Provinces in Later Medieval England (Gloucester, 1981), 33—56. See also A. Crawford, 'The Piety of Late Medieval English Queens', in C. Barren and C. Harper-Bill (cds.), The Church in Pre-Reformation Society (Woodbridgc, 1985), 48—57. 44 Crawford, 'The King's Burden?', 53. 41 Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 1—2. 46 Eor Henry VI's reign, see R. A. Griffiths, The Reign of King Henry VI, 2nd edn. (Stroud, 1998); B. P. Wolffe, Henry F/(Eondon, 1981); Watts, Henry VI. For Margaret's birth date, sec C. N. E. Brooke and V. Ortenberg, 'The Birth of Margaret of Anjou', Historical Research, 61 (1988), 357-8.

•INTRODUCTION'

II

without the usual interval'.47 Bertram Wolffe, however, asserted that Henry VI was an active, if poorly advised, king whose capricious and even vindictive intervention, at least until 1456, was responsible for many of the disasters of his reign.48 R. A. Griffiths also argued that Henry was politically active from 1436 to 1453, although Griffiths presented a more positive image of a king who was 'well-meaning but lacking in judgement'.49 John Watts, in contrast, has recently returned to McFarlane's assessment of Henry's character, arguing that the king was 'inane' and inactive.50 Watts suggests that for much of Henry's reign the nobility attempted to compensate for the lack of royal authority through cooperation and councils but, in the absence of the royal will which should have arbitrated between them ensuring their unity, 'they were surely doomed to failure'.51 As A. J. Pollard has observed, 'in a question of such importance for our understanding of the middle part of his reign, in which there can be no certainty, it becomes a matter of individual judgement'.52 In the course of my research into his queen's activities I have come to accept Watts's thesis that the nobility were endeavouring to create a semblance of monarchy in the absence of effective leadership, but would argue that Henry's 'weakness' prior to 1453 was more a matter of indifference and ineptitude than total incapacity and would assume, like Pollard, that when on occasion Henry did express his will, his lords would endeavour to fulfil it.53 For the first decade of their marriage Margaret's queenship was relatively uncontroversial with the major exception of her failure to produce an heir. Margaret and Henry's only child, Edward of Lancaster, was born in October 1453 during Henry's first bout of insanity. It was in the political crises and struggle for authority which followed these events that Margaret began to take on a more public role in political affairs, ultimately appearing to head a Lancastrian-court party in opposition to Richard, duke of York, and his affinity. In October 1460 a parliamentary accord recognized York, rather than Edward of Lancaster, as Henry VI's heir. York himself was slain at the battle of Wakefield the following December and Margaret's forces defeated those of York's nephew Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, at the second battle of St Albans the following February. However, York's eldest son, Edward, claimed the throne at the beginning of March 1461 and confirmed his position 47

K. B. McFarlane, The Nobility of Later Medieval England (London, 1973), 284. Wolffe, Henry VI, 12-21. 49 Griffiths, Henry VI, p. xxiv. 50 Watts, Henry VI, o. 51 Ibid. 134,364, and passim', see also C. Carpenter, The Wars ofthe Roses: Politics and the Constitution in England, c.1437-1501) (Cambridge, 1997), 87-155. 52 33 A. J. Pollard, Late Medieval England 7399—7509 (Harlow, 2000), 117. Ibid. 138 n. 3. 48

12

-INTRODUCTION-

on 29 March with his victory at the battle of Towton. Margaret fled with Henry and their son to Scotland. She and Prince Edward later moved to France, but Henry was eventually arrested in England and imprisoned in the Tower of London. In 1470, following his unsuccessful rebellion against Edward IV, Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, joined Margaret in France and promised to help the Lancastrians to regain the throne in return for the marriage of his youngest daughter, Anne, to her son Edward of Lancaster. Warwick briefly achieved the readeption of Henry VI, during which Edward IV fled to Burgundy, but King Edward returned to England within months and defeated Warwick at the battle of Barnet on 14 April 1471. Margaret and her son had arrived in England that same day, and their forces met those of Edward IV at Tewkesbury on 4 May. The Lancastrians were defeated, the prince was killed, and Margaret was captured shortly afterwards. As soon as King Edward returned to London, Henry VI was secretly murdered, and after five years in England Margaret returned to France, ostensibly ransomed by the French king. In her influential account of Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Strickland depicted the queen primarily as a beautiful tragic heroine to be admired for her 'maternal tenderness ... and the courageous manner in which she . . . upheld the rights of her royal husband', always thwarted by fortune but motivated only by love for her son.54 Strickland excused Margaret's involvement in the battles of Wakefield (at which, as later historians observed, she could not in fact have been present) and St Albans with the explanation that accusations against her son's legitimacy and the attempts to disinherit him had acted upon her passionate maternal love and pride [and] converted all the better feelings of her nature into fierce and terrific impulses, till at length the graceful attributes of mind and manners by which the queen, the beauty, and the patroness of learning had been distinguished, were forgotten in the ferocity of the amazon and the avenger.55 This combination of the tragic heroine and the virago had existed within Margaret's reputation since Polydore Vergil's Anglica Historia, in which he attempted to combine Yorkist criticisms of Margaret with the Tudor desire to rehabilitate her reputation.56 This interpretation was developed and immortalized in Shakespeare's anachronistic depiction of Margaret as the spokeswoman of the disinherited Lancastrians in his Richard III.57 The majority of 34

55 Strickland, Lives of the Queens, in. 287-8. Ibid. 311. Polydore Vergil, Three Books oj Polydore Vergil's English History, ed. H. Ellis, Camden Society, old sen, 29 (1844), 68-72, 152-3. 37 William Shakespeare, Richard III, i . in. 110—303. 56

•INTRODUCTION'

13

subsequent biographers in France and England accepted both the tragedy of her story and her violent nature.58 As the quotations from Strickland indicate, her devoted motherhood was the principal explanation and defence for her unusual political involvement. The strongest criticisms tended to be of her failure to conciliate with her opponents—Jock Haswell even argued that she should have used her beauty and feminine charms to win over the Yorkists— but her bravery was a constant theme.59 In 1957 Alec Myers published a study of her household accounts which, he maintained, confirmed 'the impression of her as a woman eager for power and ever watchful to gain and to keep all the income she could' and that her expenditure was imprudently lavish, considerably in excess of that of her immediate successor.60 General histories of the Wars of the Roses similarly balanced their accounts of Margaret's destructive political domination with praise for her heroism. For instance, in 1964 S. B. Chrimes argued that 'Queen Margaret, whatever her shortcomings may have been, spared herself no efforts, hardships, or perils in her heroic desperation to keep her husband's and above all her son's cause alive by every available means.'61 According to E. F. Jacob her political involvement began some time before her son's birth with influential support for William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, who dominated Henry's government 'like a second king' in the later 14405 but was disgraced and murdered in 1450.62 Such was the historiography which led to Anne Crawford's judgement on Margaret of Anjou as 'an object lesson in how not to behave as queen consort'.63 Since the publication of Crawford's article there have been further developments in Margaret's reputation and, although these reassessments of her role have often reached contradictory conclusions, a more sophisticated representation of her queenship has emerged. In 1981 Anthony Goodman and John Gillingham in their histories of the Wars of the Roses both followed closely the (primarily Yorkist) chronicle accounts of Margaret's firm control over 58 See Bagley, Margaret of Anjou, 241, and Griffiths, Henry VI, 270-1, for comments on other biographies of Margaret. 59 Haswell, Ardent Queen, 58, 96; Bagley, Margaret of Anjou, 9; cf. Erlanger, Margaret of Anjou, 175—6. 60 A. R. Myers, 'The Household of Queen Margaret of Anjou', in Myers, Crown, 1 lousehold, 142; first pub. in Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, 40 (1957-8), 79-113, 391-431. 61 S. B. Chrimes, Lancastrians, Yorkists and Henry VII (London, 1964), 88—9.}. R. Lander similarly upheld Strickland's defence of 'maternal instincts' as the reason behind Margaret's entry onto the political stage in the 14505, and described her failure to capitalize on the victory of the second battle of St Albans as 'the bitter price of past folly'; J. R. Lander, Conflict and Stability in Fifteenth-Century England(1969; 3rd edn. London, 1977), 75, 85. The particular 'folly' in question was allegedly permitting her troops to plunder the countryside as they moved south. 62 Jacob, The Fifteenth Century, 441, 481, 491-5. 63 Crawford, 'The King's Burden?', 53.

14

-INTRODUCTION-

government in the 14505.64 Bertram Wolffe in his biography of Henry VI the same year described Margaret as a 'rash and despotic queen' who took control of the increasingly enfeebled Henry from 1456, compounding his errors with her factionalism.65 Also that year Ralph Griffiths published his study of the reign of Henry VI in which Margaret's role in politics and court was discussed in far greater detail than in previous lives of her husband.66 Griffiths presented her major role in the political upheaval of 1453-60 and beyond without the domestic apologetics or anti-feminist value judgements of most of his predecessors, and set the tone for further serious assessment of her queenship. He highlighted her 'good ladyship'—her devotion to her servants and skilful administration of her household—as well as the importance of connections between her household and that of the king in the effectiveness of her later political influence. In 1986 Patricia-Ann Lee traced the prejudices and political and literary motives for the early development of Margaret's evil reputation, and maintained that 'without her efforts Lancaster probably would not have survived as long as it did as a force in English politics'.67 Diana Dunn's 1995 reassessment of Margaret's role between 1445 and 1453 argued that the periods before and after the political crises and the birth of her son in 1453 need to be recognized as two very different phases, concluding that Margaret's 'actions before 1453 deserve to be judged as those of a dutiful young wife and effective distributor of patronage rather than of an imperious and passionate power-seeker'.68 In 1996 Anthony Gross claimed that between 1453 and 1471 Margaret of Anjou was simply the figurehead for a group of loyal Lancastrian lawyers and administrators who were really in control of the Lancastrian party.69 However, also in 1996 John Watts's re-evaluation of Henry's reign presented Margaret as one of the principal activists in attempts throughout the 14505 to construct an effective authority to make up for the king's incapacity. He argued that, as the lords struggled to regulate themselves in the absence of the king's arbitration, Margaret eventually emerged as the most obvious check to York's increasing authority and that she attempted to 're-erect the king as an independent royal authority' in opposition to York's 64 A. Goodman, The Wars of the Roses: Military Activity and English Society, 1452-1)7 (London, 1981), i; J. Gilhngham, The Wars of the Roses: Peace and Conflict in Fifteenth-Century England (London, 1981), 26, 99—101. 63 Wolffe, Henry VI, 302. 66 Griffiths, Henry VI, 254-62, 715-895. 67 Lee, 'Dark Side of Queenship', 192. 68 Dunn, 'Margaret of Anjou: A Reassessment', 143. 69 A. Gross, The Dissolution of the Lancastrian Kingship: Sir John Fortescue and the Crisis of Monarchy in Fifteenth-Century England (Stamford, 1996), 46—69.

•INTRODUCTION'

15

apparent dynastic ambition.70 Her determination to break York's power was initially tempered by a more neutral majority of the nobility, and her success in forcing the latter to support her drove the Yorkists to more extreme measures and ultimate victory based in part on the Londoners' suspicion of Margaret's apparently 'northern' power base. Christine Carpenter largely followed Watts in her 1997 textbook on the Wars of the Roses, although she also suggested that 'the more partisan approach of the queen could well have tipped the scales in her rivals' favour'.71 In her MA thesis of 1999 Bonita Cron contests much of this, putting the date of Margaret's antagonism towards York much later, presenting Margaret as more reactive than proactive, and questioning many of the traditional criticisms of Margaret's actions.72 Also in 1999 Helen Maurer submitted a Ph.D. thesis (published in 2003) reassessing Margaret's political influence and considering the ways in which she pushed the potential of accepted forms of queenly agency to their limits while attempting to live up to contemporary gender expectations, and in 2000 A. J. Pollard argued that Margaret was neither as unpopular nor as inept as most historians have implied.73 Margaret thus remains a highly controversial and much debated figure within the historiography of the fifteenth century. Elizabeth Woodville's reputation has attracted controversy much less often but has similarly swung between that of a devoted and grieving mother and of a woman who sought power which belonged to men, although in Elizabeth's case the latter model was not so much that of virago as of grasping parvenu. Elizabeth was the eldest daughter of Sir Pvichard Woodville, whose marriage above his station to Jacquetta de St Pol, widow of the king's uncle John, duke of Bedford, had appalled the bride's family.74 Probably as a result of his marriage, Woodville was elevated to the peerage as Lord Rivers in 1449. Elizabeth's first marriage was to Sir John Grey, son and heir of Edward, Lord Ferrers of Groby. She and Grey had two sons before he was killed in February 1461, fighting for the Lancastrians at the second battle of St Albans. In September 1464 Edward IV astonished his council with the news that he and Elizabeth had been secretly married the previous May. When the earl of Warwick rebelled in 1469, he issued a manifesto criticizing evil counsellors around the king, among them several of Elizabeth's family, and after his forces 70

71 Watts, Henry VI, 328. Carpenter, Wars of the Roses, 154. Cron, 'Margaret of Anjou: Tradition and Revision'. 73 H. E. Maurer, 'Margaret of Anjou: Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England, 1445-61', Ph.D. thesis (California, 1999); Maurer, Margaret of Anjou, 4, 211; Pollard, I.ate Medieval England, 116—65. 74 For Elizabeth Woodville's life, see MaeGibbon, Elizabeth Woodville', Baldwin, Elizabeth Woodmlle\ C. D. Ross, Edward W(London, 1974). 72

16

-INTRODUCTION-

had defeated those of the king at Edgecote her father and her brother John were executed. At the Lancastrian readeption of 1470-1 Elizabeth sought sanctuary at Westminster Abbey with her three daughters by the king. The first son of her second marriage, Edward of Westminster, was born there. When Edward IV died in April 1483, Elizabeth was in London and her eldest son was at Ludlow, whence he was summoned to the capital with his household. The prince was intercepted en route by Edward IV's brother Richard, duke of Gloucester, who arrested the queen's eldest brother and a son of her first marriage who had been accompanying the new king. Gloucester then escorted Edward V to London himself. At news of the arrests Elizabeth once more entered sanctuary at Westminster Abbey and was still there when Richard himself was crowned instead of her son on 6 July. She had by then already allowed her second son by Edward IV, Richard, duke of York, to join Edward V in his lodgings at the Tower: the exact fate of these two princes remains a mystery, but her elder son and her brother, arrested earlier in the year, were swiftly executed. The following spring Elizabeth and her daughters were finally persuaded to leave sanctuary for the royal court. On 22 August 1485 Richard III was killed on the battlefield at Bosworth by the forces supporting Henry Tudor. After his own coronation as Henry VII, Tudor married Elizabeth of York, the eldest daughter of Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV. In 1487, shortly after Henry VII had defeated the pretender Lambert Simnel and Elizabeth of York had been crowned, Elizabeth Woodville retired from court life to Bermondsey Abbey. It was in literature celebrating Edward IV's reconquest in 1471 that Elizabeth was first depicted as a model of patient suffering, enduring 'great trowble, sorow, and hevines, which she sustained with all manner patience that belonged to any creature' while in sanctuary.75 Tudor historians, keen to emphasize Richard Ill's wickedness, may in part have been inspired by this literature in their depictions of the loss of her younger sons in 1483, thereby beginning what A. J. Pollard has called the tradition of the mater dolorosa.7b As Pollard has shown, Elizabeth appeared as a tragic figure in much subsequent literature, hence Elizabeth Strickland's description of the queen's 'feminine helplessness' and 'passive resignation' during the readeption.77 In a biography 71

'The Historic of the Arrival! of Edward TV. in England and the Einall Recouerye of his Kingdomes from Henry VI. A.D. M.CCCC.LXX1', ed. J. Bruce, in K. Dockray (ed.), Three Chronicles of the Reign of Edward IV (Gloucester, 1988), 17. See also T. Wright (ed.), Political Poems and Songs Relating to English History, 2 vols., RS 14 (1859—61), n. 281, and below, Ch. 3. 76 Pollard, 'Elizabeth Woodville and Her Historians', 147. 77 Strickland, Lives of the Queens, in. 393.

•INTRODUCTION'

17

of Elizabeth written in 1938 David MacGibbon reinforced this image in his conclusion: The spotless purity of Elizabeth's life in a Court of unexampled corruption, the dignified restraint with which she endured innumerable wrongs ... together with her deep maternal devotion, reveal glimpses of a soul which often concealed itself from curious eyes... The murder of the two little Princes in the Tower has made a deep impression on the imagination of nearly the whole world, whereas the story of their heartbroken mother has been almost forgotten.78 However, both Strickland and MacGibbon also integrated more critical traditions of Elizabeth's queenship which have since become the dominant version of Elizabeth's life. This version was summed up in Strickland's words thus: Edward IV was at times notoriously unfaithful to his queen: yet over his mind Elizabeth from first to last held potent sway,—an influence most dangerous in the hands of a woman who possessed more cunning than firmness, more skill in concocting a diplomatic intrigue than power to form a rational resolve. She was ever successful in carrying her own purposes, but she had seldom a wise or good end in view; the advancement of her own relatives and the depreciation of her husband's friends and family, were her chief objects. Elizabeth gained her own way with her husband by an assumption of the deepest humility; her words were soft and caressing, her glances timid.79 As Pollard has argued, this was a representation of Elizabeth used by eighteenth-century defenders of Richard III to explain his usurpation as an act to preserve England and himself from her malign influence and that of her kin.80 This tradition too has its origins in the middle of Edward IV's reign and may have been used in Warwick's propaganda: a letter of 1469 from an ambassador to the duke of Milan survives in which the writer both praises Warwick and describes Elizabeth's efforts to aggrandize her relations and dominate government.81 The general acceptance of this version of Elizabeth among many more recent historians is a consequence of its inclusion in Dominic Mancini's De Occupatione Regm Anghe per Riccardum Tercium?2

78

MacGibbon, Elizabeth Woodville, 204. Strickland, Lives of the Queens, 111. 385—6. 80 e.g. Horace Walpolc, Historic L^ouhts on the Life and Reign of Richard the Third, cd. W. Hammond (Gloucester, 1987), 28-38. See Pollard, 'Elizabeth Woodville and Her Historians', 149-52, for further analysis of this. 81 CSP Milan, i. 131. 82 Dominic Mancini, The Usurpation of Richard III, ed. C. A. J. Armstrong (Oxford, 1936; repr. Gloucester, 1984). 79

l8

-INTRODUCTION-

This account of the usurpation, written in 1483 by an Italian visiting the country, was initially deemed to be a uniquely accurate portrayal of events unsullied by the vested interests of Tudor writers. However, as Rosemary Horrox and A. J. Pollard have argued, Mancini appears to have been reliant instead on Gloucester's anti-Woodville rhetoric.83 The fact that both traditions of Elizabeth's role and character, like those of Margaret, were rooted in propaganda does not necessarily make either of them wholly untrue, but it does help to explain their extreme nature. Even after the Tudor victory in 1485 Elizabeth's reputation was never purely that of a tragic heroine, and it was Thomas More who first explicitly accused Elizabeth of using her sexuality to ensnare the king in that she carefully 'kindled his desire' before refusing to be his mistress, leading to Strickland's assertion of her coy manipulation of the king, and more recently Charles Wood's suggestion that Elizabeth was 'the new Lysistrata (or at least the new Salome)'.84 The reasons for Elizabeth Strickland's emphasis on the critical tradition of Elizabeth Woodville's life may have lain both in the sympathy the author felt for the queen's Lancastrian predecessor, and in Strickland's own tenuous claims to gentility which are likely to have made the Woodvilles a sensitive subject for her.85 In 1937 Katharine Davies attempted to redeem Elizabeth's reputation with an assertion of the queen's feminine virtues, It would be idle to deny that once she had found herself Queen of England she did all in her power to advance her family, and that the consequent jealousy of the rival party at court caused the disasters which finally overwhelmed her and so many of her relations. But it is difficult to sec what other faults can be laid to her charge. She was a good wife and mother, a loving daughter and sister, a woman of unimpeachable virtue which even her enemies never attempted to slander. In one of the most bloodthirsty periods of English history, the court of Elizabeth and Edward was urbane and refined.86

83 R. Horrox, Richard III: A Study of Service (Cambridge, 1989), 90-3; A. J. Pollard, 'Dominic Mancim's Narrative of the Events of 1483 ', Nottingham Me.die.val Studies, 38 (1994), 152—63. 84 Thomas More, The History of King Richard III and Selections from the English and Latin Poems, ed. R. S. Sylvester (New Haven, 1963), 61; Wood, 'The First Two Queens Elizabeth', 126. Pollard draws attention to Polydore Vergil's explanation for Elizabeth's decision to leave sanctuary in 1484: 'for so mutable is that sex', and More's hints of her involvement in the downfall and death of Edward TV's brother George, duke of Clarence: 'as women commonly not of malice but of nature hate them whome theire housebandes love'; Vergil, Three Books of English History, 210; More, History of King Richard III, 7. Descriptions of Elizabeth's anguish at her sons' death were often followed by avowals of vengeance, easily assumed with the benefit of hindsight, which were played up by Shakespeare; e.g. Edward Hall, Chronicle, ed. H. Ellis (Eondon, 1809), 379—80. 81 Eor the Stricklands' claims to gentility, see Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 241. 86 Davies, The First Queen Elizabeth, pp. v—vi.

•INTRODUCTION'

19

MacGibbon largely concurred with Davies, although he gave considerable weight to Mancini's recently published text. However, both were somewhat popular histories, over-reliant on late Tudor sources and not influential on subsequent political histories. The wide acceptance of Mancini's text and an increasing trend of searching for motives beyond blind ambition for Richard Ill's actions meant that the tradition of the grasping parvenu triumphed, hence the negative conclusions regarding Elizabeth Woodville's queenship in Crawford's 1981 article.87 Since then Elizabeth Woodville herself has appeared only briefly in general histories of the Wars of the Roses or studies of Richard III, although there has been considerable discussion of the role of her wider family, and Horrox and Carpenter have pointed out the implausibihty of some of Mancini's assertions about them.88 In 1995 Anne Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs published an important article refuting many of the commonest accusations against Elizabeth, such as her supposed unfair demand for queen's gold from Thomas Cook and her reputed involvement in the deaths of the earl of Desmond and of George, duke of Clarence.89 They also argued that Elizabeth Woodville was popular with her subjects and showed appropriate queenly piety. Their approach has had a major influence upon the most recent biography of Elizabeth Woodville, that by David Baldwin.90 Sutton and Visser-Fuchs were also cited by Pollard for his assertion that 'The queen . . . has been much maligned. In so far as one can tell, she had only very modest material demands, her household was never extravagant, she played virtually no part in politics until after Edward IV's death and was content to play the conventional supportive role of queen and mother... [she] was not an active or influential political figure at court.'91 It should be noted, however, that Sutton and Visser-Fuchs's article was concerned primarily with the queen's reputation, her piety, and her books, rather than the question of her political involvement. The existence of two partly opposing queenly topoi in the past reputations of both Margaret of Anjou and Elizabeth Woodville may largely be accounted for by the propaganda of the various men who challenged and succeeded their husbands. It is also a consequence of the unusual circumstances in which each was forced to act independently of their husbands. What is evident throughout this historiography is that perceived maternal emotions have 87 Sec e.g. Ross, RdivardlV, 87—9; Chrimes, Lancastrians, VorkistsandHenry VII, 92; Crawford, 'The King's Burden?', 53. 88 Horrox, Richard III, 90—3; Carpenter, Wan of the. Roses, 206. For debate about her family, see below, Ch. 4. 89 Sutton and Visscr-Fuehs, 'A "Most Benevolent Queen"'. 90 91 Baldwin, Elizabeth Woodville. Pollard, Late Medieval England, 276, 309.

20

-INTRODUCTION'

always been deemed positive attributes in queens, and that an author wishing to present a queen in a favourable light would most effectively achieve this end by depicting her as vulnerable or concerned only with domestic issues. It is, however, an ideal of womanhood that sits uneasily with one who is the head of a large household, possessor of considerable estates, and bedmate to the ruler of a kingdom. In this work I will be arguing that praiseworthy queenship was a rather more complex affair in which the domestic and the political could not easily be separated. For Anne Neville and Elizabeth of York the historiography has been rather different. Both remain the scarcely mentioned, idealized, but shadowy partners to ruthless and controversial kings. The only major disputes in their reputations have been whether or not their marriages were happy, the conclusion usually depending upon the particular author's bias towards Richard III or Henry VII.92 Anne, the younger daughter of the earl of Warwick, married Richard, duke of Gloucester, shortly after the Lancastrian readeption, her first husband, Prince Edward, having died at the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471. She and Richard had one son, Edward of Middleham, who died in March 1484. Anne had been crowned with Richard in July 1483 but died in March 1485 after a short illness. Her early death and single pregnancy have led most historians to assume that she was 'fragile and delicate', and all but the most recent impressed on their readers her tragic life.93 Paul Murray Kendall in 1955, for instance, maintained that 'no one was more violently tossed upon the sea of strife than Warwick's frail daughter, Anne'.94 Strickland noted that 'tradition declares she abhorred' the 'crimes' of Richard III, but was herself inclined to assume that some of Anne's misfortune was punishment for tacit acceptance of Richard's usurpation.95 In more recent biographies of Richard III Anne appears almost exclusively as a pawn in men's politics, almost nothing of her queenship being known.96 Elizabeth of York, in contrast, was queen for seventeen years and four of her seven children reached adulthood, but, like Anne, she died before her hus92

Strickland, Lives of the Queens, iii. 438, 446—8; C. R. Markham, Richard 111: 1 Us Life and Character (London, 1906), 199-200; G. Buck, The History of King Richard the Third, ed. A. N. Kincaid (Gloucester, 1979), 18; P. M. Kendall, Richard the Third (London, 1955), 321; S. B. Chrimes, Henry VII(London, 1972), 302. 93 Markham, Richard III, 124; Kendall, Richard the Third, 86, 105, 107, 210; Buck, History of King Richard the Third, 73; Strickland, Lives of the Queens, iii. 448. 94 Kendall, Richard the Third, 105. 93 Strickland, Lives of the Queens, m. 442, 445—6. 96 e.g. Ross, Richard III; Horrox, Richard III; A. J. Pollard, Richard III and the Princes in the Tower (Stroud, 1991).

•INTRODUCTION'

21

band. Richard Ill's defender Sir George Buck maintained that Elizabeth of York desired to marry Richard, complying with her mother's supposed attempts to bring about such a match in 1485, and was to this end impatient for Anne's death.97 The evidence for this in a missing letter referred to by Buck still arouses controversy today but is usually dismissed, as is the narrative of 'The Song of the Lady Bessy', much quoted by Strickland, according to which Elizabeth was a major participant in the plot to replace Richard with Henry of Richmond.98 Aside from these stories Elizabeth is represented as being active only in pious works and in generosity to her subjects. Strickland declared that 'during many trials the retiring conduct of Elizabeth bore fully out her favourite motto ... "humble and reverent"'." The consistent observations of various historians that the character of Henry VII deteriorated after her death led Nancy Lenz Harvey in 1973 to assume that Although she was without great power and never sought it, Elizabeth through her reign would be a subtle force behind the policies of her husband. She would attempt to continue the ideals and programs of her father... Not as monarch, not for ambition, not for ego and herself would she reign; but she could stand as an example and as a conscience to those who did.100 This is not a widely accepted interpretation. More common is that published the previous year by S. B. Chrimes in his biography of Henry VII: Queen Elizabeth is described by contemporaries as a very handsome woman of great ability, as beloved, as a woman of the greatest charity and humanity. There seems, indeed, good reason to suppose that she was an admirable spouse in the king's eyes.101 Hence Crawford's conclusion almost a decade later that 'Elizabeth of York was probably everything a fifteenth-century Englishman could have hoped for in his queen.'102 This judgement has not so far been contested. These historians, with the exception of Crawford, have assessed queens primarily in isolation from one another, either in narratives of their lives or, if in a broader history of the period, principally with reference to their practical political impact. Theirs has essentially been a study of queens and their personalities, rather than of queenship. Only Griffiths, Crawford, Lee, 97

Buck, Richard the Third, 189-91. A. Hanham, 'Sir George Buck and Princess Elizabeth's Letter: A Problem in Detection', The, Ricardian, 7/97 (1987), 398-400; A. Kincaid, 'Buck and the Elizabeth of York Letter: A Reply to Dr Hanham', The. Rtcardtan, 8/101 (1988), 46—9; Strickland, Lives of the Queens, iv. 11—17. 99 Strickland, Lives of the Queens, iv. 19, 35. 100 J. D. Mackie, The Earlier Tudors, r^S^—rtfS (Oxford, 1957), 230; Harvey, Elizabeth of York, 148. 101 102 Chrimes, Henry VII, 302. Crawford, 'The King's Burden?', 53. 98

22

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Dunn, Sutton, and Visser-Fuchs have, to varying extents, presented their analyses against a notion of the ideology and office of queenship which has nonetheless yet to be fully articulated. It is the purpose of this book therefore to develop this understanding further, so that queens need not be assessed primarily on the grounds of their personal political influence but instead considered in terms of their broader role in sovereignty. In so doing I suggest that queenship is such an integral part of mature kingship that any assessment of the latter must consider the political and ideological relationship between king and queen if it is to achieve the fullest possible understanding of the exercise of sovereignty in this period. I examine the ways in which kings manipulated their wives' roles as intercessors, as icons, as the feminine element necessary to legitimate sovereignty, as links to potentially useful family, and as indicators of the king's own more 'human' side. Beyond this I also assess the extent to which the queen herself was actively involved in creating and enacting these roles, what her modes of supporting his kingship and her potential for expressing her own identity were, and the response of her contemporaries to her queenship.

SOURCES It is in part the paucity of references to queens in the narrative sources for their husbands' reigns which has led to their marginal position in our understanding of this period. Unlike their early medieval predecessors Emma and Edith, these queens did not commission accounts of their lives, nor was there at this time such a detailed chronicler as Matthew Paris, on whom Margaret Howell has relied heavily for her biography of Eleanor of Provence.103 Chronicles do offer important narratives of events, but most of those written in England are from a London background, which most commonly includes a Yorkist interest, and several were written specifically to celebrate Edward IVs accession, which makes it particularly hard to judge Margaret of Anjou's true role in events.104 Chronicles written after 1485, however, tend to favour the Lancastrians, notably Fabyan's New Chronicles of England and France, in which Margaret becomes 'that noble and moost bounteuous pryncesse quene Margarete, of whom many and vntrewe surmyse was imagened and 103 104

222.

Stafford, Emma and Edith, 28—52; Howell, Eleanor of Provence. A. Gransden, Historical Writingin Englandc.^07 to the Early Sixteenth Century (London, 1982),

•INTRODUCTION'

23

tolde'.105 As Antonia Gransden has shown, whereas John Hardyng, John Rous, and William Worcester all clearly changed their allegiance as their kings changed, only the authors of Warkworth's Chronicle and the Croiuland Continuation apparently attempted to avoid the bias of the ruling party of the time.106 In each case the identity of the author is uncertain. John Warkworth, master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, may have been the author of his chronicle or simply the owner.107 The Cropland Continuation has frequently been attributed to Bishop John Russell, Edward IV's keeper of the privy seal and Richard Ill's chancellor.108 However, its recent editors Nicholas Pronay and John Cox have argued for an author not quite so close to the king's council at this time and suggested Dr Henry Sharp, the prothonotary of chancery, who would nonetheless have been better informed than most chroniclers of the time.109 In contrast, David Baldwin has suggested that the author was Elizabeth Woodville's secretary John Gunthorpe.110 As noted above, one chronicle-type source which has recently been proved less impartial than at first thought is Dominic Mancini's De Occupatione, although it remains a particularly useful source for one of the major crisis points of this period. Edward IV's return to the throne in 1471 also inspired short chronicles, and these were self-confessedly the product of Edward's servants.111 Although the political interests behind so many of these chronicles can present difficulties in establishing the course of events or popular sentiment at the time, they are a valuable source of contemporary ideas and expectations of queenship. Tournaments, coronations, and other rituals were commonly described in short narrative accounts, often by heralds, recording for posterity the glory, and legitimacy implied thereby, of a particular sovereign. More general accounts of ritual and court or household practice appear in the Ryalle Book (first drawn up in Edward IV's reign but developed under Henry VII) or in Edward IV's Liber Niger Domus Regis Anglie.lu Although both are probably primarily

105

Robert Fabyan, The New Chronicles of England and France, ed. H. Ellis (London, 1811), 640. 106 Gransden, Historical Writing, 251. 107 Ibid. 258. 108 Ross, Richard III, p. xliv n. 75. 109 N. Pronay and J. Cox (cds.), The Cropland Chronicle Continuations: 74^9—7486 (London, 1986), 90. 110 Baldwin, Elizabeth Woodmlle, 176-81. 111 Dockray (ed.), Three Chronicles of the Reign of Edward IV; Wright (ed.), Political Poems and Songs, ii. 281. 112 F. Grose and T. Astle (eds.), The Antiquarian Repertory, 4 vols. (London, 1807), i. 296—338; A. R. Myers (ed.), The Household of Edward IV: The Black Book and the Ordinance of 1478 (London, 1959). For further discussion of these works, see Chs. 2 and 5 below.

24

-INTRODUCTION-

manuals for those working in the royal household, they also attempt to emphasize the splendour, correct order, and legitimate heritage of the courthousehold they describe, which was perhaps to impress not only those in royal service at the time, but also courtiers in later decades who might look back to Edward IV and Henry VII for inspiration as they themselves did to Edward III. All of these texts therefore convey not only some evidence of actual events, but also much about the ideology of queenship. Valuable elaboration of these sources occurs in eyewitness accounts in city records, chronicles, or diaries of foreign travellers like Gabriel Tetzel, who, for instance, provided a unique record of events surrounding Elizabeth Woodville's churching in 1466.113 Sources which were less self-consciously aimed at conveying a particular image of kingship and queenship include the records of the royal administration, such as the king's household accounts, records of the great wardrobe, or chancery enrolments. The rolls of parliament occasionally shed light on queenship.114 The most valuable administrative records are those for the queens' households, of which only three survive for this period, supplemented by several of Margaret of Anjou's jewel accounts.115 Various letters also provide fragments of information. Many of Margaret of Anjou's letters regarding her servants and household survive, as well as some of more political relevance.116 A few also remain for Elizabeth Woodville and her daughter.117 Often more useful are the comments made in letters by contemporaries such as the Paston family or foreign ambassadors.118 Pictures of the queens are most often linked to the religious dimension of their role, in stained glass, on altarpieces or in devotional manuscripts and guild books. Such images, inspired by issues of patronage and legitimacy, are often rich in surprising and telling symbolism. These are the places in which a queen's quasi-divine status is most explicitly delineated. A source particularly important to understanding the ideology of queenship is the pageantry of their royal entries, not only the texts of the verses read or shown, but also the evidence for the tableaux vivants or plays presented. These 113 M. H. Letts (ed.), Travels of Leo ofRozmital Through Germany, Flanders, England, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy [46^—6j, Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., 108 (1957), 4^114 e.g. the concepts of queenship outlined m the denunciation of Elizabeth Woodville in Richard TIT's first parliament; Rot. Par/, vi. 240—1. 115 Myers, Crown, Household, 135-210, 211-29, 251-318; PRO, £101/409/4, 17, £101/410/2, 8. 116 C. Monro (cd.), Letters of Queen Margaret of Anjou, Bishop Beckington and Others, Camdcn Society, old ser., 86 (1863). 117 e.g. Crawford (ed.), Letters of the Queens, 135-6, 157-8. 118 J. Gairdner (ed.), The Paston Letters 1422-1509, 4 vols. (Edinburgh, 1910); CSP Milan; CSP Venice.

•INTRODUCTION'

25

are complemented by the many literary representations of queens. Whereas Guinevere is the best known of literary medieval queens and appears in a variety of contexts (as inspiration to knightly pursuits, judge, and adulteress), her adultery and childlessness made her atypical among literary queens. A common topos is the victimized queen, falsely accused like Constance or Emare.119 As with Guinevere, the origins of their stories lie long before the fifteenth century. From the non-noble Peronelle of Gower's Confessio Amantis, who wins her crown by her beauty and her wit, to the mysterious Lady Loiaulte, who holds court at The Assembly of Ladies, there are a number of literary queens whose lives intersect especially pertinently with the ideology of fifteenth-century queenship.120 The allegories employed and the antiquity of some of the topoi render such literature a complex and potentially hazardous source for the historian. Nonetheless, as evidence of ideas of queenship familiar to the fifteenth-century court they cannot be ignored in a study of the ideological framework in which these women were acting. Across medieval Europe it was common for sovereigns to emulate their literary counterparts and to have events in their own lives presented in terms familiar from literature, particularly military and chivalric exploits.121 Conversely, literature reflected the concerns of contemporary royalty and nobility: for instance, Peggy McCracken has argued that 'romance representations of adulterous queens are part of a debate about queenship in medieval culture' which was concerned with their position in the royal household both as a model for all wives and as 'a potential access to government'.122 In using such literature to shed light on the queens in this study I have chosen examples from works associated with the English court, or likely to have been familiar to many in the political community. Where the comparison involves European-wide phenomena, such as associations between queens and the Virgin Mary, I have sometimes included literature from further afield. 119 Chaucer's 'Man of Law's Tale' is one version of the popular story of Constance; Geoffrey Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer, cd. L. D. Benson, 3rd cdn. (Oxford, 1987), 89—103; for Emarc, sec M. Mills (ed.), Six Middle English Romances (London, 1973), 46—74. 120 John Gowcr, The English Works of John Cower, cd. G. C. Macaulay, EETS, extra scr., 81—2 (1900—1), i. 199-29; D. A. Pearsall (ed.), The Fioure and the Leafe and The Assembly of Ladies (Manchester, 1962). 121 J. R. Goodman, 'The Lady with the Sword: Phihppa of Lancaster and the Chivalry of the Infante Do Henrique', in T. M. Vann (ed.), Queens, Regents and Potentates (Woodbndge, 1993), 149—65; R. Barber, 'Malory's Le Morte LJarthur and Court Culture Under Edward IV, Arthurian Literature, 12 (1993), 133-55; I- Michael, '"From Her Shall Read the Perfect Ways of Honour": Isabel of Castile and Chivalric Romance', in A. Deycrmond and I. Macphcrson (eds.), The Age of the Catholic Monarch*, 1474—1516: Literary Studies in Memory of Keith Whinnom (Liverpool, 1989), 109. 122 P. McCracken, The Romance of Adultery: Queenship and Sexual Transgression in Old French Literature (Pennsylvania, 1998), 20—1.

26

-INTRODUCTION-

STRUCTURE My initial intention was to focus my research on Elizabeth Woodville, Anne Neville, and Elizabeth of York in an exploration of their specifically English queenship. It soon became apparent, however, that their queenship could only be fully understood in the context of that of Margaret of Anjou, whose own queenship overshadowed, informed, and overlapped with theirs. I have nonetheless decided not to be drawn into detailed examination of Margaret's unique political role, but rather to focus on issues of queenship which were important to all four of the women in this study. Given the atypical backgrounds of the English-born queens, an obvious starting point was the question of how they came to be queens, a question which encompasses notions of ideal queenship and changing political ideologies at the close of the Middle Ages. Chapter i begins by discussing why queens were needed, analysing in particular their contribution to notions of legitimate kingship, and then considers the kings' choice of the queens in this study through assessment of the four principal themes in choosing potential queens which were most challenged by Edward IV's unconventional marriage: nationality, social status, virginity, and love. The second chapter is an analysis of how these very different women were publicly constructed within existing notions of queenship. The ritual presentation of queens in this period is examined, again noting changing ideologies and the implications thereof for kingship. Whereas previous analysis of queenly ritual, primarily coronation, has assumed that the main theme of such ceremonies was the queen's potential to produce heirs to the throne, I argue that a far richer and more complex ideology of queenship was expressed, in which fertility was an issue of womanhood rather than queenship, and that the ritual was more concerned with the queen's wider role as an integral part of the king's public body. The notion that a queen's primary role was as a mother (or rather, as a childbearer) has tended to lead to the exclusion of queens from political histories of the period. Having asserted that their role encompassed very much besides motherhood, I nonetheless consider that it is important to redeem notions of motherhood and accordingly focus the first of my chapters about the practice of queenship upon queens as mothers. It is apparent that motherhood was not only a potentially enormously empowering role for a queen, but also a role which impacted significantly upon the wider political community. This was of course especially true for Margaret of Anjou and Elizabeth Woodville given the political crises mentioned above,

•INTRODUCTION'

2J

and Chapter 3 consequently offers a reassessment of the latter's role in both 1471 and 1483. For Elizabeth Woodville her royal motherhood was deeply influenced by relations with her wider family. Family was a particularly important issue for English-born queens because their relatives formed a unique and largely unprecedented factor in the English power structure, and it is therefore the role of family in fifteenth-century queenship that my fourth chapter addresses. I explore the importance of the queens' kin in constructing identities, both positive and negative, of queen, king, and kingship, and then address the means by which kings managed and rewarded the queens' families in order to strengthen their kingship and to restrict those families' potential to destabilize the political community. This discussion concludes by considering the value of various female kinship networks. In the last chapter I turn to the queen's household and the royal court, which were the context for most of a queen's political, social, and devotional activity. The themes of patronage and intercession, so important to previous studies of queenship, are addressed at various points within this structure, as are the issues of legitimacy and the ability to complement the role and person of the king which I argue are fundamental to the nature of English queenship in the second half of the fifteenth century. dk£

CHAPTER I

Selecting Queens During the Wars of the Roses

INTRODUCTION The choice of a wife was the most important single decision ever made by any medieval Icing. The ability to produce from her a male heir was his most important responsibility. For her to bear this son in time for him to be of age when his father died was scarcely less essential.1 Thus Anne Crawford summed up traditional assumptions about the primary reason for medieval kings to acquire queens. Yet this contrasts with the marriage of the most famous of literary kings: Arthur, who was repeatedly invoked as a model of ideal kingship in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century texts.2 In the version of King Arthur's story most contemporary with the queens in this study Sir Thomas Malory wrote, In the begynnyng of Arthure, aftir he was chosyn kynge ... many kyngis and lordis hyldc hym grctc wcrrc ... But well Arthur ovcrcom hem all:... so hit fcllc on a tymc kyng Arthur scydc unto Mcrlion, 'My barowncs woll let me have no rcstc but ncdis I mustc take a wyff, and I woldc none take but by thy conccilc and advice'.3 Arthur does not say why his barons are so anxious for him to marry, although Merlin comments that 'a man of your bounte and nobles scholde not be 1

A. Crawford (ed.), Letters of the Queens of England jjoo-j547 (Stroud, 1997), 3. R. Barber, 'Malory's Le Morte Darthur and Court Culture Under Edward TV, Arthurian Literature, 12 (1993), 133—55; W. M. Ormrod, The Reign of Edward III: Crown and Political Society in England JJiJ—/J/7 (London, 1990), 38, 45,122; Caxton's Preface to Malory's Works in Thomas Malory, Works, ed. E. Vinaver, rev. P. J. C. Field, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1990), p. xiii; see also G. Kipling (ed.), The Receyt of the J.adie Kateryne, EETS 296 (Oxford, 1990), 15. 3 Malory, Works, i. 97. 2

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29

withoute wyfF'.4 Children are not mentioned—and fifteenth-century readers would have known that there would be no children of this union—but Arthur had reached that stage in his life cycle where a queen was required. His young adulthood as a warrior securing his kingdom had given way to the mature and more settled role of governing that kingdom. There is no suggestion within Malory's work that Guinevere's proper role is to bear children, and her queenship is not apparently undermined by their childlessness. For Malory, as for previous creators of Arthur's story, Arthur's mature kingly image was made complete by his marriage to the fair Guinevere, regardless of their lack of children.5 This is not to refute Crawford's assessment of the importance of offspring to real late medieval kings. Malory's account was essentially a romance rather than a work of history. In contrast some of the earlier chronicle accounts of Arthur's marriage, aware of the political importance of heirs, had implied that there was sadness at their lack of children.6 Yet even these chroniclers did not suggest that her lack of children undermined Guinevere's position. On the contrary, they maintained (like Malory) that the man who usurped Arthur's throne, Mordred, also desired Guinevere as his wife. What this emphasizes is that kings needed queens for something more than just childbearmg. In the fifteenth century royal marriage was most obviously a means of asserting mature kingship when the king had ascended the throne as a minor. James II of Scotland, for instance, was deemed to have reached his majority at the age of 14 in October 1444 but was only able to assert his authority over the Livingstons five years later when he married Mary of Guelders.7 His son James III similarly asserted authority over the Boyds as 4

Malory, Works, i. 97. Malory's readers would have known that ultimately the marriage would end in Guinevere's adulterous affair which was a catalyst for the break-up of the Round Table and Arthur's downfall. The fact that the loss of his queen presaged the loss of his kingdom probably emphasized the correspondence between mature kingship and possession of a queen. 6 'never Ijai haden childe to-gedrcs, and no^elesse Kyng Arthure louede her wonder wel and derlich'; F. W. D. Brie (ed.), The Brut; or, The Chronicles of England, EETS 131,136 (1906-8), i. 77. It was a canon of Bayeux, Wace, whose mid-i2th-century chronicle first lamented their lack of children and this was repeated by later chroniclers, whereas authors of romances, such as Chretien de Troves seemed unconcerned by this; Wace and Layamon, Arthurian Chronicles, trans. E. Mason (Toronto, 1996), 109,112. 7 X. M'dcDo\ig'd\\, James III: A Political Study (Edinburgh, 1982), 7,12,14^15; E Downie, '"Sche is but a womman": The Queen and Princess in Scotland, 1424—63', Ph.D. thesis (Aberdeen, 1991), 121. Richard TT's passage to maturity is more complex since his encounter with the rebels at Mile End and his marriage occurred soon after his fourteenth birthday, the age at which a boy was traditionally deemed to have reached manhood, but his involvement in the running of the country at this period is difficult to judge; N. Saul, Richard IJ (Eondon, 1997), 108—10. 5

30

- S E L E C T I N G QUEENS '

soon as he had married Margaret of Denmark.8 As John Watts has argued, in rather different circumstances, the personal rule of Henry VI also 'took on a more traditional appearance' at the time of his marriage to Margaret of Anjou.9 The equation of marriage with maturity obviously included an assumption that heirs would soon follow, but there were many other ways in which a queen enriched her husband's kingly authority. These varied throughout her life, and at the point of marriage the potential to provide heirs and the promise of political alliance were two of a queen's most important attributes. They were part of a larger issue integral to the nature of medieval queenship: a queen's role in confirming and representing the legitimacy of her husband's kingship.

LEGITIMIZING KINGSHIP The most common means by which the queen's role explicitly legitimized kingship was in constructing an image of the king's Christ-like role. The king as type of Christ (or God) was a commonplace of fifteenth-century European political discourse, such as Thomas Hoccleve's Regement of Princes, in which he reminded the future Henry V that A king, by wey of his office To god I-likcncd is.10 This ideology was also expressed in pageantry, as at Henry VI's 1432 entry into London where a Jesse Tree (representing Christ's lineage) paralleled the depiction of the king's ancestry.11 Much of the queen's involvement in this image construction evolved from the Christian ideology of marriage. St Augustine was among the first to expound the doctrine in which marriage was perceived as a sacrament along the same lines as baptism.12 In his Liber de Illustnbus Hennas, compiled for Henry VI, John Capgrave reaffirmed this position on marriage, explaining that it was 'a sacrament, and a sign of a sacred 8

R. Nicholson, Scotland: The Later Middle Ages (Edinburgh, 1974), 418. J. Watts, Henry VT and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge, 1999), 195. 10 Thomas Hoccleve, Hoccleve's Works: The Regement of Princes, ed. E J. Furmvall, EETS, extra ser., 72 (1897), ^7' G- ^- Harriss, 'Introduction: The Exemplar of Kingship', in Harriss (cd.), Henry V: The Practice of Kingship (Oxford, 1985), 10-11. 11 R. Osberg, 'The Jesse Tree in the 1432 Eondon Entry of Henry VT: Messianic Kingship and the Rule of Justice', Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 16 (1986), 216. 12 P. L. Reynolds, Marriage in the Western Church: The Christianization of Marriage Touring the Patristic and Early Medieval Periods (Eondon, 1994), 63. 9

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31

thing, namely of the union that is between Christ and His Church'.13 The idea of Christ as bridegroom not just of his Church but of individual Christian souls was a popular motif in late medieval religious thought and appeared in the liturgy of the queen's coronation.14 Although Augustine's Christological analogy of the sacrament of marriage applied to the marriage of persons of any station, it was particularly emphasized and expanded upon for royalty in order to stress the sovereign's divine authority, notably in the civic pageantry which greeted Margaret of Anjou's 1445 arrival in London prior to her coronation. Here there were references to the parable of the ten virgins awaiting Christ the bridegroom, to the lover and beloved of the Song of Songs (commonly understood then as a metaphor for the union of the soul and Christ), and finally to a feast held by Christ the bridegroom.15 The context of the pageantry was Margaret's own recent marriage, so all these references reinforced the association of the queen's nuptials with those of Christ, thereby figuring Margaret as Church-humanity and Henry as Christ.16 It is important that the marriage of Christ and Church was not for the purpose of producing heirs but an end in itself, which brought into being the New Jerusalem and was thus the expression of God's ultimate purpose.17 In the same way, according to the pageants, a new era of 'welth, loie, and abundance' was to follow Margaret's marriage.18 The extent to which the majority of ordinary people witnessing these pageants understood their implications is impossible to ascertain, but the frequency with which such allusions were made in entry ceremonials across Europe indicates that the elite of the political community valued them. The symbolism probably served dual functions of celebrating and reinforcing the legitimacy of kingly authority and reminding the king and queen of the responsibilities of their roles. Figuring the queen as Church was also bound up with representations of the queen as Mary. As early as the second century the Church (or Ecclesia) had come to be identified with Mary, Jesus' mother, and both Church and Mary 13 'Cum igitur con|ugium sacramentum sit, et sacrae rei signum, scilicet conjunctions Chnsti et ecclesiae'; John Capgravc, 1 .iber de lllustribus 1 lenricis, cd. F. R. Hingeston, RS 7 (1858), 136. This parallel was explicitly referred to in the Mass of the Trinity which followed the wedding service; V. Stanley (cd.), The Library ofl.iturgiology andEcclesiologyfor English Readers, IX: The Sarum Missalin English (London, 1911), n. 155. 14 L. G. Wickham Fegg (cd.), English Coronation Records (London, 1901), 268. 15 For the interpretation of Song of Songs, see e.g. Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermon 57, P. Matarasso (cd.), The Cistercian World: Monastic Writings of the Twelfth Century (London, 1993), 71^7. 16 G. Kiplmg,'The London Pageants for Margaret of An|ou: A Medieval Script Restored', Medieval English Theatre, 4 (1982), 21. Sec below, Ch. 2. 17 ls Rev. 19: 7—22: 17. Kipling, 'London Pageants', 21.

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were identified as the woman 'clothed with the sun' of Revelation 12.19 The 'crown of twelve stars' upon the latter woman's head contributed to the practice of depicting both Mary and Ecclesia as crowned queens. The final pageant to greet Margaret of Anjou in 1445 drew on these associations in a prayer to Mary: Cristcs Modrc, Virgyn immaculate, God Hys tabernacle to sanctific Of stcrrcs xij the crounc hath prcparatc, Emprise, Quccnc, and Lady Laureate Praie for cure Queene that Crist will here gouerne Longe here on lyve in hir noble astate, Aftirward crownc here in blissc ctcrnc.20

It was in the twelfth century that Mary's identity as Queen of Heaven had become a popular motif throughout Western Christendom, particularly in images of the Coronation of the Virgin.21 Mariology was influencing and being influenced by the ideology of queenship, which, at this time, according to Lois Huneycutt, was being remodelled by churchmen to consist of the roles of'peacemaker, mother, nurse, benefactress and intercessor', in contrast to the earlier notions of sharer in the king's authority and head of his household.22 Although such ideology constructed new differences in kingly and queenly roles, the association with Mariology meant that queens should not necessarily be seen as decreasing in status. The powerful French regent Blanche of Castile associated herself with this iconography in the early thirteenth century, and was depicted in a Bible shared with her son in the attitude of the crowned Virgin interceding with her son the king.23 As Parsons has argued, this association of queenly and Marian intercession was made explicit in thirteenth-century England too, shaping coronation ritual and leading to Marian allusions in the rites of royal childbirth.24 Such Marian associations, no longer necessarily identified with intercession, persisted into the fifteenth century, not only in the words of the pageant scripts 19

20 G. Ashc, The Virgin (London, 1976), 128. Kipling/London Pageants', 23. M. Warner, Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary (London, 1990), 113-16. 22 L. L. Huneycutt, 'Medieval Queenship', History Today, 39/6 (1989), 16—22. 23 Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, 114, pi. 15; Isabel of Castile, queen m her own right, was later depicted by many chroniclers as 'a secular version of the Virgin Mary'; I. Michael, '"From Her Shall Read the Perfect Ways of Honour": Isabel of Castile and Chivalric Romance', in A. Deyermond and I. Macpherson (eds.), The. Age of the Cathohc Monarch*, 1474—1^6 (Liverpool, 1989), 104. 24 J. C. Parsons, 'The Queen's Intercession in Thirteenth-Century England', m J. Carpenter and S.-B. MacLcan (eds.), Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women (Urbana, 111., 1995), 147—77. See also below, Ch. 2. 21

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quoted above, but also in the painted images of queens. The most explicit instance of the latter is a picture of Elizabeth Woodville in the records of the Skinners of London, produced in the 14705 to record her membership of their fraternity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.25 In this image Elizabeth wears a red dress beneath a blue cloak with loose blonde hair beneath a crown. This was the attire in which the Virgin Mary was most commonly depicted, the red symbolizing her earthly nature and the blue her heavenly attributes, the loose blonde hair suggestive of her virginity.26 Moreover, the orb and sceptre which Elizabeth held in this image were not the regalia with which English queens were crowned, although queens were commonly depicted carrying them, as were kings, the Virgin Mary, and Christ.27 That royalty should frequently bear the same regalia as Mary or Christ suggests that there was a blurring of the understanding of their roles in popular perceptions, despite the attempts by the clergy who regulated coronations to make these emblems more distinctly different.28 In the Skinners' picture Elizabeth was also surrounded by roses and gillyflowers, which were both flowers associated with the Virgin; the rose particularly with her virginity and the gillyflower with her purity and her motherhood.29 Elizabeth's blue cloak is spread wide like that of Mary as Mother of Mercy, a parallel emphasized by an alteration on this page in the title of the fraternity to read 'oure Fraternite of oure blissed Lady and 25

J. J. Lambert (cd.), Records of the Skinners of London, Edward / to James / (London, 1933), 237. See e.g. the Virgin of Mercy in the Bedford Hours (^1423) (BL, Add. MS 18850, fo. yob), in J. Backhouse, The Bedford J Jours (London, 1990), 42; or Jan van Eyck's 'The Virgin in a Church' (1425), in R. Hughes and G. T. Faggin (eds.), The Complete Paintings of the Van Eycks (London, 1970), pi. i; or the Virgin Mary in stained glass at St Bartholomew's in Yarnton, Oxfordshire (late i5th or early i6th century); P. A. Newton and J. Kerr, The County of Oxford: A Catalogue of Stained Glass, Corpus Vitrearum Medii /Fvi, Great Britain, vol. i (London, 1975), 220, pi. i2a. Compare with the representation of the marriage of Henry V and Catherine of Valois in the Psalter and Hours of John, duke of Bedford, m which both king and queen have blond hair beneath their crowns and wear blue cloaks over red gowns (BL, Add. MS 42131, fo. 151), R. Marks and X. Morgan, The Golden Age of English Manuscript Painting 1200-1500 (London, 1981), pi. 34b, and an image either of Elizabeth Woodville or of her daughter Elizabeth of York, in which the queen again wears this livery in a book of Hours of the Guardian Angel (Liverpool Cathedral, MS Radcliffe 6, fo. 5 V ), reproduced in colour by A. F. Sutton and L. Visser-Fuchs, 'The Cult ot Angels in Late Fifteenth-Century England: An Hours of the Guardian Angel Presented to Queen Elizabeth Woodville', in L. Smith andj. H. M. Taylor (eds.), Women and the Rook: Assessing the Visual Evidence (London, 1996), pi. 8. 27 T. A. Heslop, 'The Virgin Mary's Regalia and Twelfth-Century English Seals', in A. Borg and A. Martindale (eds.), The Vanishing Past: Studies of Medieval Art, liturgy and Metrology Presented to Christopher Hohler, British Archaeological Reports, international sen, in (1981), 53, 56. 28 See below, Ch. 2. 29 A. F. Sutton and L. Visser-Fuchs, 'The Device of Queen Elizabeth Woodville: A Gillyflower or Pink', The Ricardian, 11/136 (1997), 19—20, 22; J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages, trans. F. Hopman (New York, 1956), 203. 26

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Moder of Mercy Sanct Mary Virgyn the Moder of God'.30 Mother of Mercy was clearly a Marian role more apt for emulation by earthly queens than was Assumption. It is not unreasonable to assume that the Skinners' fraternity hoped to encourage the queen to mediate with the king on their behalf, should the need arise, just as she was later to do very effectively for the London Mercers and Merchant Adventurers.31 Mary, the queen-bride-mother figure, had become essential to the medieval understanding of God's workings and purpose: as mother she proved Christ's human nature; as intercessor she was a channel between him and his people; as bride she looked forward to the coming of God's kingdom. A king could therefore draw parallels between his sovereignty and that of God if he brought into his own kingship the essential female and feminine element which Mary represented. The most striking use of marriage in the discourse of legitimization by analogy with the sacred appeared at the very end of the period under discussion: in the first marriage of Katherine of Aragon. In the fifth pageant to greet her on her entry into London in 1501, a 'prelate of the church' explained that just as humankind was redeemed by 'The maryage of God to the nature of man', so ... as cure sovereign lord, the King, May be rcscmblid to the Kyng Celestial!... This noble Kyng docth a mariagc ordcignc Betwene his furst begoten sonne, Prince Arthure, And you, Dame Kateryne, the Kinges doughter of Spayne, Whom Pollici, Noblesse, and Vertue doeth assure To both realmes honour, proufite, and pleasure.32 Effectively Katherine was being associated with the flesh or human nature of Christ and Arthur with the divine, an extension of the common contemporary characterization of women as flesh and men as mind-spirit.33 It was particularly relevant in this context since, as I argue later, queens were used to emphasize their king's more human aspects, be that in tempering their husbands' judgement with their mercy, or in enacting scenes of domesticity to win 30

Lambert (cd.), Records of the Skinners, 237. C. D. Ross, EdwardIV(London, 1974), 101—2. Although a hugely popular representation of the Virgin Mary, the image of Mother of Merey was officially declared heterodox at the Council of Trent because the absence of Christ in such images implied the autonomous sovereignty of the Virgin; Warner, Alone of All Her Sex, 326-8. 32 Kipling (ed.), Receyt, 41. 33 A. Blamircs (ed.), Woman defamed and Woman defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1992), 2-3. 31

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35

their subjects' sympathy, or to express intimate friendship with foreign visitors.34 The image of Katherine and Arthur united to become the Messiah was developed in a poem on the day of the marriage ceremony which referred to the prophets who longed for Christ's coming, and Simeon's joy at seeing him as a baby in the temple, and then drew parallels with the wedding: For this bond and unyon, I trust, shall never be broke. In Poulis [St Paul's] many Simeons thought they had well tarycd To sec thus Spaync and Englond toguydcrs to be marled.35

Katherine of Aragon's reception was very much a celebration of the Tudor dynasty, dwelling as it did upon the new King Arthur, using stages bedecked with the symbols of Tudors and Beauforts. The imagery which associated the future king's marriage with the entry into the world of the saviour of humankind also dwelt heavily on the union of Spain and England and so implicitly on the Spanish royal family's acceptance of the legitimacy of the English ruling dynasty, because the acquisition of a future queen affected the king's legitimacy in a diplomatic sphere also. For the Tudor royal house, after a century of intermittent civil war inspired by challenges to the English ruling dynasties and after almost half a century of English-born queens consort, the arrival of a European princess who was expected to be queen was a cause for triumph. The implications of nationality in the choice of queens will be further discussed later in this chapter, but it should be noted at this point that Edward IV's overtures to Philip of Burgundy's niece Katherine de Bourbon were rejected in 1461 because the duke was uncertain about the strength of Edward's hold on the throne.36 Edward IV's foreign policy for the next decade was to be influenced by the threat of foreign support for the rival Lancastrian dynasty.37 Henry VII too was faced with European support for rival claimants to his throne early in his reign: hence the importance of recognition by his fellow rulers which a foreign marriage proclaimed. A unique instance of a queen's ability to legitimize her husband's kingship was Elizabeth of York's status as the heiress to Edward IV, which meant that 34

P. Strohm, llochoris Arrow: The Social Imagination of Fourteenth-Century Texts (Princeton, 1992), 96,105; J. Bruce (ed.), 'The Historic of the Arrivall of Edward IV. in England and the Email Recouerye of his Kingdomes from Henry VI. A.D. M.CCCC.LXXT, cd. J. Bruce, in K. Dockray (ed.), Three Chronicles of the Reign of'Ed-ward IV'(Gloucester, 1988), 17; C. L. Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1913), 379—88. See below, Chs. 3 and 5. 35 Kipling (ed.), Receyt, 41. 36 C. L. Scofield, The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth, 2 vols. (London, 1967), i. 211. 37 Ross, Edward JV, 106-25.

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many of Richard Ill's contemporaries believed that he intended to marry her after his first wife's death.38 If Richard had any such intentions it may have been partly to thwart Henry Tudor, who had already sworn to marry Elizabeth if he became king in order to gain Yorkist support in England.39 Henry VII's reliance at Bosworth on Yorkists who opposed Richard III meant that he had no option but to marry her if he was to retain their support.40 Elizabeth of York's role as a conduit of royal authority was far less common than that of queens who provided foreign legitimization, but was similar to that of Katherine of Aragon in that the importance of both women lay in the weakness of their husbands' positions and the lack of a secure structure of succession in recent years.41 This period of insecurity in the fifteenth century not only enhanced the symbolic importance of queens at their marriage, but also altered the way in which they were chosen.

H O W Q . U E E N S W E R E C H O S E N : 1066-1464 As a brief survey of kings' marriages after the Norman conquest reveals, the first consideration in selecting a wife was almost always diplomatic. The Norman Henry I had deliberately fostered union between the English and their Norman conquerors by marrying the Anglo-Scottish princess Eadgyth.42 His grandson Henry II may in part have been chosen as much as chooser when it came to his marriage with Europe's most eligible heiress, Eleanor of Aquitaine, but her ability to double his continental dominion was doubtless a major factor in that arrangement.43 Thereafter English royal marriages were almost always concerned with the protection of those continental possessions. Richard I allied himself with Berengaria of Navarre in order to strengthen his 38

C. D. Ross, Richard III (London, 1981), 145. S. B. Chrimcs, Henry VII (London, 1972), 27. 40 C. Carpenter, The Wars of the Roses: Politics and the Constitution in England, 0.1437—1509 (Cambridge, 1997), 218; A. J. Pollard, I.ate Medieval England 1399—^09 (Harlow, 2000)5354. 41 Instances analogous to that of Elizabeth of York m which women were perceived as potential channels to royal authority in medieval England include the marriage of/Ethelbcrt of Kent's widow to her stepson Eadbald, and of Judith, widow of^Ethelwulf of'Wessex, to her stepson yEthelbald; Cnut's decision to marry Emma, wife and stepmother of his predecessors /Fthclrcd Unraxl and Eadmund II; the incarceration of Eleanor of Brittany by King John in case a husband of hers claimed his throne; and Roger Mortimer's access to power through his liaison with Isabella of France. For analysis of the early medieval instances, see W. A. Chaney, The Cult of Kingship in Anglo-Saxon England (Manchester, 1970), 25-7. 42 C. A. Newman, The Anglo-Norman Nobility in the Reign of Henry I: The Second Generation (Philadelphia, 1988), 13. 43 R. Barber, Henry Plantagenet (London, 1964), 46. 39

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37

position on the south-eastern frontier of Aquitaine.44 John, in the middle of negotiations for marriage to a Portuguese princess in the hope of protecting the same border, shifted to northern Europe for an alliance with Angouleme, which had been trying to assert independence from Aquitaine, and so married Isabel of Angouleme.45 His son Henry III, having failed in his attempts to make alliances against the French king with Austria, Brittany, or Ponthieu, chose instead Louis IX's sister-in-law Eleanor of Provence in the hope of checking the French king's influence in her father's strategically important territories.46 Edward I's wife, Eleanor of Castile, was chosen because in 1252 her brother Alfonso had revived a Castihan claim to Gascony, spurring Henry III to make a treaty of friendship with Alfonso which included both the marriage and Alfonso's renunciation of all claims to Gascony.47 Over forty years later it was again a dispute over the lordship of Gascony which led to Edward I's second marriage, to Margaret of France, this time as part of the eventual truce with France, and it was in the peace treaty which followed that his son Edward also acquired a French bride, Margaret's niece, the French king's daughter Isabella.48 Philippa of Hainault was an exception to this tradition. She was initially considered in 1319 as a possible bride for the future Edward III as a means of allying England with the Low Countries, perhaps to prevent Scotland from making a similar alliance.49 Edward II subsequently decided that a French or Aragonese bride would be more valuable, but in 1326 his queen, Isabella, invaded England to overthrow Edward II and in this process she required foreign troops, among them Hainaulters, whose support was bought with her son's marriage to Philippa.50 A more significant precedent for fifteenthcentury royal marriages occurred in 1361 when Philippa and Edward Ill's son Edward of Woodstock broke with tradition still further. At this time England and France were at least nominally at peace, potential alliances with Portugal and Brabant had come to nothing, and Edward III was by this time endeavouring to arrange his eldest son's marriage to the young widow of the duke of 44

J. Gillingham, Richard the 1 .ionheart (London, 1978), 138. W. L. Warren, King John (London, 1961), 67. 46 M. Howcll, Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1998), 10—15. 47 M. Prestwich, Edward I (London, 1988), 9. 48 Ibid. 395. 49 M. Buck, Politics, Finance and the Church in the Reign of Edward II: Waiter Stapeldon, Treasurer of England (Cambridge, 1983), 126. Tt may originally have been her elder sister, Sibylla, who was considered in 1319; D. A. Trotter, 'Walter Stapeldon and the Pre-mantal Inspection of Philippa of Hainault', French Studies Bulletin, 49 (Winter 1993), 3. 50 Ormrod, Edward III, (,. 45

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Burgundy, the wealthy and reputedly beautiful Margaret of Flanders.51 However, some time in that spring Prince Edward entered into a clandestine marriage with another beautiful widow, this one some years older than himself, related to him within prohibited degrees and already a mother: Joan of Kent. Joan's first husband was still alive, their marriage having been annulled on the very dubious pretext of a pre-contract.52 Edward of Woodstock was not only rejecting a traditional royal duty to marry for the good of his realm rather than according to his own inclination, but was also spurning the potential for augmenting his kingship which foreign brides offered in a variety of ways. In the context of his family's strong hold on the throne, and because Joan never in fact became queen due to the prince's early death, the irregularity of this marriage never became a public issue as the next King Edward's did; but in various ways, as will be seen, Edward of Woodstock's love match paved the way for Edward IV's controversial marriage. For Richard II political relations with France once again shaped the choice of English queens. At the time of his first marriage antagonism towards France had resulted in English support for the Roman pope Urban VI, who encouraged Richard's councillors to arrange a marriage with the sister of Emperor Wenceslas as part of his projected Urbanist league against the Avignon papacy.53 Following Anne's death in 1394, Richard's council suggested a match with Yolande of Aragon, again hoping thereby to curb French power, but the French were so determined to avoid this that they offered Richard the French king's 6-year-old daughter Isabel of Valois in the interests of peace between their countries, and Richard accepted.54 The motives for Henry IV's marriage to Joan of Navarre are less obvious, for this widow did not bring the wealth of Margaret of Flanders, but Henry may have hoped to be able to exert some influence in her son's duchy of Brittany.55 His choice of an older woman was perhaps made in deliberate contrast to the unpopular child bride of his predecessor.56 Henry V reverted to the traditional French royal virgin, Kath31

M. McKisack, The Fourteenth Century, 7707-7799 (Oxford, 1959), 266; K. P. Wentcrsdorf, 'The Clandestine Marriages of the Fair Maid of Kent', Journal of Medieval History, 5 (1979), 217. 52 J. L. Chambcrlayne, 'Joan °t Kent's Talc: Adultery and Rape in the Age ot Chivalry', Medieval Life, 5 (Summer 1996), 8. 33 McKisack, Fourteenth Century, 146, 427. 54 N. Saul, RichardII(New Haven, 1997), 225-6. 55 J. L. Kirby, Henry IVofF.ngland (London, 1970), 135. 56 For Gower's criticism of the immaturity of Richard Il's kingship, see R. A. Peck, Kingship and Common Profit in Gower's Confessio Amantis (London, 1978), p. xxi. For Henry TV's supporters characterizing Richard II as a boy in comparison with Henry IV as a man, see M. A. Aston, 'Richard II and the Wars of the Roses', in F. R. H. du Boulay and C. Barron (eds.), The Reign of Richard H (London, 1971), 309.

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39

erine of Valois (Isabel's sister), because their marriage was a symbol of his acquisition of the kingdom of France.57 Their son Henry VI also married a French royal virgin, but she was only the French queen's niece Margaret of Anjou and her marriage was a consequence not of conquest but of England's desperate need to call a truce before yet more French territories were lost. By 1464 nothing had prepared the political community for a match as unconventional as that of Edward IV. Shortly after the announcement of his marriage a newsletter from Bruges reported the account of Venetian merchants who had come from London: They... say that the marriage of King Edward will be celebrated shortly, but without stating where; it seems that the espousals and benediction arc already over, and thus has he determined to take the daughter of my Lord de Rivers, a widow with two children, having long loved her, it appears. The greater part of the lords and the people in general seem very much dissatisfied at this, and for the sake of finding means to annul it, all the peers arc holding great consultations in the town of Reading, where the King is.58

Although there is no English corroboration of the merchants' assertion that the peers were attempting to annul the marriage, it clearly caused international controversy by challenging basic assumptions about the type of woman suitable to be a queen. Attempts have been made to argue that Edward IV's marriage was politically motivated. Wilkinson and others have maintained that the choice of Elizabeth Woodville allowed the young king to assert his independence from Warwick and the Neville clan, and provided Edward with a source from which to build up a new court party entirely dependent upon himself, with which to balance the Nevilles.59 As Ross has observed, however, a court party had already been formed by 1464 and if Edward IV wanted to reject Bona of Savoy, whom Warwick was proposing, there were other European options or members of the English nobility to choose from.60 Most recently Jonathan Hughes has suggested that 'a key to Edward's motives, apart from Elizabeth's obvious physical qualities, may well be alchemical symbolism' as a consequence of her legendary descent from the fairy serpent Melusme, a representation of generation and regeneration through whose 'agency the sun and moon conjoined in marriage'.61 Although Edward's 57

C. Allmand, Henry F(Ncw Haven, 1997), 137—45. CSP Venice, i. 114. 59 B. Wilkinson, Constitutional History of England in the Fifteenth Century, 1399—1485 (London, 1964), 146—8; Ross, EdwardIV, 87 n. 3. 60 Ross, Edward IV, 87. 61 J. Hughes, Arthurian Myths and Alchemy: The Kingship ofEdward IV(Stroud, 2002), no. 58

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alchemists may have been 'excited at the alchemical possibilities raised by this marriage', the absence of any explicit association between Elizabeth Woodville and her legendary ancestor in surviving documents makes this a highly speculative argument.62 Ross and subsequent historians have generally maintained that 'it was the impulsive love-match of an impetuous young man' and 'the first major blunder of his political career'.63 But at the close of the Hundred Years War and on the eve of the Renaissance new priorities were emerging in the selection of English queens. In the context of these priorities it is possible that Edward IVs motivation need not be seen purely as 'blynde affection'.64 Elizabeth Woodville was so unusual a choice for a queen because her nationality, social status, and lack of virginity all challenged contemporary assumptions about queenship and because kings did not normally allow themselves to marry only for love. It is consequently through these four issues that I now examine the selection of later fifteenth-century queens in greater detail.

NATIONALITY Kings ought to marry princesses from neighbouring countries, not from far away lands.65 Saxo Grammaticus' thirteenth-century Gesta Danorum, from which this quotation is taken, is rare among medieval European mirrors for princes in giving practical advice on the choosing of queens. He argued against choosing brides from distant countries because those of neighbouring Nordic lands would share their king's language and culture. Implicit in his advice is the assumption that they would be of foreign royalty. Prior to 1066 English kings had rarely married foreign brides, and it was only the new relationship with France that had occasioned the series of foreign queens outlined above. The French brides would indeed have shared their husbands' language and culture until the end of the fourteenth century. However, the increasing use of English among the higher echelons of society from the fourteenth century, and the 62

Tbid. Melusinc's supposed guarantee that her noble progeny would reign for ever could have made her a useful figure m political propaganda but this potential does not appear to have been acted upon. 63 Ross, Edward IV, 85-6. 64 Polydore Vergil, Three Books ofPolydore Vergil's English History, ed. H. Ellis, Camden Society, old ser., 29 (1844), 117. 63 Saxo Grammaticus in his Gesta Danorum written C.I2OO, quoted in I. Skovgaard-Petersen and N. Damsholt, 'Qucenship in Medieval Denmark', in J. C. Parsons (ed.), Medieval Queenship (Stroud, 1994), 27.

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41

difficulty experienced by the English embassy (according to Froissart) in comprehending the French peace proposals of 1393, indicate that Isabel and Katherine of Valois, Joan of Navarre, and Margaret of Anjou may well have felt linguistically isolated.66 It was not uncommon in later medieval Europe for royal brides to be sent to the court of their future husband some time before they were old enough for marriage to be brought up according to the manners of their new country, although this was rarely the case in England.67 Grammaticus believed that a queen's isolation from her family could be a positive consequence of foreign birth for it prevented her family from intervening in the king's affairs.68 This separation of the queen from her previous existence enabled a redefinition of her status more exclusively in terms of her dependence upon the king. In England, when the Norman Emma married ^Ethelred Unreed in 1002, her redefined identity extended to adopting the name of a sainted English queen, /Elfgifu.69 Eleanor of Castile was also encouraged to identify with sainted English royalty on her arrival in England, when she was presented with a Life of St Edward the Confessor, in which Edith's queenly role had been idealized considerably.70 In 1501 Katherine of Aragon was not only depicted as the embodiment of England's union with Spain, but also reminded of her personal Lancastrian English connections by the pageants that greeted her in London. An actor representing St Ursula (a fourth-century virgin martyr who was, according to The Golden Legend, the daughter of a British king) drew attention to Katherine's descent from John of Gaunt (through her maternal grandparents) and said that on these grounds Ursula and Katherine should always love one another 'as two comon owt of oon cuntrye', finally asserting that Katherine should be a 'secunde Ursula'.71 In 66

J. Barnie, War in Medieval Society: Social Values and the Hundred Years War JtfJ—c townc of Hampton; and |jcrc she was worthcly rcccyucd... And after, ourc Kyng come ... and brought hir to an abbey in Jsc ncwc Forest... and there J>e Kyng was wedded to Dame Margaret the Quene.8 8

Brie (ed.), The Brut, n. 488. This section is from a manuscript which ends in 1446, so Margaret's arrival and coronation were probably recent events at the time of writing, hence the detail with which they are recorded.

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It is possible that the Ryalle Book's account of the receiving of a queen was based upon chronicle accounts such as this of Margaret of Anjou's arrival, accompanied by the marquis of Suffolk and other nobles, in 1445. If so, the assertion that Henry VTs court had little knowledge of appropriate ceremonial behaviour was somewhat disingenuous. Be that as it may, this standard pattern of receiving foreign queens was broken in 1464 with Edward IV's English marriage.9 For Elizabeth Woodville new methods of official reception had to be devised. Whereas Margaret and her predecessors were crowned within weeks of their arrival in England, Elizabeth Woodville and Elizabeth of York, for different reasons, both lived as the king's wife in England for several months before their coronations. For all three, the time between their weddings and their coronations provided an opportunity for their kings to indicate the nature of the queen's role in each regime. Anne Neville alone, overshadowed as ever by her husband, was transformed from noblewoman to anointed queen in a matter of days. Integral though the coronation was to the public understanding of their queenship, it was nonetheless their weddings which made them queens. The rituals of Margaret's queenship began on about 24 May 1444, following the truce negotiated between France and England at that time.10 Margaret entered Tours in procession with her parents and the king and queen of France for her proxy wedding in the church of St Martin, where William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, stood in for the king of England.11 This was primarily an occasion for display by the French monarchy, who arranged a great feast at which Margaret 'was set in pe myddes of the halle, as principall of this fest... as Quene of England', making explicit the fact that by virtue of marriage she was now queen, even though she had not yet seen either her king or her country. Food and drink were distributed not only to the attendant royalty and nobility, but also to the 'peple of comons'.12 This largesse in celebration of Margaret was the first stage in constructing her queenly role as generous patroness. After four more days of festivities Suffolk returned to England for Henry to ratify the treaty while Margaret returned home to Anjou.13

9

For similar receptions of earlier queens, see Brie (ed.), The Brut, ii. 338-9, 350, 364, 426. B. M. Cron, 'The Duke of Suffolk, the Angevin Marriage, and the Ceding of Maine, 1445', Journal of Medieval History, 20 (1994), 78. 11 Brie (ed.), The Brut, 11. 486; Bod., MS Digby 196, fo. 151 (I am grateful to Bomta Cron for drawing my attention to this source). 12 u Brie (ed.), The Brut, ii. 486. Cron, 'The Duke of Suffolk', 79. 10

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It was not until the following March, after attending her sister's wedding in Nancy, that Margaret began her journey to England, in the company of Suffolk (now a marquis). Her brother John accompanied her as far as Paris, whence the dukes of Orleans and Alen9on escorted her to the edge of Valois territory.14 The process emphasized her symbolic severance first from family and then from country, for at Pontoise almost all of her French companions departed and responsibility for her party was assumed by Richard, duke of York, the English king's lieutenant and governor-general of France and Normandy. In the fifteen months after Suffolk's departure from England to collect Margaret, a total of £5,573 ijs. yl. was paid out of the English treasury to cover the costs of this journey and maintaining the queen's new household, a sum Henry VI could ill afford.15 The procession on the Continent was clearly an opportunity to impress upon the French, especially those in the remaining English territories, the magnificence of the English monarchy. When the party arrived at the capital of English France, Rouen, Margaret proved too ill to take part in the triumphal entry. It was, however, enacted all the same with the countess of Suffolk taking her place, in much the same way as the earl of Suffolk had taken that of Henry VI at the proxy wedding.16 These events were not about private individuals entering into lifelong union but were an entirely public contract in which the personal identities of the participants had become irrelevant. The personal union would come later, in Titchfield Abbey on 22 April 1445, when the two private individuals, Henry and Margaret, were joined in God by the bishop of Salisbury, William Aiscough, Henry's confessor.17 This event was so private in comparison with the triumphal procession at Rouen or the coronation that most chroniclers did not even know where the wedding took place, either leaving a blank or giving the wrong site.18 Margaret's arrival in England was nonetheless announced across the country in churches the following Sunday when bells were rung and the Te Deum 14 R. A. Griffiths, The Reign of King Henry VI: The Exercise of Royal Authority 1422-1461 (London, 1981), 487. The common assumption that Margaret underwent a second proxy marriage at Nancy has been convincingly refuted by Cron, 'The Duke of Suffolk', 77—92. 11 Kingsford, Chronicles, 155; A. Crawford, 'The King's Burden? The Consequences of Royal Marriage in Fifteenth-Century England', in R. A. Griffiths (ed.), Patronage, the Crown and the Provinces in Later Medieval England (Gloucester, 1981), 38. 16 Mathieu d'Escouchy, Chromque, ed. G. du Fresne de Beaucourt (Pans, 1863), i. 89. 17 CChR 7^27—7576, 81; Griffiths, Henry VI, 488. Margaret had again fallen ill on her arrival in England so the wedding probably took place later than had originally been intended; N. H. Nicolas (ed.), Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council of England, 7 vols. (London, 1834—7), vol. vi, p. xvi. 18 Gairdner (ed.), Historical Collections of a Citizen of London, 186; Ingulph, Ingulphs Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland, trans. H. T Riley (London, 1908), 402; Kingsford (ed.), Chronicles, 155; Brie (ed.), The Brut, n. 488; R. Flenley (ed.), Six Town Chronicles of England (Oxford, 1911), 119.

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was sung.19 Private though the actual wedding might have been, the fact of the marriage had great public significance, which Capgrave explored in his Liber de Illustribus Henricis'. this marriage the whole people believe will be pleasing to God and to the realm, because peace and abundant crops came to us with it. And I pray the Heavenly King that He will so protect them with His Own right hand, that their love may never be dissolved, and that such fruit of the womb may be granted unto them as the Psalmist speaks of when he says 'Thy wife shall be as the fruitful vine upon the walls of thy house, thy children like the olive-branches about thy table'.20 As with any wedding in the fifteenth century, it was hoped that the union would be blessed with children. The wider issue of the fertility of the realm and its association with the king's marriage belonged to a long-held tradition that good harvests indicated God's approval of king and kingdom.21 Yorkist chronicles frequently reversed Capgrave's depiction of the effects of Margaret's marriage, declaring that for mariagc of Qucnc Margaret, what lossc hath pc rcamc of Englond had, bi losyng of Normandy and Guyan, bi diuison of pc rcamc, pc rebelling of commincs Agcynst per princes &lordcs; what diuison Aycn yc lordcs, what murdrc & skying of panic!22 In a similar fashion Richard Ill's first parliament maintained that after the ungracious prctcnscd marriage [of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville]... the ordre of all poletique Rule was perverted, the Lawes of God and of Gods Church, and also the Lawes of nature and of England, and also the laudable Customes and Liberties of the same.23 Thus the nature of the king's marriage—or rather the extent to which the king's use of this sacrament was pleasing to God—was supposed to impinge upon the welfare of the realm in a very material sense. However, the extravagance of Richard Ill's claims can scarcely have been credible to the majority of 19

Flcnlcy (cd.), Six Town Chronicles, 119. 'Quas nuptias reputat omnis populus fore Deo gratias et regno, pro eo quod pax et abundama frugum cum ipsis adventarcnt. Ego autem precor Cajlestcm Rcgem ut Tpse dextra Sua sic cas protcgat, ut numquam amor eorum dissolvatur, ut fructus ventris eis concedatur talis, de quo ait Psalmista:— "Uxor tua," inquit, "sicut vitis abundant in latcribus domus tuiE. Filn tui sicut novellas olivarum in circuitu mensastuas"'; John Capgrave, Liber de Illustnbus Hennas, ed. F. R. Hmgeston, RS 7 (1858), 135; Ps. 128 (127): 3. 21 For instance, the De Duodecim Abusivis Saecuii. of about the yth century maintained that the iniquity of a king destroyed harvests, provoked storms, and injured the rights of a king's children to inherit the throne; K. McCone, Pagan Past and Christian Present m Early Insh Literature (Maynooth, 1990), 139. 22 23 Brie (ed.), The Brut, ii. 512. Rot. Par!, vi. 240. 20

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those present and consequently indicates that this ideology was, for the political elite at least, more a question of traditional rhetoric than genuine belief. Elizabeth Woodville's wedding was far more private than that of Margaret of Anjou. If Robert Fabyan is to be believed, it was witnessed only by the bride's mother, Jacquetta, two gentlewomen, and a young man 'to helpe the preest singe'.24 Whereas Edward of Woodstock's clandestine union had been followed by a public marriage, Edward IV's was not.25 The difference was perhaps in part because Edward of Woodstock needed to acquire a dispensation for his marriage within prohibited degrees, but probably also because Edward IV's marriage, although secret, was not strictly clandestine according to the Church's definition thereof because a priest had performed the ceremony.26 No reference to a priest was made in Richard Ill's first parliament when Edward IV's 'pretensyd Manage' was condemned on the grounds that it 'was made privaly and secretely, without Edition of Banns, in a private Chamber, a prophane place, and not openly in the face of the Church, aftre the Lawe of Godds Churche, hot contrarie thereunto, and the laudable Custome of the Church of Englonde'.27 Nonetheless, the absence of a priest is not specifically mentioned either, which it surely would have been had this been the case. The Church was endeavouring to avoid bigamy and to regulate marriage by demanding that wedding ceremonies be performed openly before a church and by a priest and therefore punished priests and couples involved in secret weddings.28 Nonetheless, the consent of the two parties was the crucial determinant of a legally binding marriage.29 Lay authorities often resented the fact that the legality of clandestine marriages enabled people to marry without the consent of their families, as famously exemplified by Margery Paston and Richard Calle, and attempts were sometimes made to undermine the validity of such matches, such as in a law case of 1306 in which a man was denied his inheritance because his parents had not been married in church.30 The manner of Edward and Elizabeth's marriage was thus an affront not only to the Church but also to secular society and especially to the nobility, who were denied the 24

2S Fabyan, New Chronicles, 654. Barber, Edward, Prince of Wales, 173. J. Bossy, Christianity in the West 7^00—7700 (Oxford, 1985), 24. 27 Rot. Par/, vi. 241. 28 H. A. Kelly, 'The Case Against Edward IV's Marriage and Offspring: Secrecy; Witchcraft; Secrecy; Precontract', The Ricardian, 11/142 (1998), 328-9. 29 J. A. Rrundage, Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe (Chicago, 1987), 499—502. 30 C. Richmond, 'The Pastons Revisited: Marriage and the Family in Fifteenth-Century England', RIHR 58 (1985), 31-3; C. Given-Wilson and A. Curteis, The Royal Bastards of Medieval England (Eondon, 1984), 28—9. 26

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opportunity to express their consent to the marriage which a public ceremony with banns would have provided. It was presumably in response to this that Edward arranged a unique ritual of recognition for his queen after the marriage had been made public. The occasion may in part have been a response to a decree from the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) that when a secret marriage was made public 'it must be approved by the Church as if contracted in the view of the church (in ecclesiae conspectu) from the beginning'.31 However, surviving accounts suggest that it was not so much a public statement of their marriage as an affirmation of Elizabeth's status as queen. On 30 September 1464 the two most powerful lords in the country—the king's eldest brother, the duke of Clarence, and his cousin the earl of Warwick—led Elizabeth into the chapel of Reading Abbey, where she was 'openly honoured as queen by the lords and all the people'.32 No further details are given, but the implication is that it resembled, on a much smaller scale, Edward IVs own ceremonial of 4 March 1461, when he formally 'tooke possession of the Realme of England' in a ritual which concluded with his entry into Westminster Abbey, bearing the royal sceptre, where 'alle the lordes dyde homage as to their soueraigne lord'.33 Edward's ceremony of taking possession appears to have been based upon the Act of Recognition which occurred in a king's coronation. This recognition, however, was not part of a queen's coronation since her relationship with the kingdom was rooted in her relationship with the king. Nonetheless, it would appear that, having adapted this ritual conveniently to buttress his own weak position after usurpation, Edward decided to adopt a similar process for his wife to counter any questions regarding the validity of her status that their secret wedding might have provoked. For both Edward and his queen, there was some delay between recognition as king or queen and coronation itself, but by the fifteenth century coronation and anointing were no longer necessarily considered an essential precursor to the functioning of kingship. Prior to 1272 kings' coronations appear to have been understood literally as 'kingmaking' rituals, but Edward I's absence on crusade at the time of his father's death in 1272 precipitated a revision in this practice because it was necessary for Edward to be declared king while absent 31

Kelly, 'The Case Against Edward IVs Marriage', 329. 'Et in die Sancti Michaelis apud Radingham dictc domina Elizabetha, admissa in capclla abbatiac ibidem, per ducem Clarecia: et comitem Warrwici ducta est, per dominos et totam gentem ut regina apcrtc honorata'; J. Stevenson (ed.), letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the Enghsh in France During the Reign of Henry the Sixth, 2 vols., RS 22 (London, 1861—4), n - 7%3\ N. Pronay and J. Cox (eds.), The Crowland Chronicle Continuations: 14^9—1486 (London, 1986), 115. 33 Kingsford (ed.), Chronicles, 174. 32

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from the realm. For queens the purpose of coronation was less clear in its origins, which will be discussed at greater length below. In France there were several instances of queens who never experienced coronation, including, in the mid-fifteenth century, Margaret of Anjou's aunt Marie of Anjou and Marie's successor, Charlotte of Savoy.34 The role of coronation in France and England, however, may not have been exactly the same. As Charles Wood has argued, the frequent usurpations and changes of royal dynasty in England suggest that in practice legitimate inheritance was not the exclusive qualification for kingship in England that it was in France.35 The Lords' decision to accept Richard, duke of York, as heir to the throne, but not king, in 1460 is indicative of the continuing tension between the roles of inheritance and coronation in determining the right to kingship. In declaring himself king in Henry VTs lifetime, Edward IV was prioritizing inheritance. The pre-coronation recognition ceremonies of Edward IV and his queen implied that by 1461 all that was necessary for the practice of kingship or queenship was formal recognition of their status by an elite section of the body politic in a holy space. Such a ritual combined public acceptance of both the secular and sacramental natures of their roles. It did not make them king or queen but publicly recognized the rights originating in the king's blood or the marriage ceremony. Nonetheless, the rushed coronation of Richard III in 1483 indicated that in practice coronation was not deemed to have become entirely redundant as a kingmaking rite. For Anne Neville no ceremonies of acceptance were required. She had been married to Richard, duke of Gloucester, for over a decade and, although it appears that no papal dispensation had ever been granted to permit this union within prohibited degrees, there was no question at the time about her right to be queen beside her husband. She had arrived in London on 5 June 1483, ostensibly for her nephew's coronation, and so was already with her husband at the time of his usurpation.36 Her role in events is not recorded, although since she was staying at Baynard's Castle when Richard was petitioned to accept the crown it is likely that she was present when he was first publicly acknowledged as king.37 34 E. McCartney, 'Ceremonies and Privilege of Office: Queenship in Late Medieval France', in J. Carpenter and S.-B. MacLean (eds.), Power of the Weak: Studies on Medieval Women (Urbana, Til., 1995), 182. 31 C. T. Wood, 'Queens, Queans and Kingship: An Inquiry into Theories of Royal Legitimacy in Late Medieval England and France', in W. C. Jordan, B. McNab, and T. F. Ruiz (eds.), Order and Innovation in the Middle /Iges: Essays in Honor of Joseph R. Strayer (Princeton, 1976), 385—400. 36 37 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 19. Ibid. 25, 27.

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Elizabeth of York, in contrast, was in Yorkshire when her future husband claimed his crown, yet there are no records of a celebratory entry into London for her either.38 The situation was unprecedented, for Henry VII needed to absorb Elizabeth's public persona as heir to the house of York into his public body as king, but wanted to avoid any suggestion that she legitimized his kingship, or that the throne might be rightfully hers. A triumphant entry into London might have been understood to signify her right to the throne, besides which Henry did not wish to marry her too soon, only to bring her safely out of reach of any potential challengers to his throne. Because a double coronation could have been read as a symbol of joint sovereignty Henry avoided this, but needed to make a public statement of the assimilation of the Yorkist claim into his own kingship. Consequently their wedding, on 18 January 1486, became an occasion of public as well as private union. Apart from a vague reference to general rejoicing and magnificent festivities penned by Bernard Andre, details of the wedding itself do not survive.39 However, in an early use of printing for propaganda, English translations of the papal bull granting a dispensation for their marriage were widely circulated: the bull began with observations on the civil war and expressly characterized their wedding as a union between members of the two warring parties.40 Medallions struck to commemorate the wedding provided more propaganda: the obverse showed Henry and Elizabeth and on the reverse were the words 'uxor casta est rosa suavis' ('a virtuous wife is a sweet rose') and 'sicut sol oriens del muher bona domus eius ornamentum' (just like God's sunrise so is a good woman an ornament of her house'), which again explicitly emphasized Elizabeth's virtue rather than her blood, although the references to the 'rose' and the 'ornament of her house' inevitably had dynastic implications.41 The pageantry of union and roses which greeted Henry's progress to York shortly after the wedding, which were repeated in poems celebrating the birth of Prince Arthur later in the year, and indeed continued to occur in the image-making of the Tudor dynasty into Elizabeth I's reign, confirmed that the wedding of Elizabeth of York was a rite of passage not just for two individuals but for a kingdom.42

38

S. Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Rarly Tudor Policy (Oxford, 1969), 8. J. Gairdner (ed.), Memorials of King Henry the Seventh, RS 10 (1858), 38. 40 Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy, 19. 41 D. Loades (ed.), Chronicles oj the Tudor Kings (London, 1990), 33; E. Danbury, 'Images of English Queens in the Later Middle Ages', The Historian, 46 (1995), 9. 42 Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy, 19—24, 347—8. 39

T2

RITUALS OF QUEENSHIP

CORONATION The coronation was in practice a series of rituals which took place over several days. It was the one rite of passage which queens did not share with other women and it most explicitly established their unique role. This was also the occasion upon which the widest variety of ideologies of queenship were expressed. The creators and audience of the sections of this rite of passage varied at different points, and it is important to remember that the rich symbolism of this process was probably not understood by all who witnessed it, particularly the words heard only once from a stage in a noisy street or the Latin texts of the liturgy in the abbey. The extent to which these events could have shaped understandings of queenship among the king's subjects depended upon the level of involvement of these subjects in the enactment of the rites, their access to records of the process afterwards, their education, and the effectiveness of particular displays. Its value as propaganda for any but the most simplistic understandings of queenship is difficult to assess, but as an occasion for the political community to unite in expressing, constructing, and upholding their own ideologies of queenship, it provided a unique opportunity for affirming the political structures of the realm, for affirming kingship.43 The Journey to the Tower of London All queens spent the penultimate night before their coronation at the Tower of London. The journey there naturally varied considerably in length for different queens, but it became the occasion for shaping images of ideal queenship appropriate to the individual women. For Margaret of Anjou this journey began with the progress from her wedding in Hampshire to the outskirts of London. This entailed integrating the foreign princess into English kingship. En route she was greeted by various lords and their entourages, and stayed at manors belonging to the bishop of Winchester and the archbishop of Canterbury, a process which effectively formed an official recognition of her role by nobility and clergy, as the ceremony in Reading Abbey would later do for Elizabeth Woodville.44 On arriving at the outskirts of London, Margaret was welcomed by representatives of the city: the mayor, aldermen, sheriffs, and guild members 43 Sec S. Anglo, Images of Tudor Kingship (London, 1992), 1—4, regarding the issue of royal pageantry as propaganda. 44 Brie (ed.), The Brut, ii. 488—9; Kingsford (ed.), Chronicles, 156; Flenley (ed.), Six Town Chronicles, 119.

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who accompanied her into the city—thereby expressing the acceptance of the third estate—in much the same way as her recent predecessors had been welcomed.45 At some point during the entry rituals, probably on her first arrival in the city, Margaret was treated to a series of pageants, the scripts for at least some of which still exist.46 These pageants have commonly been ascribed to John Lydgate, but the earliest occurrence of this attribution is John Stow's chronicle of 1592 and Gordon Kipling has argued that it was the work of at least two unknown poets and that there is no reason to believe that Lydgate was in any way responsible.47 As Helen Maurer has observed, the use of English for these speeches probably indicates that Margaret of Anjou had learnt some English before her arrival, although it is possible that she did not in fact understand the pageants presented to her and that the primary audience were the nobles in her train and the people lining the streets.48 Queenship was portrayed in these verses as a powerful, quasi-divine office. There were no references to the queen's role as provider of heirs to the throne, in contrast with Katherine of Aragon's welcome sixty years later.49 Primarily Margaret was greeted as a bringer of peace; but she was also enjoined to observe a variety of virtues which implied the assumption that she would 45 Kingsford (cd.), Chronicles, 156; Gairdncr (cd.), Historical Collections of a Citizen of London, 186; Brie (ed.), The Brut, ii. 339, 350, 364, 426. 46 The author of the continuation of The Brut to 1446 reports that 'many devises and storycs' were performed during her progress from the Tower to Westminster; Brie (ed.), The Brut, 11. 489. The London Chronicle in BL, MS Cotton Vitellius XVT (probably written about 1496 drawing on earlier chronicles), reports that 'dyvers pageantes, countenauntes of dyvers histories [werel shewed in dyvers places of the Cite in Roiall wise and costelew' after Margaret's meeting with the mayor et al. at Blackheath; Kingsford (ed.), Chronicles, 156. But the most detailed chronicle account of the pageants is that in Gregory's chronicle (probably written by William Gregory, a London skinner in high public office, possibly an eyewitness), which refers to the sites of the 'notabylle devysys' and implies that this was her initial welcome to the city; Gairdner (ed.), Historical Collection, 186. The sites noted in the script coincide closely with those used for Henry VTs entry into London in 1432, running from Southwark to St Paul's as opposed to the route taken just before her coronation. The Great Chronicle of London also refers to pageants performed on her first entry into the city, naming several of the sites in the surviving scripts, although implying that there were more pageants in total, including one showing the life of St Margaret; A. H. Thomas and T. D. Thornley (eds.), The Great Chronicle of London (London, 1938), 178. Maurer suggests that the surviving pageant scripts refer to performances on two consecutive days; H. E. Maurer, Margaret of/Injou: Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2003), 20. 47 G. Kipling, 'The London Pageants for Margaret of Anjou: A Medieval Script Restored', Medieval English Theatre, 4 (1982), 12. 48 Maurer, Margaret of '/Injou, 20. 49 G. Kipling (ed.), The Recc-yt of the Ladle Kateryne, EETS 296 (Oxford, 1990), 29. It is perhaps relevant that Katharine of Aragon's was a pre-marriage processional entry, rather than a pre-coronation one.

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exert considerable power in the realm. The most striking of these constructions of queenship was that expressed at Leadenhall where 'Dame Grace', who called herself 'Goddes Vicarie Generalle', greeted Margaret with the words 'Oure benigne Princesse and lady sovereyne, Grace conveie you forthe and be your gide', and urged Margaret to observe her own virtues of Truth, Mercy, Justice, and Peace.50 To present God's assistant in the administration of justice in female form, and to expect her virtues to be applied by Margaret, was necessarily to compare the queen's relationship to the king with that of a vicargeneral to a bishop, which was not the role of intercessor, but of assistant judge. The absence of such detailed records of the entry pageantry for other medieval queens makes it impossible to judge how unique this powerful vision of queenship was, but it is very possible that the author was reflecting contemporary concerns about Henry VTs unwillingness to rule and the consequent hope that Margaret would prove a constructive influence, driving him to more active kingship. The predominant theme, however, was Margaret's role in the new peace with France, and the prosperity which it was anticipated would flow therefrom. The first pageant was a welcome to the city of London from the figure of 'Plente' who addressed Margaret as the 'causer of welth, joie, and abundance', rather as Capgrave had done in the context of her wedding. 'Plente' was accompanied by 'Pees' who claimed that peace had been achieved through Margaret's 'grace and highe benignite', thereby ignoring all the noblemen who had actually contrived the treaty. But depicting women, and particularly queens, as peacemakers was a standard trope. Margaret's predecessor, Katherme of Valois, had also been made to embody a peace process: the subtleties at her coronation banquet included one in which four angels carried a 'reason' explaining that her marriage had brought the war to an end, even though this was scarcely accurate.51 Once married, such women were expected to work for peace between their husband and his neighbours or subjects, as Christine de Pizan explained: men are by nature more courageous and more hot-headed, and the great desire they have to avenge themselves prevents their considering either the perils or the evils that can result from war. But women arc by nature more timid and also of a sweeter disposition, and for this reason, if they arc wise and if they wish to, they can be the best means of pacifying men ... how many great blessings in the world have often been M

Kipling, 'London Pageants', 20. Thomas and Thornley (eds.), Great Chronicle, 117—19; as explained in the previous chapter, peace was a consequence of Henry V's conquest and Katherine's marriage was primarily a means of making his inheritance of the French crown more palatable to the French. 51

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caused by queens and princesses making peace between enemies, between princes and barons and between the rebellious people and their lords!52

While this was obviously a desirable role for Katherine of Valois to fulfil, the necessity for a peaceable influence upon Henry VI was more questionable. Nonetheless, Margaret's marriage certainly was a part of peace negotiations and it was thus perfectly appropriate that in the second pageant Margaret was likened to the dove who brought proof to Noah of the end of the flood. The language took on an almost messianic tone when Margaret reached Cornhill and was credited with 'purchasing' peace. This speech shifted the focus from earthly matters to the heavenly, comparing the war against France with the war of the angels prior to Creation. It appears that these references were accompanied by a scene about St Margaret and her prayers achieving peace, 'Shewed here pleynly in this stone, Oure Queene Margarete to sigmfie'. The consequences of the war in heaven, however, were redeemed only with the incarnation and resurrection of Christ, which was effectively the subject of the next script: Christ as bridegroom seeking out his spouse and summoning all to a feast. As explained in the previous chapter, this pageant implicitly compared Christ's role of bridegroom with that of the king and thus figured Margaret as soul, Church, or Mary. While all kings were compared with Christ in such public celebrations, the extensive metaphors on this occasion dwelt not on Christ's more traditionally kingly roles as judge or conqueror of wickedness but on 'Sponsus Pees the Kynge' who provides a feast of milk and honey and a nest for the turtle dove. It was an image of Christian kingship which somewhat prefigures the depiction of Henry VI as a humble imitator Christi in John Blacman's much later eulogy on the king.53 Given the recent defeats in France it was perhaps the only way to present the king without appearing ironic, but it does again suggest that the devisers of the pageant were aware of Henry VTs untraditional kingship and were trying to find a positive approach thereto. The penultimate pageant occurred at the Eleanor Cross in Cheapside, which was another striking celebration of English queenship. This cross— one of Edward I's memorials to his queen, Eleanor of Castile—like many emblems of queenship, was executed to promote the image of English monarchy as a whole, incidentally in imitation of, and competition with, the 52 Christine dc Pisan, The. Treasure of the City of Ladies; or, The Book of the Three Virtues, trans. S. Lawson (Harmondsworth, 1985), 51—3. 53 R. Lovatt, 'John Blacman: Biographer of Henry VI', in R. H. C. Davis and J. M. Wallacc-Hadrill (eds.), The Writing of History in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1981), 415-44.

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French monarchy, whom Margaret represented.54 The Eleanor Cross presented Margaret with an idealized image of English queenship, the foreign princess absorbed into English styles of dress and architecture, enshrined in the cross like a female (thus usually virgin) saint, implying a blending of spiritual and temporal authority in the English monarchy.55 Here 'angels' were singing and Margaret's journey through London was compared with the journey to the Heavenly Jerusalem and God's 'paleis'. Appropriately, then, the final pageant at St Michael's focused upon the Last Judgement, warning Margaret that earthly status was no guard against damnation, but also describing the 'loie, laude, rest, pees and parfite vnite' of God's eternal kingdom, similar words to those which had earlier been used to describe England and France at her marriage. This scene was probably dominated by a representation of Mary as Queen of Heaven 'Assumpt aboue the heuenly lerarchie', making explicit the comparisons between Mary and Margaret implied earlier in the procession.56 Since the route of these pageants led to St Paul's, it is more than likely that they were followed by a service in the cathedral. Thereafter Margaret stayed at the bishop's palace, probably until the Friday before her coronation, which was the traditional day for the journey to the Tower of London.57 In conclusion, the pageantry which greeted Margaret on her entry into her new capital characterized her not as the provider of royal heirs and intercessor for the king's people, but as the cause of peace and plenty, the king's Vicargeneral', a bride of Christ, an 'aungel of pees', and a queen like the Virgin Mary. Margaret consequently appeared to be a figure with her own secular and spiritual authority. Although the language of peace and comparison with Mary were standard themes of queenly entrance pageantry, the surprisingly powerful image of queenship conveyed in these particular pageants may have reflected contemporary concerns about Henry VI's ability to govern and a hope that Margaret's arrival would help to remedy this. 14

E. H. Hallam, 'The Eleanor Cross and Royal Burial Customs', in D. Parsons (cd.), Eleanor of Castile, i2()O—i()()o: Essays to Commemorate the jooth Anniversary of Her Death, 28 November 1290 (Stamford, 1991), H~i6; X. Coldstrcam, 'The Commissioning and Designing of the Eleanor Crosses', in Parsons (ed.), Eleanor of Castile, 1290-1990, 61-3. The crosses imitated the montjoies (memorial erosses) whieh had been constructed along the route of Louis TX's funeral procession after his death on crusade. 55 P. Lindley, 'Romanticising Reality: The Sculptural Memorials of Queen Eleanor and Their Context', in D. Parsons (ed.), Eleanor of Castile, 1290-1990: Essays to Commemorate the yooth Anniversary of Her Death, 28 November 7290 (Stamford, 1991), 83. 56 The speech for this stop initially addresses Mary as queen of heaven and only turns to Margaret in the second stanza; Kipling, 'London Pageants', 23. 37 Thomas and Thornley (eds.), Great Chronicle, 178.

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Evidence for the entries of Margaret's successors is far less detailed. We do know that Elizabeth Woodville received a similar greeting from the mayor and aldermen at the outskirts of London accompanied by representatives of all the city's guilds. It was possibly at this point that they presented her with a gift of 1,000 marks as planned the previous month. They had also spent 200 marks on decorating the city.58 The only pageant which can be reconstructed is that which occurred on London Bridge because the bridgemaster's accounts for 1465 have survived.59 The scene included stuffed figures of eight men and six women, angels, and children (played by members of the Society of Clerks and boys from the choir of the Church of St Magnus) in flaxen wigs. As she approached, Elizabeth was given six ballads, copies of which had also been fixed to the pageant on the bridge but have not survived.60 Elizabeth was greeted by 'Saint Paul', who had probably been chosen in reference to her mother, Jacquetta de St Pol, a device which drew attention to the queen's claim to noble lineage. She was then addressed by one Salamon Batell in the guise of St Elizabeth (mother of John the Baptist), in reference to her own name. Beside 'Saint Elizabeth' on the drawbridge stood 'Mary Cleophas', half-sister of the Virgin and mother of four disciples.61 The presence of two such important mothers as St Elizabeth and Mary Cleophas was probably used to draw attention to the queen's role as mother, a more appropriate theme for Elizabeth than the images of peace or plenty which greeted Margaret, since Elizabeth's aptitude for motherhood had already been proved by the birth of two sons in her first marriage. As with the pageantry greeting Margaret, it is not entirely clear upon which day this was performed, but the inclusion of Mary Cleophas may indicate that this was nearer in date to the coronation itself since the feast of Mary 58

CLRO, London Journal VII, fos. 97-9. G. Wickham, Early English Stages rjoo to r66o, 2nd cdn. (London, 1980), i. 324—31. It is probable that materials used in previous pageants were reused here since the overall cost was only £21 14.^. 6i/2£/., and there are few references to the materials that would be needed for constructing the stage referred to in the account, or for the sort of props commonly used in such displays. There is, however, a reference to 'in lode vterrs stufrurs' brought to the bridge in a carnage from the Guildhall; Wickham translates this as 'three loads ot old material'. Most of the materials bought tor the occasion were varieties of coloured paper, paints, cloths, and foil. In contrast £122 8s. ^d. was paid for the Bridge House pageant for Katharine of Aragon's welcome in 1501. Ibid. i. 288, 328. 60 This practice of handing out ballads probably originated when such pageants did not include speeches but were more simple showings. However, the implication of these accounts is that, as in Margaret's welcome, the actors did speak. 61 Her sons were supposedly James the Less, Simon the Zealot, and Jude (or Thaddeus), who were all apostles, and Joseph the Just; although even within The Golden Legend conflicting accounts of their exact relationships occur; Jacobus de Voraigne, The Golden Legend: Readings on the Saints, trans. W. G. Ryan (Princeton, 1993), n. 150, 260—5. 59

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Cleophas, Mary the mother of James and John, and Mary Magdalene was 25 May, the eve of the coronation.62 However, Mary Cleophas was apparently a common representative of fertility since she also featured in Anne Boleyn's coronation procession, on which occasion an actor representing one of Mary Cleophas's sons delivered an oration on the fruitfulness of St Ann, Mary Cleophas's (and Mary the Virgin's) mother.63 Mary Cleophas was also an appropriate companion for St Elizabeth since they were cousins, members of the Holy Family, and were most commonly represented in art beside the Virgin herself. Consequently, when Elizabeth Woodville arrived beside them, very probably with her blonde hair loose beneath a jewelled coronet (as was the custom in the procession on the eve of the coronation), she would immediately have reminded onlookers of the Virgin Mary depicted with her sister and cousin in altarpieces and windows familiar to them.64 For members of the audience acquainted with illuminated psalters and books of hours this image would have been reinforced by the presence of the angels whose wings were made up of nine hundred peacock feathers. Peacocks, as emblems of eternal life, were commonly included in scenes of the Nativity in such volumes, and by the early fifteenth century this had resulted in angels with peacockfeather wings appearing in a variety of scenes relating to Mary's motherhood, such as the Annunciation in the Bedford Hours.65 Such visual impressions of Elizabeth as a type of the Virgin Mary very possibly made more impact on the audience than did the spoken texts. It is perhaps worth noting that those present in the procession with Elizabeth Woodville may also have been important in constructing her image for her subjects. In January Edward IV had sent envoys to Philip of Burgundy to arrange for Elizabeth's uncle Jacques of Luxembourg and a Burgundian entourage to be present at her coronation so that Elizabeth would be presented to her subjects, like many of her foreign predecessors, in the context of her

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D. Attwatcr, The Penguin dictionary of Saints (Harmondsworth, 1965), 238; the site of this pageant gives no clue to the dating on this occasion since Elizabeth could have crossed or passed the bridge both on her way into London and on her way from the Tower of London to the Palaee of Westminster. 63 Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, ii. 237. 64 E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400—^580 (New Haven, 1992), 181; C. Woodforde, The Norwich School of Glass-Painting in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1950), pi. 10. 65 J. Backhouse, The Bedford Hours (London, 1990), 112. See also the Madonna in a Rose Arbourfrom a fragment of a book of hours also attributed to the atelier of the master of the duke of Bedford, and Jan van Eyck's Annunciation', F. Unterkircher, European Illuminated Manuscripts in the Austrian National Library (London, 1967), 196—9; R. Hughes and G. T. Eaggin, The Complete Paintings of the Van Eycks (London, 1970), 135.

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foreign noble family.66 They were later to play a role in the tournament which followed her coronation. It is likely that Elizabeth Woodville's coronation procession followed much the same route as that of Queen Margaret since this was used for a number of royal entries.67 Anne Neville and Richard III had only to travel from Baynard's Castle, the York family's London home beside the Thames, to the Tower, and no contemporary records for this remain.68 The short length of the procession and the haste with which the whole coronation was arranged may have meant that there were none of the traditional pageants on this occasion. Elizabeth of York's coronation was probably deliberately timed to coincide with the feast of a major female saint, St Katherine.69 Henry might have had some qualms about associating Elizabeth's coronation with the feast of a woman who was queen by birth rather than by marriage. However, if, as Karen Wmstead has argued, Capgrave's 1445 Life of Saint Katherine should be understood as an argument that 'government by a woman is unfeasible' Henry may have felt that the dating of the coronation reinforced his own position.70 It is likely that St Katherine appeared somewhere in the pageants accompanying the coronation processions, but the surviving records are less detailed than for Margaret. In contrast to her predecessors, Elizabeth of York made her entry from Greenwich by barge along the Thames so that the city representatives had to come to meet her in barges 'freshely furnyshed with Baners and Stremers of Silk richely besene—with the Armes and Bagges of ther Crafts'.71 The pageants too were constructed upon barges which accompanied her along the river. Such a departure from tradition may have been intended to draw attention to Elizabeth's part in a new dynasty, and to distance her from the old regime in which rested her own claim to be queen regnant. The fact that her principal attendant was the king's mother rather than any of her own royal kin would have reinforced this process. However, the most

66

67 Scoficld, Edward the Fourth, i. 372. Wickham, Early English Stages, ii. 285. It has been suggested that Richard and Anne arrived at the Tower by barge; Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard 111, 28 n. 108. However, the earliest aecount of this is in Richard Grafton's chronicle and is probably simply Grafton's assumption based on Tudor practice; Richard Grafton, in John Hardyng, The Chronicle of John Ilardyng, ed. H. Ellis (London, 1812), 516. 69 Fabyan, New Chronicles, 683. 70 K. A. Winstead, 'Capgrave's Saint Katherine and the Perils of Gynecocracy', Viator, 26 (1995), 361-75. As J. Burden has suggested with reference to the identification of Catherine of Valois with St Katherine, it is also possible that such association implied that the queen's husband should be 'understood as a Christ-like spouse'; J. Burden, '"Custarde royall with a lyoparde of gold syttynge therein, and holdynge a floure de lyce": Ritual Banqueting and the Iconography of Food", MS (1997). 71 Leland, Collectanea, iv. 218; Bodl., MS Rawhnson 146, fo. 158. 68

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splendid of the barge pageants—'a great red Dragon spowting Flamys of Fyer into Temmys'—could have been a celebration of her genealogy as much as Henry's.72 The red dragon symbolized the British, who, according to Geoffrey of Monmouth's prophecies of Merlin, would eventually triumph over the Saxon white dragon. Edward IV had made much of his Welsh ancestry, which, he claimed, led back to the last British king, Cadwalader, and some surviving genealogies explicitly linked Edward with the red dragon (one also refers to Henry VI as the white dragon). Although Bernard Andreas's Histona claimed that Henry Tudor was a descendant of Cadwalader, there is far less evidence of interest in the British genealogy of the Tudors.73 Whether the citizens of London were attempting to celebrate Elizabeth's genealogy in spite of Henry's attempts to play this down, or whether they considered that Henry's Welsh ancestry made him a similar representative of the British kings is impossible to judge, although the absence of other Yorkist symbols would suggest the latter. When Elizabeth arrived at the Tower, Henry was there to greet her, having made a public entry into the city a few days earlier while the queen and Margaret Beaufort watched the pageantry in secret.74 Henry was thus able to enact the role of welcoming his queen to his kingdom as if she were the foreigner and he the sovereign who had always been in England. Clearly the pre-coronation processions of these fifteenth-century queens were carefully crafted to be of relevance to each individual. Certain images, such as angels, were standard, and old props might be reused, but they were a means of constructing queenship in a more personal way than the unchanging liturgy of the ceremony that followed. Thus, queens were not perceived simply as the female body that bore the king's heirs and sat beside him in public, or merely as the embodiment of certain general ideals of womanhood, but as individuals with particular contributions to make to kingship at different times. The crucial question of who decided upon the images of queenship conveyed in these pageants cannot be answered with certainty from the evidence of these particular processions.75 Wickham has constructed a 72

73 Lcland, Collectanea, iv. 218. Anglo, Images of Tudor Kingship, 41—7. Bodl, MS Rawlinson 146, fo. 158. 71 As Helen Maurcr has observed, the journals of the London couneil record the appointment of John Chichele to oversee Margaret's reception and some lines on fo. 229 of Journal IV may have been lines of welcome being devised by the council; H. Maurer, 'Margaret of Anjou: Queenship and Power in Late Medieval England, 1445—61', Ph.D. thesis (California, 1999), 28, 32. However, Chichele's primary role and the words in the journal may refer to the welcome on Margaret's initial arrival rather than the pageants which occurred afterwards. 74

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model of the arrangement of such royal entry ceremonies based largely on the welcome for Katherine of Aragon in 1501, with some reference to Henry VII's 1486 entry into York.76 According to this interpretation, the king's wishes would be communicated to the keeper of the privy seal, who would appoint a subcommittee to treat with the Court of Common Council, consisting of the mayor, sheriffs, aldermen, and common councillors; the latter group would seek the views of the subcommittee but reserved the right of actually organizing the welcome. Once an appropriate theme had been settled, this council, or the court of aldermen, would delegate pageants to the dignitaries of the city companies who engaged the workmen and actors.77 Thus the ideology expressed on these occasions was probably a combination of royal and civic interpretations of queenship. The public ceremonies on the Friday did not end with the queen's arrival at the Tower, but continued before a more elite audience with the reception of those to be created Knights of the Bath on the following day.78 This was a part of both kings' and queens' coronations and began on the Friday with the prospective knights' ritual baths prior to a night vigil in the chapel of St John; the actual ceremony of knighthood occurred after mass the next morning.79 In the pageantry welcoming her to London the symbolism of queenship had been presented largely by the third estate, but with her entry into the Tower the second estate took over, declaring her part in the culture of chivalry to which only nobility could aspire. These knights would then ride close to the head of the procession to Westminster on the Saturday afternoon. At Margaret's coronation forty knights were created, and at Elizabeth Woodville's thirty-eight, including members of the highest nobility, such as the duke of Buckingham and his brother, as well as the queen's own brothers Richard and John, again deliberately establishing her position within the 76 Wickham, Early English Stages, i. 285—8. This model is confirmed by the description of Anne Boleyn's coronation entry; Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, ii. 232. 77 Wickham, Early English Stages, i. 287. An entry in one version of The Great Chronicle of London's account of Katharine of Aragon's welcome mentioned that the seventh pageant was 'ordeynyd & dyvysid by the Kyngis Commaundment the Cityzens thereof noo thyng made of counsayll', implying not only that the king could influence the pageantry decisively but also that its arrangement was usually the responsibility of the city authorities; Guildhall, London, MS 3313, fo. 39, quoted in Wickham, Early English Stages, i. 285. 78 According to theylnnafes once attributed to William of Worcester, this ceremony was performed at the Tower on the day prior to Elizabeth Woodville's arrival, which seems both illogical and at odds with the evidence for Anne Neville, Elizabeth of York, and Anne Boleyn, but cannot be discounted as a possible alternative order; Stevenson (ed.), Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars, n. 783—4; Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 28; Leland, Collectanea, iv. 219; Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, ii. 234. 79 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard HI, 28—9.

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noble class.80 At the coronation of Richard III and Anne Neville, although forty-nine men had originally been called for Edward V's cancelled coronation, there appear to have been only seventeen new knights, again possibly a result of the rush in organizing this ceremony.81 For Elizabeth of York there were only fourteen, but she was less in need of grand display to assert her position.82 It is possible that those men who entered the Order of the Bath on these occasions were expected to form a particular bond of loyalty with those crowned at the same time: the duke of Buckingham, for instance, was also to become Elizabeth Woodville's ward. If so, the small number of knights at Elizabeth of York's coronation was perhaps another means of limiting this queen's power base. From the Tower to Westminster The Saturday's procession from the Tower to Westminster Palace was apparently dominated more by the nobility than the commoners since the accounts of these occasions only briefly mention the guild members in their liveries lining the streets but focus in detail on the splendour of the royal cavalcade.83 According to a continuation of the Brut chronicle, Margaret of Anjou wore 'white damask poudred with gold... and hir here combed down about hir shulders, with a coronall of gold, riche perles and precious stones'.84 The wardrobe accounts record that Anne Neville was given a kirtle and mantle made of 27 yards of white cloth of gold, furred with ermine and miniver, garnished with lace and tassles of white silk and Venetian gold. Her litter was furnished with white damask, cloth of gold, and silk fringe.85 Elizabeth of York was clearly given similar clothing: a description of her coronation and various other ceremonial occasions of the period, perhaps compiled for use by heralds, in British Library, MS Cotton Julius B XII, portrayed Elizabeth as nally apparelde, having about her a Kyrtill of whithe Cloth of Golde of Damaske, and a Mantcll of the same Suctc furrcdc with Ermyns, fastened byfor her Brest with a great Lace curiously wrought of Golde and Silk, and richc Knoppcs of Goldc at the Endc 80

John Bcnct, Chronicle for the Years T/J.QQ to 1462, ed. G. L. Harnss and M. A. Harnss, Camden Miscellany, 24, Camden Society, 4th ser., 9 (1972), 191; Stevenson (ed.), Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars, ii. 783-4. 81 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 28. 82 Lcland, Collectanea, iv. 219. 83 Stevenson, Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars, n. 784. 84 Brie (ed.), The Brut, ii. 489. Sec also PRO, £101/409/13. 81 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 160.

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tascllcd. her fairc yclow Hair hanging downc plcync byhynd her Bak, with a Callc of Pipes over it. She had a Scrkclct of Goldc richcly garnyshcd with precious Stonys uppon her Hede.86 She sat among down pillows in a litter similarly decorated with white cloth of gold.87 The detail of the description is indicative of the impact her appearance made upon her audience. Women, after all, rarely wore white except as a token of virginity, hence the challenges Margery Kempe received to her white attire: 'Why gost pu in white? Art pu a mayden?'88 For men it was a colour of priesthood, which perhaps explains Richard II's use of white on the vigil procession for his coronation.89 White was also the colour of sinlessness, hence the throng of white-robed people standing before the throne of God in the Revelation of St John who were referred to in the Te Deum and were consequently very familiar to any medieval audience.90 White clothing was, therefore, heavenly clothing, appropriate to virgins and priests (who should also be virgins) as well as any who were 'redeemed' or holy. But to the author of the description of Elizabeth of York, she was 'rially apparelde'. This was of course in part a response to the wealth signified in this combination of white and gold—no one under the rank of lord was permitted to wear cloth of gold— but it also suggests that heavenly clothing was associated with royalty.91 This combination of white and gold was also worn by Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV, and their sons (although not their daughters) in the depiction of their family in the Royal Window at Canterbury Cathedral. This seems to imply that the queen shared something of the masculine aspect of royalty that was not open to other women. Virginity was supposed by many to enable women to attain spiritual masculinity, and the queen, by virtue of her white robes, was apparently being constructed as such a virgin in this ceremony. Loose hair was also an emblem of virginity, and understood as such in this context according to the description of Elizabeth Woodville's coronation, which referred to the jewelled coronet she wore over her loose hair as 'thatyre of virgins'.92 Thus the 86

Leland, Collectanea, iv. 219—20. Tbid. 219—20; Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 33. 88 The Book of Margery Kempe, ed. S. B. Meech, EETS 212 (1997), i. 124. See also M. C. Erler, 'Margery Kempe's White Clothes', Medium A'svum, 62 (1993), 79, 82—3. 89 J. Burden, '"Le Roy est mort! Vive le roy": The Funeral of Edward III and the Coronation of Richard IT', MA diss. (York, 1995), 34; E. M. Thompson (ed.), Chronicon Angliae, RS 64 (1874), 154; the author of this chronicle associates the white clothing with innocence. 90 Ps. 51 (50): 7; Rev. 7: 9—17; verse 8 of the Te J)eum reads, 'Te Martyrum eandidatus laudat exercitus'; F. Procter, A New History of the Book of Common Prayer, rev. W. H. Frere (London, 1951), 381. 91 The Statutes of the Realm, 2 vols. (London, 1810—28), ii. 399. 92 Smith (ed.), Coronation of Elizabeth Wydevtlle, 17. y7

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queen's appearance here reinforced the ideal of virgin queenship raised in Chapter i, an ideology which superseded physical reality.93 By the late fifteenth century kings do not appear to have worn white for this occasion. In most cases descriptions of their procession do not describe the colour of their clothing, indicating that their colour made less impact on onlookers than did that of their queens.94 A symbol of high status which both king and queen used (although again in different colours and fabrics) was a canopy carried over them by four knights of the body.95 Just as the guild members lining the streets affirmed acceptance of the queen by the commonalty, so the large number of members of the nobility in the cavalcade implied their approval, and thereby an affirmation of her husband's kingship. The model of queenship into which each woman was fitted upon the day before her coronation was thus one of nobility and purity, almost a blank sheet upon which her duties and roles might be inscribed the following day. But only almost, for even on this occasion they were allowed some symbols of individuality: Elizabeth of York's squires rode upon palfreys 'harnished with Clothe of Golde, garnysshed with white Roses and Sonnes richely embroderde' in token of her Yorkist origins.96 A comment in the margin of the Great Chronicle of London beside its description of Margaret's equivalent procession reads, 'ye qwenes bagge was the dayes ye, otherwise called ye margerett', so presumably some of the trappings which accompanied her were embroidered with her name flower.97 Once at Westminster Hall, refreshed and recovered, they had a supper offish appropriate to the vigil of any major liturgical feast, in this case the coronation itself.98 Anointing and Crowning Scarcely anything has been written specifically on the ceremony of the queen's anointing and crowning in the fifteenth century. Parsons includes references to 93

J. L. Chamberlayne, 'Crowns and Virgins: Queenmakmg During the Wars of the Roses', in K. J. Lewis, N. James Menuge, and K. M. Phillips (eds.), Young Medieval Women (Stroud, 1999), 54~/, 60-3. 94 The wardrobe accounts of Richard Ill's coronation record that he wore a doublet of blue cloth of gold embroidered with nets and pineapples, and a gown of purple velvet; Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation oj Richard III, 153. 91 Anne Neville's was of imperial, her husband's was red and green baldaehin, and Elizabeth of York's was cloth of gold, probably white; Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 32-3; Leland, Collectanea, iv. 221. 96 Leland, Collectanea, iv. 222. 97 Thomas and Thornley (eds.), Great Chronicle, 178. 98 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 34.

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Margaret of Anjou's pre-coronation pageantry in his 1992 article 'Ritual and Symbol in the English Medieval Queenship to 1500', but the brevity of his survey of coronations implies that the service in Westminster Abbey remained virtually unchanged between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries." He argues that 'the rite's purpose was less to confirm [the queen] as a ruler, than to designate her as the king's legitimate wife and the mother of his lawful heir'.100 In support of this argument, he suggests that the main themes of the coronation were the queen's roles as intercessor and mother, both of which constructed her in significantly Marian terms. However, the coronation rite changed several times in these centuries with significant implications for ideologies of queenship. One of these changes appears to have been the abandonment of the staged act of intercession performed by a queen on her coronation day for some of her new subjects, an incident crucial to Parsons's argument.101 There is evidence of such public intercession among French queens at this time, but if such acts did still occur in England in the second half of the fifteenth century, they clearly made no impact on those describing the ceremonies, nor do they appear in surviving administrative records, indicating that even if they did take place, they did not characterize contemporary understanding of the meaning of coronation.102 Although motherhood was mentioned during the liturgy, the context of the reference indicates that the ceremony itself did not impact on this role. I would argue that the coronation was primarily concerned with the queen's role as an integral part of the king's public body. The audience for the abbey ceremony, although smaller than that for the preceding processions, were the principal members of the political community, and consequently more important to the king and queen as witnesses of their royal status. However, even for those present much of the symbolism in this ritual seems to have been unclear. It is therefore important not to prioritize the implications of the liturgy significantly above those of the more explicit preceding pageantry in assessing fifteenth-century notions of queenship. Historians of the English coronation have commonly focused much attention on trying to establish what actually happened in the ceremony, but it is equally important to an understanding of the ideology of queenship to be aware 99 He does note the addition of liturgy to accompany the queen's receipt of rod and sceptre; Parsons, 'Ritual and Symbol', 62—3. 100 Ibid. 61-2. 101 Parsons's mam source for this is Eleanor of Provence's coronation m 1236. It is unclear whether the pardons and 'acts of grace' performed by Henry I Vat Joan of Navarre's petition in the early months of their marriage were specifically related to her coronation; CPR 1401—5, 199, 207, 209. 102 McCartney, 'Ceremonies and Privileges of Office', 180.

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of what contemporaries believed had happened. From descriptions of the coronation ceremony by eyewitnesses and others, it is evident that there was sometimes a considerable disparity between the two. The first English queen known to have experienced an inauguration ritual involving anointing and coronation was the French princess Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, who married ^Ethelwulf of Wessex in 856.103 The ceremony occurred at her father's insistence, anxious for the security of her status in a foreign land.104 Pauline Stafford has argued that the anointing was essentially a fertility rite in that, by making her a changed woman 'blessed by God', it suggested that the 'male offspring of her fertility would be especially entitled to rule' and thus safeguard Judith's own position when her already aged husband died.105 Certainly the similar ceremony Charles the Bald arranged a decade later for his own wife, Hermintrude, included a prayer for the birth of children.106 However, there was no mention of fertility in the prayer of Judith's inauguration, and Julie Ann Smith has argued that, since anointing has no connection with fertility in any of the other rites in which it was used, it is unwise to assume such a connection in this ceremony.107 Anointing was an issue of status, a ritual in which the Holy Spirit instituted a new relationship with God, and its occurrence in the inauguration rituals of Western kings probably stemmed from Old Testament examples of the process which made men fit to wield authority.108 Its first occurrence in the Old Testament involves the anointing not of a person, but of a stone—that used by Jacob when he dreamt of a ladder into heaven and made a covenant to accept Yahweh as his God, in return for Yahweh's protection.109 Later in the Old Testament the ritual is used for priests, prophets, and kings. The first such king is Saul, who was anointed by Samuel and instructed to save Israel from their enemies; again anointing involved promises by both God and men.110 Because these biblical kings were chosen by God, anointing was also an outward symbol of a divine choice already made. The ultimate biblical king was of course Christ—this name means 'anointed one'. The anointing of 103 P. Stafford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers: The Kings Wife in the Early Middle Ages (London, 1983), 129. 104 Ibid. 130. 103 Ibid. 131. 106 J. A. Smith, 'The Earliest Queen-Making Rites', Church History, 66 (1997), 31. 107 J. Nelson, 'Early Medieval Rites of Queen-Making', in A. Duggan (ed.), Queens and Queenship in Medieval Europe (Woodbridge, 1997), 308; J. A. Smith, 'Queenmaking and Queenship in Early Medieval England and Francia', D.Phil. thesis (York, 1993), 10. 108 P. E. Schramm, A History of the English Coronation, trans. L. G. Wickham Legg (Oxford, 1937), 6—7; Adomnan of lona, Life ofSt Columba, ed. R. Sharpe (Harmondsworth, 1985), 60—2, 355—7. 109 Gen. 28: 14-21. "° i Sam. 10: i.

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medieval kings consequently symbolized a re-enactment of these covenants with God and the recognition of God's chosen ruler. As explained earlier, the role of the king's coronation in England altered as the practice of primogeniture theoretically triumphed over that of election. But the coronation survived as an occasion for the official solemnization of the monarch's oath—his covenant with his people and his God—and as a 'medium for the quasi-religious enhancement of the dynasty and for the manifestation of a dynasty-bound divine right'.111 In this light, the queen's coronation cannot be seen simply as a glorified fertility rite, and the purpose for subjecting the king's wife to rituals similar to those which confirmed the king himself as God's representative must be considered. The liturgy used in fifteenth-century coronation ordines still owed much to the ninth-century versions of this ceremony, but it had been revised on a number of occasions.112 A version probably compiled shortly after the conquest explicitly stated that God had placed the queen among the people and made her a sharer in the royal power, so that 'the English people will rejoice in being governed by the power of the prince and by the ability and virtue of the queen'.113 But this version was short-lived and although, as seen above, such ideology might appear in the pre-coronation pageantry arranged by secular authorities, the liturgy devised by clerics was more circumspect regarding the queen's role. At about the time of Richard II's coronation the fourth recension of the coronation ordo (that written for Edward II in 1308) was developed significantly by the monks of Westminster so that the structure of the ceremonial for the queen was much more similar to that of the king than had previously been the case, including prayers to accompany the receipt of a rod and sceptre.114 Queens had possessed sceptres since before the conquest, and may well have received them within the coronation ceremony earlier than this.115 However, this development in the liturgy at the close of the fourteenth century expressed a recognition that the purpose of the ritual for the king 111 J

E. H. Kantorowicz, The Kings Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology (Princeton,

957)> 33°112 For discussion of the development of the coronation, see H. G. Richardson, 'The Coronation in Medieval England: The Evolution of the Office and the Oath', Traditio, 16 (1960), 111—202. 113 'Laetetur gens Anghca donimi impeno regenda et regmae virtutis providentia gubernanda'; Schramm, History of the English Coronation, 29; Richardson, 'Coronation in Medieval England', 176. 114 There has been much debate regarding the precise dating of the revisions, which do not seem to have been used at Richard TI's coronation in 1377 and may have been devised shortly before the coronation of his queen, Anne of Bohemia, in 1382; Schramm, History of the English Coronation, 29; Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 202. 115 Parsons, 'Ritual and Symbol', 62—3.

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had become more similar to that for a queen—an affirmation of a preexisting status and a blessing thereon, rather than the 'making' of a king or queen—so that the king's receipt of rod and sceptre had lost much of its original meaning. Two very similar versions of this liturgy survive, the Lytlington Ordo in the Westminster Missal, and the Liber Rega/is, and it is on these that fifteenthcentury coronations were largely based.116 The Liber Rega/is appears in the Liber Regie Capelle, an account of the activities of the royal chapel which was produced by its dean, William Say, in the 14405, so this was almost certainly the version used for Margaret of Anjou.117 Unfortunately, in this document the last part of the service for a queen crowned without her king is missing. For Anne Neville and Richard Ill's coronation a Little Device was drawn up, including a liturgy based on various fourth-recension texts.118 This manuscript was adapted for Henry VII, perhaps by men who assumed that Henry too would be crowned with his queen. Whether this text or the Liber Rega/is was actually used in the service itself is unclear and the Liber Regain appears to have been used in revisions of the Little Device. For Elizabeth Woodville and Elizabeth of York it is most likely that the Liber Regalis was used, as it had been for Margaret, and so it is on the Liber Regalis that my analysis of the queen's coronation in the fifteenth century will primarily focus. Whether the queen was crowned alone or with her king, the initial stages of the ceremony were the same for her, beginning in Westminster Hall, where a procession of clerics would arrive to escort her with her regalia to the abbey. In stockinged feet she walked along a carpet that was rolled out from a cart before her to the abbey, beneath a canopy of purple silk carried on silvered lances by barons of the Cinque Ports, just as the king did.119 Although her hair was again worn loose beneath a golden circlet, on this occasion the queen, like the king, was dressed in purple.120 This procession was witnessed by so many people that on several occasions onlookers were crushed to death, particularly in the rush to take up pieces of the carpet as souvenirs, and at Elizabeth of York's coronation this press disrupted the order of the procession.121 For 116 A few minor revisions to this, based on the French ordo, were made in the version given in the Liber Regie Capelle—a description of the activities of the Chapel Royal written in the I44OS—but these did not affect the queen's service; Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 202—3. 117 W. Ullman (ed.), Liber Regie Capelle, Henry Bradshaw Society, 92 (1961), 74—110. 118 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 204-6. 119 IvCgg (ed.), Coronation Records, 115. 120 Ibid. 122; Sutton and Hammond (ed.), Coronation of Richard III, 276; Smith (ed.), Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville, 14. 121 Bodl., MS Rawlinson 146, fo. 161.

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this large audience there would appear to be little difference between the coronations of kings and queens, and consequently, little difference in their understanding of the sacred nature of these offices. In France, where the process of a queen's coronation was very similar to that in England, some distinction was made in this context by arranging that although queens crowned with their husbands were, like all kings, crowned at Rheims, the ceremony for crowning a queen alone took place either at Sainte-Chapelle in Paris or, increasingly by the fifteenth century, at Saint-Denis.122 In England even those present for the service inside the abbey may often have failed to grasp all the implications of role differentiation, especially since it was conducted in Latin. This role differentiation did include reference to fertility, but it was the king, not the queen, who was anointed with the prayer that 'his children may be kings to rule his kingdom, by succession of all ages'.123 In contrast, as the queen was anointed the archbishop prayed, 'let the anointing of this oil increase your honour and establish you for ever and ever', a blessing which implies not fertility, but honour in this life and eternal life with God thereafter.124 The only reference to childbearing in the queen's ceremony came as she first entered the abbey and paused to hear a prayer which included the request that 'with Sarah and Rebecca, Leah, Rachel and blessed honourable women she may deserve congratulations for her fertility and the fruit of her womb, to the honour of the whole realm and the maintenance of God's holy Church'.125 Thus it was simply as a woman who had received neither anointing nor regalia that her fertility was prayed for. The right of the king's children to rule had been explicitly connected with the king's anointing, but not with hers. If the succession was not dependent upon a queen's coronation it is not surprising that some French kings did not get round to arranging this service for their queens. The most important implications of the process of anointing for the queen lay not in the words which accompanied it but in the process itself, placing the queen in a quasi-sacerdotal role. Although she was anointed on her forehead, rather than the crown of her head like kings and priests, she still had to wear a coif like theirs to protect the holy oil.126 She was also anointed on the breast 122

C. R. Sherman, 'The Queen in Charles V's "Coronation Rook": Jeanne de Bourbon and the "Ordo ad Reginam Benedicendam"', Viator, 8 (1977), 269. 123 'Reges quoque de lumbis eius per suecessiones temporum futorum egrediantur regnum hoc regere totuin'; Legg (ed.), Coronation Records, 92. 124 'pros]t t^ ncc unecio olei in honorem et connrmaeionem eternam in seeula seculorum'; ibid. no. 125 'Cum sara atque rebecca. lira, rachel beatisque reuerendis femmabus fructu uteri sui fecundan. seu gratulari mereatur ad decorem tocius regni statumque sancte dei ecclesie regendum"; ibid. 109. 126 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation oj RichardUl, 224; BL, MS Cotton Julius B XTT, fo. 39.

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and to facilitate this wore a special laced dress for the ceremony.127 Kings were anointed on hands, breast, back, shoulders, elbows, and head.128 John Fortescue argued that it was because queens were not anointed on the hands that they could not cure scrofula.129 Kings themselves tended to argue that the gift of healing scrofula was a divine attribute vested in the rightful king, regardless of whether he had been anointed, which is indicative of the contemporary confusion over the meaning and purpose of parts of these rituals.130 The meanings were further complicated by the debate about whether kings should be anointed with chrism (oil and balsam) as bishops were, or simply with holy oil. Following Innocent Ill's 1204 decretal On Holy Unction restricting the use of chrism to bishops, Henry III was anointed only with oil, but by Edward Ill's reign the use of chrism had been resumed.131 According to the Liber Rega/is the king should be anointed with chrism, and the queen with 'holy oil' at joint coronations but with chrism when crowned alone.132 It would therefore appear that it was felt necessary for chrism to be used at some point in any coronation, in any anointing of what amounted to the king's public body, but that if the king was himself anointed then it was not necessary to repeat the process with chrism for his wife in the same ritual. According to the Little Device this distinction was to be made at Richard and Anne's coronation, for although both were to be anointed with 'holy oyle', after Richard had received oil on the crown of his head, a cross was to be made 'with the holy creyme on his saide hed'.133 127 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 229; BL, MS Cotton Julius B XII, fo. 39. The Ryalle Book stated that she should also be anointed on the back but no other source suggests this and it is probably an error based on the king's anointing since the Ryalle Book was aimed at secular servants who did not need to know such details; Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, i. 303. 128 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 221—2. 129 R. Crawfurd, 'The Blessing of Cramp Rings: A Chapter in the Treatment of Epilepsy', in C. Singer (ed.), Studies in the History and Method of Science (London, 1917), 171. A similar royal miracle was the blessing of cramp rings. This ritual, performed by English kings from the reign of Edward IT at the latest, occurred each year on Maundy Thursday, and, like the washing of feet on the same day, closely associated the sovereign with Christ. By the later 15th century the process involved the king placing rings at the foot of the cross for a moment and touching them, after which they would be distributed for the cure of epilepsy. In 1369 this ritual was also performed by Queen Philippa, but no such record remains for any other queen. As Marc Bloch observes, our limited knowledge about queens' private expenditure means that it is impossible to know how many other queens joined in this demonstration of sacred monarchy. M. Bloch, The. Royal Touch: Sacred Monarchy and Scrofula in England and France, trans. J. E. Andersen (London, 1973), 92—107. It is nonetheless a demonstration of the lack of a coherent ideology regarding the source of such miraculous powers. 130 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 7. 131 A. Morey and C. N. L. Brooke, Gilbert Foliot and His Letters (London, 1965), 176; Schramm, English Coronation, 6—7. 132 Legg (ed.), Coronation Records, p. Iviii. 133 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 222.

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However, a marginal comment on the Liber Regalis in the Liber Regie Capelle states that only one oil was to be used for all of the anointing of the king: the oil of St Thomas.134 The oil of St Thomas had reputedly been given by the Virgin Mary to St Thomas Becket with a prophecy that the first king to be crowned therewith would regain Normandy and Aquitaine.135 This was probably an invention in imitation of the French claim to be crowned with holy oil sent from heaven at the time of the baptism of Clovis. Although Richard III was clearly aware of the oil of St Thomas, since he arranged for it to be kept at Westminster Abbey with the rest of the coronation regalia, the lack of reference to it in the Little Device and narratives of his coronation make it impossible to know whether it was actually used for his coronation.136 The oil of Clovis was not used for queens in France, whether crowned alone or with their king, but this may not have informed practice in England since English queens crowned alone were still crowned at Westminster like their kings, implying a higher-status ritual than that for French queens crowned alone.137 In the Liber Regie Capelle no amendment was made to the section of the Liber Regalis which dictated the use of chrism for queens crowned alone, so we should probably assume that this practice continued.138 Whatever the actual practice, those present in Westminster Abbey may have been largely ignorant of the symbolism intended by the use of different oils since the king and queen were concealed from the congregation at the time of their anointing.139 The descriptions of Richard and Anne's coronation, which probably all originate from one original narrative, unanimously assert that the king and queen were anointed at the same time, and make no distinction regarding the style of anointing, claiming that both king and queen were then revested in cloth of gold.140 It is possible, although highly unlikely, that Richard and Anne did indeed depart from established procedure at this point, but the most likely explanation for the disparity between the surviving narrative of Richard and 134

Ullmann (cd.), Liber Regie Capelle, 36-7, 90. T. A. Sandqmst, 'The Holy Oil of St Thomas of Canterbury', in Sandqmst and M. R. Powicke (eds.), Essays in Medieval History Presented to Bertie Wilkinson (Toronto, 1969), 334—8; Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 9-10, 240. 136 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 7—8. 137 Sherman, 'The Queen in Charles V's "Coronation Book"', 270. 138 Ullman (cd.), T.iber Regie Capelle, no. 139 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 40-1; this concealment is not explicit in the records for Anne but it is most likely that, for the sake of modesty, she too was sheltered from the public gaze as, for instance, Jeanne de Bourbon was by her female attendants huddling round her and holding a veil before her; Sherman, 'The Queen in Charles V's "Coronation Book"', 277. 140 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 277. 135

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Anne's coronation and the instructions in the Little Device is that the author of the narrative was mistaken. His readers would have been left with the impression that the ritual of anointing for king and queen was identical. The details of queens being anointed at single coronations are more scarce. No description of Margaret's ceremony survives and the narratives for the two Elizabeths do not specify if chrism or the oil of St Thomas was used, referring only to 'holy unction'.141 However, in the fifteenth century the position of the queen as part of the king's public body appears to have been expressed more visibly in the coronation ceremony than simply through the unction used. When the queen was crowned alone, and so presumably anointed with chrism, the king was not publicly present. The records of the coronations of Katherine of Valois, Margaret of Anjou, and Elizabeth Woodville make no reference to the king at all.142 In Elizabeth of York's case Henry VII was present, but for both the coronation and the subsequent banquet he was concealed from public view on a 'goodbye stage covered and well besene with Clothes of Arras and wele latyzede'.143 No contemporary explanation for this appears to survive. The Liber Regain certainly states that a king may be present at his queen's coronation. A possible reason for these absences occurs in theory surrounding another royal ceremony: the king's funeral. In The King's Two Bodies Ernst Kantorowicz suggested that the reason for the absence of new kings from their predecessors' funerals was that the king's effigy represented the public body of the king and as such precluded the presence of any other representation of the king's public body, in this case the new king.144 In the light of this, it would appear that by the fifteenth century the queen, at the moment of her anointing with the chrism that confirmed the king's authority, was so much a part of the king's public body that the king himself could not be present as the person of royal dignity for that privilege was, for that moment, ceded to his consort. As Kantorowicz concluded regarding the funeral, 'there was no other solution except staying away'.145 Another gesture both of the king and queen's unity and of their quasisacerdotal role occurred at the climax of the mass for Richard and Anne when 141

Smith (ed.), Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville, 17; BL, MS Cotton Julius B XII, fo. 39. It is of course possible that Henry Vand Henry VI were absent from the proeessions or banquets but present for the ceremony itself since we have no record of this, but it is highly unlikely that Edward TV's presence would not have been mentioned in the account of Elizabeth Woodville's coronation. 143 Leland, Collectanea, hi. 225. 144 Kantorowicz, King's Two Bodies, 240; See J. Eoach, 'The Function of Ceremonial in the Reign of Henry V1I1', Past and Present, 142 (1994), 43—68, for the difference between English and Erench royal funerals. 141 Kantorowicz, King's Two Bodies, 240. 142

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they both drank from the same chalice, 'a sign of unity', according to the Liber Rega/is, 'because just as in Christ they are one flesh by bond of marriage, so ought they also to partake of one chalice'.146 Since the wine was usually only drunk by priests it was also a sign of their sacred status, which the author of the Liber Regalis seems to have preferred to ignore. Like the anointing of the king on the crown of the head and the use of chrism, this was a priestly role adopted by French and English medieval monarchs and may not have been favoured by the papacy.147 Whether queens crowned alone drank from the chalice is unclear from the surviving evidence. Symbols of unity with the king did not mean equality. At a joint coronation the queen's throne would be lower than his, and she was expected to bow to the king 'obeynge her selff affor the Kmges magestie'.148 Moreover, in the queen's ritual there was not the exchange of oaths and homage which denned the king's relationship to the realm. As explained above, the symbolism of anointing was of the making of covenants, of obligations on both sides. The difference was that the king was making covenants with both God and his people, whereas the queen's was with God alone. The nature of this covenant appears in the liturgy which accompanied the giving of regalia to the queen: 'Receive the ring of faith, seal of sincerity that you may avoid all infection of heresy and by the power of God compell barbarous nations and bring them to knowledge of the truth.'149 The injunction to convert barbarous nations originated in the early days of Christianity when it was Christian queens who played a vital part in spreading the faith to their husbands' subjects in several English kingdoms. However, as the inspiration for their husbands to perform acts of Christian chivalry, such as crusades, it was a relevant motif for most of the Middle Ages. After receipt of the ring, the queen received the crown itself, with the injunction to labour to be beautified with the 'the gold of wisdom and pearls of virtue' that she might meet in death 'with the wise virgins, the everlasting bridegroom our Lord Jesus Christ'.150 Again, the emphasis was on her 146 'Quia sicut in chnsto sunt una caro federe conuigah. sic eciam de uno calice participare debent'; I^cgg (cd.), Coronation Records, 105—6; Sutton and Hammond (cds.), Coronation of Richard 111, 226. 147 Sherman, 'The Queen in Charles V's "Coronation Book"', 271; Kantorowicz, King's Two Bodies, 319-21. 148 Parsons, 'Ritual and Symbol', 62; Legg (ed.), Coronation Records, 123—4; Sutton and Hammond (cds.), Coronation of Richard 111, 224. 149 Accipe anulum fidei. signaculum sinceritatis quo possis omnes heretica prauitates deuitare. et barbaras gcntcs uirtutc dci premerc. ct ad agmcioncm ucntatis aduocarc'; I^cgg (cd.), Coronation Records, no. 150 'auro sapicnci. uirtutiimque gcmmis', 'cum prudcntibus uirginbus sponso pcrhcnnic domino nostro ihcsu chnsto'; ibid. in.

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behaviour, her cultivation of virtues and wisdom: that which is necessary for a position of authority, not simply for producing babies. These intimations of authority had been placed in context by the orison recited on her arrival in the church. Before praying that she be blessed with children, as quoted earlier, it read: Almighty and everlasting God the fountain and wellspring of all goodness, who does not reject the frailty of woman, but rather vouchsafes! to allow and choose it, and by choosing the weak things of the World, does confound those that are strong, who did once cause the Jewish people to triumph over a most cruel enemy by the hand of Judith a woman; give car we beseech you to our humble prayers, and multiply your blessings upon this your servant .N. whom in all humble devotion we do consecrate our queen. Defend her with your mighty hand and with your favour protect her on every side, that she may be able to overcome and triumph over her enemies visible and invisible.151

Parsons has argued that it is an example of the liturgy's emphasis on the queen's inferior position because it 'remarked the frailty of woman and cited the example of Judith to stress that only with divine aid could she overcome such disabilities'.152 However, if this prayer is taken in its primary context of Christian thought, it is a celebration of the potential in the queen's gender. In language very reminiscent of the Magnificat, the prayer dwells on the central Christian theme of God's practice of choosing those who are lowly according to worldly values and using them for his greatest work.153 It could have referred to such Old Testament characters as David or Gideon or Joseph, but as the reason for the queen's lowlier status is her gender, then the example of Judith is referred to in the orison. The notion of the lowliest being used for great things is also implied in other parts of the ceremony, specifically in the gestures of humility made by both king and queen in walking in stockinged feet and in prostrating themselves before the altar.154 The opening orison of 111 'Omnipotent scmpitcrne dcus fons ct origo tocius bomtatis qui fcmmci scxus fragihtatcm nequaquam rcprobando aucrtis. Scd dignanter comprobando pocius cligis. ct qui infirma mundi eligendo forcia queque confundere decreuisti. quique eciam glorie uirtutisque true triumphum in manu mdith fcmmc ohm mdaicc plcbi dc hostc scuissimo designare uoluisti: respice qucsumus ad preces humilitatis nostre. et super hanc famulum tuam .N. quarn supphci deuocione m regmarn eligimus bcncdiccionum tuarum dona multiplica. eamque dextcra tuc potcncic semper ct ubique circumda. sitque vmbone tui numinis undique firmiter protecta. quatinus uisibilis seu inuisibilis hostis nequicias triumphahtcr cxpugnarc ualcat'; ibid. 109. 152 Parsons, 'Ritual and Symbol', 62. 153 Luke i: 46-55; Phil. 2: i-u. 154 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 219, 221, 256. It is while the king lies 'grovclynge'that the bishop officiating recites a prayer beginning 'God who visits those who are humble' ('Deus humihum visitator'), prior to the sermon, and following the coronation oath the king again prostrates himself for a much longer series of prayers. As the queen similarly lies before the altar prior to her anointing, the archbishop recites a prayer which refers to the God 'who calls down the proud from

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the queen's ceremony thus established the value of woman to the monarchy not only by her very important ability to bear children, but also because her gender made her an apt tool for God's work. The ring, crown, and anointing were not responsible for this potential, but they symbolized the assimilation of this potential into the public body of the king, as these two became one. The queen's inferior position was nonetheless supposed to be reinforced in the symbolism of the last items of regalia she received. According to the Liber Rega/is the queen received an ivory rod and a gilt sceptre, each topped with a dove, whereas the king was invested with a gold rod with a dove and a gold sceptre topped with a cross. The king was instructed to receive them as signs of kingly power and virtue that he might govern himself and defend Church and people, but the queen's ceremony included only a shortened version of the prayer which followed the king's investiture, asking God to 'grant that .N. may order aright the high dignity that she has obtained and with good works establish the glories that [He has] given her'.155 Yet here again contemporaries were clearly often unaware of the supposed significance in these differences. The author of the account of Elizabeth Woodville's coronation reported that she carried the sceptre of St Edward (used by Henry VI, Edward IV, and Richard III) and the 'septor of ye Reaume' (exactly which this is meant to be is unclear but its title certainly implies that it was used for the king).156 This is almost certainly an error by the author confusing the ceremonies for king and queen, particularly since the same author states that it was John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, who carried this latter sceptre, whereas in the Court of Claims for Elizabeth of York's coronation, Suffolk claimed to have carried 'a rodde septre of ivory w[ith] a dove of gilte' at Elizabeth Woodville's coronation.157 their seat, and exalts the humble and meek' ('qui superbos equo moderamme de pnncipatu deicis. atque humiles dinantcr in sublime prouchis'). In this prayer the queen is then compared with the Old Testament heroine Queen Esther, who, having approached her king in very great humility, was able, like Judith, to save the Israelites. Lcgg (ed.), Coronation Records, 87, no. 155 'dator perfectuum tribue famule tue .N. adeptam bene regere dignitatem et a te sibi prestitam boms openbus eoroborare gloriam'; Legg (ed.), Coronation Records, 268. 156 Smith (ed.), Coronation of Elizabeth Wyde-mlle, 15; Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 233. 157 BL, MS Cotton Julius B XII, fos. 30-1. A Court of Claims was held before each coronation in the i5th century for peers and others to state and debate their hereditary claims to perform certain offices within the coronation. Suffolk (or rather, for Elizabeth Woodville's coronation, his mother) had the right to carry both an ivory rod topped with a dove at the queen's coronation and the sceptre at the king's coronation; H. A. Napier, 'Historical Notices of the Parishes of Swincombe and Ewelme' (1852), BL, 10351 h 17 (I am grateful to Bomta Cron for pointing these conflicting rights out to me); consequently when king and queen were crowned together, as Richard III and Anne were, he ceded his right to carry the queen's rod: Viscount Lisle carried this for Anne; Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation oj Richard III, 217—18, 276.

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However, it is likely that by this time the queen only had one sceptre or rod with a dove and another without the dove since the descriptions of both Anne's coronation and Elizabeth of York's refer only to a rod with a dove, and a sceptre.158 If so, the queen's regalia was coming to look more like that attributed to the king in the Liber Rega/is, a rod with a dove and a sceptre with a cross, although both of his were of gold.159 Parsons has argued that the queen's sceptre was symbolic of her roles as mother and intercessor, but his argument is based not upon the sceptres actually used in the service, but on the floriated sceptres of queens' seals from the high Middle Ages, or indeed most commonly used in pictures of fifteenth-century queens.160 Such sceptres, he argues, resembled the rods of Aaron and Jesse commonly associated with the fertility of the Virgin Mary.161 However, similarly floriated sceptres are also often represented in the king's hand.162 Moreover, the rod of Jesse is as much an emblem of Christ's royal lineage as of Mary's fertility. Similarly Aaron's rod, like Joseph's in apocryphal accounts of his marriage to Mary, was taken to be a symbol of virgin birth because it flowered in contravention of nature, and is thus primarily a reference to Christ's divine lineage, rather than to Mary's fertility.163 A floriated sceptre did apparently exist since a list of regalia drawn up in 1359 describes a 'rod iron, gilt, having little flowers like bells on the top', and a 1606 inventory refers to a 'small staff with a floure de lyce on the topp'.164 It has been suggested, on the basis of the poor materials used for this, that it was actually the sceptre found in Edward the Confessor's tomb—that is, the sceptre of St Edward—but it certainly does not answer the description given above of the king's regalia according to the Liber Regahs.1(>s Not that kings necessarily carried these either, since Richard III was apparently given not the rod with a dove, but 'the crosse with the ball', probably the same item as the 'round 118

However, the Tattle Device, in aecordanec with its sourec manuscripts, specifies doves on both; BL, MS Cotton Julius B XII, fo. 38; Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 276, 278-9. 1:19 Eegg (ed.), Coronation Records, 121. 160 See e.g. Margaret of Anjou in BL, MS Royal 15 E VI, fo. 2; Elizabeth Woodville in the Guildbook of the London Skinners' Fraternity of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, J. J. Lambert (ed.), Records of the Skinners of London, Edward I to James I (London, 1933), 82, or in Lambeth Palace, MS 265, fo. i; or Anne Neville in the Rous Roll, BL, Add. MS 48976. 161 Parsons, 'Ritual and Symbol', 65. 162 See e.g. the kings represented in the images referred to above. 163 Num. 17: 8; Heb. 9: 4; T A. Heslop, 'The Virgin Mary's Regalia and Twelfth-Century Seals', in A. Borg and A. Martindale (eds.), The Vanishing Past: Studies of Medieval Art, Liturgy and Metrology Presented to Christopher Hohler, British Archaeological Reports, international ser., in (1981), 57—8. 164 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard HI, 233. 16:1 Tbid.; Eegg, Coronation Records, 97.

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golden globe having on top the sign of the cross' described by Walsingham at Richard II's coronation, which was nonetheless described in the official account of the coronation simply as a sceptre.166 Thus even when the Liber Rega/is was first written, it may not have been an accurate account of regalia used. Further evidence of contemporary confusion over appropriate regalia occurs in a number of pictures of crowned fifteenth-century queens which show them carrying such orbs: Joan of Navarre carries an orb with a long cross in a picture in the Beauchamp pageant, Elizabeth Woodville carries one with a short cross in the records of the London Skinners, as does Anne Neville in the Rous Roll, while her husband holds an orb with a longer cross.167 Similarly, Margaret of Anjou and Henry VI carry matching floriated sceptres in the frontispiece to the collection of romances presented by the earl of Shrewsbury to Margaret at her wedding, as do Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV in the presentation miniature of Anthony, Earl Rivers's translation of Christine de Pizan's The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers^ The artists, and consequently many of those who saw the images, apparently did not see the king's and queen's regalia as emblems of role differentiation in the manner implied by the Liber Regalis. For most observers royal regalia apparently signified nothing more specific than high status and association with sacred authority. The Coronation Banquet The banquet which followed the abbey ceremony was still very much an integral part of the inauguration ritual, shifting the context from the first estate back to the second, and reaffirming the abbey service in a more secular context. It occurred principally at Westminster Hall, after the queen had changed her robes and washed.169 In her absence, lords on richly caparisoned horses rode about the hall to push back the press of people, reinforcing the secular and chivalric atmosphere.170 At Elizabeth of York's banquet the duke 166 'Lms item of regalia, which must have resembled today's orb, may have originated as a ball into which the sceptre with a cross was inserted; hence Gratton records that its meaning was 'monarchy', which is very much like that of the sceptre according to the Liber Regalis's 'kingly power'; Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 278, 234, 244. See J. Burden, 'The Practice of Power: Rituals of Royal Succession in Late Medieval England, £.1327 to ^.1485', D.Phil, thesis (York, 1999), ch. 2, for more detailed discussion of variations in the king's regalia. 167 BL, MS Cotton Julius EIV, fo. 2; Lambert (ed.), Records of the Skinners, 82; BL, Add. MS 48976. 168 BL, MS Royal 15 E VI, fo. 2; Lambeth Palace, MS 265, fo. i. 169 At Henry VIl's banquet some ate in the White Hall and it is possible that similar arrangements were made at other banquets. Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 286. 170 Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard III, 279; Leland, Collectanea, iv. 225.

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of Bedford was the chief of these lords and his horse's trappings were embroidered with red roses and dragons: emblems both of his own dynasty, and now of hers.171 The detail in which many coronation banquets was recorded is in part a result of the greater interest of heralds in this section of the ceremony than in the religious service, but probably also reflects the considerable impact which this splendid display of royal largesse made upon the guests. In most cases the number of guests is impossible to judge, although an estimate of up to 3,000 has been made for that of Richard and Anne.172 Some of these were of course members of the high nobility, carefully seated according to rank and gender, but many were citizens of London who received fewer courses and different dishes from the lords and ladies, but were still witnesses to the splendour of the occasion.173 At Elizabeth Woodville's banquet Clarence, Arundel, and Norfolk apparently rode into the hall followed by various knights on foot at the head of each course.174 The dishes served to royalty were beautifully crafted—Elizabeth of York for instance was given castles of jelly and a dish decorated with gold lozenges—and each course was completed with a subtlety, which usually represented some political message.175 The fact that none of the surviving descriptions of the banquets of the last four medieval queens managed to record the appearance of the subtleties must act as a warning against assuming that they were intended as propaganda (except to those seated immediately near the monarch), but as Joel Burden has argued in his analysis of the subtleties at Katherine of Valois's banquet, they draw attention to the thoroughly political nature of this royal ritual.176 The banquet was an affirmation of the political status quo. Eating together had long been a potent symbol of community, particularly in the light of Christ's promised heavenly banquet, to which attention had been drawn in Margaret's entry pageantry. The various participants of the preceding ceremonies which made up the coronation were here drawn closer together: the queen (and king if he had been crowned that day) sat at table with the archbishop who had officiated in the abbey; the newly made Knights of the Bath carried in the dishes that were served by the appointed nobles; 171

Leland, Collectanea, iv. 225. Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation oj~ RichardHI, 285. 173 Ibid. 286. 174 Smith (cd.), Coronation of Elizabeth Wydeville, 20—2. 175 Leland, Collectanea, iv. 227. No illustrations of subtleties survive but it has been conjectured that they were 'elaborate confections of sugar, pastry, wax, paint and paper'; Sutton and Hammond (cds.), Coronation of Richard III, 283. They apparently included three-dimensional figures, often with a written message attached. 176 Burden, 'Ritual Banqueting'. 172

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and the lord mayor, representative of the third estate, served the queen (and king) with wine in a golden cup at the climax of the banquet in a gesture which mimicked the culmination of the abbey ritual in the mass.177 The banquet not only reinforced the widespread acceptance of the queen's role which the participants' presence in various aspects of the proceedings had represented, but also constructed the queen as an ideal 'lord' by stressing her generosity. When the queen was crowned alone, it was she to whom thanks for the largesse was given. The form of words used at Elizabeth of York's banquet was probably closely based on those used to address a king: Right high and mighty Prince, moost noble and excellent Princcssc, moost Christen Qucnc, and al our most drad and Souvcraignc liege Ladyc, We the Officers of Armcs, and Servaunts to al Nobles, beseche Almyghty God to thank you for the great and habundant Largesse which your Grace hathe geven us in the Honor of your most honourable and right wise Coronation, and to send your Grace to lifF in Honor and Virtue.178

It was as much a blessing as a thanksgiving in which secular and sacred were thoroughly enmeshed. The Tournament The final stage of the coronation was the tournament in Westminster sanctuary.179 According to the Ryalle Book this should last for three days, as was the case for Margaret of Anjou.180 Elizabeth Woodville's was probably only for a day and Elizabeth of York's may have been delayed until later in the month.181 The tournament for Elizabeth Woodville was nonetheless reputedly splendid. Preparations had begun the preceding March, and the purchase of 200 spears suggests that it included a general melee as well as the jousts.182 The occasion served once again to locate the queen in the noble context of her Burgundian family because, at Edward's request, some of the knights who had accompanied Jacques de Luxembourg took part.183 Members of Elizabeth's English family, whose significant reputation for jousting will be discussed below, probably also participated. It was, however, Lord Stanley who was deemed 177

178 Smith (cd.), Coronation of Rhzabeth Wydemlle, 19—20. Lcland, Collectanea, iv. 228. Brie (ed.), The Brut, ii. 489. 180 Grose and Astlc (cds.), Antiquarian Repertory, i. 304; Brie (ed.), The Brut, ii. 489. 181 Stevenson (ed.), Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars, ii. 784; Leland, Collectanea, iv. 228-9; Sutton and Hammond (eds.), Coronation of Richard ///, 46. 182 R. Barber, 'Malory's Le Morte Darfhur and Court Culture Under Edward IV, Arthurian Literature, 12 (1993), 144. 183 Scoficld, Edward the Fourth, i. 377. 179

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the most successful and was presented with a ruby ring, probably by the queen.184 It was possibly to ensure that Elizabeth's Burgundian relatives were present that her coronation had been so long delayed after her wedding was publicized. This delay reinforced the notion explicit in France that coronation was not essential to the exercise of queenship. This was underlined by Henry VII's decision to hold Elizabeth of York's coronation after her first son was born thereby indicating that a queen's anointing did not affect the right of her children to reign. It is therefore unsurprising to find that her son Henry VIII did not arrange coronations for any of his last four queens. Yet the great expense and the detailed records of these occasions indicate that the queen's coronation was still very much a valued ritual in the fifteenth century, albeit a ritual understood differently by different audiences. It was a celebration of monarchy and womanhood in which the queen's potential earthly and spiritual roles were explored in a variety of media, involving all three estates. The woman who had begun the rituals clad as a virgin emerged from this process with a richer sense of her divinely ordained role, including dressing in the same royal purple as her king. She was returned firmly to a secular and noble context by the tournaments which preceded her return to 'normal' life.185

CHILDBIRTH Once she was married and crowned, the next major rite of passage for a queen was childbirth. For dynasties under pressure, as was the case for each of the queens in this study, it was particularly important to produce an heir as early as possible, both to reassure the king's subjects of the stability of the regime and because heirs were perceived to be signs of divine approval of their kingship. It is therefore hardly surprising that much was made of these occasions, although the process did not always function according to plan. When Margaret of Anjou finally produced a son, the king was temporarily insane and unable to recognize him. Elizabeth Woodville, although proficient at producing daughters, was similarly tardy in providing her king with a son. Her first son was born seven years into their marriage, at which time Edward IV was in exile in Burgundy, while she was taking sanctuary in Westminster Abbey and unable to use the rooms prepared for her in the Tower of London, which were instead 184

Stevenson (cd.), Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars, ii. 784. 1ST por t-nc importance of tournaments to the Woodville family reputation, see Ch. 4 below.

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occupied by Henry VI.186 Anne had already produced her only son prior to becoming queen, so that Elizabeth of York alone played the ideal queen, providing the Tudor dynasty with a male heir less than nine months from her wedding. For the most part, in contrast to the coronation, the rituals of childbirth were witnessed by only a small elite at court, but there were public elements to the process, such as the pilgrimage to Walsingham made by the pregnant Margaret of Anjou in 1453. Similarly public were the religious foundations made in thanksgiving by Elizabeth Woodville and Elizabeth of York after their safe deliveries. Such public and permanent expressions of piety fulfilled the queenly duty of promoting the faith and functioned as dynastic propaganda but were probably prompted by a genuine gratitude for such divine favour. When Margaret of Anjou discovered that she was at last pregnant in 1453 she made a pilgrimage to the Holy House of Nazareth at Walsingham, perhaps to pray for a son and safe delivery as well as to give thanks.187 Walsingham was a popular place of pilgrimage among fifteenth-century monarchs seeking the Virgin's aid and, as a replica of the home in which the Virgin had received the Annunciation and Jesus had lived as a child, seems to have been particularly associated for some with motherhood.188 In the New Year of 1453 Margaret had given the shrine a gold plaque, garnished with pearls, sapphires, and rubies, which showed an angel holding a cross; among her New Year gifts that year only the king's had been worth more.189 Elizabeth Woodville was planning to make a pilgrimage to Walsingham with King Edward in May 1469, at which time they had only had daughters, although it is not known whether the need to respond to Warwick's rebellion cut short their visit to East Anglia before the pilgrimage had been made.190 Elizabeth of York certainly visited the shrine in 1495, perhaps in response to the recent deaths of her 4-year-old daughter Elizabeth and a son born prematurely.191 186

Scofield, Edward the Fourth, i. 541. A. R. Myers, Crown, 1 lousehold and Parliament in Fifteenth Century England, ed. C. H. Clough (London, 1985), 213. 188 C. Stephenson, Walsingham Way (London, 1970), 22, 38—43. 189 Myers, Crown, Household, 215, 222. 190 J. Gairdner (cd.), The Paston Jitters 1422—j^oy (Edinburgh, 1910), ii. 354. 191 N. L. Harvey, Elizabeth of York, the Mother of Henry VIII (New York, 1973), 169-70. In 1502 Walsingham was among the destinations of William Barton, a priest whom the queen paid to go on pilgrimage for her, and the offering of 6s. *&d. made there, the largest of the sixteen offerings he made, indieates the importanee of the site to her; X. H. Nieolas (ed.), Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth ofYork (London, 1830), 3. 187

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Such frequent instances of infant mortality meant that the birth of every royal child was of great importance and concern. Taking Her Chamber Little is known of the ceremonies surrounding royal birth for most of the Middle Ages, but the records for the late fifteenth century show a highly ritualized set of proceedings, beginning with finely detailed regulations for the bedchamber and ending with a very formal banquet after the queen's churching.192 As ever, the process involved a blending of the secular and the sacred, but these rituals were much more dominated by women than those of marriage and coronation. Older women in the royal family probably played some part in making arrangements: in Burgundy in 1456 the duchess apparently consulted a book about 'les etats de France' prior to preparing chambers for her daughterin-law, the countess of Charolais.193 Jacquetta's prominent role in her daughter's churching ceremony may imply that she was involved throughout the period of Elizabeth Woodville's first confinement, and Elizabeth of York's mother-in-law, Margaret Beaufort, headed the list of ladies who accompanied her to mass prior to her confinement, while Elizabeth Woodville joined them in the queen's chambers shortly afterwards.194 An account in British Library MS Cotton Julius B XII of Elizabeth of York's confinement tallies closely with the guidelines for the preparation of the rooms given in the Ryalle Book. The floor was carpeted and walls and ceiling were hung with blue cloth of arras, covering all but one of the windows, the only decoration being golden fleurs-de-lys, appropriate emblems of both kingship and the Virgin Mary, ideal of motherhood.195 The author explained that more decorative designs are 'not convenient about Wymen in suche cas'.196 The Ryalle Book gives precise details of the colouring and quality of furnishings for the queen's bed and the pallet bed which lay at its foot, complete with down pillows, ermine-edged scarlet counterpane, and borders 192

Sec below, Ch. 5, for further analysis of the space occupied by the queen for specifically queenly activities. 193 P. Eamcs, Furniture in England, France and the Netherlands from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century (London, 1977), 263. 194 M. H. Letts (ed.), The Travels ofJ.eo of Rozmital Through Germany, Flanders, England, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy 2465-2467, Hakluyt Society, 2nd sen, 108 (1957), 46; Leland, Collectanea, iv. 249. There is, however, no evidence in the manuscript account of preparations for the queen's chamber which appears m Leland to substantiate the claim that they were drawn up by Margaret Beaufort; Staniland, 'Royal Entry", 299. 191 1% Leland, Collectanea, iv. 179, 249. Tbid. 249.

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of velvet or cloth of gold.197 The pallet, which was probably for use during the day, and as such half throne, half bed, was to be surmounted by a crimson satin canopy, a mark of privilege, embroidered with crowns and the arms of the king and queen. As such it was a potent symbol of the queen's position, in which her claim to the authority of the crown derived from the fact that she shared a marriage bed with the king.198 Although Margaret of Anjou's canopy had indeed been of crimson satin embroidered with gold crowns, for Elizabeth of York there were not crowns but Tudor roses—emblem of her union with the king—embroidered upon a canopy of gold, velvet, and ermine.199 The similarity of the Ryalle Book's recommendations and the records for Margaret of Anjou's lying-in suggests again that Yorkists and Tudors were drawing on Lancastrian precedent.200 The other principal items of furniture within this room were two cradles.201 The smaller cradle in Margaret of Anjou's chamber bore an image of St Edward, probably in optimistic anticipation of a son who would bear the saint's name as well as a means of calling upon the saint to care for this child.202 There was also a 'riche Autar well furnyshed with Reliques', like some immense good-luck charm.203 One relic was sometimes worn by the queen in childbirth: the girdle of Our Lady. A number of girdles belonging to a variety of saints existed across the country 'helpful to lying-in-women', including one at Westminster 'which women with chield were wont to girde with', and in December 1502 a monk brought 'our Lady gyrdelle to the Quene', presumably in preparation for the birth of her last daughter just over a month later.204 When the queen felt it appropriate to retire from court life, probably about a month prior to the anticipated birth, the ritual process would begin.205 Prior to her withdrawal into an essentially private world, the queen would attend mass in a suitably arrayed chapel. She was then accompanied to the great chamber, hung like the inner chamber with 'riche Arrass', furnished with a chair of 197

Grose and Astle (cds.), Antiquarian Repertory, i. 333, 336. Sec also PRO, Eioi/4io/i2, for an extensive list of materials, furs, feather beds, and so forth ordered from the great wardrobe for Margaret ot Anjou's lying-in and Edward's baptism. 198 Eames, Furniture, 77. 199 PRO, £101/410/12; Lcland, Collectanea, iv. 179. 200 Other parts of the Ryalle Book did explicitly refer to practice in the time of Henry Vor Henry VI; Grose and Astle (cds.), Antiquarian Repertory, i. 311, 313—14. 201 Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, i. 336-7. 202 PRO, Eioi/4io/i2. 203 Leland, Collectanea, iv. 249. 204 Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars, 384; Nicolas (cd.), Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, 78. 205 Staniland, 'Royal Entry", 301.

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estate, where she would receive wine and spices, much as at her coronation banquet.206 Again the king was absent at this celebration of the female aspects of the king's public body. The lords and ladies who had attended mass accompanied her to the inner chamber, where further prayers were said for her, after which men were shut out of that inner chamber. This was common practice at all levels of late medieval society, in which childbirth almost invariably occurred in the presence of a number of female relatives and friends. The presence of physicians was believed to cause great anxiety to the woman in labour so they were rarely summoned.207 There were few professional midwives but such women were employed to serve queens. One Marjory Cobbe, obstetrix to Elizabeth Woodville, and her husband were granted £10 yearly for Marjory's life in April 1469, and in the privy purse expenses of Elizabeth of York an Alice Massy is referred to as the midwife at her last confinement.208 For queens the protocol of daily life in mixed company was supposedly preserved nonetheless. When Elizabeth of York took her chamber 'after the olde Coustume', women took on the roles of butlers, servers, and so forth within her chamber, collecting what they needed from the male officers at the door.209 Kay Staniland has suggested that the practice of excluding men evolved from the practical undesirability of men's presence during treatments such as herbal baths, traditionally administered to ease discomfort in late pregnancy.210 However, the fact that doctors might attend women on other occasions, but only women delivered babies, implies an underlying sense that men's presence in this essentially female space was inappropriate.211 Four members of a French embassy were permitted to attend Elizabeth of York 'in her awne Chambre' during her first confinement, although the surprise of the herald who recorded this is evident in the tone of his writing.212 What passed within that chamber on a daily basis until the child was born is unrecorded, and the room would not even have been seen by the majority of courtiers at the time of baptism since the procession began in the great 206 207

Leland, Collectanea, iv. 179. L. Howarth, 'The Practice of Midwifery in Late Medieval England', MA diss. (York, 1995),

15-18. 208 CPR 146y-jj, 154; Nicolas (ed.), Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, 102. 209 Leland, Collectanea, iv. 249. 210 Staniland, 'Royal Entry', 302. 211 M. Greilsammcr, 'The Midwife, the Priest, and the Physician: The Subjugation of Midwives in the Low Countries at the End of the Middle Ages', Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 21 (1991), 290. 212 Leland, Collectanea, iv. 249.

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chamber and the Ryalle Book ordained that afterwards the gifts be presented at the queen's chamber door and the child taken to the nursery.213 Analysis of the architecture inhabited by high-status women has conventionally seen such enclosure and segregation as a means of defining women in terms of chastity and purity, excluding them from power and lowering their status.214 The circumstances of royal childbirth, however, indicate that the enclosure of women could have very different meanings. The absence of men reflected the fact that men had no role to play in this vital mystery; their presence could only be as persons secondary to the main event and was considered harmful to the process. While the exclusively female company was a feature of childbirth at all levels of society, the isolation did not normally last so long and certainly not in such an opulent setting with a pseudohousehold of women. Although for the most part the royal court was excluded from this space, they knew that it was there and they knew how richly it was furnished. They also knew that the events within it were of crucial significance to the future of their country. This enclosure surely raised the queen's status, resembling that of the holy of holies behind the curtain in the Jewish temple or, perhaps more appropriate to the miracle of birth that occurred there, the presence of the reserved sacrament (the body of Christ, born of the Virgin) within an aumbry behind a curtain in chapels and churches. The presence of the altar in the queen's inner chamber also contrived to make this a holy space. Consequently, that rare audience with Elizabeth of York which was granted to the French embassy was an astonishing privilege, as well as an opportunity for Henry VII to impress upon his foreign visitors the success of his kingship by the opulent setting and the fertility of his queen. This ritual enclosure did not enhance the queen's own power, but it did emphasize her value and importance. Like the anointing at her coronation, it was a symbol of the authority of the monarchy of which she was an integral part. Churching While the new prince or princess was baptized and their birth was celebrated at court, the queen remained in her inner chamber, recovering before her 213

Ullmann (ed.), Liber Regie Capelle, 69; Leland, Collectanea, iv. 182. e.g. R. Gilchrist, 'Medieval Bodies in the Material World: Gender, Stigma and the Body', in S. Kay and M. Rubin (eds.), Framing Medieval Bodies (Manchester, 1994), 43—61; M. Richardson, 'Gender and Palatial Culture: Gendered Space and Imagery in English Royal Palaces, (-.1160-1547', Paper delivered at the conference 'Courtly Women 800—1800', University of Southampton, 22 May 1999. 214

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return to her other duties. Medical treatises suggested that women required a month to recuperate after childbirth although the Liber Regie Capelle claimed that the queen would remain there for sixty days before the churching ceremony which reintroduced her to court life.215 Churching, like a queen's coronation, was a ceremony which was probably understood differently by different audiences. Keith Thomas has argued that 'the Church chose to treat the ceremony as one of thanksgiving for a safe deliverance . . . But for people at large churching was indubitably a ritual of purification closely linked to its Jewish predecessor.'216 David Cressy has observed that although some versions of the Sarum Missal referred to the 'ordo ad purificandum mulierum' ('order for the purification of women'), the majority called the ceremony a 'benedicto muheris post partum ante hostium ecclesie' ('blessing of women after childbirth before the church door'), which suggests that opinion was divided among clergy too. Cressy argues that by the sixteenth century for most women churching was primarily an opportunity to 'celebrate [their] status as a mother', and their survival, with the women who had been present at the birth, hence their reluctance to give up the ritual at the Reformation.217 Gail McMurray Gibson has further argued that for medieval women churching was a unique occasion of women's theatre which associated all women with the Virgin Mary's role in salvation. She suggests that women would have experienced their own churching in terms of that of the Virgin Mary as re-enacted in Candlemas processions for the feast of the Purification of the Virgin.218 For a queen this would be especially pertinent since Candlemas processions depicted the Virgin as a queen and the grandeur of the queen's churching was more akin to that of Candlemas celebrations than were the churchings of other women. Moreover, during the initial procession from her chamber to the chapel specific association was made between the queen's purification and that of the Virgin with the use of the Nunc Dimittis, which was the response of Simeon on seeing Christ presented in the temple, the occasion associated in the Church's calendar with Mary's purification.219 According to the Liber Regie Capelle, the antiphon Lumen ad Reveladonem Gentium (A light for 215 D. Cressy, 'Purification, Thanksgiving and the Churching of Women', Past and Present, 141 (1993), 116; Ullmann (cd.), Liber Regie. Capelle, 72. 216 K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1973, London), 42—3. 217 Cressy, 'Purification', 110—14, 118—19. 218 G. McMurray Gibson, 'Blessing from Sun and Moon: Churching as Women's Theater', in B. A. Hanawalt and D. Wallace (cds.), Bodies and Disciplines: Intersections of literature and History in Fifteenth-Century England (Minneapolis, 1996), 146—7,149. 219 Ullmann (cd.), Liber Regie Capelle, 72; Procter, A New History of the Rook of Common Prayer, 638—40; Luke 2: 29—32.

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Revelation to the Gentiles') was used for the Nunc Dimittis as at the feast of the Purification of the Virgin.220 The Liber Regie Capelle referred to the service for the queen as 'purificacionis regine' but the presence of the altar in the room in which the queen had given birth and the ceremony of churching itself gave little indication that those present considered the queen to be impure. The process of the queen's churching began in her great chamber where a state bed was set up for her to lie in behind its closed curtains, awaiting the arrival of noblemen and women and the Chapel Royal.221 The Liber Regie Capelle describes two duchesses moving 'modestly' and 'humbly' to the bed to draw back the curtains, and then two dukes 'gently' and 'humbly' lifting the queen into the room.222 Such language constructs the queen as a fragile, precious, and even sacred object. A lit candelabrum was offered to her, although one of the dukes would actually carry it before her to the chapel (or church).223 In the grand procession far more women were present than was often the case in court ceremonial, some summoned from a distance to take part in a ritual which was still specifically about the female body. Elizabeth Woodville's first churching as queen was witnessed by the visiting Baron Leo von Rozmital, and one of his entourage, Gabriel Tetzel, recorded that some sixty maidens and ladies followed the queen to her churching. There were, however, still a majority of men: sixty counts and dukes, forty-two members of the king's choir, musicians, priests bearing relics, and scholars singing and carrying lights.224 The churching itself took place at the chapel or church door, as did those of ordinary women, and since the Liber Regie Capelle does not specify the texts used it is reasonable to assume that the ordinary liturgy for this was used. It was ideally an archbishop who sprinkled the queen with blessed water and then led her by the hand into the church, a sacred version of the return to ordinary life performed earlier by the dukes. The mass of the Trinity was then performed, and at the point of offering the queen would present the candelabra (in lieu of the candle carried by most women), the chrisom cloth from her child's baptism (which a duchess had carried for her), and some 220 The full antiphon would have been 'lumen ad revelacionem gentium et glonam plebis tuae Israhel' ('a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel') and is the final verse of the Xunc Dimittis; Luke 2: 32; Ullmann (ed.), Liber Regie Capelle, 72. 221 Ullmann (ed.), Liber Regie Capelle, 72. 222 'Debentque primo duo dueisse modeste atque humiliter transire ad leetum Regine et aperire curtmas lecti eiusdem ac reuoluere et aperire leetum. Sicque duo duces accedere debent ad eundem leetum et molliter atque humiliter eleuare Reginam de lecto"; ibid. 223 224 Ibid.; Leland, Collectanea, iv. 182. Letts (ed.), Rozmital, 46.

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gold.225 The king did not attend this service, in which men were expected to take a marginal role.226 At all levels of society, churching was traditionally followed by feasting and drinking which was sometimes only attended by women.227 On the occasion attended by Tetzel and Rozmital the men feasted separately with an earl, probably Warwick, representing the king, and were then taken to an 'unbelievably costly apartment' to watch the queen's banquet from a concealed alcove. On this occasion segregation again privileged the queen and her ladies. She was served by women of noble birth who knelt throughout the three hours of the meal while the queen sat upon a golden chair, her mother and sister-in-law on either side. The silence kept during the meal and the ladies kneeling has led subsequent historians to criticize Elizabeth for her 'haughty' behaviour, yet she was almost certainly carefully conforming to tradition. Ladies had knelt beside the queen at her coronation banquet, and at those of her predecessors, and the Milanese ambassador to France in 1458 was under the impression that when 'duchesses speak to the queen [Margaret of Anjou] they always go on their knees before her', although probably in truth this only related to formal occasions.228 The English custom of silent formal meals was also noted by foreign observers on other occasions.229 As with the French embassy's visit to Elizabeth of York's inner chamber, Rozmital's access to this scene, constructed as an exclusively female occasion, served to impress upon the foreign visitor the sheer magnificence of English kingship, and appeared as a rare privilege with which to honour the king's guest. The fictive privacy of the queen on both occasions was a part of the very public face of kingship nonetheless. At the close of the meal interaction with men was resumed for dancing, and the queen then returned to normal court life.230 In the reign of Edward III tournaments were commonly held to celebrate the queen's churching, but his fifteenthcentury successors have left no records of such celebrations.231 After the safe delivery of their eldest sons, both queens Elizabeth gave thanks by founding chapels. Elizabeth Woodville's was in fact eight years after the event and probably as much a thanksgiving to Westminster Abbey for sanctuary as to God for her son. The chapel was attached to the old Lady 223

226 Ullmann (cd.), T.iber Regie Capelle, 73. Crcssy, 'Purification', 146. 22S Ibid. 112-14. CSP Milan, i. 19. 229 Letts (cd.), Rozmital, 47; moreover, although Tetzel asserts that 'not one word was spoken', he also refers to the queen speaking with her mother and the king's sister, so he was perhaps exaggerating the formality of the meal. 230 Ibid. 231 J. Vale, Rdivard III and Chivalry: Chivalric Society and its Context 7270—r^o (Woodbridge, 1982), 172-4. 227

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Chapel of the abbey and dedicated to St Erasmus, a saint invoked against birth pains as well as patron of sailors which made him an unusually apt dedicatee given the king's absence abroad at the time of Prince Edward's birth.232 Elizabeth of York's foundation was more immediately linked to the birth of Arthur at Winchester, a site chosen for her lying-in by Henry to associate his first-born with the legendary king after whom he was to be named. Here Elizabeth founded a chapel dedicated to Our Lady.233

FUNERAL The final major ritual of queenship was that surrounding the queen's death. If a queen died in her husband's lifetime, it tended to be another opportunity for the celebration and affirmation of kingship. The most striking instance of this was in the obsequies in 1290 for Eleanor of Castile, who was commemorated in twelve crosses marking the route of her funeral cortege and three magnificent tombs: at Westminster for her body, at Lincoln for her entrails, and at Blackfriars for her heart.234 For queens who died as widows, particularly after the fall of their dynasty, the funeral was likely to be a much smaller affair. Of the queens in this study, two were widows, Margaret of Anjou and Elizabeth Woodville, but whereas scarcely any record of Margaret of Anjou's interment survives, there is a fascinating narrative of Elizabeth Woodville's obsequies. Although Anne Neville's husband was still king at her death the surviving details of her funeral are sketchy, but for Elizabeth of York the records are extensive. The last section of this chapter examines the significance of each of these occasions, focusing primarily upon the funeral of Elizabeth of York as the ultimate queenmaking ritual. In his study of the burials and posthumous commemorations of medieval English queens, John Carmi Parsons draws attention to the account of a king's funeral in the Liber Regie Capelle which concludes, 'Now the exequies of a queen who leaves this world are entirely carried out in the form noted above, whereby anyone can easily understand from the one the form of the other. And so it would be useless to write more fully of this.'235 Parsons argues that the 232 (^PR 1476—85, 133—4; Scofield, Edward the Fourth, 11. 430; D. MacGibbon, Elizabeth Woodville (r437~r492): HST l'rfs and Times (London, 1938), 109. 233 A. Crawford, 'The Piety of Late Medieval Lnglish Queens', in C. M. Barron and C. Harper-Bill (eds.), The Church in Pre-Reformation Society (Woodbridge, 1985), 52. 234 Hallam, 'The Eleanor Crosses and Royal Burial Customs', 15—16. 235 J. C. Parsons, '"Never was a body buried in England with such solemnity and honour": The Burials and Posthumous Commemorations of English Queens to 1500', in A. Duggan (ed.), Queens and

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unusual equality accorded to kings and queens at their funerals was a consequence of important similarities in the function of kingly and queenly burial. He points out that queens' tombs, like kings', could become effective markers of royal 'centres', notably the Westminster tomb of Eleanor of Castile, in which her effigy carries a sceptre and wears a crown over loose hair: 'Her tomb thus juxtaposes and compresses royal beginnings and endings—coronations and funerals—just as the abbey church itself was coming to do as the Plantagenets adopted it as a place of burial as well as a coronation church.'236 He further argues that queens' tombs needed to be as visible and elaborate as those of their husbands in royal mausoleums because 'kingship's genetic continuity would be made unmistakably clear to observers only when the king's wife was monumentalised and commemorated: links between royal generations would be clearly manifest only upon visualisation of the conjugal and biogenetic factors a queen alone could (literally) embody.'237 The increasing adoption of neighbouring or double tombs corresponded with the developing emphasis upon primogeniture. This monumentalizing of'genetic continuity', he argues, reinforced the message of 'legitimate transfer of power' which the king's funeral was supposed to mark. However, the first royal double tomb was erected for a couple who had had no children, Anne of Bohemia and Richard II, and so could not represent that 'genetic continuity'. It is perhaps no coincidence that this occurred in the same reign as the alterations to the Liber Regalis which allowed for the queen to be anointed with chrism and more formally vested with rod and sceptre. Both developments celebrated the unity of the public body of king and queen, as did the similarity of their funerals, treating their dead bodies alike. The Liber Regie Capelle is the earliest record of the details of a queen's funeral so it is impossible to know for how long before the 14405 this equal treatment had been expected but, in view of the alterations to the coronation liturgy, we cannot assume that it had always been the case and this too may have been an invention of the late fourteenth century. Richard II's successor's tomb similarly could not have been concerned with 'genetic continuity' since Henry IV chose to be buried with Queenship in Medieval Europe (Woodbridge, 1997), 318. 'Excquic autcm Regine dc hoc seculo migrantis mode et forma superius annotatis totaliter quasi fiunt, unde per unum potest faciliter aliquis formam altenus intelligent Et ideo frustra de hoe eset amphus conscnbendum'; Ullman (ed.), I.tber Regie Capelle, 115. For details of French royal funeral practice, see E. A. R. Brown, Authority, the Family and the Dead in Late Medieval France', French Historical Studies, 16/4 (1990), 803—32; ead., 'The Ceremonial of Royal Succession in Capetian France: The Double Funeral of Louis X', Traditio, 34 (1978), 227—71; and ead., 'The Ceremonial of Royal Succession in Capetian France: The Funeral of Philip VT, Speculum, 55 (1980), 266—93. 236

Parsons,'Burials of English Queens', 324-5.

237

Ibid. 326.

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Joan of Navarre, rather than the mother of his children, Mary Bohun. Paul Strohm has suggested that Joan's 'continental cachet... was evidently deemed the greater contribution to legitimation' but it was probably more significant that Mary had never been queen.238 The value of this unity in death was naturally somewhat different from that at coronation. When dead the queen's body no longer possessed the same potential to complement kingship which had been celebrated in the opening orison of her coronation. Nonetheless, the celebrations of her lineage which commonly appeared upon queens' tombs continued to emphasize the noble ancestry of English kingship. Also significant were the continued parallels drawn between English queens and the Virgin Mary. Parsons has argued that ritual association of the earthly and heavenly queens, at a queen's death and burial as well as in her lifetime, resonated in popular awareness strongly enough that, on the one hand, the Virgin could emerge as a kind of proxy queen when there was no living consort... and on the other, that a queen might almost continue mediating from (we assume) on high after her death.239

This latter consequence is powerfully suggested in certain paintings of the Tudor royal family commissioned after Elizabeth of York's death which depicted the queen kneeling opposite her husband, their daughters behind her, their sons behind him (in both cases including the living and the dead), as if she were still providing that necessary female element in the kingship of Henry VII.240 In death much that was controversial about a queen had disappeared—her sexual potential, the consequences of her own personality—and she could more easily be celebrated as an ideal of queenship. John Carmi Parsons's work on Eleanor of Castile has shown how effectively posthumous commemorations rewrote the reputation of this once unpopular queen.241 The funeral accorded to medieval queens, like their coronations, said more about sovereignty and the royal dynasty of which they were a part than about individual women. 238

P. Strohm, England's Empty Throne: Usurpation and the Language of Legitimation, 1399—1422 (London, 1998), 159. 239 Parsons, 'Burials of English Queens', 334—5. 240 Christ Church, Oxford, MS 179, fo. i; O. Millar, The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen (London, 1963), i. 52—3; n, pi. i. See Ch. 3, below, for further discussion of these images. 241 J. C. Parsons, 'Eleanor of Castile (1241—1290): Legend and Reality Through Seven Centuries', in Parsons (ed.), Eleanor of Castile, /2yo—7^90, 23—54.

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When Margaret of Anjou died a penniless exile beside the Loire in August 1482, her will beseeched the French king to help pay for her to be buried with her parents at Saint-Maurice d'Angers.242 No account of her funeral remains, and the tomb she shared with her father was destroyed during the French Revolution.243 Less than three years after Margaret's death Anne Neville died on 16 March 1485 and, according to the Crowland continuator, she was 'buried at Westminster with honours no less than befitted the burial of a queen'.244 The absence of a more detailed account is almost certainly because records have been lost rather than because they were not written.245 She was buried not in the crowded chapel of St Edward the Confessor with other kings and queens, but in the sanctuary of the abbey. Richard III was presumably attempting to draw upon the implications of legitimacy offered by a return to the Plantagenet mausoleum at Westminster, ignoring Edward IV's attempts to make Windsor the spiritual home of the Yorkist dynasty. It is highly likely that Richard intended to erect a tomb for his wife, perhaps even a double one to share her privileged position in the sanctuary, but if such was the case, his own death only five months later prevented that, and her exact place of rest is today unknown. For Elizabeth of York's funeral and interment in February 1503 both a detailed narrative and a set of financial accounts survive.246 Whereas £600 had been spent on the funeral of her eldest son, Arthur, two years earlier, at least £3,000 was spent on this occasion, indicating the far greater significance of the queen's funeral for the Tudor dynasty.247 According to the narrative of Elizabeth of York's obsequies, which was probably composed by a herald, the king ordered two members of his council to arrange the funeral: his treasurer, the earl of Surrey, and the comptroller of his household, Sir Richard Guilford.248 However, as with the coronation, there was also significant input from the citizens of London. Guilds supplied mourning clothes for 242

243 Haswell, Ardent Queen, 213. Ibid. 214. 'ct sepulta cst apud Wcstmonastcrium non cum minorc honorc quam sicut reginam dccuit sepelm'; Pronay and Cox (eds.), Crowland Chronicle Continuations, 174—5; the date of her death has been calculated on the basis that this was the day of the eclipse of the sun which the Crowland continuator asserts occurred the day she died. It should be borne in mind that it is possible that with hindsight it seemed appropriate to associate two events which may not have coincided quite as closely; T. R. von Oppolzer, Canon oj Eclipses, trans. O. Gmgench (New York, 1962), 256. 243 A. F. Sutton and L. Visser-Fuchs, 'The Royal Burials of the House of York at Windsor", The, Ricardian, 11/143 (1998), 366-7. 246 Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, iv. 654-63; PRO, LCa/i fos. 36-79. 247 S. B. Chrimes, 'The Reign of Henry VII', in Chrimes, C. D. Ross, and R. A. Griffiths (eds.), Fifteenth-Century England 7^9^—7509, 2nd edn. (Stroud, 1997), 83. 248 Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, iv. 655. 244

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their members and arranged for representatives dressed in white to stand with torches before the monument to the queen's idealized predecessor, Eleanor of Castile, at Charing Cross as the cortege passed on its way to Westminster Abbey.249 The parish churches along the route provided thousands of torches, and their choirs stood outside singing anthems and orisons, while the lady mayoress arranged for thirty-seven virgins holding burning tapers to stand in Cheapside 'in the honour of our Lady and that the foresaid good quene was in [her] xxxvijth year'.250 There was also a contingent of foreign mourners including Frenchmen, Spaniards, Venetians, and Portuguese, many of whom also carried torches emblazoned with their country's arms, a gesture which, like Katherine of Aragon's marriage to Arthur, confirmed European acceptance of the Tudor dynasty.251 The whole process was rich with references to the queen's coronation: simply the combination of all three estates—clergy and nobility dominating the procession, commoners lining the streets—turning out in such numbers denoted their affirmation of her role and status. How much this may have been motivated by a sense of loyalty to Elizabeth of York herself is naturally impossible to judge today. It was pure chance that this queen had died in the Tower of London, the residence from which queens traditionally made their journey to Westminster for their coronation, but this meant that the very same route was taken for her burial, past white-robed figures at Charing Cross and Cheapside once again. The coffin was borne in a carriage full of cushions, although the fabrics were black velvet and blue cloth of gold on this occasion. On top of the coffin itself there was 'an Image or a personage like a Queene Clothed in the very Roabes of Estate of the Queene having her very rich Crowne on her Head her heire about her shoulders her septer in her right Hand and her fingers well garnished with Gould and precious Stones'.252 Such life-like effigies upon the coffins of kings and queens had been used from 1327, if not earlier, although not necessarily in every case.253 This device may have 249 The records of the London Skinners inelude the supply of 29 yards of black eloth, enough for up to ten gowns, besides 2^/2 yards of white frieze for eight members assigned to hold torches at Cheapside. For Henry VTT's funeral 24 yards of black cloth were supplied for eight gowns. Lambert (ed.), Records of the Skinners of London, 141; Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, iv. 660. 250 Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, iv. 659. 251 Ibid. 252 Ibid. 657. 253 P. Lindley, Gothic to Renaissance: Essays in Sculpture in England (Stamford, 1995), 97-103. The earliest recorded effigies for non-royalty are found in the mid-i5th century: in 1443 Henry Chichele, archbishop of Canterbury, had an effigy upon his coffin, as did Cardinal Beaufort four years later; C. Wilson, 'The Medieval Monuments', in P. Collinson, X. Ramsay, and M. Sparks (eds.), A History of Canterbury Cathedral (Oxford, 1995), 480. An effigy was used at the rebunal of Richard, duke ofYork, in

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originated as a practical alternative to displaying the body of the king himself on occasions when the funeral occurred some time after death. However, as mentioned earlier, Kantorowicz has argued that by the later Middle Ages the king's effigy had come to function during the funeral ceremonies as the public body of the king who never dies.254 The queen, however, did die; there were long periods when there was no queen, so her effigy cannot have been viewed in the same way.255 As the above analysis of coronation has suggested, it would probably be unwise to assume an entirely coherent ideology behind this process, but the use of an effigy for the queen again emphasized her oneness with the public body of the king. Those who had witnessed the queen's coronation itself would again be given the impression that royal ritual for queens was identical with that of kings. The procession was designed to be a stunning and memorable occasion for the royal household, the nobility, the citizens of London, and those from further afield who attended. Over 9,000 yards of black cloth were supplied by the great wardrobe not only to all members of the households of the king, queen, and their children, right down to the bakehouse page, but also to members of the nobility and to 200 'poor folk' 'ewych bearing a weyghty torch' in the procession to Westminster.256 Beside the carnage bearing the coffin and effigy rode knights bearing banners of various royal arms, royal saints (Edward and Edmund), the Virgin, St George, St Kathenne as queen (another reminder of the day of her coronation), and the parents of the king and queen. Closest to the carriage, at each corner, were carried banners 'with gilt edges and images of our lady'.257 The author of the description of this funeral asserted that 'the banners were all White in token that she dyed in Childbed' although the logic behind this is unclear.258 Hundreds of escutcheons had been made, painted with the arms of king and queen, some of which presumably also hung around the coffin but many of which were probably elsewhere in the immense procession which accompanied the carriage through the torchlit streets. At the head of this procession were the 200 1475 m demonstration of his rightful role as king; P. W. Hammond, A. F. Sutton, and L. Visscr-Fuchs, 'The Reburial of Richard Duke of York, 21—30 July 1476', The Ricardian, 10/127 (1994), 125—6. 214

Kantorowicz, King's Two Bodies, 420. The construction and painting of Elizabeth of York's effigy cost 40.^. with a further £5 2.s. 6d. for clothing it; PRO, LC2/I, fo. 46. 156 Ib. of pure wax and 80 ells of linen cloth were used to bind the body after it had been prepared with spices, balms, and rosewater, and she was then closed in lead by the king's plumber; PRO, LC2/I, fos. 46—7; Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, iv. 655. 256 PRO, LCa/i, fos. 59—78. Those of higher status received more material and probably of a better quality since it varied in price from is. to 4.1. a yard. 2 7 25S Ibid., fo. 49; Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, iv. 657. ^ Tbid., fos. 48—9. 255

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poor folk with torches, followed by various household members, clerics, and the mayor of London, and then the queen herself, behind whom were noblewomen on horseback and in carriages, then representatives of the city of London and the royal households. At several points en route clerics were waiting to cense the coffin. At Westminster Abbey the coffin, effigy, and banners were placed upon a hearse hung with black cloth of gold and decorated in gold with Elizabeth of York's submissive motto 'humble and reverent', as well as emblems of Tudor queenship: gold roses, portcullises, fleurs-de-lys, and her arms impaled with those of her king beneath crowns.259 The coffin waited on this hearse overnight surrounded by torchbearers and other watchers. Those listed first in the narrative account are ladies and gentlewomen which reflected the importance of women at this ritual. For the ten days that the coffin had stood in the Tower chapel, six women had knelt around it, and at the final requiem mass in the abbey on the day following the procession it was the women who gave their offerings first, led by the queen's sister Katherine as chief mourner. After the offerings at this mass it was women who presented the palls of blue and green cloth of gold which were 'layd... along the Corps' (presumably over the effigy which had been glued to the coffin).260 The prominence of women was in part because it was the funeral of a woman, but a particular association of women with mourning is a phenomenon of many cultures, and medieval England was no exception.261 The Ryalle Book specified that at the funeral of a prince of the royal blood 'all the ladies of his blood' were to kneel closest to the hearse while the lords were further out.262 While the coffin lay in state at the abbey on the night before the queen's burial, the queen's sister Katherine, accompanied by her nephew, the marquis of Dorset, and by the earl of Derby, presided over a 'supper' of fish dishes in the queen's chamber at the palace of Westminster.263 Again the ritual 259

PRO, LC2/i, fos. 48-9.

260 The narrative claims that there were thirty-seven palls, although this does not tally with the list of ladies presenting them and the financial accounts only refer to sixteen palls each made with blue and green cloth ot gold; Grose and Astle (cds.), Antiquarian Repertory, iv. 660—2; PRO, LC2/I, fos. 46, 52. 261 P. Aries, The Hour of 'OurDeath, trans. H. Weaver (London, 1981), 144,326; R. Huntingdon and P. Metcalf, Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual (Cambridge, 1979), 26, 27,74,102. This association of women with the dead was manifested in other ways, as Stafford has shown in her study of early medieval European queens for whom concern for the royal dead was a particular duty, their pious role being linked with strengthening their husband's dynastic position; Stafford, Queens, Concubines and Dowagers, 121. The shrouding of the body was also usually performed by women; C. Darnell, Death andBunalin Medieval England 1066—/^o (London, 1998), 43. 262 Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, i. 308—9. 263

Ibid. iv. 660; PRO, LC2/i, fo. 54.

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behaviour closely mirrored that for the queen's coronation which had itself looked forward to this moment when the queen would meet the 'everlasting bridegroom'. For the final day of Elizabeth of York's funeral over 1,000 candles burnt around the hearse and a further 273 tapers 'of ij Ib. a piece', decorated with more escutcheons, flamed above black cloths hanging from the roof. On this day there were three masses, concluding with the requiem mass. The ladies then departed, having symbolically buried the queen with their palls, leaving the prelates and the king's chapel to perform the actual burial. Essentially it was the women's role to mourn, but the men's to do the physical burying. The effigy was taken away while the bishop of London hallowed the grave before the coffin was lowered in, at which her chamberlain and gentlemen ushers broke their staffs of office and cast them into the grave.264 To aid his wife on her final rite of passage, Henry VII had already ordained 636 masses to be said for her soul. According to the financial accounts of the funeral £240 in alms were to be distributed by her almoner, although the narrative account suggests that far more was distributed in subsequent days.265 Such bounty inevitably enhanced perceptions of the queen's own generosity, regardless of whose treasury it actually came from. Elizabeth of York was eventually laid to rest in a public display of Tudor monarchy which would be seen by thousands more than had ever witnessed the processions and ceremonies of her short life: the magnificent double tomb to which her body was moved in 1509, six years after her funeral. In 1498, perhaps as a result of Perkin Warbeck's recent challenge to his legitimacy, Henry VII had abandoned his earlier plan to be buried near Henry VI at Windsor in favour of asserting closer ties with the Plantagenet dynasty as a whole through burial at Westminster. The chapel and tomb he eventually shared with Elizabeth are laden with Yorkist and Tudor badges. The effigies of the king and queen are of gilt bronze, the 'most prestigious form of memorial 264

Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, iv. 662—3. 263 PRO, LCa/i, fo. 53; the herald's account refers to alms for 'bed-rid folks lazars blynde folkes and others . . . every place of the fryers... every parish Church of London" and then cryptically asserts that 'every colledge hospittall and oder had armes besydes them that were sent and geven into the Cuntry to the nombcr in all passed ij thousand Ix and x', but what denomination he meant is unclear; Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, iv. 663. The following year Henry made further provisions for her soul, as well as his own and other members of his family, in an indenture with the abbot of Westminster involving various masses, collects, solemn sermons, and ringing of bells, including a requiem mass on the anniversary of her death (until his own death, when it should be moved to that date), during which service a hundred 9 foot wax tapers would be burning and twenty-four torches. Money was to be distributed to paupers and monks attending the anniversary. Westminster Abbey Muniments, 6637, fos. 2—6.

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sculpture' in England at the opening of the sixteenth century, but the position of the figures, which was eventually left to the discretion of Henry VII's executors, does not depict them in the typical attitude of power of so many crowned royal effigies.266 Instead Henry wears a hat and Elizabeth a simple headdress over virginal loose hair, each hold their hands together as if in prayer: images of piety and material wealth firmly entwined to the last. Elizabeth of York's funeral was both a huge public celebration of the wealth and prestige of Tudor kingship, and an opportunity for the king's subjects to share the very personal emotions of grief at his wife's death.267 In participating in that grief and in looking forward to the queen's entry into heaven the political community shared an experience which could reinforce their sense of their identity as an entity and as Henry VII's subjects (or the future subjects of Elizabeth's son). As such it could scarcely have been more different from her mother's funeral just over a decade earlier. Elizabeth Woodville had died on Friday 8 June 1492 at Bermondsey Abbey.268 Much like that of her Lancastrian rival, Elizabeth Woodville's will dwelt on her lack of property at her death, and it asked that she 'be buried with the bodie of my Lord at Windessore . . . without pompes entreing or costlie expensis donne thereabought'.269 Late medieval funerals were usually as impressive as could be afforded, but there were other instances of nobles requesting such simple burials.270 In France in 1371 the dowager queen Jeanne d'Evreux had requested a relatively simple funeral, stipulating that few candles should be used, but Charles V organized a more lavish service in her honour the day after her burial, apparently because he felt this was more fitting for a queen, despite the fact that she was not of his lineage.271 In choosing a simple funeral Elizabeth Woodville probably wished to emphasize the departure she had made from the splendour of much of her life when she retired to Bermondsey Abbey. She was not herself sufficiently wealthy to pay for a funeral on a royal scale. Her daughter, the queen, had just begun her lyingin prior to the birth of a second daughter so was perhaps not in a position to 266

Lindlcy, Cothic to Renaissance, 48—9, 54. The narrative of her funeral asserts that, having chosen the councillors to arrange her funeral, the king 'tookc with him certain of his secretest and prevcly departed to a solitary place to passe his sorrows and would no man should resort to him but such his grace appointed'; Grose and Astle (eds.), Antiquarian Repertory, iv. 655. 268 BL, MS Arundel 26, fo. 29. 269 J. Nichols, Wills oj the Kings and Queens of England (London, 1780), 350. 270 Darnell, Death and Buna/ in Medieval England, 51. 271 E. A. R. Brown, 'Death and the Human Body in the Later Middle Ages: The Legislation of Boniface VTTT on the Division of the Corpse', Viator, 12 (1981), 262. 267

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propose an alternative. Henry VII's failure to act as Charles V had done could have been because he preferred not to draw attention to the rights of Yorkist royalty, but since Elizabeth Woodville was the grandmother of his heirs there was reason enough to arrange a spectacular funeral if he had chosen, but it would appear that he preferred to respect her request. The only surviving description of Elizabeth Woodville's funeral includes a number of discrepancies which may be the result of an author's attempts to reconcile conflicting accounts of the occasion. For instance, the narrative asserts that Elizabeth was buried immediately upon her arrival at Windsor 'with oute any solempne Direge', but later notes the absence of palls offered to the 'corps' after the final mass of her obsequies, which makes little sense if she had already been buried.272 Her body had been brought by river from Bermondsey to Windsor without ceremony, arriving at about eleven at night on Whit Sunday, two days after her death, with an escort of three men—her chaplain, the prior of the Charterhouse at Sheen, and her cousin Edward Haute—and two gentlewomen, of whom one was her husband's illegitimate daughter Grace but the other was not named.273 The account repeatedly draws attention to the simplicity of her funeral, claiming that her hearse was 'suche as they use for the comyn peple w[ith] mj wooden candelstikk about hit' and that new torches were not used during the masses but only 'a dozeyn dyvers olde men holdyng old torchis and torchis ends'.274 It is possible that this emphasis on the poverty of the occasion and lack of protocol stemmed in part from resentment that the dowager queen had chosen not to have the sort of formal occasion which the herald reporting it would have organized, but it may also reflect criticism that Henry VII had not seen fit to arrange a more queenly funeral for his mother-in-law.275 On the Monday the bishop of Rochester and numerous heralds arrived at Windsor and the hearse was constructed, covered with black cloth of gold upon which escutcheons of her arms surmounted by crowns were pinned.276 Many of her female relatives arrived the next day, although not her daughter Cecily or, as might be expected, the Lady Margaret Beaufort.277 Their absence 272 There arc also two accounts of a requiem mass on the Wednesday, one of which claims that the women were present, the other that they were absent, but it concludes with a description of the women presenting their offerings first. 273 See also A. F. Sutton and L. Visser-Fuchs, 'The Royal Burials at Windsor, 11: Princess Mary, May 1482, and Queen Elizabeth Woodville, June 1492', The Ricardian, 9/144 (1999), 453274 BL, MS Arundel 26, fos. 29-30. 271 Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, 'The Royal Burials at Windsor, IT', 454. 276 BL, MS Arundel 26, fo. 29. 277 The text does say that four daughters of Edward IVattcndcd but only names Anne, Katherine, and Bridget.

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was probably due to their attendance upon the pregnant queen. With the women came a smaller number of male mourners and that day dirges were sung in the chapel. The account of the Wednesday is somewhat confused regarding the presence or absence of the women at the three masses and it appears that at least for some it was Elizabeth Woodville's son the marquis of Dorset who acted as chief mourner, although eventually her daughter Anne took this role in lieu of the queen.278 At least one of the sources of this account clearly felt that a queen's funeral should have been more splendid, regardless of the fact that she had retired from court and was not the mother of the king. However, there is no real evidence that the desire expressed in Elizabeth Woodville's will for a humble ceremony was not genuine. Despite her status she was still a prize for the religious house in which she was buried. In earlier centuries there had been bitter competition between houses for the bodies of men of such dubious reputation as Henry II's heir (the young king Henry) and King John.279 Had Elizabeth omitted the request for a humble burial, the clergy at Windsor would probably have permitted the heralds to organize the grander funeral they expected. The consequence of that stipulation was that, in stark contrast to her daughter's funeral, the mourners were all people who had actually known her. Elizabeth Woodville's status as a widow meant that she could choose a funeral which was a ritual for a woman, not a queen.

CONCLUSION The Ryalle Book's claim to present the manner of performing royal rituals as they had occurred in former times enabled Yorkist and Tudor monarchs to assert their legitimate inheritance from previous monarchs through supposedly imitative behaviour. However, dynastic strife and changing political ideologies constantly reshaped and reinvented the rituals of queenship. For the most part these were aimed at an affirmation of the kingship of which the queen was a part, and despite the king's absence on the majority of occasions his presence was constantly evoked through the implications of complementarity in her role. Yet the wide range of people involved in constructing and witnessing the rituals gave the occasions a diversity of meanings over which the king could not have complete control. 278 279

But sec also Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, 'The Royal Burials at Windsor, II", 454-5. Hallam, 'Eleanor Crosses and Royal Burial Customs', 11—12.

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Through these rites of passage the queen was written, painted, and acted into the role of consort to Christ's representative on earth, fulfilling the aspects of monarchy that the king could not. Hers was the power of the weak (God's chosen tool) and the sacred power of chaste motherhood (Mary's representative). She was the inspiration for chivalry, promoter of faith, healing bridge between warring parties, and the channel through which kingship flowed. The interaction between these ideals and the everyday practice of queenship is the subject of the next three chapters.

CHAPTER 3

Queens as Mothers

INTRODUCTION Ourc Qucnc was none abyl to be Qucnc of Inglond, but and he were a pcrc of or a lord of this ream... he would be on of thaym that schuld hclpc to puttc her a doun, for because that schc bcrcth no child, and because that we have no pryns in this land.1

Such were the words attributed by a felon in the prior of Canterbury's gaol to his neighbour on the Isle of Thanet in 1448. For this neighbour, a farm labourer, childbearing was a queen's defining function and Margaret's failure to produce a son in three years of marriage rendered her unworthy of her title. As argued in preceding chapters, the role of queen as understood by the political classes was very much richer and more complex than this. Nonetheless, motherhood was a major aspect of the queen's role. It enhanced her status, provided opportunities to extend her influence in local and national politics, and enabled her to complement and promote her husband's kingship as well as to continue his dynasty. On occasion it could also conflict with her other duties as queen. However, it was not queenship as an office that was associated with childbirth, but the gender of the holder of that office. Women were inevitably associated with reproduction in medieval society. It was St Augustine of Hippo who had observed, 'I do not see in what sense the woman was made as helper of the man if not for the sake of bearing children.'2 As Alcuin Blamires has shown, much of medieval pro-femmme writing dwelt on 1

Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Fifth Report (London, 1876), 455. A. Blamires (cd.), Woman defamed and Woman defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1992), 79. 2

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women's essential role in the survival of humanity and the associated nurturing qualities of motherhood. Nonetheless, some writers argued that these aspects of the female nature restricted women's ability to realize their full potential as humans. In the mid-fourteenth century Boccaccio wrote a eulogy on the poetess Cornificia in his De Mulieribus Claris, in which he chastised women who imagined that their only purpose was producing and raising children, and therefore did not make the effort to cultivate their own abilities to do those things which made men famous.3 Blamires argues that similarly Christine de Pizan, half a century later, seemed to reproach her mother for encouraging Christine to fulfil traditional female roles in contrast to her father's encouragement of her intellectual activity.4 Historians are divided on the importance of such tensions between motherhood and more 'traditionally male' roles in the exercise of English medieval queenship. Ralph Turner, in his inquiry into Eleanor of Aquitame's relationship with her children, argued that Eleanor invested little in them, being far too busy with the practice of queenship to spend time nurturing.5 This he claimed was typical of medieval noblewomen, who had large households to manage and so arranged for nurses to mother their children.6 John Carmi Parsons, in a like vein, claimed that Eleanor of Castile's children spent most of their early years away from their mother, who was constantly travelling, and that 'childbirth did not impede really important matters: Eleanor travelled within a week before a birth and afterward resumed her travels as soon as possible'.7 However, Turner's conclusions have recently been contested by Lois Huneycutt, who cited the regularity with which Eleanor of Aquitaine took at least some of her young children on often arduous journeys as evidence for her involvement with their upbringing. She observed that 'no one without a "psychological investment" in a child would willingly choose to journey from England to the South of France in the company of two toddlers, especially given twelfth-century travelling conditions'.8 Margaret Howell has similarly argued that Eleanor of Provence had close emotional ties with her children, who were both a major source of her power and a primary motivating force in her politics.9 Parsons has suggested 3

4 A. Blamires, The Case for Women in Medieval Culture (Oxford, 1997), 70. Ibid. 94-5. R. V. Turner, 'Eleanor of Aquitaine and Her Children: An Inquiry into Medieval Family Attachment', Journal of Medieval History, 14 (1988), 321—35. 6 Ibid. 325, 333. 7 J. C. Parsons, Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth-Century England (Basingstoke, 1

J

995)> 33. 38~4!8 L. L. Huneycutt, 'Public Lives, Private Ties: Royal Mothers in England and Scotland, 1070—1204', in J. C. Parsons and B. Wheeler (eds.), Medieval Mothering (Eondon, 1996), 306—7. 9 M. Howell, Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England (Oxford, 1998), 48, 61, 79,101-3, 153. 22°-

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that, despite her lack of contact with her offspring as infants, there is also evidence for Eleanor of Castile's deep concern for her children, whose births added both to her status and to her influence with the king.10 For all of these queens, motherhood was not simply restricted to childbearing, but entailed involvement in the children's growing up and their political careers, and was a matter of the queen's own identity. To imagine that some queens were dedicated mothers and others political activists is to construct a false dichotomy. As the following analysis of fifteenth-century royal motherhood affirms, motherhood provided the context for much of a queen's most important political activity.

PREGNANCY: DESIRE AND FEAR 'My lord of Suffolk and the Bysshop of Salisbury' ruled the king and when the Icing 'wold have hys dysporte wyth our sovrayn lady the quene... then the said Bisshop of Salisbury and othir mo that wcr abowtc our sayd sovrayn lord the kyng counsclyd hym that he schuld not conic nyc her the wyche is cause that schee is not consewyd and so the lond is desavid of a prince.'11

This testament to popular concern about Margaret of Anjou's childlessness was again a conversation reported by a prisoner, in this case in gaol at Westminster in January 1448, recalling the words of a London draper. Direct accusations of incompetence against the king or queen were rare; not only were they dangerous for the accuser, but they also implied mistrust of God in his choice of representative, hence 'evil counsellors' were more appropriate figures to blame even for the lack of a royal heir. The records for both the comments on Margaret's childlessness quoted here were accusations made by prisoners, and so may simply have been slander against their neighbours. If this is the case, they are still evidence that Margaret's failure to produce an heir was both a subject of popular interest and a politically sensitive issue. Kings needed children, preferably sons, to prove both that God approved of their kingship and that their dynasty offered security to the nation. Henry VI's lack of brothers to inherit the throne exacerbated the tension in the 14408 and early 1450s since it was not clear who Henry's successor should be. In 1447 his last remaining uncle, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, died leaving no legitimate children. In 1451 the uncertainty over the succession prompted Thomas Young, MP for Bristol, to move that Richard, duke of York (the father of three sons 10

Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 20-1, 24, 25, 28, 31.

11

PRO, KB9/26o.

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already), should be formally acknowledged as heir presumptive.12 The king (perhaps guided by Somerset, who had most to lose from such a measure) dissolved parliament and imprisoned Young in the Tower, only heightening the sense of insecurity.13 Young's petition may have been perceived as an insult to king and queen in its implied fear that they would bear no children, but it also drew parliamentary attention to a dynasty with a potentially stronger claim to the throne than that of the king himself.14 Even at times of political stability it was still considered essential to the proper order of things that a king should have a son, a concern reflected in the literature of the period. The story of Blanchardyn and Eglantyne, printed in 1489 by Caxton for Margaret Beaufort, began with a description of Blanchardyn's father, the king of Friesland, Ryght habundant of the goodcs of fortune. But priuatcd and voyde he was of the right dcsyrcd fclicitc in mariagc / That is to wytc, of lignagc or yssuc of his bodyc / Whcrof he and the quene his wyfFe were sore displesed / I leve to telle the bewallyngis and lamentaciouns that the goode lady, the quene, made full often by her self al alone in solytary places of her paleys for this infortune.15 Consequently, the queen, knowyng the vertuouse effecte of devote and holy oryson / exercysed with al her strengthe her right sorowful grevous herte to this gloriouse occupacion / And after this fayrc passetyme / by veraye permyssion deuyne, concyued a right faire sone.16 As mentioned in the previous chapter, Margaret's lavish gift to the shrine at Walsingham in the New Year of 1453 and Elizabeth Woodville's decision to make a pilgrimage there in 1469 were very likely motivated by a similar hope of divine aid in producing an heir. The constant pressure on queens to produce the children necessary to the security of their husband's dynasty is highlighted by Matthew Paris's comment in 1238 that 'it was feared the queen was barren': Eleanor of Provence, the queen in question, was little more than 14 years old at 12

R. A. Griffiths, The Reign of King Henry VI: The Exercise of Royal Authority 1422–1461 (London, 1981), 692. 13 Griffiths, Henry VI, 692; J. Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge, 1996), 278-9; see also R. A. Griffiths, 'The Sense of Dynasty in the Reign of Henry VT, in C. D. Ross (ed.), Patronage, Pedigree and Power in Later Medieval England (Gloucester, 1979), 24. 14 For suggestions that it was perceived as an insult, see Griffiths, Henry VI, 692; M. K. Jones, 'Somerset, York and the Wars of the Roses', EHR 104 (1989), 289 n. 2, and in response to the latter, B. M. Cron, 'Margaret of Anjou: Tradition and Revision', MA thesis (Massey, 1999), 68—70. 15 Caxton's Blanchardyn and Eglantine, ed. L. Kellner, EETS, extra ser., 58 (1890), 11—12. By the end of the 16th century this passage had been adapted so that it was not so much a selfless desire to provide her husband with offspring, but her wish to 'frustrate the scandal that might aryse by reason of her barrenness', that inspired her prayers. 16 Ibid. 12.

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the time.17 Even when a queen had already produced sons, mere rumours of her pregnancy were sufficiently important for foreign ambassadors to remark upon them. In 1501 the Portuguese ambassador informed his king that 'The queen [Elizabeth of York] was supposed to be with child; her apothecary told me that a Genoese physician affirmed that she was pregnant, yet it was not so; she is plump and has large breasts.'18 The public nature of the queen's pregnancy is reflected in the annuity of £40 granted to Richard Tunstall, an esquire of the body and usher of the king's chamber, who brought the news of Margaret of Anjou's pregnancy to the king in 1453.19 It is not impossible that Margaret had confided her news to the king in private before this, but it had to be made a public matter. Parsons has argued that pregnancy signified 'the king's subjection of his wife's body—her sexual function—to the interests of his lineage, limiting her capacity to exploit her sexuality to sway him'.20 However, the abundant literature of pregnant queens cast out by kings who wrongly believed accusations that their wives had been unfaithful suggests that the mysteries of pregnancy aroused suspicion and fear precisely because the king could not be sure of controlling his queen's body.21 This point was highlighted in the Roman d'Alexandre, the opening text of the anthology of romances and treatises given to Margaret of Anjou as a wedding present by John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury.22 According to this tale, Philip of Macedonia's queen, Olympias, seeking a cure for her sterility, was seduced by an Egyptian prince and magician, Nectanebus, by whom she bore Alexander the Great. A very real concern was the sex of the child the queen was carrying. Edward I had attempted to guarantee the birth of a boy in 1306 by making an offering for 'Lord Richard, the child now in the queen's womb', but he was to be disappointed.23 Edward IVs physician, Master Dominic, is reputed to have 17 'timebatur enim ne regina sterilis esset'; Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, cd. H. R. Luard, 7vols., RS 57 (1872-83), iii. 518. 18 'N_ seij majs novas que escrever a vossa alteza somente que a _prenhid_ da rainha se presume que movco; por_ ho seu buticayro me dise que hu_ fiseco Jenoes afirmou que era prenhe e non foy asy; tene grande bariga e grandes peitos'ij. Gairdner (ed.), Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII, 2 vols., RS 24 (1861—3), ii. 101—2. 19 Rot. Parl. v. 318. 20 J. C. Parsons, 'The Pregnant Queen as Counsellor and the Medieval Construction of Motherhood', in Parsons and Wheeler (eds.), Medieval Mothering, 46. 21 M. Sehlauch, Chaucer's Constance and Accused Queens (New York, 1927); A. Diekson (ed.), Valentine and Orson, EETS 204 (1937), 14—26. 22 BL, MS Royal 15 E VI. 23 Parsons, 'The Pregnant Queen', 44. Henry III was more fortunate in 1245 after promising the abbot of Bury St Edmunds that if the child his queen was expecting was a boy he would name the child after St Edmund; Howell, Eleanor of Provence, 45.

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foretold that the king's first child would be a son and, no doubt hoping to be as well rewarded as Tunstall, waited outside the queen's chamber during the birth, only to be informed that 'whatsoever the queen's grace hath here within, sure it is that a fool standeth there without'.24 Because Edward IV had usurped the throne and then failed to strengthen his position by the required foreign marriage, male heirs were especially important to him. When Luchino Dallaghiexia reported to the duke of Milan in 1469 on the rejoicings at the birth of Elizabeth Woodville's third daughter, he noted that 'they would have preferred a son'.25 Potentially more serious than concerns about a child's sex was the fear, reflected in the literature cited above, that it might not be the king's child at all. In 1314 two of Philip IV of France's daughters-in-law, Marguerite and Blanche of Burgundy (both wives of future French kings), were imprisoned following allegations of adultery, and Charles Wood has argued that the slur on Marguerite's chastity later cost her daughter Jeanne the French throne.26 Many chroniclers suspected that Eleanor of Aquitaine had committed adultery during her marriage to Louis VII, and Isabella of France almost certainly began an adulterous liaison with Roger Mortimer before Edward II's death in 1327, but in these instances the inheritance of their sons was not affected.27 In the fifteenth century the legitimacy of royal offspring was more often questioned as a consequence of political dispute rather than reflecting genuine concerns about a queen's chastity. Early in the century two mothers of kings who were never themselves queens, Joan of Kent and Mary Bohun, were accused of adultery in rumours originating with those opposing their respective sons' kingship: Richard II was alleged to have been the son of a clerk of Bordeaux and Henry IV that of a butcher in Ghent.28 The lowly and foreign status of the reputed fathers emphasized their sons' supposed unfitness to rule. In the light of this tradition it is scarcely surprising to find that similar accusations were levelled against Margaret of Anjou. There were several strands to this calumny which reflected her own significant political position. The first was that Edward was the child of neither Henry VI nor his queen. 24

C. L. Seofield, The l.ife and Reign of Edward the Fourth (London, 1967), i. 393. CSP Milan, i. 129. 26 C. T. Wood, 'Queens, Queans and Kingship: An Inquiry into Theories of Royal Legitimaey in Late Medieval England and France', in W. C. Jordan, B. McNab, and T. F. Ruiz (eds.), Order and Innovation in the Middle Ages: Essays in Honor of Joseph R. Strayer (Prineeton, 1976), 387. 27 D. D. R. Owen, Eleanor of Aquitaine: Queen and Legend (Oxford, 1993), 104-7, 111-12; Wood, 'Queens, Queans and Kingship', 385—400. 28 M. Galway, 'Joan of Kent and the Order of the Garter', University of Birmingham Historical Journal, 1 (1947), 13; G. O. Sayles, Select Cases in the Court of the Kings Bench, vol. 7, Selden Soeiety, 88 (London, 1971), 123—4. 25

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The origins of this account are unclear: according to the London chronicle of 1437-61 attributed to Robert Bale, 'peple spake stranngely' of Prince Edward's birth at the time, although the chronicler does not elaborate on this.29 Three years later, in 1456, a law apprentice, John Helton, was hanged, drawn, and quartered for distributing bills which claimed that the prince was not the queen's son.30 Helton was forced to recant before his death, demonstrating the seriousness with which his allegation was viewed, but the story persisted. The author of An English Chronicle, written in the first half of Edward IV's reign, claimed that in 1459 'the quene was defamed and desclaundered, that he that was called Prince, was nat hir sone', and in a chronicle completed in 1504 Robert Fabyan explained that Margaret 'susteyned not a little dysclaundere and oblequeye of the common peple, sayinge that [the prince] was not the naturall sone of kynge Henrye, but chaungyd in the cradell'.31 The inference of this story was that Margaret was not capable of bearing an heir (or at least not capable of producing a healthy, normal child) and consequently, according to the logic employed by the farm labourer on Thanet, not fit to be queen, still less to wield the authority that she was apparently doing in the political crisis of 1459-61. The suggestion that the prince was a changeling of course also meant that the duke of York still had the strongest claim to be Henry VI's heir. Given that even the Yorkist chronicler reporting the accusation indicated his own scepticism, it is quite possible that the majority of contemporaries accepted the slander as mere propaganda, more important for its metaphorical comment on the legitimacy of Margaret's authority and that of her son than as a representation of fact. Although Yorkist propaganda may at first have taken up Helton's suggestion that the queen herself had failed to bear a healthy son, rumours of adultery soon began to circulate too. The author of the English Chronicle reflected the confused nature of the conflicting stories in his account which conflated the narratives of changeling and adultery: the quene was defamed and desclaundered, that he that was called Prince, was nat hir sone, but a bastard gotcn in avoutry; wherefore she dreding that he shuldc nat succcdc hys fadre in the crownc of Englond, allycd vn to her allc the knyghtcs and squycrs of Chrcstrcshyrc.32 29

R. Flenley (ed.), Six Town Chronicles of England (Oxford, 1911), 141. John Bcnct, Chronicle, for the Years r^oo to 1462, cd. G. L. Harriss and M. A. Harriss, Camden Miscellany, 24, Camden Society, 4th ser., 9 (1972), 216. 31 J. S. Davics (cd.), An English Chronicle of the Reigns ofRichardII, Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI, Camden Society, old ser., 64 (1855), 79; R. Fabyan, The New Chronicles of England and France, ed. H. Ellis (London, 1811), 628. 32 Davics, English Chronicle, 79. 30

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Similar rumours were also current on the Continent, prompting the author of a newsletter from Bruges to Milan in July 1460 to report that it is... thought that they will make a son of the duke of York Icing, and that they will pass over the king's son, as they arc beginning already to say that he is not the king's son. Similarly the queen also runs great danger.33 The following March, two days before the battle of Towton, the Milanese ambassador at the French court, Prospero di Camulio, informed his duke of a story that Henry VI, when he regained his sanity, was so astonished to learn of the prince's birth that he declared that the boy 'must be the son of the Holy Spirit'.34 The account, which Camulio himself did not believe, played upon the king's pious reputation to subvert it into one of unworldly naivety and, by implication, constructed Margaret as a scheming and unchaste woman. It may also have been consciously playing oil and subverting the associations traditionally made between the English queen and the Virgin Mary. A Burgundian chronicler, Georges Chastellain, later maintained that the earl of Warwick had denounced the queen in London on the grounds that the prince was the product of an adulterous liaison with a wandering player.35 The use in his story of the wandering player, like the clerk of Bordeaux and the Ghent butcher, emphasized the child's supposed ineligibility for kingship as well as questioning Margaret's own nobility in choosing such a partner. It was perhaps also intended to dissociate the aspersions on Edward's legitimacy from a concurrent slander that Margaret was committing adultery with a man with a claim to the throne himself: Henry Beaufort, duke of Somerset. Warwick allegedly informed the bishop of Terni in 1460 that Henry VI was 'a dolt and a fool who is ruled instead of ruling. The royal power is in the hands of his wife and those who defile the king's chamber.'36 Somerset was not named on this occasion, although his powerful position makes him an obvious suspect, but the following year there was a rumour at the Parisian court that Margaret had poisoned Henry and planned to marry Somerset.37 In conjunction the two stories suggest that attempts were being made to construct Margaret in the mould of Isabella of France, who, with her lover's aid, deposed Edward II. Such rumours served to depict Henry VI as too weak to keep control of his queen's body, let alone his kingdom. They were concerned not with disputing 33

34 CSP Milan, \. 27. Ibid. 58. G. Chastellain, OEuvres de Georges Chastellain, ed. K. de Lettenhove (Brussels, 1864), v. 464. Chastellain could have been drawing on stories circulating after Henry VTs deposition. 36 Pius II, 'The Commentaries of Pius II', trans. F. A. Gragg, ed. L. C. Gabel, Smith College Studies in History, 25 (Northampton, Mass., 1939—40), 269. 37 CSP Milan, i. 58. 35

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the legitimacy of Margaret's son but with ridiculing her husband and casting the queen as one unworthy of authority or respect. Because the Yorkist claim to the throne lay in the family's descent from an older line than that of the Lancastrians, there was no need to persuade contemporaries of the validity of any of these accusations, but the variety and quantity of surviving references to Margaret's alleged adultery suggests that contemporaries found them a popular and apt trope with which to express their mistrust of her queenship.

IDEOLOGIES OF QUEENLY MOTHERHOOD Paul Strohm and John Carmi Parsons have argued that the queen's pregnancy was closely associated with her role as intercessor. They draw attention to instances of queens making appeals for pardon or royal favour from their childbed, and particularly to Froissart's exaggeration of Philippa of Hainault's pregnancy at the time of her famous intercession for the burghers of Calais, in order to enhance for his readers the moral and emotional impact of her appeal.38 Parsons argues that for barren queens like Anne of Bohemia, or those who had finished their childbearing, intercession became a substitute for childbirth, another form of'labor'.39 Thus, he concludes, 'the queen has two bodies': one the biological individual who produced children and the other a 'nurturing mediator... identified with her official self'.40 Although it is possible that the French embassy who gained an audience with Elizabeth of York before her childbed in 1489 were hoping she would intercede on their behalf to the king, I have found no firm evidence of an explicit association between intercession and pregnancy in the later fifteenth century.41 Given the abandonment of public acts of intercession at coronations referred to in the previous chapter it does appear that intercession was no longer such a central part of the queen's public image. Nonetheless, the birth of children did have an impact upon perceptions of a queen's official role. Most notably, it was only when Elizabeth of York had produced a son who would, like Henry II or even Henry VII, become a stronger focus for those loyal to his mother's lineage than a woman could be that Henry VII was ready to arrange her coronation. 38 P. Strohm, 'Queens as Intercessors', in Strohm, Hochon's Arrow: The Social Imagination of Fourteenth-Century Texts (Princeton, 1992), 95—119; Parsons, 'The Pregnant Queen', 39—61. 39 Parsons, 'The Pregnant Queen', 52. 40 Ibid. 52-3. 41 John Lcland, De Rebus Bntanmcts Collectanea, ed. T Hcarne, 4 vols. (London, 1774), iv. 249.

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From the moment of their birth royal children, particularly eldest sons, became symbols of dynastic security and legitimacy. Henry VI and Edward IV both named theirs after the most illustrious, supposedly model kings, Edward the Confessor and Edward III.42 Henry VII used similar tactics, claiming descent from the earliest British kings in naming his eldest son Arthur and specifically arranging for Elizabeth of York to give birth to this heir at Winchester, Arthur's legendary capital. These were references to legitimacy visible to anyone. For a more exclusive audience a poem in celebration of Arthur's birth was composed by Pietro Carmeliano, an Italian in Henry VII's service.43 This poem not only depicted the occasion as the promised return of King Arthur, but also as the fruit of a union advised by the saintly Henry VI to ensure peace and prosperity.44 Carmeliano consequently eulogized Prince Arthur's mother, describing her prior to her marriage as not only a 'beautiful, marriageable virgin', but one 'learned and wise' who had, since the murder of her brothers, inherited her father's rights.45 Now that she had borne a son for the Tudor dynasty, and had thereby become more closely associated with her husband's lineage, it was safe to celebrate Elizabeth of York's paternal lineage. After the birth of a prince the images of queenship presented at coronation could be re-employed and developed both to construct the new prince as a potential exemplar of kingship, and to define his mother's important relationship thereto. This was particularly the case in the pageants which greeted Margaret of Anjou on her arrival at Coventry in September I45&.46 At this time she had just begun to attempt to move the court to her own Midland estates following the crises of Henry VI's insanity, the first battle of St Albans, and the duke of York's second protectorate. It is therefore likely that she arranged for the city to be advised of suitable themes for her reception, just as Richard III was later to send a messenger to York detailing the reception he expected after his usurpation.47 For Margaret at Coventry the theme was a celebration of powerful queenly motherhood. In the first two pageants actors playing Old 42

Henry VTs son was born and christened while the king was suffering from mental illness and unable to recognize the child, so it is possible that it was actually Margaret who decided their son's name, although it is more likely that possible names had been discussed before Henry's illness began. 43 W. Campbell (eA), Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII, 2 vols., RS 60 (1873-7), ii. 244, 289; S. Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy (Oxford, 1969), 20. 44 Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy, 20. 41 'Pulcherrima virgo | Nubilis', 'docta et sapiens'; Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy, 20. 46 J. L. Laynesmith, 'Constructing Quccnship at Coventry: Pageantry and Politics at Margaret of An|ou's "Secret Harbour'", in L. Clark (ed.), The Fifteenth Century, in: Authority and Subversion (Woodbridge, 2003), 139-49. 47 A. Raine (ed.), York Civic Records /, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, 98 (1938), 79.

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and New Testament figures, as well as Edward the Confessor, compared Margaret and her son explicitly with the Virgin Mary and Christ: according to Isaiah, Like as mankyndc was gladdid by the birght of Jhcsus, So shall this cmpyrc ioy the birthc of your bodyc,48

while Jeremiah declared to Margaret, 'Vn-to the rote of Jesse rote likken you well I may.'49 Subsequent scenes involved the Cardinal Virtues promising Margaret their support, the Nine Worthies foretelling Prince Edward's martial potential and again pledging their loyalty to the queen, and finally the queen's name saint St Margaret of Antioch slaying a dragon and offering to intercede with Christ for the queen.50 The Virgin Mary was an obvious model for queenly motherhood. This had been picked up in Wolfram von Eschenbach's thirteenth-century Parziva/, in which the queen, Herzeloyde, compared her decision to breastfeed Parzival with that of 'the supreme Queen [who] gave her breasts to Jesus'.51 The regularity with which ideal queens of romance breastfed their children— Constance, Emare, or Blanchardyn's mother, for instance—indicates the power of the image of perfect motherhood in the Maria Lactans, a figure who was often pictured crowned.52 Howell argued that 'a sense of empathy with the Virgin as mother was almost inescapable for a devout thirteenthcentury queen', noting Henry Ill's instructions to depict a Tree of Jesse in his wife's bedchamber at Windsor Castle, and the window in her chambers at Clarendon which showed a queen kneeling before the Virgin and Child.53 This was still very much true in the fifteenth century, as Margaret's own pious interest in the Virgin, discussed in Chapter 5, suggests. The explicit linkage of queenly and Marian motherhood in the London Bridge pageant for Elizabeth Woodville's coronation has been mentioned in the previous chapter, and this theme appears to have occurred again when Elizabeth visited Norwich in 1469, 48

M. D. Harris (cd.), The Coventry J.eet Rook or Mayor's Register 1420-1555, EETS 134-5, 138, 146 (1907-13), i. 287. 49 Ibid. 287. 50 According to legend Margaret was swallowed by the devil in the guise of a dragon and burst from its belly due to the magical properties of her virtuous virginity, but late medieval representations of her commonly depicted her like St George or the Archangel Michael trampling the dragon as she slew him with a spear; D. H. Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 3rd edn. (Oxford, 1992), 318—19. 51 P. A. Quattrin, 'The Milk of Christ: Herzeloyde as Spiritual Symbol in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival'', in Parsons and Wheeler (eds.), Medieval Mothering, 27. 52 Gower, English Works, i. 159; Kellner (ed.), Blanchardyn and Eglantine, 13; Mills (ed.), Six Middle English Romances, 64. 53 Howell, Eleanor of Provence, 73, 256.

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where she was welcomed by the Angel Gabriel and witnessed a re-enactment of the Salutation of the Virgin Mary and St Elizabeth.54 But Mary's motherhood was primarily a passive role in that she accepted, endured, and nurtured, and was thus only of limited value to queens. When queenly motherhood involved the active defence of their son's rights, Mary offered no parallel. Consequently, the 1456 celebrations at Coventry also offered Margaret the aid of 'Rightwessnes', 'Temperaunce', 'Strength', and 'Prudence', who promised to protect the queen by their counsel. Their pledges to 'defende you from all maner daunger' and 'Clerely to conseyue yo yn your estate most riall' were probably deliberate references to the current political instability. As John Watts has argued, these cardinal virtues were commonly urged upon kings in mirrors for princes because possession of'the four cardinal virtues justified the king's sovereignty by making him inherently responsive to the common interest of the people'.ss The implication of their employment at Coventry, therefore, was that it was the queen, in conjunction with her infant son, who was expected to practise kingship. Henry was not even mentioned by the virtues. Several of the Nine Worthies did make reference to Henry, 'The nobilest prince pat is born', but their principal emphasis was on Margaret. The Worthies celebrated her queenship in the language of chivalry, complementing that of religion which had gone before (although some touches of Marian imagery occurred here also). Josue, for instance, promised to . . . abey to your plesur, princes most riall, As to the hcghcst lady {rat I can ymagync To the plcsurc of your pcrsonc, I will put me to pync As a knyght for his lady boldly to fight, Yf any man of curagc wold bid you vnright.56 This too had implications for her motherhood, as was apparent in Julius Caesar's assertion that Of qucncs pat byn crowned so high non knowc I. The same blcssyd blossom pat sprongc of your body, Shall succede me yn worship, I wyll it be so; All the landis olyve shall obey hym vn-to.57 Just as Marian associations for Margaret made her son a type of Christ, so comparison with the queens of romance literature figured her son as a

34

H. Harrod, 'Queen Elizabeth Woodville's Visit to Norwich in 1469', Norfolk Archaeology, 5 (1859), 35. 55 56 57 Watts, Henry VI, 23-5. Harris (cd.), Coventry Leet, i. 290. Ibid. 291.

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chivalric hero.58 The latter construction visualized a queen who commanded the respect and service of great knights and was therefore more appropriate to Margaret's current situation, while still envisioning her role within acceptable models.59 The celebration of Margaret of Anjou and her son on this occasion in order to emphasize the potential and legitimacy of Lancastrian kingship was a consequence of the crisis of authority in 1456 and was as such unique. It immediately preceded major changes in government personnel made at Coventry and, as I have argued in more detail elsewhere, was probably intended to represent a conceptual shift in which sovereignty was understood to focus not simply upon the person of the king but on the royal family as a whole.60 However, ceremonial involving the queen's offspring was frequently employed to reinforce a king's legitimacy, although the queen herself was rarely so prominent a participant. A classic instance in the later fifteenth century was the investiture of Edward of Middleham as prince of Wales in September 1483. Following their coronation in July, Richard III and Anne Neville had begun a splendid progress northwards during which the king made generous gifts and granted petitions to individuals and institutions in order to impress his new subjects and reward loyal members of his affinity.61 York, the largest city in the north of England, had sent troops to support Richard against the Woodvilles earlier in the year and he rightly anticipated that its mayor and aldermen would provide a welcome fit to impress the 'many southern lords and men of worship' who would arrive with him.62 His decision to arrange for the investiture of his son as prince of Wales in that city served both to emphasize the security of the dynasty to all those present and to indicate to the northern lords how much he still valued their loyalty. Although Anne seems to have played no part at the mass in the minster or the actual investiture at the Archbishop's Palace, she was involved in the more secular aspect of the ceremony—a 58 Motherhood provided other contexts for queens to be involved in chivalric display. For instance, when Elizabeth of York's son Henry was made duke of York, jousts were held supposedly for the particular pleasure of the queen, her ladies, and her eldest daughter; BL, MS Cotton Julius B XII, fo. 89. 59 This borrowing of literary models for real queens was of course a reciprocal arrangement. Field has suggested that Malory adapted his sources for the tale of 'The Knight of the Cart' so that Guinevere's escort of 'Quenys Knyghtes', 'a grete felyshyp of men of armys' that always rode with her, resembled Margaret's 'Queen's gallants' who were slaughtered at Blore Heath; P. J. C. Field, The, Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory, Arthurian Studies, 6 (1993), 124; Thomas Malory, Works, ed. E. Vinaver, rev. P. J. C. Field (Oxford, 1990), in. 1121. 60 Laynesmith, 'Constructing Queenship at Coventry'. 61 C. D. Ross, Richard III (ICondon, 1981), 147-52. 62 Raine (ed.), York Civic Records /, 79, 163—4.

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procession through the streets of York—at which she and Richard, both wearing their crowns, led their son by the hand.63 Such celebrations of hereditary kingship were inevitably brief and rare, although generally recorded in detail by royal heralds or city clerks. More permanent propaganda of this nature existed in works of art depicting the royal family. The most public of these was the Royal Window at Canterbury Cathedral, in which Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville were depicted with seven of their children kneeling at pne-dieux, much like the figures of any noble donor family, except for their royal attire, and the presence between them of Edward the Confessor and St George above the family's arms. Its donor is unknown, perhaps Archbishop Bourchier or even Edward IV, but it is an unequivocal celebration of Yorkist legitimacy and fecundity which would have been witnessed by the many pilgrims to Thomas Becket's shrine.64 The window was dedicated to the Virgin and included scenes of the Seven Joys of the Virgin (now destroyed). These joys varied, but at this period usually encompassed the major events of Christ's birth and childhood.65 It was therefore in a context of holy motherhood and holy childhood that the images of Edward IV, Elizabeth Woodville, and their children were viewed.66 Traces of another family picture of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville remain in a window at Little Malvern Priory which was erected in the 14805 by Bishop John Alcock, president of the prince of Wales's council.67 Thus, on the edge of his principality, the young Edward was presented in the wider context of his family for the prayers of the monks and their guests. Elizabeth of York appears in two striking representations of her family that were both commissioned after her death. This was perhaps motivated by a desire to direct prayers for her soul, but possibly also because Henry VII was attempting to play on the popularity of his famously charitable wife to imbue the Tudor family with a sense of sanctity that only the dead can offer. One of these images was a votive altarpiece in which Henry, Elizabeth, and all of their children (living and dead) kneel, men and women facing each other, beneath canopies bearing Tudor roses and portcullises, while above them St George is

63

P. W. Hammond, Edward of Middleham: Prince of Wales (Cliftonvillc, 1973), 18. M. H. Cavmess, The Windows of Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury, Corpus Vitrearum Medn /Evi, Great Britain, 2 (1981), 259. 65 Ibid. 252-3; H. Keyte and A. Parrott (eds.), The New Oxford Book of Carols (Oxford, 1992), 462. 66 The window may not have been complete until their daughter Elizabeth was queen; Cavmess, The Windows of Christ Church Cathedral, Canterbury, 259. 67 B. Rackham, 'The Aneient Windows of Christ's College Chapel, Canterbury', Archaeological journal, 109 (1952), 141. 64

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fighting a dragon.68 It is a painting of religious and chivalric fantasy in which the royal family, although they kneel at prie-dieux, also appear to be at the tiltyard, and in which those children who had died very young are depicted as if they were continuing to grow up in heaven. Thus heaven and earth intermingle and the communion of saints is manifest. The 56 X 57 Va inch altarpiece was probably commissioned by Henry himself for the Charterhouse at Sheen, which Neil Beckett has suggested Henry was attempting to fashion into 'almost as forceful a symbol of the Tudor dynasty as the palace [of Richmond] itself'.69 The other picture is unlikely to have been commissioned by the king, or even influenced by him, but similarly depicts the king and queen with all of their children in a sacred context. It is the frontispiece to the book of a Fraternity of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin which was founded in yoj.70 The principal image is of Joachim and Anna kissing before a 'golden gate', which is actually a Beaufort portcullis (one of Henry VII's mother's emblems which he used frequently). Borders of Tudor emblems link tiny representations of Joachim and Anna, including one in which Mary is visible in Anna's womb, her long loose blonde hair like that of the queen and her four daughters who kneel before the gate, facing Henry and three sons. This image of the royal family being drawn into the Holy Family would have had a far more limited audience than that of the Edward IV family scene at Canterbury but, like the image of Elizabeth Woodville in the Skinners' guild book, it indicates the use and acceptance of such sacred images of royalty beyond court-generated propaganda. It also suggests the importance of the queen's fecundity in images designed to celebrate Tudor kingship even after her own death. The queen's ability to provide a male heir was a question of concern at all levels of society. Yet childbirth was not an unequivocally positive aspect of queenship as far as men were concerned because the king's lack of control over this process and his dependency upon the queen's body drew attention to the limitations of his sovereignty. Allegations of queenly adultery highlighted the king's inability to control his wife's body. Nonetheless, the opportunities for affirming kingship and queenship inherent in royal childbirth were manifold. The queen's public image was affected by her status as mother because she had conformed to a principal ideal of queenship (and womanhood), thereby 68 O. Millar, The Tudor, Stuart and Early Georgian Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen (London, 1963), i. 52—3; n, pi. i. 69 N. Beckett, 'Henry VII and Sheen Charterhouse', in B. Thompson (ed.), The Reign of Henry VII (Stamford, 1995), 131. 70 Christ Church, Oxford, MS 179, fo. i.

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extending the opportunities to visualize her as Virgin or romance heroine, and had justified her anomalous position as a woman at the heart of the political structure of the realm by providing the means for that structure's continuation.

BRINGING UP THE KING'S CHILDREN: MOTHERHOOD IN PRACTICE Infant Heirs and Younger Children According to Jennifer Ward, Noble mothers had nothing to do with the physical care of their children. This was the duty of nurses and servants ... The life of the noblewoman and her responsibilities for her estates meant that she could not have devoted herself fully to her children even if she had wanted to and even if this had been the contemporary convention.71 The same was naturally true of queens. Only imaginary queens like the mothers of Parzival or Blanchardyn were to be found breastfeeding their sons in imitation of the Virgin. But both noblewomen and queens were concerned to oversee their children's upbringing and education. Whereas noble children were commonly placed in other noble households, it was only the eldest sons of these fifteenth-century queens who left their mothers' households, and in this case for a household of their own as prince of Wales. Even after this departure, queens commonly exerted considerable influence on their eldest sons, although in the normal way of things they would expect to be closer to their daughters and younger sons. Initially all the queens' children were brought up in the royal nursery, sometimes along with other noble children. Shulamith Shahar has suggested that royal children were sometimes breastfed by women of the minor nobility, but Nicholas Orme argues that a wet-nurse was merely 'not from the lowest orders of society'.72 This seems to have been true of the women employed to suckle the royal children of fifteenth-century England. It is impossible to determine with certainty the roles of each of the women referred to as nurses, but the only noblewoman in attendance on Margaret's son, Alice Lady Lovell, asked to retire when he was 6 'because she [was] oppressed with grave infirmities in body and sight', and was consequently unlikely to have been 71

J. C. Ward, English Noblewomen m the Later Middle Ages (London, 1992), 95. S. Shahar, Childhoodin the Middle Ages (London, 1990), 61; N. Ormc, From Childhood to Chivalry: The Education of English Kings and Aristocracy, ro66—rtfo (London, 1984), 12. 72

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young enough to have been his wet-nurse.73 Edward of Westminster (the future Edward V) was nursed by a married woman, Avice Welles, who was granted a tun of Gascon wine yearly in November 1472, almost certainly marking the time at which he was weaned and her services were no longer required.74 The influence of queens on this early stage of their children's lives is evident in the choice of personnel to care for their children. Elizabeth Woodville's daughter Cecily was nursed by Isabel Stidolf, the wife of one of the queen's servants, and Elizabeth Darcy, the lady mistress of the nursery for Elizabeth Woodville's children, was appointed to the same post for Elizabeth of York's children, probably as a result of the younger queen's childhood affection for Darcy.75 At some time before 1497 Elizabeth Darcy was succeeded in this post by Elizabeth Denton, again probably an appointment made by the queen since Denton was one of her own ladies.76 Sutton and Visser-Fuchs have suggested that Anne Neville may have been involved in the choice of governess of Edward of Middleham's nursery, Anne Idley, the widow of Peter Idley, who was a government official and had translated texts of moral guidance into English for his own son.77 The queen was given extra money to support those children who were living in her household.78 Before the end of his third year her eldest son would be furnished with a household of his own and his chamber would be staffed primarily by men, although the transition from the female realms of their mothers' households was gradual.79 As noted above, Lady Lovell petitioned to resign as Edward of Lancaster's nurse when he was 6. Two months previously an annuity of 40 marks had been granted to another nurse of his, Joan Sloo, perhaps in preparation for her imminent departure.80 The official acknowledgement of Lady Lovell's resignation commented that Edward 'is now so 73

CPR 1452-61, 567.

74

N. Orme, 'The Education of Edward V, ElHRyj (1984), 119; CPR 1467-77,358; 1476-85, 259. That Avicc apparently nursed only Edward also suggests that she was a wet-nurse, her own child's birth having coincided with his. 75 CPR T4j6—%5,181, 203, 241; PRO, Eioi/4i2/2o; Campbell (ed.), Materials for a History of the Reign of Henry VII, ii. 349. Elizabeth Darcy was the wife of Sir Robert Darcy and was widowed by 1488; CPR '4^5-94, 256; '494-'5°9> 576 PRO, Eioi/4i4/8, fo. 27; N. H. Nicolas (ed.), Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth ofYork (London, 1830), 99. 77 A. F. Sutton and L. Visser-Euchs, Richard Ill's Books: Ideals and Reality in the Life and Library of a Medieval Prince (Stroud, 1997), n. 78 CPR 1467-77, no. 79 Eor the first household of Prinee Arthur, see PRO, Eioi/4i2/2o, fo. 16. 80 CPR 1452-61, 535.

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grown as to be committed to the rules and teachings of men wise and strenuous, to understand the acts and manners of a man befitting such a prince, rather than to stay further under the keeping and governance of women'.81 Despite the dismissal of his nurses, Edward of Lancaster would not have lacked regular female company even at this time because his household was closely associated with that of his mother and he travelled with her frequently. Elizabeth Woodville too maintained links with her eldest son after his household had been established, accompanying him to Ludlow for some time.82 Nonetheless, it is clear that other children were expected to spend more time with the queen. When Edward IV fled England in 1470, the rest of his family were not with him, but the queen and her daughters were all in London and went into sanctuary together at Westminster. Again in 1483 all of Elizabeth Woodville's children apart from her eldest son were apparently near enough to head into sanctuary with her. On more happy occasions Elizabeth Woodville took her eldest daughter on pilgrimage to Canterbury, and at least two of her daughters to Norwich.83 Their presence with their mother among the ladies of her household is also suggested by the inscriptions 'elysabeth the kyngys dowther' and 'cecyl the kyngys dowther' in a book belonging to Elizabeth Woodville's cousin Eleanor Haute.84 In June 1497 Elizabeth of York was travelling with Prince Henry when the threat of the Cornish rebellion led them to take refuge together in the Tower.85 Moreover, from Elizabeth of York's privy purse accounts it is evident that her daughters continued to receive much of their clothing through her household as late as 1503, and when her daughter Margaret left for Scotland, she took with her her mother's footman Thomas.86 81 82

Ibid. 566.

D. E. Lowe, 'Patronage and Politics: Edward TV, the Wydcvillcs, and the Council of the Prince of Wales, 1471—83', Bulletin of the Board of Celtic Studies, 29 (1981), 551. 83 D. MacGibbon, Elizabeth Woodmlle (1437-141)2): Her Life and Times (London, 1938), 89-90; Harrod, 'Queen Elizabeth Woodville's Visit to Norwich', 35. 84 BL, MS Royal 14 E III, fo. i. The presence of the name 'E Wydevill' has led many to assume that this book belonged to Elizabeth the queen, but the book was certainly left to Eleanor Haute by her uncle Sir Richard Roos in 1482. Even if Eleanor had then given the book to the queen, the latter would not at this time sign herself with her maiden name, so 'E Wydevill' must refer to her brother Edward. J. R. Goodman, '"That wommen holde in ful greet reverence": Mothers and Daughters Reading Chivalric Romances', in L. Smith and J. H. M. Taylor (eds.), Women, the Book and the Worldly (Cambridge, 1995), 26; A. E. Sutton and L. Visser-Euchs, 'A "Most Benevolent Queen", Queen Elizabeth Woodville's Reputation, Her Piety and Her Books', The Rtcardian, 10/129 (1995), 228—30. 83 A. E. Pollard (ed.), The Reign of Henry VIIfrom Contemporary Sources (London, 1913—14), i. 147. 86 Nicolas (ed.), Privy Purse Expenses ofElizabeth ofYork, 19, 22-3,34, 89, 93; Pollard (ed.), Henry VII, i. 233.

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The contrast between the queen's role in her eldest son's life and those of her other children is particularly evident in the proxy wedding services for Elizabeth of York's children. Princess Margaret's service took place in her mother's chamber; the presiding archbishop of Glasgow asked first the king and then the queen, as well as Margaret herself, whether they knew of any impediment to the marriage, after which he asked Margaret if the marriage was her will, to which she answered that if it was the king and queen's will it was hers also. At the end the king and queen blessed Margaret and once the men had departed the queen dined with her daughter.87 However, if the surviving account of Prince Arthur's proxy wedding in 1499 is to be accepted, no mention was made of the queen in this service at all.88 The gender of the offspring in question in these instances may also have been important since Elizabeth Woodville's role in her second son's wedding, in January 1478, fell somewhere between Elizabeth of York's two experiences. The 6-year-old bride, Anne Mowbray, was prepared for her wedding in the queen's chambers, and then escorted by the earls of Lincoln and Rivers to St Stephen's Chapel, where the 4-year-old duke of York awaited her, while his parents, his brother and sisters, and his grandmother Cecily Neville sat together beneath a canopy.89 The subsequent wedding banquet, however, occurred in the king's chambers.90 It seems likely that the queen's involvement with her children's weddings varied according to many circumstances. Parsons has argued that thirteenth-century queens actually took an active role in arranging their children's marriages, but for the fifteenth century there is no evidence of such involvement, except for those occasions when Henry VI was not in a position to be involved in negotiations and Margaret, among the many ways in which she attempted to fill those kingly roles from which her husband was absent, arranged potential marriages for their son.91 In his will of 1475 Edward IV arranged that, in the event of his own early death, his daughters should 'bee gouverned and rieuled in thair manages by oure derrest wiff the Quene' (and his son Edward if he had reached his majority), indicating that in the absence of an adult king this role would fall to the queen.92

87

Lcland, Collectanea, iv. 260—2. Pollard (ed.), Henry VII, i. 206-8. 89 W. H. Black (cd.), Illustrations of Ancient State and Chivalry from Manuscripts Preserved in the Ashmolean Museum (London, 1840), 29. 90 MacGibbon, Elizabeth Wood-uille, 125-6. 91 J. C. Parsons, 'Mothers, Daughters, Marriage, Power: Some Plantagenet Evidence, 1150—1500', in J. C. Parsons (cd.), Medieval Queenship (Stroud, 1994), 64; BL, MS Egcrton 616. 92 S. Bcntlcy, Rxcerpta Ihstonca (London, 1831), 369; no such provision was made for their sons. 88

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Raising the Heir to the Throne Margaret's influence on her son's life was far greater than would normally be expected of a queen in this period as a consequence of Henry's incapacity and her need to associate her actions with her son in order to give them greater authority. Nonetheless, her role may have set precedents which were followed by Elizabeth Woodville when it came to queenly involvement in the prince of Wales's education and with his household. Education was an area of parenting more often ascribed to fathers. Even Christine de Pizan, having advised the wise princess to watch over her children's upbringing, explained that the choice of teacher was the father's responsibility.93 However, the fourteenth-century Treatise of Walter Mikmete depicted Isabella of France as the adviser and educator of her son Edward III in a fashion which Elizabeth Danbury has suggested was intended to bring to mind similar images of Blanche of Castile and St Louis.94 Certainly members of the queens' households contributed to the teaching of both Edward of Lancaster and Edward of Westminster over a century later. Margaret of Anjou's former clerk of the signet, George Ashby, wrote an educational treatise for her son, The Active Policy of a Prince?^ John Giles, a tutor of Elizabeth Woodville's sons, had previously been a member of her household as tutor to her ward, the duke of Buckingham.96 Margaret of Anjou herself owned a French copy of Giles of Rome's De Regimine Principum within the collection of romances, histories, and treatises on chivalry, nobility, and the conduct of warfare given to her by the earl of Shrewsbury.97 The inclusion of so much didactic literature may well have been designed for Margaret to use it for her future son's education. The anthology includes Christine de Pizan's Livre des fais d'armes et de chevalerie (one of fifteen surviving manuscripts of this text and not one of the six which omit the author's name). The fact that this anthology includes Christine's preface 93 Christine de Pisan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies; or, The Book of the Three Virtues, trans. S. Lawson (Harmondsworth, 1985), 66. 94 E. Danbury, 'Images of English Queens m the Later Middle Ages', The Historian, 46 (1995), 7. 91 Ormc, From Childhood to Chivalry, 102. 96 A. R. Myers, Crown, Household and Parliament in Fifteenth Century England, ed. C. H. Clough (London, 1985), 308—9; CPR 7^67—76, 592. The fact that her sons shared a tutor suggests that Richard, duke of York, spent much of his time in Ludlow with his elder brother, although no particular provision seems to have been made for Richard in the revised ordinances for his brother's household, and Richard was certainly with his mother at the time of his father's death, whereas Edward was still in Ludlow; BL, MS Sloane 3479, fos. 53—8. 97 M. A. Bossy, Arms and the Bride: Christine de Pizan's Military Treatise as a Wedding Gift for Margaret of Anjou', in M. Desmond (ed.), Christine de Pizan and the Categories of Difference (London, 1998), 236—56; Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, Richard Ill's Rooks, 112.

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appealing to Minerva as another Italian woman for advice in writing the work certainly suggests a willingness to accept women performing such a pedagogic role. Elizabeth Woodville's known books do not include anything comparable but it was with her licence and approval, if not inspiration, that Caxton presented his translation of Jason to the prince of Wales in I477_98 Moreover, it was her brother Anthony, Lord Rivers, who was appointed to be the prince's 'governor and ruler... that he may be virtuously, cunningly and knightly brought up'.99 Rivers reputation as a knight and a humanist will be considered in the following chapter but it is worth noting in this context that it appears to have been while he was with the prince at Ludlow that he translated The Diets and Sayings of the Philosophers, which was to be the first full-scale book printed by Caxton at his Westminster press in i^jj.100 A miniature in a manuscript of the text shows Rivers presenting the book to the enthroned Edward IV with the young prince standing beside and slightly in front of his father, one hand raised in greeting to his uncle, almost as if the book was intended as much for him as for the king.101 Elizabeth Woodville herself is pictured behind her son, watching her brother make his presentation. The households and councils of both Edward of Lancaster and Edward of Westminster were dominated by men connected with their mothers. When the time came to appoint the former's officers, it was the first time since Edward Ill's reign that an infant prince of Wales had been given a household. This lack of recent precedent probably made it especially easy for Margaret to appoint members of her own household. In normal circumstances this arrangement might have been difficult but because Margaret spent so much of the later 14505 in the Midlands, where her own dower lands lay close to her son's territories, men were apparently able to work for both prince and queen. The receiver-general of the prince's rents, appointed at Coventry in September 1456, was Robert Whittingham, who was the husband of one of her ladies and by April 1458 he had also become the keeper of Margaret's great wardrobe.102 Giles St Lowe, appointed as the keeper of the prince's great wardrobe in January 1457, was a^so married to one of the queen's ladies, as well as being an usher of the queen's chamber.103 The chief steward of the prince's lands, 98

N. F. Blake, Caxton and fhs World (London, 1969), 86. It has been suggested that Caxton's Rook whiche the Knyght of the Toure Made was printed at Elizabeth's request for her daughters but this cannot be convincingly proved; Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, 'A "Most Benevolent Queen"', 242. 99 CPR1467-76, 417. 100 E. Childs, William Caxton: A Portrait in a Background (London, 1976), 30, 146. 101 Lambeth Palace, MS 265, fo. i. 102 £pf> 7452-61, 323; Myers, Crown, Household, 183. 103 CPR 1452-61, 334; Myers, Crown, Household, 183.

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appointed the same month, was John, Viscount Beaumont, who held the same position in Margaret's household.104 Beaumont was also a member of the prince's council, as were the queen's former and current chancellors, bishops William and Lawrence Booth.105 The rest of the council was composed of three further bishops, three earls, and two knights, so probably met only occasionally to discuss the business of the j-year-old prince. Margaret was directly involved with this council too. According to the regulations for the prince's household, all his officers and ministers were to be obedient to the commandments and warrants of his councillors 'or at ye least of 4 of them together w[ith] ye assent & consent of ye queene in all cases & matters concerning ye titles, rights, possessions and interests of ye sid Prince'.106 Griffiths has suggested that these conditions allowed Margaret to attempt 'to establish control over the principality [of Wales] and Cheshire, not to speak of more distant estates in the Cornish peninsula and elsewhere in England'.107 However, Margaret was never actually a member of the council herself, unlike Elizabeth Woodville. Much has been written on the extent and effects of the Woodville influence on Edward of Westminster, but the nature of his mother's role has usually been overlooked, or subsumed into the general picture of her family's activities.108 Initially her position was probably the most prominent in his household. She was the only member of his original 1471 council not already on the king's council and her name headed the list of those appointed as administrators in Wales during Edward's minority.109 It was, therefore, not only with the queen's 'assent' that the council (or four of them) made their decisions, but with her 'advise and exp[re]se consent', and this included nominating the prince's officers when posts became void.110 The interests of many of Prince Edward's council were not primarily focused on their role in this council, so ten new members were assigned prior to the prince's departure for Ludlow in 1473, among them the queen's cousin Richard Haute and her confessor, Edward 104

105 Myers, Crown, Household, 190; CPR 1452-61, 338. CPR 1452-61, 359. BL, Add. MS 14289, to. n. For references to Margaret's assent in such cases, see CPR 1452—61,515; PRO, SC6/I2I7/3, mm. 2-6. 107 Griffiths, Henry VI, 781-3. 108 M. Hicks, 'The Changing Role of the Wydevilles in Yorkist Politics to 1483', in C. D. Ross (ed.), Patronage, Pedigree and Power in T&ter Medieval England (Gloucester, 1979), 60—86; Lowe, 'Patronage and Polities', 545-73; T. Westervelt, 'The Woodvilles in the Second Reign of Edward IV, 1471-83', M.Phil, diss. (Cambridge, 1997). 109 Lowe, 'Patronage and Polities', 556; CPR 1467—72, 283. 110 BL, Add. MS 14289, fo. 12. The formula actually used in, for instance, confirming the prince's letters patent, was nonetheless the same as that used for Margaret; CPR 1476—85, 7. 106

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Story.111 Lowe has argued that of the twenty-five members of this council, only fourteen were fully active, the three principal members being the queen, Rivers, and Haute, and that of the remaining eleven, at least eight had prior connections with the Woodvilles.112 The queen was one of the three members to hold a key to the prince's treasury; she travelled with him to Ludlow and she, along with the prince's other councillors, appears to have been the 'driving force' behind efforts to restore peace in the area by punishing those responsible for disorders in the previous autumn.113 Elizabeth, 'oure Sovereigne and Liege Lady the Quene', presided over the commission to hear trials in Hereford with the infant prince until the king himself arrived.114 This official role for the queen may in part have been to compensate for the reduction in dower lands compared with her Lancastrian predecessors, but probably also belonged to the wider pattern of Edward IV's revision of the administration of royal estates.115 According to Wolffe, Edward's reforms 'appear to have been modelled on the normal methods of contemporary, large-scale, private estate management'.116 This enabled the king to be much more personally involved in their administration, with more direct access to their revenues.117 His wife's close involvement with the Welsh administration would enable him to maintain such personal influence even here. Towards the end of the decade Elizabeth Woodville's involvement in the prince's administration decreased. In 1478 she arranged pardons for a number of Welshmen who had failed to appear before the king and council when requested to do so, but her role seems to have been gradually taken over by Sir Richard Grey, the younger son of her first marriage.118 In February 1483 Grey replaced his mother as a keeper of the treasury keys.119 Her decreased involvement in Prince Edward's affairs was perhaps because the prince, born in 1471, was now considered old enough to require only male guidance. This allowed the queen to concentrate on other queenly duties, such as the management of her own estates, and probably also enabled her to focus on her youngest son's administration. She was one of the feoffees of the estates York acquired on his marriage, as were her son and brother, Dorset and Rivers, as well as her 111 113 114 115 116

112 Lowe, 'Patronage and Polities', 556-8. Ibid. 557. Ibid. 562; H. T. Evans, Wales and the Wars of the Roses (Stroud, 1995), 06-17. Lowe, 'Patronage and Polities', 562; Rot. Par/, vi. 610. A. Goodman, The New Monarchy: England 1471—rtf4 (Oxford, 1988), 3. B. P. Wolffe, 'The Management of English Royal Estates Under the Yorkist Kings', EHR 71

('95 6 )> 3117 C. D. Ross, Edward IV (London, 1974), 374-5; B. P. Wolffe, The Royal Demesne in English History: The Crown Estate in the Governance of the Realm from the Conquest to ^509 (London, 1971), 168. 118 119 CPR 1476-85,128. BL, Add. MS 14289, fo. 54.

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confessor, Edward Story, her erstwhile chancellor William Dudley, and one of her duchy of Lancaster receivers, Sir Thomas Burgh.120 Moreover, York's receiver was Elizabeth's own receiver of queen's gold, Thomas Stidolf.121 Lowe has consequently argued that she and her family dominated York's administration. With hindsight, Edward IV has been criticized for allowing his sons to be so influenced by an unpopular minority party, yet as Lowe observed, if they were really so unpopular it is highly surprising that Rivers did not anticipate Gloucester's enmity in 1483.122 For the king, his in-laws provided the most obvious choice to surround the princes and form the prince of Wales's household, for their loyalty would be beyond question, and Rivers had already proved himself an able administrator. The inclusion of men such as Story, however, suggests that the queen herself was instrumental in the composition of her sons' households and administration too. Not all queens were necessarily suited to the role Elizabeth performed in Wales. Richard III probably intended to use his son's household as a means of maintaining loyalty to his monarchy in the north of England rather than in Wales.123 However, this had not been formally organized before Edward of Middleham's death. If this northern bias reflected his queen's familiarity with the north, or provided her with the means to help in the administration of those lands which had originally belonged to her parents, it was on an unofficial and now unrecorded basis, except for the fact that on a number of occasions she appears to have been with their son in Middleham or Sheriff Hutton rather than with Richard and was consequently probably a significant influence on his household if not his council.124 Henry VII avoided establishing a household for his eldest son on quite the same lines as Edward of Westminster's, apparently seeking to avoid the risk that the political fortunes of any noble master of the household might compromise his son's position.125 Henry's own cousin Sir Richard Pole was made chamberlain but his power did not compare with that of Anthony Woodville.126 Again the household was established at Ludlow as a means of administering Wales.127 Elizabeth of York perhaps had some influence over the choice of personnel surrounding him since her brother's physician, Dr Argentine, was appointed to the same position in Arthur's 120

m 122 Lowe, 'Patronage and Polities', 566. Ibid. Ibid. 568. Ross, Richard III, 182. 124 C. L. Kingsford (cd.), Stonor Le.tte.rs and Papers, 7290—1483, Camdcn Society, 3rd ser., 30 (London, 1919), n. 160; Hammond, Edward of Middleham, 19. 121 Ormc, From Childhood to Chivalry, 23. 127 126 CPR 7485—94, 434; 1494—^09, 29. Orme, From Childhood to Chivalry, 23. 123

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household.128 Ultimately more important was Elizabeth's relationship with her son Henry, who spent much of his childhood in her company near London. He was only 10 when she died, and the extent of her influence is impossible to gauge, but as king he did favour some of those men previously in her service. He appointed some to his own queen's household, among them his mother's chaplain and almoner, Christopher Plummer, who became Katherine of Aragon's confessor.129 One of Henry VIII's gentlemen of the privy chamber was his mother's nephew the marquis of Dorset, and his ushers of the chamber included a William Bulstrode, who was probably a servant of hers mentioned in her privy purse accounts, or perhaps his son.130 Sir Francis Weston, whose prominence at Henry's court ended in allegations of adultery with Anne Boleyn, is believed to have been the son of Elizabeth's servant Richard Weston.131 Of the eight sons borne by these four queens, Henry VIII was the only one to outlive his mother, indicating the fragility of childhood. The accounts of the great grief of Elizabeth Woodville, Anne Neville and Richard III, or Elizabeth of York and Henry VII at the news of their sons' deaths suggest that neither the frequency of infant mortality nor the separation caused by their royal status weakened the emotional bonds with their children.132 The descriptions of Elizabeth Woodville's reaction to the news of the princes' deaths—falling into a faint, weeping 'with pitefull screeches' that 'replenished the hole mansion', beating her breast and tearing out her 'fayre here'—may owe much to Tudor propaganda.133 Nevertheless, there is no reason to doubt the Crowland continuator's depiction of Richard and Anne 'almost out of their minds for a long time when faced with the sudden grief, or the anonymous account of Elizabeth of York's attempts to comfort Henry on Arthur's death, only to 128

Dominic Mancini, The. Usurpation of Richard III, ed. C. A. J. Armstrong (Gloucester, 1984), 127. Plummer was arrested in 1534 for his refusal to swear the oath of supremacy, and he only relented after Katherine's death; M. St Clare Byrne (ed.), The Lisle Letters, 6 vols. (Chicago, 1981), ii. 346-9. 130 D. Starkey, 'Representation Through Intimacy: A Study in the Symbolism of Monarchy and Court Office in Early Modern England', m I. Lewis (ed.), Symbols and Sentiments: Cross Cultural Studies in Symbolism (London, 1977), 199. Nicolas (ed.), Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, 181. The names of Henry's fools in 1529-30 include Patch and Williams—more probably named after her fools than those actually mentioned in her accounts almost thirty years earlier; N. H. Nicolas (ed.), The Privy Purse Expenses of Henry the Eighth from November 1^29 to December 1^2 (London, 1827), 86, 319. 131 Nicolas (ed.), Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, 230. 132 L. C. Attreed, 'From Pearl Maiden to Tower Princes: Towards a New History of Medieval Childhood', Journal of Medieval History, 9 (1983), 43^58; N. Pronay and J. Cox (eds.), The Cropland Chronicle Continuations: 14^—1486 (London, 1986), 170; A. Crawford (ed.), Letters of the Queens of England 1100-1547 (Stroud, 1994), 156. 133 Edward Hall, Chronicle, ed. H. Ellis (London, 1809), 379. 129

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collapse with grief on reaching her own chamber.134 Such emotion is a reflection of the fact that these royal parents were very much involved with their children's lives. Queens may not have had a role in the diplomacy of their children's weddings, but they did undertake the nurturing of motherhood, even for their eldest sons. Their involvement in their children's political roles was dependent upon various circumstances, but could involve a substantial influence on the administration of the prince of Wales, which was apparently acceptable, even natural, because it was within frameworks of power established by the king and in cooperation with the king's servants. When the king was absent, insane, dead, or simply politically inept, queens could find themselves forced into taking on more publicly political roles, outside the accepted sphere of queenship.

MOTHERHOOD

AND POLITICS

When the king was not in a position to exert his authority, the queen usually became a figurehead for those most loyal to her husband. Yet, because she had not sworn an oath like the king at her coronation, her role was ambiguous. Since her position was technically dependent upon a man who was unable to exert authority, a queen might identify her status in terms of her relationship to the heir to the throne. This could involve the queen in a conflict of interests between her son and the king, to whom she normally owed her position. The final part of this chapter consequently addresses the tensions and opportunities in queenly motherhood at times of political crisis. It deals firstly with the phenomenon of regency: a position commonly held by queens in France but not in England. It then suggests the probable course and motivation of Margaret's political involvement from 1453, concluding with a revision of existing interpretations of Elizabeth Woodville's political role in 1471 and in her widowhood. Regency When Edward IV invaded France in 1475, he summoned his 3-year-old heir to London to stand in for him as head of state, with the title 'Keeper of the 134

'Vidisses tantisper patrem et matrem us novis apud Nottmghamiam ubi tune residebant auditis prac subitis doloribus pcnc insanirc'; Pronay and Cox (eds.), Cropland Chronicle Continuations, 170—1; Crawford (cd.), Letters of the Queens, 156.

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Realm'.135 The prince was to be in his mother's charge, and both were to live in the king's household, for the management of which Elizabeth was granted £4,400 a year.136 The queen and prince were essentially figureheads, and the business of the realm was to be conducted by a 'great council in England', which included John Alcock, the president of the prince's council, and the prince's chamberlain, Thomas Vaughan—men used to working with the queen. It is not improbable that the councillors discussed various matters informally with the queen, but her official position in no way approached the sovereign authority invested in regents. Looking back at such powerful French regents as Katherme de' Medici and Anne of Austria or, much earlier, Blanche of Castile, it may seem at first surprising that queens did not occupy a similar role in England. However, as Andre Poulet's exploration of the evolution of the Vocation' of queen regent makes clear, it was largely as a result of particular personalities that such a practice developed in France.137 Although in the mid-eleventh century Anne of Kiev had briefly shared some authority with her son Philip I while Count Baldwin of Flanders actually governed France, and in the late twelfth century Philip II appointed his mother, Adela of Champagne, as regent during his absence on crusade, it was not until Louis VIII's death in 1226 that a young king's mother, in this case Blanche of Castile, became regent. This was a vital precedent but still not always adopted by her successors until the close of the fifteenth century.138 The fact that Blanche's son Louis IX later preferred to leave her as regent during his absence on crusade rather than his wife suggests that both Blanche's husband and son recognized her considerable leadership abilities, but that not all queens were fitted for such a role. After his first bout of insanity in 1392 Charles VI arranged that on any future such occasion his wife, Isabeau, should be the principal guardian of the dauphin, but that she should share the regency with a council. Although she was recognized as the leader of the regency council in 1403, her subsequent involvement in factional disputes led to her imprisonment and later the humiliation of the Treaty of Troyes of 1420, so France's experience of a

135

136 Scoficld, Edward the Fourth, ii. 125. BL, MS Cotton Vespasian C XIV, fo. 244. A. Poulet, 'Capetian Women and the Regency: The Genesis of a Vocation', m Parsons (ed.), Medieval Queenship, 93—116. 138 Her great-grandson Philip IV ordered in 1294 that his wife, Joan of Navarre, should be governor of the realm m the event of his own death before their son was of age, and the first of the Valois kings, Philip VI, made his wife regent during his absence in 1338. However, in 1374 Charles V decreed that his wife's guardianship of their ehildren and governing of the realm should be shared with his brother and hers. Tbid. 110—14. 137

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queen regent in the fifteenth century did not provide a positive model.139 Scotland, like England, resisted queens regent in the fifteenth century. James I's queen, Joan Beaufort, was especially active in the politics of the 14305 and, having narrowly escaped sharing her husband's fate when he was assassinated in 1437, sne gained custody of her son and was able to revenge herself on the regicides. Nonetheless, within months the earl of Douglas had been declared lieutenant-general of the realm by the estates and her attempt to recover political independence after his death led to her imprisonment and the loss of custody over her son.140 Mary of Guelders in contrast managed her son's administration with considerable success after James II's death at the siege of Roxburgh in 1460, but there is no record that she was ever officially given the title of regent.141 Her lack of title was perhaps largely because of the lack of such a tradition since Joan Beaufort, only the second Scottish queen to outlive her husband into a minority, had fared so ill. In England the circumstances around particular minorities developed into a tradition in which no one person was given sovereign power during the king's childhood, certainly not the queen. By the time King John died in 1216, relations with his wife, Isabel, had already broken down, so he was scarcely likely to have appointed her as regent. Moreover, England was in a severe political crisis so the king's barons, who had previously been opposing John as a tyrant but could hardly take the same stance with his infant son, came to an agreement in which William Marshall, earl of Pembroke, was established as 'rector regis et regm', but he was not sole regent. Rather, he, the bishop of Winchester, and the papal legate formed the core of a council who ruled.142 This formed the precedent for all future minorities, with the exception of Edward Ill's, but since this latter was precipitated by the queen's decision to depose her husband it was scarcely a helpful model for the future.143 In the fifteenth century Henry V apparently attempted to leave his kingdom to regents on the French model. He could not risk leaving the realm in the custody of his French queen, no matter how politically able she might have 139

R. Gibbons, 'Isabcau of Bavaria, Queen of France (1385-1422): The Creation of an Historical Villainess', TRHS, 6th sen, 6 (1996), 51-73. 140 M. Brown, James /(London, 1994), 153, 194—9. 141 N. MacDougall, James III: A Political Study (Edinburgh, 1982), 51—62; F. Downie, '"Sche is but a womman": The Queen and Princess in Scotland, 1424—63', Ph.D. thesis (Aberdeen, 1991), 8. 142 F. M. Powicke, The Thirteenth Century, 1216—1307, 2nd edn. (Oxford, 1962), 1-3. 143 Although a council was established to guide the young Edward TTT, real power lay with the queen and her lover, who had seized the reigns of government as soon as they had overthrown Edward II; W. M. Ormrod, The Reign of Edward III: Crown and Political Society in England ^27—7777 (London, I

99°). 3~7-

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been, because his English nobles would not have accepted a regent whom they could not trust to put English interests first. In any case, Katherine of Valois's notable absence from the political scene after her husband's death suggests that she was quite happy for her brothers-in-law to govern her son's kingdom, especially since she barely knew England and probably did not relish opposing her brother's claims in France. Henry V's deathbed arrangements, however, were severely revised: although his brother John, duke of Bedford, was accepted as regent for France, his younger brother, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, was not permitted the same authority in England, where the concept of regency was by now viewed with deep suspicion. Instead a protectorate was inaugurated in which Gloucester's authority was rigidly subject to a wider council.144 Nonetheless, this is not evidence of a coherent ideology of monarchy in which queens were excluded from exercising their husband's authority in the king's absence. As in France and Scotland, the process was dependent upon personalities and particular circumstances. Under Henry I, Stephen, and Henry II when the king was abroad the queen acted as regent on some occasions, but on others it was the justiciar or the king's eldest son.145 Eleanor of Aquitame exercised similar authority during her son Richard's reign, but neither of her daughters-in-law received such authority.146 Howell has recently challenged the assumption that Eleanor of Provence shared the regency with her brother-in-law Richard of Cornwall during Henry Ill's absence in 1253—4, arguing that the queen was the principal authority, appointed 'to keep and govern the realm of England and the lands of Wales and Ireland, with the counsel of Richard earl of Cornwall'.147 Moreover, in the will drawn up prior to his departure, Henry III dictated that in the event of his death Eleanor was to be entrusted not only with 'the custody of the heir to the throne and their other children but of all the king's territories in Wales, Ireland and Gascony as well as the realm of England, until Edward came of age'.148 'Custody', however, is not the same as governance. A short regency during the king's absence abroad, accountable to the king on his return, was a different matter from regency during a minority. The former was also more ideologically acceptable in that, while the king still lived, the queen was, as argued in the previous 144

Griffiths, Henry VI, 11-21. H. G. Richardson and G. O. Saylcs, The Government of Mediaeval England from the Conquest to Magna Carta (Edinburgh, 1963), 152-3. 146 Ibid. 153; Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, 72. 147 'r"_ Rymer (ed.), Foedera, Conventiones, Letterae et Ada Pubhca, ed. A. Clark and F. Holbrooke (1816), i. 291, quoted in Howell, Eleanor of Provence, 112. 148 Howell, Eleanor of Provence, in (HowclPs words). 145

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chapter, a part of his public body, expected to complement his kingship and to perform those functions which he could not. On the death of her king the framework in which a queen acted needed to be reconstructed on different terms. Most kings after Henry III did not appoint their wives to such positions. Edward IV's decision to grant custody of the prince but not the realm to his queen in 1475 was perhaps a combination of the lack of recent precedents, the shadow of Margaret's attempts to exercise authority in Henry VI's incapacity, and Edward's assessment of the personalities involved. This did not stop Henry VIII appointing Kathenne of Aragon as governor of the realm and captain general of the king's forces in England during his absence in France in 1513.149 His trust was vindicated by her forces' triumph at Flodden, although the physical and mental demands of this exercise of her duty may have conflicted with her role as mother, for the son she bore the same month was either stillborn or died immediately after his birth.150 Consequently, when Henry VI suffered a mental collapse in 1453, there was no obvious precedent for arranging the government of the kingdom. Naturally he had not himself appointed a keeper of the realm, and there was no way of knowing for how long he would be ill. Margaret, who was heavily pregnant at the time and therefore physically restricted from becoming too actively involved in events, at first stood aside from the political struggle which immediately followed Henry's collapse. On 13 October Margaret's son was born. He was baptized at Westminster Abbey, where the chancellor, Cardinal Kemp, Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset, and Anne, duchess of Buckingham, stood as godparents.151 It was at some time shortly after this that Margaret presented a bill to parliament effectively claiming the regency of the kingdom for herself. The only surviving evidence for this is an anti-Beaufort newsletter by an author who admits to ignorance of the fifth article of the bill, so his accuracy on the other articles may be slightly suspect.152 The author, John Stodeley, reported that the Queene hathe made a bille of five articles, desiryng those articles to be graunted; whereof the first is that she desireth to have the hole reule of this land; the second is that she may make the Chaunccllcr, the Trcsorcrc, the Priuc Sccllc, and allc other officers of this land, with shircvcs and all other officers that the Kyng shuld make; the third is, that she may ycvc allc the bisshoprichcs of this land, and allc other benefices 149 150 151 152

J. J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (London, 1968), 37-8. A. F. Pollard, Henry VIII(London, 1905), 141. Griffiths, Henry VI, 719. J. Gairdner (ed.), The Paston Letters 1422—i^oy, 4 vols. (Edinburgh, 1910), i. 265.

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longyng to the Kyngcs yift; the iiijth is that she may have suffisant lyvclodc assigned hir for the Kyng and the Prince and hir self.153 Stodeley painted a vivid picture of the political turmoil at the time; many lords descending upon the capital with large retinues and Somerset's spies 'goyng in every Lordes hous of this land'.154 Rather than interpreting Margaret's bill as evidence of her ambition for power, it could more fairly be seen as an attempt to provide an alternative to civil war. She was probably aware that Gloucester had been refused the office of regent, but this was when the king was a minor. For her, French royal practice would have seemed an obvious precedent. Perhaps equally important to her perceptions of regency was her knowledge of the experiences of her own mother, who had ruled Anjou during her father's long imprisonment, or of her grandmother, Yolande of Aragon, who had managed Louis II of Anjou's affairs in France while he tried to conquer Naples.lss As the king's wife and the mother of the heir to the throne Margaret should have been able to offer a neutral and legitimate leadership. Her fears over York's claim to the throne and perhaps her concern for Somerset (who, in November 1453, had been accused of treason by the duke of Norfolk and then imprisoned in the Tower) were additional motives, particularly the former since she had now acquired a new duty as queen: the protection of her offspring's right to the throne. It is likely that without the birth of a son on whose behalf she might claim to be ruling, Margaret would not have dared ask for this position. The lack of exact precedent in English politics might not have counted against Margaret in other circumstances, but tensions and ambitions were running high. It is possible that York and Norfolk considered Margaret had been too closely associated with the Beauforts for their comfort, although Maurer has argued that until 1454 the queen had been careful in her actions to make it clear to York that she was not his enemy and indeed to treat Somerset and York as equally as possible.156 Whether York did perceive Margaret as a threat or still a politically neutral figure at this point, he was not prepared to risk losing the ground he had made since Henry's collapse. When Chancellor Kemp's sudden death on 22 March 1454 meant the debating could no longer continue, York was obviously the more experienced political player and he managed to persuade the lords who had tried to avoid a decision for so long to accept him as protector.157 In spite of York's triumph, the birth of 153 155

Ibid.

154

Ibid. 267.

J. Haswell, The Ardent Queen: Margaret oj Anjou and the l