latristereina:get to know me meme: favorite partnerships/relationships in history 2/?Edward IV of En
latristereina:get to know me meme: favorite partnerships/relationships in history 2/?Edward IV of England & Elizabeth WoodvilleOnce Edward IV himself made the marriage public, he treated his new bride in duly royal fashion, presenting her formally before his council at Michaelmas in 1464 and giving her a grand coronation the following May. Though little is known about the private relations of the couple, Elizabeth bore the king’s children regularly, a mark of his continuing interest in her even after she had produced the needed ‘heir and a spare’, and played an influential role in the bringing-up of their eldest son, Edward, a mark of the king’s trust in her.Susan HigginbothamKing Edward had loved Elizabeth as his consort in the early years of their marriage, but after 1471 also treated her increasingly as his partner in government. She became the effective head of her son Edward’s council when he was created Prince of Wales in June 1471 (the subcommittee managing his day-to-day affairs was charged to act ‘with the advice and express consent of the Queen’), a task she fulfilled until the child was given his own household at Ludlow in the Welsh Marches twenty months later. Even then she accompanied him to his new home (where he was to be surpervised primarily by her brother Anthony), and became on of the three people entrusted with a key to his coffers. It is also significant that when the king embarked on his abortive invasion of France in 1475 he named her the principal executor of his will if he failed to return. She was to take the leading role in arranging their daughter’s marriages, and was given wide-ranging powers to dispose of his goods.David Baldwin -- source link
#history#edward iv#elizabeth woodville