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Chapter 1. The Sun after Tewkesbury.


The secret marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Wydville

After defeating Warwick at Barnet and Margaret of Anjou at Tewkesbury, Edward IV seemed secure on his throne. Edward of Westminster and his father Henry VI, were dead. With them dead, the Lancastrian line had virtually been extinguished, and the only rival left was Henry Tudor, who was living in exile in France. All was set fair for a period of stable government.

However, there was still a danger shadowing Edward IV's crown.

No one knows when Edward IV first became attracted to Elizabeth Wydville, but all commentators agree that the marriage had not only helped to bring about the eventual rift between Edward and Warwick, but it would also split the Yorkist party and was to put the Yorkist dynasty on the verge of failing.

The fact that Edward IV arranged to marry Elizabeth in secret proves that he knew he was making an unsuitable match and boycotting a major political advantage. He must certainly have been aware that no king since the Conquest had married a commoner and that Warwick was deep in negotiation for a French marriage. But these things counted for very little against his passion for Elizabeth.

The marriage, predictably, proved to be very unpopular. The Royal Council told the King to his face ‘that she was not his match, however good and however fair she might be’. It also caused divisions within the royal family. The King’s younger brothers, the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, were ‘sorely displeased at the marriage’, especially Clarence, the King’s heir-presumptive, who ‘vented his wrath more conspicuously by his bitter and public denunciation of Elizabeth’s obscure family’. Gloucester, ‘being better at concealing his thoughts’, kept quiet.

The King rapidly promoted Elizabeth’s large and rapacious family, ‘to the exaltation of the Queen and the displeasure of the whole realm’. This led to the creation of a powerful new faction at court which quickly came to rival the influence of the Nevilles. For Edward the marriage may very well had been a love match, but in the long run he may had sought to build the Woodville family into a powerhouse independent of Warwick's influence.

The Wydvilles were never popular; also, they were ‘detested by the nobles because they, who were ignoble and newly-made men, were advanced beyond those who far excelled them in breeding and wisdom’. Elizabeth’s father was created Earl Rivers, her son Thomas Grey was married to the King’s niece and later made Marquess of Dorset, and her brother Lionel was appointed Bishop of Salisbury. Most of Elizabeth’s sisters made brilliant marriages amongst the nobility. All of these marriages and elevations were made ‘to the secret displeasure of the Earl of Warwick and the magnates of England’.

Now Warwick was gone, but the Wydvilles remained.
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