Author Topic: Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England  (Read 35346 times)

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Offline Kimberly

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Re: Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England
« Reply #45 on: September 25, 2007, 03:43:59 AM »
Jaquetta (Elizabeth's mother) was accused of using sorcery to procure Edward's marriage with her daughter. The accuser was one Thomas Wake (a supporter of the Neviles). Wake produced a lead figure of a man at arms broken at the waist and bound by a piece of wire and claimed that Jacquetta had made this figure along with two other mannequins supposedly representing the King and Queen.the case was dismissed when this evidence was not produced.
The matter resurfaced when Richard III became King only this time Elizabeth herself was implicated. Indeed,the Titulus Regis declared that the "ungracious and pretend marriage was made by sorcery and witchcraft committed by the said Elizabeth and her mother, Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford".
Witchcraft gave an explanation to the inexplicable in those times and to those unsophisticated minds and also was a means to bring down opponents. remember Eleanor Cobham.
I understand that even casting a highly born personage's horoscope could be seen as treasonous  in those days.
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FaithWhiteRose

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Re: Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England
« Reply #46 on: September 25, 2007, 03:18:09 PM »
It is quite unfair that in those days if a low-born woman was attractive and eventually became the Queen of a King, those who opposed her excused it as 'witchcraft'.

Offline Kimberly

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Re: Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England
« Reply #47 on: September 25, 2007, 04:16:35 PM »
Well, Joan of Navarre (Henry IV's second wife) wasn't low born and was accused of witchcraft.
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boleynfan

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Re: Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England
« Reply #48 on: November 02, 2007, 06:46:08 PM »
The second book I read that got me hooked on the Queens of England was "The White Rose" by Jan Westcott.  Historical fiction, to be sure, but a great story of Elizabeth Woodville nonetheless.

She was a fascinating character.  Like Anne Boleyn, a worthy companion to a King, and much maligned for being intelligent and strong.

(The first book was "The Tower and the Dream", also by Westcott, about Bess Hardwick.)

Offline Kimberly

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Re: Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England
« Reply #49 on: November 03, 2007, 01:10:11 AM »
Hello Boleynfan and welcome to the forum.
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Mari

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Re: Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England
« Reply #50 on: November 03, 2007, 01:34:28 AM »
Quote
The second book I read that got me hooked on the Queens of England was "The White Rose" by Jan Westcott.  Historical fiction, to be sure, but a great story of Elizabeth Woodville nonetheless.

I used to devour these when I discovered them in the 10th grade. I had tried to remember the Name of that Book! Thank you for the title "The White Rose" I don't think I read the Bess of  Hardwick but I loved "The Border Lord" and "That Walsingham Woman "about Francis Walsingham. Our Library only had four as I remember....

Mikestone

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Re: Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England
« Reply #51 on: February 02, 2008, 02:15:21 AM »
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quote - "Given the amount of children they had, it is strange that Edward and Elizabeth did not have many great-grandchildren."



Was it really all that strange? It seems to me that this happened to quite a few dynasties.

Henry IV had a sturdy brood of four sons and two daughters, but by 1448 was down to a single legitimate grandchild, Henry VI. Henry VII and Elizabeth of York had two sons and two daughters who survived infancy, but by 1580 they were down to

one surviving grandchild - Elizabeth I
two great grandchildren - Mary Queen of Scots and Margaret Clifford, Countess of Derby,
four great-great grandchildren - James VI of Scotland, his cousin Arbella Stuart, and Margaret Clifford's two sons, Ferdinando and William Stanley.

Even of these, Elizabeth and Arbella were to die childless.

The same applied elsewhere. For most of the 15th Century, the House of Austria had only three or four male members, and between 1496 and 1500 Emperor Maximilian I and his son Archduke Philip were the only male Habsburgs alive. The birth of Charles V (1500) and Ferdinand I (1503) was partly offset by the death of Philip (1506) and Maximilian's death in 1519 put the family back to just two male members until Charles and Ferdinand had their first sons in 1527.

Dynasties are in a perpetual race between reproduction and mortality, and in those days mortality often won.

Mikestone

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Re: Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England
« Reply #52 on: February 02, 2008, 03:45:28 AM »
Whoops! I goofed.

Henry VII and EoY had two other gt-gt-grandchildren living in 1580 - Edward and Thomas Seymour, sons of Catherine Gray, grandsons of Frances Brandon and great-grandsons of H7's daughter Mary Tudor.

However, they follow much the same pattern, with only Edward having children.

boleynfan

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Re: Elizabeth Woodville, Queen of England
« Reply #53 on: February 06, 2008, 04:39:04 PM »
Quote
The second book I read that got me hooked on the Queens of England was "The White Rose" by Jan Westcott.  Historical fiction, to be sure, but a great story of Elizabeth Woodville nonetheless.

I used to devour these when I discovered them in the 10th grade. I had tried to remember the Name of that Book! Thank you for the title "The White Rose" I don't think I read the Bess of  Hardwick but I loved "The Border Lord" and "That Walsingham Woman "about Francis Walsingham. Our Library only had four as I remember....

Thanks for mentioning "That Walsingham Woman".  I never read that one...but I will now!  Loved all the Westcott novels....