Place Name
Elizabeth Woodville (about 1437 – June 8, 1492) the widow of Sir John Grey who died at the Second Battle of St Albans, married the Yorkist Edward IV from 1464 until his death 19 years later during which time he lost and regained the throne. She was given the manors of Ham and Petersham as part of her dowry in 1466. A knight’s daughter she was said to have been very beautiful and despite having many suitors she was “too slenderly gifted by fortune to venture on a mere love match”. Instead she turned her attentions to the most eligible bachelor of his day, the king. “It was,” as Janet Dunbar in A Prospect of Richmond writes, “a classic marriage of convenience. Edward had a queen who had done well for herself and was likely to be dutiful and complacent and turn a blind eye when required. Elizabeth had achieved the highest state in the land, and the opportunity to advance members of her family. She was well content…. Elizabeth Woodville had no fault to find with her loveless marriage. She liked Shene as much as did her royal husband. They both had exceedingly luxurious tastes, and the manor house was new furnished with costly hangings and furniture. Building went on constantly; there were bowers, or summer houses, in shady nooks of the pleasance, ‘where the ladies of court were fond of retiring – not always alone.'” For his part Edward was an unfaithful husband whose notorious affair with Jane Shore, the wife of a goldsmith, was well known at court. All this aside the couple went on to have 10 children. When her husband died in 1483 at the age of 42 her life was thrown into turmoil. Edward IV’s brother was Richard of Gloucester, who took over as King Richard III, supposedly murdering two of his nephews, the princes of the Tower, to make way for his succession. Elizabeth only found security again when Henry Tudor came out of exile in France to challenge the usurper, finally defeating him at Bosworth Field after which he was crowned Henry VII and took a bride, Elizabeth of York, one of Elizabeth’s daughters. For her part with the Tudors now ensconced at Shene, Elizabeth withdrew moving to Bermondsey Abbey.
