WI Edward of York was declared a bastard in 1464?

There were a few hints that King Edward IV was not the biological son of Richard 3rd Duke of York but he was rather a bastard sired by a certain archer named Blaybourne (also he beared little resemblence to his father). Also his own mother Cecily Neville threatened to declare him a bastard when he found out that Edward had married Elizabeth Woodville.

However these allegations were never proved and propably were just false propaganda against the King by the Earl of Warwick and George Duke of Clarence.

WI these allegations were proved and Cecily Neville materialised her threat to declare him a bastard in 1464?

How is History and the Wars of the Roses affected if Edward is deposed and replaced by his brother the Duke of Clarence as King George I?
 
2 things
1. How do you prove Edward IV's a bastard? If he looked like Richard of York it will be difficult to prove.
2. There would be no guarantee that he would be deposed for his brother.
 
2 things
1. How do you prove Edward IV's a bastard? If he looked like Richard of York it will be difficult to prove.
2. There would be no guarantee that he would be deposed for his brother.

1. He beared little to none physical resemblance to his father

2. If he was deposed because of illegitimacy the Duke of Clarence is next in line.
 
Where is it said his mother threatened to declare him a bastard? Why would she want to call herself into question (which is what Edward as a bastard does) like that?
 
Where is it said his mother threatened to declare him a bastard? Why would she want to call herself into question (which is what Edward as a bastard does) like that?

Cecily Neville was furious about Edward's secret marriage to Elizabeth Wodville and at some point threatened to declare him a bastard but she backed down and never materialised her threat.

Isabella of Bavaria had done that for Charles VII after all...
 
Cecily Neville was furious about Edward's secret marriage to Elizabeth Wodville and at some point threatened to declare him a bastard but she backed down and never materialised her threat.

Isabella of Bavaria had done that for Charles VII after all...
Would Cecily really risk her rep like that? And whats to stop someone else, like the lancastrians, from claiming Clarence is a bastard 2?
 
Cecily Neville was furious about Edward's secret marriage to Elizabeth Wodville and at some point threatened to declare him a bastard but she backed down and never materialised her threat.

Isabella of Bavaria had done that for Charles VII after all...

At some point according to who?
 
Would Cecily really risk her rep like that? And whats to stop someone else, like the lancastrians, from claiming Clarence is a bastard 2?

As i said above Isabella of Bavaria did the same thing too... And not just for Charles VII but for other of her children too if i remember correctly.
 
According to Mancini if i remember correctly... He was an Italian visiting England in 1480s and recorded some facts happening in English court.

So we have an Italian visitor (diplomat? I vaguely recognize the name) in the 1480s reporting on events that supposedly happened in the 1460s.

Not exactly a first hand source.
 
So we have an Italian visitor (diplomat? I vaguely recognize the name) in the 1480s reporting on events that supposedly happened in the 1460s.

Not exactly a first hand source.

Cecily was still alive and many of the old original players... So he could have drawn infos from them.
 
Cecily was still alive and many of the old original players... So he could have drawn infos from them.

Point.

I still don't see why she'd want to do it though, and I don't know enough about Isabella of Bavaria to know if this is at all similar in terms of the two women.

Claiming that Richard cheated on her is one thing, saying she cheated on Richard can only end poorly for her even if it ends badly for Edward.
 
If Mancini is right about Cecily's threat then i guess that the threat was made in a fit of rage about Edward's secret marriage so i tend to believe that when Cecily calmed down she thought that it would be best not to do it as it would propably endanger all Yorkist cause...
 
One of the things anyone will have to get around to declare Edward illegitimate is that Richard, Duke of York, never contested Edward's paternity which was his right if he thought Cecily had slept with someone else or had been raped. Considering that all together they had 13 children, 7 of which survived infancy, and Edward was their fourth child/second son* it's hard to suggest Cecily was unfaithful.

Another is that would be hard to explain is that while Edward was noted with being rather taller than other members of House of York and not having the same face as his father. The same could be said of his brother George, who was almost as tall as Edward and bared a marked resemblance to his older brother. However, their younger brother Richard was said to have resembled their father the Duke of York. So considering that both Edward and George resembled one another, but didn't look like their father and York never contested their paternity it's fairly certain that they looked more like their mother Cecily and York was 100% sure he was their father.

Finally, Edward could just claim the throne by right of conquest thanks to his victory at Towton in which his forces virtually wiped out the Lancastrian army and sent Henry VI into hiding. Add to the fact that Cecily Neville's mother was a Beaufort thus descended from John of Gaunt thus from Edward III, giving Edward the same blood claim to the throne that Henry VII would later use (as well as right of conquest and marrying Edward's eldest daughter).

So I think any claim, whether in the 15-century or by a modern historian, that Edward IV illegitimate is totally false.

*-#1 Joan (b. 1438, died young); #2 Anne (10 Aug 1439, survived); #3(1) Henry (10 Feb 1441, died young); #4(2) Edward (28 Apr 1442)
 
OTL, 1469 (and part of why I don't see why Cecily would have used this charge herself), from Alsion Weir's book on the Wars of the Roses:

"(A)nd at this time, he* was attempting to undermine Edward IV's position by spreading an unfounded rumour that the Kign was not the son of Richard, Duke of York, btu the bastard son of the Duchess Cecily by an archer of Calais called Blaybourne. This tale quickly gained currency in Europe, where it was gleefully repeated by both Louis XI and Charles of Burgundy, and it would be used again in 1483 by the Duke of Gloucester to suit his own pruposes. Neither Clarence nor, later, Gloucester scrupled to cast such a slur on their mother's honour, and she, outraged, emphatically denied the story."

* Clarence.

My bold (and note).
 
This tale quickly gained currency in Europe, where it was gleefully repeated by both Louis XI and Charles of Burgundy, and it would be used again in 1483 by the Duke of Gloucester to suit his own pruposes. Neither Clarence nor, later, Gloucester scrupled to cast such a slur on their mother's honour, and she, outraged, emphatically denied the story."

Preacher Ralph Shaa may have made this accusation of Edward IV's illegitimacy or he may have been misunderstood by Mancini. Richard III, in the Titulus Regus, had Edward IV's children (not Edward) declared illegitimate, based on the claim that Edward IV had already been married to Eleanor Butler when her married Eleanor Woodville.

Polydore Vergil claimed that Cecily not only denied Shaa's accusation, but claimed that Richard was behind it. Vergil was an Italian who came to England in 1501 and wrote an official history for Henry VII, finishing his written manuscript in 1513.
 
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