By marrying Elizabeth Woodville, King Edward made both the nobility and his family somewhat ill!
By secretly marrying Elizabeth in the merry,merry month of May!
King Edward knew that very soon would come the stormy confrontation day!
By September 1464, King Edward realised that he could keep his marriage a secret no longer. Richard Neville (Dickie) earl of Warwick had been working assiduously to reach an alliance with France through a marriage with Edward. On the 14th of the month at a meeting of the most powerful nobles in England, Edward announced that he had married that spring. This was a shock in itself, after all, Warwick had worn himself out trying to finalise a marriage between Edward and a member of the French royal family. But worse was to come!
Their lordships recoiled in a manner like men unable to breathe!
But what the king said next made each man Jack of them seethe!
The king then announced the name of his bride.
‘The name of my bride!’
And I say her name with a great deal of pride!’
Is Elizabeth Woodville
With great love and wisdom, my life she will fill!’
We do not know how King Edward behaved when he informed the peers of the realm of his dastardly deed. However we can imagine how the assembled lords reacted.
‘But Dickie Neville, Earl Warwick has been working his hind quarters off for a French alliance through marriage!’
‘Yes, poor Dickie!’
‘Then this bounder announces that he is already married!’.
‘Yes, and Lizzie Woodville is a commoner!’
‘A commoner and a Lancastrian at that!’
‘A lacky of Margeret of Anjou’s, a lady in waiting to her!’
Their lordships were totally stunned! Some shocked into silence, others, greatly traumatised began to exclaim utter gibberish!
The offending commoner, Elizabeth Woodville.
But that was not all! The king’s mother, Cecily Neville was particularly irate!
Mum’s the word!
Elizabeth Woodville is a low born bird!
Tis a terrible insult to the House of York!
My son the king speaks with a tongue fashioned as a fork!
Cecily Neville, the king’s mother.
What Edward had shown was that he was very much his own man. Warwick was extremely angry at having not being consulted. The king’s action had dispelled any suggestion that he was strongly under Warwick’s influence.
Much to Warwick’s displeasure, King Edward enthusiastically advanced the status of the Woodville family. This was done to a large degree by the arranged marriages of Queen Elizabeth’s sisters to ranking members of the aristocrcy.
On Friday May 24th 1465 Elizabeth Woodville was crowned Queen of England at Westminster Abbey.
Elizabeth Woodville in her coronation robes.
Warwick had still been in contact with King Louis of France with a view to securing an alliance between the two countries. However, as time passed, this appears to have become a lost cause. By the beginning of 1466, Warwick must have become a rather disillusioned man. Nevertheless, through his various high offices he remained a most powerful figure in England.
So divisions abound within the Yorkist camp. Warwick versus the Woodvilles. But what of the Lancastrians? How were Henry VI and his queen Margaret faring?