Interesting! How about the Earl of Warwick's daughters marrying Elizabeth's brothers?Of her siblings who married most married within the newly minted Yorkist aristocracy
You could legitimately argue that it was those families who were keen to ally themselves with the new Queen Consort as much as her desire to make advantageous marriages for her relations.
It is also worth bearing in mind that the medieval mindset would not have found anything wrong with a desire to do so. In fact it would have been remarkable for her to have not done anything for her family.
The matches also had advantages to Edward IV as king it gave him a personal connection with members of the aristocracy giving him further support.
Also many of the matches were to families already connected with Elizabeth or her parents. In financial terms there doesn't seem to have been much on offer to the spouses in question in fact the Woodville's (Elizabeth's parents) were remarkably bad at ensuring their estates (much of which consisted of life interests inherited as part of the Countess Rivers dowager estates from her first marriage to the Duke of Bedford) could pass to their son and heir.
The key marriages were as follows
Anne Woodville married William Bourchier (son of the Earl of Essex) - he was Edward IV's first cousin (being the son of Isabel of York) - he was also brother in law to Elizabeth Baroness Grey of Groby who was Elizabeth Woodville's first mother in law. Anne was probably nearest to Elizabeth in age and was one of her ladys in waiting. It was a pretty unremarkable alliance to be honest.
Mary Woodville married as a child to William Herbert - Herbert's father Lord Pembroke was a prominant supporter of Edward IV.
Jacquetta Woodville marrried Lord Strange but before Elizabeth married Edward IV
Margaret Woodville married Thomas Fitzalan heir to the 16th Earl of Arundal - a more prominant match and undoubtedly due to the influence of her sister and the King.
Catherine Woodville married Henry Stafford 2nd Duke of Buckingham - this was undoubtedly the match that would be staggering given the different status of the groom and his bride - both were children and his marriage and wardship had been given to the Queen (to be fair in usual circumstances this meant marriage into the family of the guardian - as happened with Richard Duke of York and Cecily Neville for example)
The betrothal of the Queen's son Thomas Grey to Anne Holland (daughter of the Duke of Exeter and niece of the King - she died in infancy) was also a point of annoyance for some. But the records suggest it was agreed to between the Queen and Anne of York Duchess of Exeter without much intervention by the King.
The Queen's brother's were largely ignored - Anthony Woodville had a good reputation and had already married the Scales heiress. John's marriage to the elderly dowager Duchess of Norfolk did attract comment but she might have been motivated by a desire to protect herself and her dower lands from her own family and her Neville relations - it is hard to tell.
To marry Richard of Gloucester would have been overreaching to be honest - and by the time of the King's marriage Richard was not really a child anymore as he was almost of age.
Technically, none of Elizabeth's sisters should be able to marry Richard of Gloucester or Clarence. At the time, doing so would have been considered incest/consanguinity. Once Edward is married to Elizabeth, she becomes George and Richard's sister, and so do all her siblings by birth. I'm afraid I don't have a reference to hand for this, but it was confirmed to me in person last year by Michael Hicks. While he wasn't the greatest lecturer, he is generally considered one of the foremost authorities on the Wars of the Roses in England.
Now, this same problem should clearly have stood in the way of Richard's marriage to Anne Neville. Once Clarence marries Isabel, Anne should be off the table. As far as we can tell, the dispensation received from the Pope was only ever for the fact that Anne and Richard were cousins (Warwick's father being brother-in-law to Richard of York), rather than an exemption from the conditions caused by George and Isabel marrying. Why? Well, it was an awful lot easier to get dispensation for relatives at further removal. This has led to some speculation on the validity of Richard's marriage, although it must be admitted that very little (if any) was raised at the time.
Aye. I thought it was interesting too. The most plausible explanation for why it wasn't brought up at the time is simply that the people (either those who mattered or the wider People) were simply told "The Pope has given his dispensation" for Gloucester and Anne to marry. It's entirely correct. They were given dispensation/ a waiver from the conditions preventing cousins marrying. The problem is: according to Hicks, the only record of this dispensation simply doesn't mention the fact that they're considered siblings thanks to Clarence and Isabel having already tied the knot.Now THAT is interesting. Richard became King because he claimed that Edward IV's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was bigamous thanks to a precontract of marriage with Lady Eleanor Talbot. But if what your saying is true then his own marriage would have been invalid, as it was legally incestuous. I'm surprised that no one brought that up at the time. Really its a case of the pot calling the kettle black.