The Wars of the Roses; or, Stories of the Struggle of York and Lancaster

by John G. Edgar

In the mean time, the king's marriage caused serious discontent. Warwick and Edward's brother, the young Duke of Clarence, in particular, expressed their displeasure; the barons murmured that no King of England, since the Conquest, had dared to marry his own subject; and ladies of high rank, like the Nevilles and De Veres, were, in no slight degree, indignant at having set over them one whom they had been accustomed to consider an inferior. At the same time, the multitude, far from regarding the marriage with the favor which Sir John Howard had led the Woodvilles to believe, raised the cry that the Duchess of Bedford was a witch, and that it was under the influence of the "forbidden spells" she practiced that the young king had taken the fatal step of espousing her daughter.

But nobody was more annoyed at Edward's marriage than his own mother, Cicely, Duchess of York, who, in other days, had been known in the north as "The Rose of Raby," and who now maintained great state at Baynard's Castle. From the beginning, Elizabeth found no favor in the eyes of her mother-in-law. With the beauty of the Nevilles, Cicely inherited a full share of their pride; and, in her husband's lifetime, she had assumed something like regal state. To such a woman an alliance with third-rate Lancastrians was mortifying, and she bitterly reproached her son with the folly of the step he had taken. Moreover, she upbraided him with faithlessness to another lady; but Edward treated the matter with characteristic recklessness. "Madam," said he, "for your objection of bigamy, by God's Blessed Lady, let the bishop lay it to my charge when I come to take orders; for I understand it is forbidden to a priest, though I never wist it was forbidden to a prince."

Not insensible, however, to the sneers of which Elizabeth was the object, Edward determined on proving to his subjects that his bride was, after all, of royal blood, and therefore no unfit occupant of a throne. With this purpose he entreated Charles the Rash, Count of Charolois, and heir of Burgundy, to send her uncle, James of Luxembourg, to the coronation. The count, it appears, had never acknowledged the existence of the Duchess of Bedford since her second marriage; but, on hearing of the position Jacqueline's daughter had attained, his sentiments as to the Woodville alliance underwent a complete change, and he promised to take part in the coronation.

Faithful to his promise, the count appeared in England with a magnificent retinue; and his niece was brought from the palace of Eltham, conducted in great state through the city of London, and crowned, with much pomp, at Westminster. Hardly, however, had Elizabeth Woodville been invested with the symbols of royalty, than she found the crown sit uneasily on her head. The efforts made to render King Edward's marriage popular had failed. Even the presence of a Count of Luxembourg had not produced the effect anticipated. Still the old barons of England grumbled fiercely; and still the people continued to denounce the Duchess of Bedford as a sorceress who had bewitched the king into marrying her daughter. Ere long, this widow of a Lancastrian knight, when sharing the throne of the Yorkist king, found that, with the White Rose, she had plucked the thorn.

The new queen conducted herself in such a way as rapidly to increase the prejudices of the nation. After her marriage she too frequently reminded people of the school in which she had studied the functions of royalty. Indeed, Elizabeth Woodville, when elevated to a throne, assumed a tone which great queens like Eleanor of Castile and Philippa of Hainault would never have dreamed of using. Charitably inclined as the patrician ladies of England might be, they could hardly help remarking that Margaret of Anjou's maid of honor did credit to the training of her mistress.

The people of England might have learned to bear much from Edward's wife; but, unfortunately, the queen was intimately associated in the public mind with the rapacity of her "kindred." Elizabeth's father, Richard Woodville, was created Earl Rivers, and appointed Treasurer of England; and she had numerous brothers and sisters, for all of whom fortunes had to be provided. Each of the sisters was married to a noble husband—Katherine, the youngest, to Henry Stafford, the boy-Duke of Buckingham; and for each of the brothers an heiress to high titles and great estates had to be found. Unfortunately, while the Woodvilles were pursuing their schemes of family aggrandizement, their interests clashed with those of two powerful and popular personages. These were the Duchess of York and the Earl of Warwick.

Among the old nobility of England, whose names are chronicled by Dugdale, the Lord Scales occupied an eminent position. At an early period they granted lands to religious houses and made pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and in later days fought with the Plantagenet kings in the wars of Scotland and France. The last chief of the name, who, after Northampton, suffered for his fidelity to the house of Lancaster, left no sons. One daughter, however, survived him; and this lady, having been married to a younger son of the Earl of Essex, was now a widow, twenty-four years of age, and one of the richest heiresses in England.

Upon the heiress of Scales, Elizabeth Woodville and the Duchess of York both set their hearts. The Duchess wished to marry the wealthy widow to her son George, Duke of Clarence; and the queen was not less anxious to bestow the young lady's hand on her brother, Anthony Woodville, who was one of the most accomplished gentlemen of the age. The contest between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law was, doubtless, keen. The queen, however, carried her point; and the duchess retreating, baffled and indignant, wrapped herself up in cold hauteur.

Of all the English heiresses of that day, the greatest, perhaps, was the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Exeter. The duke, having fought at Towton and Hexham for the Red Rose, was now braving poverty and exile for the house of Lancaster; but the duchess had not deemed it necessary to make any such sacrifice. Being a daughter of the Duke of York, she remained quietly at the court of King Edward, her brother, and, while enjoying the estates of her banished husband, acquired the right to dispose of his daughter's hand.

The heiress of the Hollands was, of course, a prize much coveted; and Warwick thought her hand so desirable, that he solicited her in marriage for his nephew, young George Neville, the son of Lord Montagu. The queen, however, was determined to obtain this heiress for her eldest son, Thomas Grey, who had been created Marquis of Dorset. The Duchess of Exeter was, accordingly, dealt with, and in such a fashion that the earl was disappointed, while the queen congratulated her son on having obtained a bride worthy of the rank to which he had been elevated.