Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World

648 Pages·2013·5.8 MB·English

by  Alison Weir

Copyright © 2013 by Alison Weir
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing
Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, LLC, New York.
BALLANTINE and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Random House.
Published in hardcover in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape, a division of Random House Group
Limited, London as Elizabeth of York: The First Tudor Queen.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Weir, Alison.
Elizabeth of York : a Tudor queen and her world / Alison Weir.—First U.S. edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-345-52136-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)—
ISBN 978-0-345-52138-5 (ebook)
1. Elizabeth, Queen, consort of Henry VII, King of England, 1465–1503. 2. Queens—Great Britain
—Biography. 3. Henry VII, King of England, 1457–1509. 4. Great Britain—History—Henry VII,
1485–1509. I. Title.
DA330.8.E44W45 2013
942.05′5092—dc23 2013034712
[B]
Title-page image: © iStockphoto.com
www.ballantinebooks.com
Jacket design: Victoria Allen
Jacket painting: © The Print Collector/Corbis Web asset: Excerpted from Elizabeth of York by
Alison Weir, copyright © 2013 by Alison Weir. Published by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The
Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
v3.1
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
ILLUSTRATIONS
GENEALOGICAL TABLE
Epigraph
INTRODUCTION
PROLOGUE: “NOW TAKE HEED WHAT LOVE MAY DO”
1. “The Most Illustrious Maid of York”
2. “Madame la Dauphine”
3. “This Act of Usurpation”
4. “The Whole Design of This Plot”
5. “Her Only Joy and Maker”
6. “Purposing a Conquest”
7. “Our Bridal Torch”
8. “In Blest Wedlock”
9. “Offspring of the Race of Kings”
10. “Damnable Conspiracies”
11. “Bright Elizabeth”
12. “Elysabeth Ye Quene”
13. “Unbounded Love”
14. “Doubtful Drops of Royal Blood”
15. “The Spanish Infanta”
16. “Enduring Evil Things”
17. “The Hand of God”
18. “Here Lieth the Fresh Flower of Plantagenet”
19. “As Long as the World Shall Endure”
Illustration Insert
APPENDIX 1: PORTRAITURE
APPENDIX II: ELIZABETH OF YORK’S LADIES AND GENTLEWOMEN
Dedication
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
NOTES AND REFERENCES
Other Books by This Author
About the Author
ILLUSTRATIONS
1 Elizabeth of York, artist unknown, 1490s. (Royal Collection Trust/©
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2013) 2 Edward IV and Elizabeth
Wydeville with their children, stained-glass figures from the Royal
Window in the northwest transept of Canterbury Cathedral, ca.
1480. With kind permission of Dean and Chapter Canterbury.
3 Edward IV, Elizabeth’s father, British School, ca.1470–1500. (Royal
Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2013) 4
Elizabeth Wydeville, Elizabeth’s mother, British School, ca.1550–
1699. (Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
2013) 5 Elizabeth and her sisters, Mary, Cecily, and Anne, English
School, ca. 1480–2. (Little Malvern, Worcestershire, UK/The
Bridgeman Art Library) 6 Cheyneygates, the former house of the
Abbot of Westminster. (© Dean and Chapter of Westminster)
7 Tomb effigy of Thomas, Lord Stanley, later Earl of Derby, in the
Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Ormskirk. (© Rex Harris) 8 Richard
III, artist unknown, early sixteenth century. (Society of Antiquaries
of London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library) 9 Fotheringhay Church.
(© Dave Porter Peterborough UK/Getty Images)
10 Sheriff Hutton Castle. (© Jonathan Parkes)
11 Henry VII as a young man, drawing from the mid-sixteenth century.
(From Recueil d’Arras, Jacques Le Boucq/Bibliothèque Municipale,
Arras, France/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library) 12 Margaret
Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, artist unknown, second half of the
sixteenth century. (© National Portrait Gallery, London) 13 The
Wedding of Henry and Elizabeth by J. R. Brown, ca. 1901. (By kind
permission of Blackpool Council) 14 The Deanery, Winchester
Cathedral. (© Dr. John Crook)
15 The birth of a prince, from the Beauchamp Pageant, ca. 1483–7. (By
permission of the British Library/Cotton Julius E. IV, art. 6, f.22v)
16 The coronation of a queen, from the Beauchamp Pageant, ca.
1483–7. (By permission of the British Library/Cotton Julius E. IV,
art. 6, f.2v) 17 Bermondsey Abbey. (By permission of the British
Library/The History of London by Walter Besant, London: Longmans
Green & Co, 1893) 18 “Perspective view of the old Palace of
Westminster in the reign of Henry VIII,” pen and ink drawing,
Henry William Brewer, 1884. (© Palace of Westminster) 19 Portrait
of Perkin Warbeck. (Bibliothèque Municipale, Arras, France/The
Bridgeman Art Library)
20 The great hall at Eltham Palace. (Eltham Palace, Greenwich,
London, UK/© English Heritage Photo Library/The Bridgeman Art
Library) 21 Autograph inscriptions and signatures of Henry VII and
Elizabeth of York in a Latin missal of 1498. (Private Collection/The
Bridgeman Art Library) 22 Elizabeth’s signature in The Hours of
Elizabeth the Queen. (By permission of the British Library/Add.
50001, f.22) 23 The Sudbury Hutch. (Courtesy of St. James Church,
Louth)
24 Baynard’s Castle. (Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library)
25 A modern reconstruction of Fotheringhay Castle. (From a painting
by Andrew Spratt)
26 The Paradise Bed. (Courtesy of the Langley Collection)
27 Engraving of Lathom House as it existed before the siege of 1630, by
E. Finden, from a drawing by G. Pickering. (By permission of the
British Library/Traditions of Lancashire by John Roby) 28 Margaret
Tudor praying. (ONB Vienna: Cod 1897, fol. 243v)
29 The tomb of Elizabeth’s second daughter, Elizabeth. (© Dean and
Chapter of Westminster)
30 Henry VIII in infancy. (Courtesy of Fonds Bibliothèque Méjanes,
Aixen-Provence)
31 Terra-cotta bust of a laughing child, possibly the future Henry VIII,
by Guido Mazzoni, ca. 1498. (Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth II 2013) 32 Elizabeth of York, artist unknown, ca.
1502. (Courtesy of Sotheby’s Picture Library) 33 Henry VII, bust by
Pietro Torrigiano, ca.1509–11. (Victoria & Albert Museum, London,
UK/The Bridgeman Art Library) 34 Stained-glass window depicting
Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, ca.1537–40. (Church of St.̣
Nicholas, Stanford-on-Avon, Northamptonshire, UK/The Bridgeman
Art Library) 35 Detail from Henry VII, Elizabeth of York, Henry VIII,
and Jane Seymour by Remigius van Leemput, 1667. (The Royal
Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II/The Bridgeman
Art Library) 36 Richmond Palace from Across the Thames by Anthony
van Wyngaerde, 1555. (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford,
UK/The Bridgeman Art Library) 37 Arthur, Prince of Wales, artist
unknown, ca. 1520. (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth II/The Bridgeman Art Library) 38 Katherine of
Aragon, portrait by Miguel Sittow, ca.1505. (© akg-images/Erich
Lessing/Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna) 39 The family of Henry
VII with St. George and the dragon, Flemish School, ca.1503–9. (The
Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II/The
Bridgeman Art Library) 40 Elizabeth and her four daughters, artist
unknown, nineteenth-century copy of a lost Tudor painting.
(Courtesy of the collection of the Duke of Northumberland) 41
Henry and Elizabeth and their children in “The Ordinances of the
Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception,” 1503. (Courtesy of
the Governing Body of Christ Church, Oxford) 42 Henry and
Elizabeth and their children from an early-sixteenth-century
genealogy of the kings of England. (By permission of the British
Library/Kings MS. 395 ff.32v-33) 43 Reconstruction of Hampton
Court as it was when Elizabeth of York visited. (© Historic Royal
Palaces)
44 Raglan Castle, Wales. (De Agostini Picture Library/G. Wright/The
Bridgeman Art Library)
45 The Minoresses Covent, Aldgate, after the fire of 1797. (City of
London, London Metropolitan Archives) 46 The Queen’s Lodgings,
Tower of London, detail from a survey by W. Haiward and J.
Gascoyne. (Private Collection/The Stapleton Collection/The
Bridgeman Art Library) 47 Henry VIII mourning his mother, detail
from The Vaux Passional, Peniarth MS. 482D. (By permission of The
National Library of Wales) 48 Wooden funeral effigy of Elizabeth of
York. (© Dean and Chapter of Westminster)
49 The funeral of Elizabeth of York. (By permission of the British
Library/Additional MS. 45131 f.42)
50 The Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey. (© akg-
images/Monheim)
51 The coffins of James I, Elizabeth of York, and Henry VII, as seen in
1869, by Sir George Scharf. (© Dean and Chapter of Westminster)
52 Tomb effigies of Elizabeth of York and Henry VII, 1512–19. (©
The Granger Collection/Topfoto)
53 Tomb effigy of Elizabeth of York. (Courtesy of The Warburg
Institute)