The Woodvilles: The Wars of the Roses and England's Most Infamous Family (8 page)

Rozmital and Tetzel went into a separate hall with England’s noblest lords ‘at the table where the King and his court are accustomed to dine’. There an unnamed earl, quite possibly Warwick, sat in the king’s place and was shown all of the honour customarily shown to the king. The breathless Tetzel reported, ‘Everything was supplied for the Earl, as representing the King, and for my lord [Rozmital] in such costly measure that it is unbelievable that it could be provided’.

Having finished dining, the earl conducted Rozmital and his attendants ‘to an unbelievably costly apartment where the Queen was preparing to eat’. There, Tetzel, watching from an alcove so that his lord ‘could observe the great splendour’, noted:

    The Queen sat alone at table on a costly golden chair. The Queen’s mother and the King’s sister had to stand some distance away. When the Queen spoke with her mother or the King’s sister, they knelt down before her until she had drunk water. Not until the first dish was set before the Queen could the Queen’s mother and the King’s sister be seated. The ladies and maidens and all who served the Queen at table were all of noble birth and had to kneel so long as the Queen was eating. The meal lasted for three hours. The food which was served to the Queen, the Queen’s mother, the King’s sister and the others was most costly. Much might be written of it. Everyone was silent and not a word was spoken. My lord and his attendants stood the whole time in the alcove and looked on.

        After the banquet they commenced to dance. The Queen remained seated in her chair. Her mother knelt before her, but at times the Queen bade her rise. The King’s sister danced a stately dance with two dukes, and this, and the courtly reverence they paid to the Queen, was such as I have never seen elsewhere, nor have I ever seen such exceedingly beautiful maidens. Among them were eight duchesses and thirty countesses and the others were all daughters of influential men.

For the Woodvilles’ modern detractors, this grand, silent meal, where even the queen’s mother and the king’s sister were obliged to kneel, epitomises the queen’s vanity and the social climber’s insecurity. Tetzel’s editor, even while acknowledging that silence at meals at the time was not unusual, commented that Elizabeth’s ‘head must have been turned by her sudden elevation in rank’.
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This, however, was no ordinary family dinner but a grand occasion for the royal family, marking Elizabeth’s safe delivery of the king’s first legitimate child. Notably, nothing in Tetzel’s account suggests that he found Elizabeth’s conduct repellent; he seems to have been merely a fascinated observer, just as he was when he witnessed the unnamed earl dining in royal state. Certainly nothing indicates that the queen was always surrounded by such solemn pomp; to the contrary, Louis de Bruges (Lodewijk van Gruuthuse), visiting the court a few years later, recorded his own account of his visit to the queen’s chamber and of the ‘pleasant sight’ of the queen and her ladies playing games and dancing.
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If the queen’s churching has fuelled unfair comments about the queen’s hauteur and social insecurity, the next episode had led to far more serious allegations against the queen – murder. This story rises from the execution of Thomas Fitzgerald, the Earl of Desmond, at Drogheda in February 1468 under the direction of John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, who was Edward IV’s deputy governor in Ireland. For reasons which remain murky,
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Desmond, along with his brother-in-law the Earl of Kildare (who was also named Thomas Fitzgerald) and an Edward Plunkett, had been attainted of treason in the Irish Parliament at Drogheda. Desmond and Kildare, who had attended Parliament, were arrested there, and Desmond was executed several days later. Desmond’s brother, Garret of Desmond, gathered together an army. With the help of Sir Roland FitzEustace, who had been accused of urging Desmond to crown himself King of Ireland, Kildare escaped from prison in Dublin and joined Garret’s forces. This combined strength forced the hand of Worcester, who was obliged to accept Kildare and FitzEustace back into his favour.
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None of this would seem on the surface to have anything to do with Elizabeth Woodville, and indeed, no contemporary – not even Elizabeth’s enemies – accused Elizabeth Woodville of having a hand in Desmond’s death. In the public outcry in Ireland that greeted the execution of the earl, Elizabeth was never mentioned. Rather, the story of the earl’s execution, and Elizabeth’s supposed role in it, did not make an appearance until the sixteenth century. The first source for the story is this memorandum allegedly presented to Henry VIII’s privy council by James FitzJohn Fitzgerald, Earl of Desmond, Thomas’s grandson:

    So it is that this Earl’s grandfather was brought up in the King’s house, and being well learned in all manner of sciences and an eloquent poet, as the author affirmeth, was in singular favour with his Highness, so far forth that his grace took much pleasure and delight in his talk. And upon a day being in chase a hunting, his Majesty questioned with him, and amongst other things said, ‘Sir cousin O’Desmound, for as much as I have you in secret trust, above others, and that ye are a man who doth both see and hear many things, as well in my court as elsewhere abroad, which shall not perchance be brought to mine ears, I pray you tell me what do you hear spoken by me?’ To the which he answered his Highness and said, ‘If it like your Grace, nothing but honour and much nobility.’ The King, nevertheless, not satisfied with that answer, demanded of him again, three or four several times, what he had heard; and willed him frankly to declare the truth, not hiding one jot thereof from his knowledge; whereunto the said Earl made answer as he did before. At the last his Majesty, wading still in that communication as most desirous to grope the full, required him, for that he took him to be not only a man of a singular wit, but of a long experience and judgment withal, and none within this realm in whom he had more affiance, to declare his own opinion, and what he himself thought of him. To the which the said Earl lowly made answer and said, ‘If it shall please your Grace to pardon me and not to be offended with that I shall say, I assure you I find no fault in any manner of thing, saving only that your Grace hath too much abased your princely estate in marrying a lady of so mean a house and parentile; which, though it be perchance agreeable to your lusts, yet not so much to the security of your realm and subjects.’ Whereunto his Majesty immediately condescended, and said that he had spoken most true and discreetly.

        Not long after, the said Earl having licence to depart into his country and remaining in Ireland, it chanced that the said King and the Queen his wife, upon some occasion fell at words, insomuch that his Grace braste out and said: ‘Well I perceive now that true it is that my cousin, the Earl of Desmond, told me at such a time when we two communed secretly together;’ which saying his Majesty, then in his melancholy, declared unto her; whereupon her Grace being not a little moved, and conceiving upon those words a grudge in her heart against the said Earl, found such mean as letters were devised under the King’s privy seal, and directed to the Lord Justice or governor of the realm of Ireland, commanding him in all haste to send for the said Earl, dissembling some earnest matter of consultation with him touching the state of the same realm, and at his coming to object such matter, and to lay such things to his charge, as should cause him to lose his head.

        According to which commandment the said Lord Justice addressed forth his messenger to the said Earl of Desmond, and by his letters signifying the King’s pleasure willed him with all diligence to make his repair unto him and others of the King’s Council; who, immediately setting all other business apart, came to them to the town of Droughedda, accompanied like a nobleman with eighteen score horsemen, well appointed after a civil English sort, being distant from his own country above 200 miles. Where without long delay or sufficient matter brought against him, after the order of his Majesty’s laws, the said Lord Justice (the rest of the Council being nothing privy to the conclusion) caused him to be beheaded, signifying to the common people for a cloak, that most heinous treasons were justified against him in England, and so justly condemned to die. Upon which murder and fact committed, the King’s Majesty being advertised thereof, and declaring himself to be utterly ignorant of the said Earl’s death, sent with all possible speed into Ireland for the said Lord Justice; whom, after he had well examined and known the considerations and circumstances of his beheading, he caused to be put to a very cruel and shameful death, according to his desert, and for satisfaction and pacifying the said Earl’s posterity, who by this execrable deed were wonderfully mated, and in manner brought to rebel against the sovereign lord and King.
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There are a couple of reasons that this memorandum should be treated with caution. First, although Annette Carson and John Ashdown-Hill used the petition to bolster their argument that Elizabeth was indeed behind Desmond’s execution, they point out that the editor of the
Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts
, in which the memorandum appears, gives no source for it. They themselves were unable to find the original document.
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Is it possible, then, that the document is not what it purports to be; was a fabrication foisted upon an unsuspecting editor?

Second, Desmond was in England in 1464, though not on a pleasure visit: he and William Sherwood, Bishop of Meath, had quarrelled, resulting in the killing of nine of the bishop’s followers, and both men went to England to put their cases before the king. Art Cosgrove notes that the period that Desmond spent in England cannot be precisely dated, but he was granted an annuity by the king, who was at Woodstock, on 25 August 1464.
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Edward IV did not announce his marriage to Elizabeth until the end of September 1464. While it is possible that Desmond was still in England in September to be sounded by the king about public opinion of him, there is no proof of this. Nor is there any evidence, other than the allegation in this story, that Edward and Desmond were close friends. Edward had a boon companion, William, Lord Hastings, who would have been a far likelier candidate to canvas public opinion if this was what the king wanted. No doubt the king’s mother would have also been happy to pass along any negative feedback about her son’s unconventional marriage.

Carson and Ashdown-Hill also point out that James FitzJohn, the author of the memorandum, was Desmond’s grandson and could have heard the story of Elizabeth Woodville’s involvement in his grandfather’s execution from close family members.
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This is certainly possible, but it does not explain how the Desmond family in Ireland could have learned of the quarrel between Edward and Elizabeth and of Elizabeth’s underhanded use of the privy seal, a scenario which somehow escaped the attention of all of the English chroniclers and all of the Woodvilles’ enemies.

The memorandum also conveniently ignores the arrest of the Earl of Kildare, which took place at the same time as Desmond’s for reasons no source has ever attributed to malice on Elizabeth Woodville’s part. Clearly, including Kildare’s arrest would have undermined the memorandum’s claim that Desmond’s arrest and death were motivated by Elizabeth’s private spite rather than by the political situation in Ireland. Finally, the memorandum’s statement that Edward IV, shocked by Desmond’s execution, caused the Lord Justice (i.e. Tiptoft) to ‘be put to a very cruel and shameful death’ is a gross error, despite Ashdown-Hill and Carson’s attempt to gloss over it as merely a popular misconception.
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Tiptoft was not executed until 1470, and it was not the exiled Edward IV but the Earl of Warwick, then governing for the restored Henry VI, who ordered Tiptoft’s death. Attributing the execution order to the right man would have undercut the memorandum’s claim that Edward IV was outraged by Tiptoft’s (and supposedly Elizabeth’s) actions.

The second source for Elizabeth’s involvement is the
Book of Howth
, also from the sixteenth century. It reads:

    John Typtofe, Earl of Worcester, being Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, the queen, King Edward’s wife, did hear say and credently was informed that the Earl of Warwick and the Earl of Desmond was greatly offended and also was grieved with the marriage of the queen, and said openly that better it were for the king to follow his friends’ counsel, which went about to prepare for him a convenient and a meet marriage, not inconvenient for his estate, rather than to marry a traitor’s wife, which thing at length said they were assured should come to an evil end and a success. The queen, offended with these sayings, often did move the king thereof, which little he did regard, considering it was spoken for the very love they bare to their assured friend and prince.

        When that the queen did so perceive that the king did make no more account thereof, she sought all the means she could to bring the earl of Desmond to confusion. She feigned a letter which the king should have sent to the Earl of Worcester, being in Ireland, and she, resting with the king in his bed at night, did rise before day, and conveyed his privy signet which was in the king’s purche and did assign the letter withall, and after went to bed: within which letter was the earl of Desmond should have been apprehended and taken, and his head struck off as sample of other which rebelliously would talk of the queen as he did; which in fact was done accordingly, and so executed at Dublin, then being called thereunto for a parliament for the foresaid cause.
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