Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World

Copyright © 2013 by Alison Weir

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, LLC, New York.

B
ALLANTINE
and the H
OUSE
colophon are registered trademarks of Random House.

Published in hardcover in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape, a division of Random House Group Limited, London as
Elizabeth of York: The First Tudor Queen
.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Weir, Alison.
Elizabeth of York : a Tudor queen and her world / Alison Weir.—First U.S. edition.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-345-52136-1 (hardcover : alk. paper)—
ISBN 978-0-345-52138-5 (ebook)
1. Elizabeth, Queen, consort of Henry VII, King of England, 1465–1503. 2. Queens—Great Britain—Biography. 3. Henry VII, King of England, 1457–1509. 4. Great Britain—History—Henry VII, 1485–1509. I. Title.
DA330.8.E44W45 2013
942.05′5092—dc23   2013034712
[B]

Title-page image: ©
iStockphoto.com

www.ballantinebooks.com

Jacket design: Victoria Allen
Jacket painting: © The Print Collector/Corbis

Web asset: Excerpted from Elizabeth of York by Alison Weir, copyright © 2013 by Alison Weir. Published by Ballantine Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

v3.1

ILLUSTRATIONS

GENEALOGICAL TABLE

Epigraph

INTRODUCTION

PROLOGUE: “NOW TAKE HEED WHAT LOVE MAY DO”

  
1
Elizabeth of York, artist unknown, 1490s. (Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2013)

  
2
Edward IV and Elizabeth Wydeville with their children, stained-glass figures from the Royal Window in the northwest transept of Canterbury Cathedral,
ca
. 1480. With kind permission of Dean and Chapter Canterbury.

  
3
Edward IV, Elizabeth’s father, British School,
ca
.1470–1500. (Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2013)

  
4
Elizabeth Wydeville, Elizabeth’s mother, British School,
ca
.1550–1699. (Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2013)

  
5
Elizabeth and her sisters, Mary, Cecily, and Anne, English School,
ca
. 1480–2. (Little Malvern, Worcestershire, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library)

  
6
Cheyneygates, the former house of the Abbot of Westminster. (© Dean and Chapter of Westminster)

  
7
Tomb effigy of Thomas, Lord Stanley, later Earl of Derby, in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul, Ormskirk. (© Rex Harris)

  
8
Richard III, artist unknown, early sixteenth century. (Society of Antiquaries of London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library)

  
9
Fotheringhay Church. (© Dave Porter Peterborough UK/Getty Images)

10
Sheriff Hutton Castle. (© Jonathan Parkes)

11
Henry VII as a young man, drawing from the mid-sixteenth century. (From
Recueil d’Arras
, Jacques Le Boucq/Bibliothèque Municipale, Arras, France/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library)

12
Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, artist unknown, second half of the sixteenth century. (© National Portrait Gallery, London)

13
The Wedding of Henry and Elizabeth
by J. R. Brown,
ca
. 1901. (By kind permission of Blackpool Council)

14
The Deanery, Winchester Cathedral. (© Dr. John Crook)

15
The birth of a prince, from the Beauchamp Pageant,
ca
. 1483–7. (By permission of the British Library/Cotton Julius E. IV, art. 6, f.22v)

16
The coronation of a queen, from the Beauchamp Pageant,
ca
. 1483–7. (By permission of the British Library/Cotton Julius E. IV, art. 6, f.2v)

17
Bermondsey Abbey. (By permission of the British Library/
The History of London
by Walter Besant, London: Longmans Green & Co, 1893)

18
“Perspective view of the old Palace of Westminster in the reign of Henry VIII,” pen and ink drawing, Henry William Brewer, 1884. (© Palace of Westminster)

19
Portrait of Perkin Warbeck. (Bibliothèque Municipale, Arras, France/The Bridgeman Art Library)

20
The great hall at Eltham Palace. (Eltham Palace, Greenwich, London, UK/© English Heritage Photo Library/The Bridgeman Art Library)

21
Autograph inscriptions and signatures of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York in a Latin missal of 1498. (Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library)

22
Elizabeth’s signature in
The Hours of Elizabeth the Queen
. (By permission of the British Library/Add. 50001, f.22)

23
The Sudbury Hutch. (Courtesy of St. James Church, Louth)

24
Baynard’s Castle. (Private Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library)

25
A modern reconstruction of Fotheringhay Castle. (From a painting by Andrew Spratt)

26
The Paradise Bed. (Courtesy of the Langley Collection)

27
Engraving of Lathom House as it existed before the siege of 1630, by E. Finden, from a drawing by G. Pickering. (By permission of the British Library/
Traditions of Lancashire
by John Roby)

28
Margaret Tudor praying. (ONB Vienna: Cod 1897, fol. 243v)

29
The tomb of Elizabeth’s second daughter, Elizabeth. (© Dean and Chapter of Westminster)

30
Henry VIII in infancy. (Courtesy of Fonds Bibliothèque Méjanes, Aixen-Provence)

31
Terra-cotta bust of a laughing child, possibly the future Henry VIII, by Guido Mazzoni,
ca
. 1498. (Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2013)

32
Elizabeth of York, artist unknown,
ca
. 1502. (Courtesy of Sotheby’s Picture Library)

33
Henry VII, bust by Pietro Torrigiano,
ca
.1509–11. (Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library)

34
Stained-glass window depicting Henry VII and Elizabeth of York,
ca
.1537–40. (Church of St.̣ Nicholas, Stanford-on-Avon, Northamptonshire, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library)

35
Detail from
Henry VII, Elizabeth of York, Henry VIII, and Jane Seymour
by Remigius van Leemput, 1667. (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II/The Bridgeman Art Library)

36
Richmond Palace from Across the Thames
by Anthony van Wyngaerde, 1555. (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, UK/The Bridgeman Art Library)

37
Arthur, Prince of Wales, artist unknown,
ca
. 1520. (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II/The Bridgeman Art Library)

38
Katherine of Aragon, portrait by Miguel Sittow,
ca
.1505. (© akg-images/Erich Lessing/Kunsthistorische Museum, Vienna)

39
The family of Henry VII with St. George and the dragon, Flemish School,
ca
.1503–9. (The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II/The Bridgeman Art Library)

40
Elizabeth and her four daughters, artist unknown, nineteenth-century copy of a lost Tudor painting. (Courtesy of the collection of the Duke of Northumberland)

41
Henry and Elizabeth and their children in “The Ordinances of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception,” 1503. (Courtesy of the Governing Body of Christ Church, Oxford)

42
Henry and Elizabeth and their children from an early-sixteenth-century genealogy of the kings of England. (By permission of the British Library/Kings MS. 395 ff.32v-33)

43
Reconstruction of Hampton Court as it was when Elizabeth of York visited. (© Historic Royal Palaces)

44
Raglan Castle, Wales. (De Agostini Picture Library/G. Wright/The Bridgeman Art Library)

45
The Minoresses Covent, Aldgate, after the fire of 1797. (City of London, London Metropolitan Archives)

46
The Queen’s Lodgings, Tower of London, detail from a survey by W. Haiward and J. Gascoyne. (Private Collection/The Stapleton Collection/The Bridgeman Art Library)

47
Henry VIII mourning his mother, detail from The Vaux Passional, Peniarth MS. 482D. (By permission of The National Library of Wales)

48
Wooden funeral effigy of Elizabeth of York. (© Dean and Chapter of Westminster)

49
The funeral of Elizabeth of York. (By permission of the British Library/Additional MS. 45131 f.42)

50
The Henry VII Chapel in Westminster Abbey. (© akg-images/Monheim)

51
The coffins of James I, Elizabeth of York, and Henry VII, as seen in 1869, by Sir George Scharf. (© Dean and Chapter of Westminster)

52
Tomb effigies of Elizabeth of York and Henry VII, 1512–19. (© The Granger Collection/Topfoto)

53
Tomb effigy of Elizabeth of York. (Courtesy of The Warburg Institute)