Elizabeth Woodville had been pretty unstoppable until 1466. She had married a king, seen off those who wanted to denounce her marriage as invalid, been crowned queen of England and started to snap up some of the most eligible spouses in town for her siblings. When she gave birth to her first baby with Edward in 1466 everyone expected it be a boy. The queen had had two sons with her first husband and Elizabeth and Edward got whatever Elizabeth and Edward wanted and they wanted a son and heir for the House of York. So the arrival of a little girl was a surprise, as was her name. But the choice of names for the daughters of Edward and Elizabeth is pretty intriguing all round, starting with the first. And their naming decisions perhaps give us more pointers to the politics of the court of the House of York.
First, catch your kind. Edward IV (Max Irons) falls for Elizabeth Woodville (Rebecca Ferguson) in the BBC One adaptation of Philippa Gregory's The White Queen
Elizabeth Woodville and Elizabeth of York (Freya Mavor). The choice of first name for Elizabeth and Edward's first daughter was a break from usual royal naming tradition
It's not that royal princesses weren't named after their mums at that time. It's just that the first born daughter of a reigning monarch, indeed any monarch, had never before been named after her mother until that day in 1466 when Princess Elizabeth of York arrived. By using the name of his commoner bride, who was already a controversial figure and highly unpopular with some of his greatest supporters, Edward IV was sending out a message. It may have been a token of love and estimation for a woman who had captured his heart but it also let his advisers, his would be friends and his plotting enemies know that he would do things his way and that meant making his wife and her family as important as he liked.
Elizabeth of York as a young princess in The White Queen
It was also a slap in the face, metaphorically speaking, for his ambitious mother. Cecily, Duchess of York would have been quietly confident that a first born girl would take her name. Several English kings since the Conquest had named their first born girls after their own mothers. Henry II started the trend, calling his first daughter Matilda. If anyone was going to take on the power hungry Empress it would have been Henry's wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, but she gave the naming honours to her mother in law. Isabella, the She Wolf of France, named her first girl Eleanor after her husband's mother but that was before she and Edward II had grown to really hate one another. And her own name was used by her son, Edward III, for his eldest daughter even though the She Wolf was in disgrace by the time she was born.
Isabella of France, queen of England, gave her name to the eldest daughter of her son, Edward III, who she had made king in his own father's place just five years before the birth of her namesake
Cecily, Duchess of York has been a major influence on her three sons as they fought to take the throne of England. After the death of her husband in 1460 she had continued to support their claim to the crown and once her eldest boy, Edward, had been named king of England she incorporated the royal arms into her own. This is interpreted by some historians as showing that Cecily believed her own husband, Richard, had been the rightful king of England and therefore she herself had been a queen consort. Regardless of that, Cecily considered herself to be Queen Mother and the most important woman at court. To see her royal son's eldest child named after a woman she looked down on was, for her, another insult. Edward IV, despite her support, had made a commoner queen above her and now he was naming their first born after a woman she saw as an outsider.
Cecily Neville (Caroline Goodall in The White Queen) would have had reasonable hopes of her son Edward IV's eldest daughter bearing her name. She was to be disappointed.
But as well as being the name of his wife, Elizabeth was also the name of many of the women in Edward's kingdom. There weren't as many first names in use in the last half of the 15th century as there are now and Elizabeth was the among the most well used of a very small pool. Edward was a great PR man and wanted to unify his kingdom after two decades of division, caused in part by his own family. By giving his first child the same name as many of the women that he ruled he was also sending a signal to the people who he wanted to stay loyal to him. He was like them, one of them, not a far removed king playing fast and loose with their lives for his own ends. Their lives were his concern and just like them, his little girl would be a Lizzie or a Betty and not a princess with a foreign name used mostly by royalty.
Edward IV, King of England, had the common touch and wanted to keep his people with him as he tried to establish his power base at the beginning of his reign
And the choice of name for baby number two is another argument for Edward looking to the people rather than the court while he was establishing this new royal family. His second daughter, born in 1467, was called Mary. He wasn't the first king to choose the name - Edward I and Edward III had both chosen it for one of their girls but both those princesses were way down the birth order. It had been a name for a younger girl shuffled out to the margins of royal life by a string of older siblings. Edward and Elizabeth put it centre stage and again they chose a name used by a lot of their subjects for their own girls.
Edward and Elizabeth's family was the first to fill the royal nursery for almost a century and their choice of names for their offspring gives some clues to the power politics being played out at the time
But Mary was also the name of one of Elizabeth's sisters. And that sister had just made a marriage that yet again improved her family's standing and increased its hold on the reins of power in England. Mary Woodville was 11 when she wed the heir to the Earl of Pembroke in 1466. Her husband was fifteen and his father had been given his title in 1461 by Edward as a token of appreciation for his loyalty. But he was a rival of Kingmakers Warwick's for influence and by marrying his son to the king's sister in law he became closer to the royal couple. He was also in charge of that Lancastrian claimant to the throne, Henry Tudor. Suddenly, Mary Woodville was at the centre of political intrigue at the court and by using the same first name for their second daughter, Edward and Elizabeth could have been showing where their favour lay right now. And that was away from Warwick and with the new men at court.
The Earl of Warwick (James Frain) had been used to his own way before Edward married Elizabeth Woodville
Duchess Cecily did get a namesake granddaughter, born in April 1469. But interestingly, the third child of Edward and Elizabeth arrived as the king's rule was under threat. Warwick's rebellion against his former protégé would come alive just a few months after Cecily's birth which means that the machinations which led to it were already well under way. And they included the kingmaker starting to plot with Edward's brother, George, a favourite of their mother. It's possible that the king called daughter number three after his mum to try and get her back on side as rumours grew that he wasn't the legitimate son of his own father. Cecily herself is linked to the claims that Edward was the child of an archer rather than the Duke of York meaning that George was the eldest living legitimate son and therefore rightful king.
George, Duke of Clarence (David Oakes) was mummy's favourite and spent most of his brother's reign trying to grab a crown for himself
Edward and Elizabeth's other daughters were born after he had secured his throne once and for all and after the death of Warwick. Surprisingly perhaps none of the four girls who joined Elizabeth, Mary and Cecily in the royal nursery was given the name of Elizabeth's mother, Jacquetta. Given the apparent closeness between the two and Jacquetta's own elevated position it seems a big omission. Elizabeth Woodville's mother had been Duchess of Bedford and second most important woman at court in the early part of Henry VI's reign. Her second marriage led to her living a quieter life in Northamptonshire but she still had her royal links and her royal pension for much of that time. And Jacquetta was of royal blood herself, descended from the house of Luxembourg. But that perhaps is why her name wasn't used. It was distinctly un-English and very royal - not exactly down with the kids as Edward liked to be.
Jacquetta of Luxembourg (Janet McTeer) had plenty of blue blood of her own but unlike Duchess Cecily she didn't have a York princess named after her
Edward and Elizabeth's fourth daughter was a Margaret, the name of the king's sister. And she was followed by Anne - who also shared a name with one of Edward's sisters. Second from last girl Catherine shared a name with one of the sisters of Elizabeth Woodville - the older Kate was married to the Duke of Buckingham, one of the most important nobles in England. The youngest York princess was called Bridget. It's likely she was named after St Bridget of Sweden who's fame was huge at the time - she herself had died in 1393 and had founded an order, the Bridgettines. Bridget of York entered religious life at Dartford, a Dominican order, and remained there until her death in 1517.
Elizabeth with her two youngest girls, Catherine and Bridget, in The White Queen
It's fairly obvious why Elizabeth named her sons the way she did - an Edward for his father, a Richard for his father and brother and a George for the other, faithless brother who he tried to tame. But the names of her girls throw up far bigger questions and perhaps give a clue to the way that power fell in the court of Edward IV and The White Queen.
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