minervacasterly:Historians weigh in on Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville’s marriage:“Although the ma

minervacasterly:Historians weigh in on Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville’s marriage:“Although the marriage is cloaked in so many uncertainties, the ceremony was sufficiently covert that Richard III’s first Parliament, when the time came, would be able to denounce it as an “ungracious pretended marriage” by which “the order of all politic rule was perverted,” a marriage that had taken place privately “and secretly, without Edition of Banns, in a private Chamber, a profane place.” … Elizabeth’s mother, Jacquetta, would be blamed for her part in making this marriage, but there were two mothers in this story and however much Jacquetta might have wanted the match, Cecily was equally set against it … But Elizabeth’s widowhood was another problem. There was at the very least a strong sentiment … that the King’s bride should be a virgin, not a widow, the more so if she was to provide the children who would inherit the throne … The King’s heart, however, was set. Edward answered his mother, More says, that “he knew himself out of her rule.” Playing to Cecily’s well-known religiosity, he added that surely, “marriage being a spiritual thing,” it should follow the guidance of God who had inclined these two parties “to love together” rather than made for temporal advantage … As for Warwick and his French schemes, Edward added, surely his cousin should not be so unreasonable as “to look that I should in choice of wife rather be ruled by his eye than by my own, as though I were a ward that were bound to marry by the appointment of a guardian.” … Edward admitted as much to his council in September 1464… Elizabeth was presented to the court on 30 September…“ (Sarah Gristwood, Blood Sisters)"All we know from sources immediate to the events that within a week of Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville becoming public knowledge, diplomatic channels were buzzing with the news that Edward had "determined to take the daughter of my Lord Rivers, a widow with two children having long loved her, it appears.” The idea that the new king had married for love, rather than for hardheaded political gain, must have made a certain amount of sense to the bewildered ambassadors who gossiped together in the courts of Europe … As an English subject Elizabeth brought with her no obvious diplomatic gain and no useful foreign alliance … Warwick, like most of the rest of the English peerage, was also taken by surprise. He had fair cause to “grumble a bit,” as it was reported by one chronicler, over his young protege’s eccentric, apparently lovestruck choice of wife. Puzzled overservers wrote that the marriage caused “great displeasure to many great lords” and “greatly offended the people of England” …It would be foolish to disregard love … but it is also possible to detect a line of political thinking that may well have allowed Edward to convince himself that his love match was also a tool of useful public policy … Still, the wedding was made in secrecy … thus the shock and surprise on Michaelmas Day when Elizabeth Woodville was presented to the English court at Reading, processing into the public presence on the arms of the fourteen year old George Duke of Clarence, the King’s heir and a somewhat disgruntled Richard Neville, earl of Warwick.“ (Dan Jones, Wars of the Roses: The Fall of the Plantagenets and the Rise of the Tudors)"According to Antonio Cornazzano, an Italian writing no later than 1468, Elizabeth refused to become Edward’s mistress and was ultimately rewarded for her virtue by becoming his queen … Those chroniclers that give a date for Edward and Elizabeth’s marriage each specify the same one: 1 May. This date is compatible with the known movements of Edward, who was at Stony Stratford the night of 30 April 1464 could have made an excursion to and from Grafton that morning … Whoever performed the ceremony kept it quiet until September 1464, when Edward IV himself announced the marriage to his council at Reading. There is no doubt that the reaction was one of pure shock. Engilsh kings had traditionally chosen high-born, foreign virgins for their queens: Elizabeth was an English commoner and a widow with two children … According to Gregory’s Chronicle, the king announced his marriage only when his council urged him to find a foreign bride. We can only speculate on Edward’s reasons for keeping the marriage secret, although if the couple married after August instead of in May, the delay of weeks rather than of months in announcing is les problematic. It has been suggested, in light of later allegations of a prior marriage that Edward entered the marriage with the thought of disavowing it once he had accomplished the feat of bedding Elizabeth both other than a hint in Fabyan the chroniclers do not suggest this. Moreover, Edward’s subsequent generosity to Elizabeth’s family was hardly what one would expect of a man who felt that he had been trapped into acknowledging his marriage … J.R.Lander has pointed out, though, many of the English accounts were written after Edward’s relationship with his nobles has soured, when it was natural to look for an explanation of the breakdown and find it in Edward’s unconventional marriage. Also to be considered, as Anne Crawford observes, is that while the nobility may have been displeased at the marriage, the average man of the shire may not have minded an English queen, particularly after Henry VI’s marriage to Margaret of Anjou had had such disastrous results.” (Susan Higginbotham, The Woodvilles: The Wars of the Roses and England’s Most Infamous Family) -- source link

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