Third time lucky for a princess who might have been England’s first queen regnant

 

On January 18^th 1486, Elizabeth of York wed Henry Tudor. It was a marriage designed to end the so called Cousins’ War, the battle between Lancaster and York for the throne of England which had plunged the country into civil war for decades. Henry, of the House of Lancaster, had conquered his Yorkist rival, Richard III, in August 1485 and claimed the throne. He had made it clear he would wed Elizabeth in an act of peace from the very start. Yet he waited almost six months to make good on his promise and had ensured he had been crowned before he married her. For Elizabeth had a better claim to rule than him. And her wedding ensured she finally became Queen of England, the third time the title had been linked to her.

Born in 1466, she was the first child of Edward IV, the mighty York king who had almost brought England to total peace before his untimely death in April 1483. Her mother was the famously ambitious Elizabeth Wydville. She had younger brothers but they had disappeared, presumed dead, following their father’s demise. Richard III had been killed at Bosworth and his only son had died the year before him. The claim of the House of York to the throne of England lay with Princess Elizabeth.

She was far closer to the Crown than Henry Tudor who claimed his right of succession via his mother, Margaret Beaufort, who was descended from the illegitimate family of John of Gaunt. But Henry’s victory at Bosworth put power in his hands. The chances of a teenage girl taking power from a soldier king who had already used every means at his disposal to gain ascendancy were slim to say the least.

Elizabeth was also in a tricky personal situation. Richard III had declared her and all her siblings illegitimate, claiming that before he had married Elizabeth Wydville, Edward had entered a marriage contract with Eleanor Butler making his union bigamous. Henry would overturn that but Elizabeth needed to give him a reason to do so. Besides, there had also been rather vicious rumours that Elizabeth had been attracted to her uncle and in the latter stages of Richard III’s reign, it was even whispered that they would marry. Even before her wedding to Henry, Elizabeth had been linked to a consort’s crown through a wedding to her late father’s brother.

Instead, the title of queen came to her on a chilly January day in a wedding with Henry Tudor. As she left the Abbey, she was finally a consort but she had left at the altar any chance of ruling by herself.

There are several reasons why Elizabeth might have allowed herself to be so overlooked. Firstly, she had been through terrible personal trauma in the previous few years. In the three years leading up to her marriage, her father had died unexpectedly, her younger brothers had disappeared, presumed murdered and she was shunned as illegitimate with all her royal prospects ripped up before her. She was just a teenager at the time.

Her childhood had been just as turbulent. At the age of four, she had ended up in sanctuary in Westminster Abbey for months, relying on charity for food and clothes as her father was battling to regain his throne. Her maternal grandfather was executed while her maternal grandmother died, of natural causes, soon afterwards.

Less than a year before her wedding, her uncle was still king and her position was still vulnerable. She knew that the whim of the court might turn on her and her life was never truly secure. Having seen Richard III cut down in battle and his conquerors seize his kingdom, going with the flow might have been the most sensible option.

However, we also need to consider whether Elizabeth really wanted the Crown for herself. Her two brothers had been put into ‘protective custody’ by Richard III but had never emerged from the Tower of London. By the time of her wedding day, it was generally believed they were dead, quite possibly murdered. To rule was dangerous. Even her father, the glorious ‘Son of York’ had faced constant battles for his throne despite his many abilities. No one who had worn the Crown of England in the past century had enjoyed peace. It was a far from appetising prospect for one who had grown up  so close to royal intrigue.

And yet Elizabeth still put herself in the midst of danger with her wedding. Henry Tudor was still untrusted by many. He had seized the throne in battle and now had to fight for the respect needed to keep it. His consort would have to provide an heir but Elizabeth knew that there would be plenty unwilling to accept her children as rightful rulers in waiting given the nature of their father’s claim to the crown.

However, ultimately, she had little option. No foreign prince would be allowed to wed her, for her claim to rule England was too strong to allow any other dynasty to take a stake in it. She might have chosen a life as a nun but then there was a whole host of younger sisters who could fulfil the dynastic promise of uniting York with Lancaster if she said no. Did she want to protect them from the danger of marriage to an untested king with little but trouble on his horizon? Or did Elizabeth of York, firstborn of a famous king and an ambitious queen, actually want a crown herself, but only on her terms? We might never know.