Elizabeth of York Part 11

Thomas More, then a young London lawyer, was moved to write an elegy, "A Rueful Lamentation on the Death of Queen Elizabeth": Oh ye that put your trust and confidence In worldly joy and frail prosperity, That so live here as ye should never hence, Remember death and look here on me.

Example I think there may no better be.

Yourself wot well that in this realm was I, Your Queen but late, and lo, now here I lie.

Was I not born of old worthy lineage?

Was not my mother Queen, my father King?

Was I not a king's fere [companion] in marriage?

Had I not plenty of every pleasant thing?

Merciful G.o.d, this is a strange reckoning: Riches, honour, wealth, and ancestry Hath me forsaken, and lo, now here I lie.

If worship [worth, honour, renown] might have kept me, I had not gone; If wit [intelligence] might have me saved, I needed not fear; If money might have holp, I lacked none; But oh, good G.o.d, what vaileth all this gear?

When Death is come, Thy mighty messenger, Obey we must; there is no remedy; Me hath he summoned, and lo, now here I lie.

Yet was I late promised otherwise, This year to life in wealth and delice.

Lo! Whereto cometh thy blandishing promise Of false astrology and divinatrice, Of G.o.d's secrets, making thyself so wise?

How true is for this year thy prophecy?

The year yet lasteth, and lo, now here I lie.

O, brittle wealth, aye full of bitterness, Thy single pleasure doubled is with pain.

Account my sorrow first, and my distress In sundry wise, and reckon there again The joy that I have had, and I dare sayn, For all my honour, endured there have I More woe than wealth, and lo, now here I lie.

Where are our castles now, where are our towers?

Goodly Richmond, soon art thou gone from me; At Westminster, that costly work of yours, Mine own dear lord, now shall I never see.

Almighty G.o.d vouchsafe to grant that these For you and your children may well edify.

My palace builded is, and lo now here I lie.

Adieu, mine own spouse, my worthy lord!

The faithful love, that did us both combine In marriage a peaceable concord, Into your hands here I do clear resign, To be bestowed on your children and mine; Erst were ye father, now must ye supply The mother's part also, for here I lie.

Farewell my daughter, Lady Margaret, G.o.d wot full oft it grieved hath my mind That ye should go where we might seldom meet; Now I am gone, and have left you behind.

O mortal folk, but we be very blind: What we least fear full oft it is most nigh- From you depart I first, for lo, now here I lie.

Farewell, Madam, my lord's worthy mother; Comfort your son, and be of good cheer, Take all at worth, for it will be no other.

Farewell, my daughter Katherine, late the fere [companion]

Unto Prince Arthur, late my child so dear.

It booteth not for me to wail and cry; Pray for my soul, for lo, now here I lie.

Adieu, Lord Henry, loving son, adieu!

Our Lord increase your honour and estate.

Adieu, my daughter Mary, bright of hue, G.o.d make you virtuous, wise, and fortunate.

Adieu, sweetheart, my little daughter Kate!

Thou shalt, sweet babe, such is thy destiny, Thy mother never know, for lo, now here I lie.

Lady Cecily, Lady Anne, and Lady Katherine, Farewell, my well-beloved sisters three.

O Lady Bridget, other sister mine, Lo, here the end of worldly vanity!

Now are you well who earthly folly flee And heavenly things do praise and magnify.

Farewell, and pray for me, for lo, now here I lie.

Adieu my lords, adieu my ladies all, Adieu my faithful servants every one, Adieu my commons, whom I never shall See in this world: wherefore to Thee alone, Immortal G.o.d, verily Three in One, I me commend; Thy infinity mercy Show to Thy servant, for lo, now here I lie.5 More's poem, which was to be one of several epitaphs hung up on wooden boards near the Queen's burial place, reflects two popular contemporary themes: the fall of princes, and warnings from beyond the grave of mortality and the transience of life. Yet More's differs from late medieval elegies, in that he shows Elizabeth not just as a sinner but as a Renaissance pattern of virtue.6 The elegy must have been written in the week after the Queen's death, for More speaks of the infant Princess Katherine as if she was still living. Tragically, she "lived not long after"7 and "tarried but a small season after her mother" before being "called unto a far better kingdom." She died in the Tower on February 18, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. The site of her grave is unknown; probably, like her brother Edmund, she was interred in the Confessor's Chapel in an unmarked grave.8 Another epitaph, which may have been hung near Elizabeth's tomb, was also in verse form: Here lieth the fresh flower of Plantagenet, Here lieth the white rose in the red set ...

G.o.d grant her now Heaven to increase And our own King Harry long life and peace.9 Elizabeth was given a lavish funeral costing 2,832.7s.3d. [1,381,000],10 far in excess of the 600 spent on Prince Arthur's funeral, or on that of Edward IV even.11 Her grieving widower spared no expense. Such open-handedness on the part of a miserly king might well have reflected Henry's feelings for his dead wife, but it was also a very public statement of her prime dynastic importance in the annals of English royalty.

On February 22, Ma.s.s was said early in the morning in St. Peter ad Vincula. At noon "the coffin was put in a carriage covered with black velvet, with a cross of white cloth of gold, very well fringed." Then, with the two hundred poor men going before, followed by royal officers and clergy, it was borne in procession through London on a chariot "drawn with six horses trapped with black velvet." All the City churches were shrouded in black for the occasion.12 On the coffin lay "an image or personage like a queen, clothed in the very robes of estate of the Queen, having her very rich crown on her head, her hair about her shoulders, her scepter in her right hand, and her fingers well garnished with gold rings and precious stones."13 As at Elizabeth's coronation, the virginal loose hair proclaimed her chast.i.ty. The effigy cost 2 [970], and its clothing 5.2s.6d. [2,500].14 From the thirteenth to the eighteenth century it was customary for funeral effigies of royal persons to be displayed at state funerals. Westminster Abbey possesses several such effigies, besides what is left of Elizabeth of York's; the earliest recorded, which does not survive, was that of Edward I; Henry V's effigy is also lost, as possibly are others. The oldest extant is that of Edward III (1377), and there are two others that predate Elizabeth's: those of Anne of Bohemia, queen of Richard II (1394), and Katherine of Valois, queen of Henry V (1437); and of course there are several later examples.

In the seventeenth century the poet John Dryden recorded that these effigies lay in open presses, where "you may see them all a-row." In the eighteenth century, around the time that the practice of making funeral effigies died out, John Dart recorded that they were "sadly mangled, some with their faces broke, others broken in sunder, and most of them stripped of their robes"-by Oliver Cromwell's men, he supposed. They were a sorry sight-a "ragged regiment." But the face of Elizabeth of York, he noted, was still perfect. Later still, it was described as having "a pleasant and slightly roguish, or boylike, air."15 The upper part of her painted effigy of soft Baltic wood, with a jointed left arm (the right is missing) beautifully carved from pear wood, and some beautiful gold satin from the original bodice, survives today in the Norman Undercroft Museum in Westminster Abbey. The rest of the effigy is either lost or in too poor a condition to display, much of the body having disintegrated after being saturated with water when Westminster Abbey was bombed in the Second World War. That also left the head and bust blackened and damaged, the wood split, the nose missing and the remains of the bodice stiff with filth-it was described, prior to cleaning in 1961, as an "unpleasant-looking fabric of dirty gray with a shimmer of yellow."16 The effigy was made by two Dutchmen, Laurence Wechon, "the carver," and Hans van Hoof, and was five feet eleven inches tall, with a wooden head and bust, jointed wooden arms, and fir poles for legs. The body-from the bust to the feet-was formed of hoops, stuffed with hay, and covered in leather, which was secured with nails. Beneath the Queen's own robes of estate, it was clad in clothes specially made for it: a crimson satin square-necked "garment" seamed and bordered with blue and black velvet, having a wider neckline than on bodices in the Queen's portraits (as appears from the outline on the wooden bust), and dark cloth stockings to the knees; the latter were still in place in 1890, but have since disappeared. The wig was hired and does not survive. The ears have holes, thought to have been for earrings,17 but earrings were not commonly worn at this period, so perhaps they were for attaching the wig.

Almost certainly, the face, which so closely resembles Elizabeth's portraits, is a death mask, like the head of Henry VII's funeral effigy, which survives with it. Signs of the stroke that killed Edward III are evident in the face of his funeral effigy, so it is likely that the tradition of using death masks for such effigies dated from 1377 at the latest. The sunken aspect of the features of the effigy reflect the Queen as she looked in death. The accounts for Elizabeth's effigy record payments to "two porters, for fetching of the coffin from the Princes' Wardrobe," to one John Scot "for watching in the Tower a night," and to two more porters for bringing the effigy to the Tower, presumably so the face could be modeled from Elizabeth's dead features.

At each corner of the funeral chariot "sat a gentlewoman usher kneeling on [beside] the coffin, which was in this manner conveyed from the Tower to Westminster. On the forehorses rode two chariot men; and on the four others, four henchmen in black gowns. On the horses were lozenges with the Queen's escutcheon; by every horse walked a person in a mourning hood. At each corner of the chariot was a banner of Our Lady of the a.s.sumption, of the Salutation, and of the Nativity," and these banners "were all white in token that she died in childbed." An early sixteenth-century drawing of the funeral procession made for Thomas Wriothesley, Garter King of Arms,18 shows the wheeled chariot bearing a large coffin with hooded mourners at each corner carrying their banners. On the hea.r.s.e lies the effigy with loose hair and a crown and scepter.

The funeral route from the Tower to Westminster was the same as that followed at Elizabeth's coronation fifteen years earlier; now, as then, n.o.bles, royal officers, citizens, and clergy united together to pay their respects, and hundreds of painted escutcheons bearing the arms of the King and Queen were made, to be carried or displayed in the funeral procession. Following the chariot were "eight palfreys saddled with black velvet, bearing eight ladies of honor, who rode singly after the corpse in their slops and mantles, every horse led by a man afoot without a hood but in a demiblack gown, followed by many lords. The Lord Mayor and citizens, all in mourning, brought up the rear, and at every door in the City a person stood bearing a torch." Among the ladies were the Queen's four sisters, all wearing mourning attire with sweeping trains, even the nun Bridget. The princ.i.p.al mourner was Katherine, Countess of Devon, supported by Mary Say, Countess of Ess.e.x, Lady Elizabeth Stafford, and Elizabeth, Lady Herbert.

As the cortege pa.s.sed each church along the route, "a solemn peal with all the bells was rung," and each curate came forward to cense the corpse, "and thus was this gracious princess with the King's Chapel and others singing all the way before her conveyed unto Charing Cross." "At Fenchurch and Cheapside were set thirty-seven virgins all in white linen, having chaplets of white and green on their heads, and bearing lighted tapers"-each girl representing one year of the Queen's life, with their chaplets the colors of the Tudor royal livery. They were dressed as virgins because a woman who had died in childbed was honored as a virgin. "In Chepe the Lady Mayoress ordained also thirty-seven other virgins, in their hairs [i.e., with their hair loose], holding likewise pretty tapers, in the honor of Our Lady, and that the good Queen was in her thirty-seventh year [sic]."

The somber pomp of the occasion impressed onlookers. "From Mark Lane to Temple Bar alone were five thousand torches" carried by bearers wearing white woolen gowns and hoods, "besides lights burning before all the parish churches, while processions of religious persons singing anthems and bearing crosses met the royal corpse from every fraternity [guild] in the City. And as for surplus of strangers, who had no torches, as Easterlings [Baltic traders], Frenchmen, Portugals, Venetians, Genoese, and Lukeners [natives of Lucca], even they rode in black. All the surplus of citizens of London that rode out in black stood along Fenchurch to the end of Cheap[side]." The London craft guilds had paid for the black mourning clothes worn by their members, and also for white robes worn by those who stood with lighted torches beneath the Eleanor Cross at Charing as the coffin pa.s.sed.

At Temple Bar the cortege was met by a procession of n.o.blemen headed by Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby, who had played such an important role in Elizabeth's life and was himself to die the following year. At Charing Cross the abbots of Westminster and Bermondsey, wearing black copes, met and censed the corpse, then preceded it to St. Margaret's churchyard at Westminster, where it was received by eight bishops,19 the abbots of Reading, St. Albans, Winchcombe, and Stratford, and the priors of All Hallows Barking by the Tower and Christ Church, Canterbury. Here the peers "took their mantles" in readiness for the obsequies in the abbey.

The body was "censed and taken out of the chair," along with the effigy and banners. With Derby leading the procession, it was carried under a canopy "with all due solemnity" on the shoulders of "certain lords" to the door of Westminster Abbey. Inside the church it was laid on a grand catafalque hung with banners and covered in "cloth of majesty" of black cloth of gold with a valance embroidered with the Queen's motto, "Humble and reverent," and garnished with her coat of arms, gold roses, portcullises, and fleurs-de-lis.20 The wooden effigy of Elizabeth was laid on top. "Then began the dirge."

After the service, Dorset and Derby escorted Katherine Courtenay and all the lords and ladies across to the Queen's great chamber in the Palace of Westminster, where Katherine presided over a supper at which fish was served. Meanwhile, in the abbey, knights, ladies, squires, and heralds kept watch over the body all night, their vigil illuminated by over 1,100 hea.r.s.e candles, which were kept burning throughout the rest of the ceremonies.

Royal funerals at that period normally took place over two days, with the state obsequies on the first day and the interment on the second. At six o'clock the next morning, February 23, the Dean of Westminster went to summon the female mourners to Our Lady's Ma.s.s at seven o'clock, and an hour later Katherine Courtenay and the Queen's other sisters a.s.sembled in the "cathedral [sic] vast and dim." The abbey had been hung with black cloth, and was lit by the candles around the hea.r.s.e and 273 tapers bearing escutcheons, placed high up above the hangings.

The Ma.s.s of the Trinity was celebrated. Afterward the princesses and Lady Katherine Gordon, who took precedence immediately after them, were among the twenty ladies who presented thirty-seven palls of blue, red, and green cloth of gold, one for each year of Elizabeth's life. The first pall was "laid along the corpse" by Elizabeth Say, Lady Mountjoy, who made an obeisance as she approached and kissed her pall; the rest followed suit. The Queen's sisters, Katherine and Anne, each presented five palls.21 John Russell, Bishop of Lincoln, officiated at the final requiem Ma.s.s, with Katherine of York, the chief mourner, making the only offering, in accordance with tradition. Then Richard FitzJames, Bishop of Rochester, preached the funeral sermon, taking as his text Job 19: Miseremini mei, miseremini mei, saltem vos amici mei, quia ma.n.u.s Domini tetigit me (Have pity, have pity on me, O ye my friends, for the hand of G.o.d hath touched me). "These words he spake in the name of England, on account of the great loss the country had sustained of that virtuous queen, her n.o.ble son, the Prince Arthur, and the recently deceased Archbishop of Canterbury [Henry Deane]"-three deaths that had left a nation bereft.

After the sermon the palls were removed from the coffin and the ladies left the abbey, "after whose departing the image with the crown and rich robes were had to a secret place by St. Edward's shrine" and the men proceeded to the actual burial. Until the Lady Chapel was completed, Elizabeth was interred temporarily in a vault specially made for her in the crossing of the abbey-"the void s.p.a.ce between the high altar and the choir," where monarchs were customarily crowned. Here, "Her Grace was laid until the new chapel were fully edified and made."22 William Warham, Bishop of London, hallowed the vault with appropriate rites and ceremony, then the clergy and the King's chaplains approached the hea.r.s.e and lifted the coffin, which was lowered into it, whereupon the Queen's chamberlain and her gentlemen ushers, weeping, broke their staves of office and cast them into the grave, to symbolize the termination of their service. It is possible that, like other early royal funeral effigies, Elizabeth's was laid on top of her temporary burial place. In his will of 1509, Henry VII left orders that her body be brought from there and interred beside him in the new Lady Chapel.23 To speed Elizabeth's pa.s.sage through Purgatory, Henry VII had not only paid for those 636 Ma.s.ses to be said for her soul, but also for at least 240 [116,660] in alms to be distributed by her almoner to the bedridden, the blind, lepers, and other unfortunates.24 In 1504, Henry founded a chantry at Westminster for himself, Elizabeth, his parents and ancestors, and handsomely endowed it with a yearly income of 804.12s.8d. [391,130].25 In 1506, Margaret Beaufort founded another chantry in the new Lady Chapel for the souls of herself, her parents, her husbands, her deceased daughter-in-law, the Queen, and Elizabeth's deceased children.26 The King remained in seclusion at Richmond for six weeks after the funeral, prostrate with grief and so ill with quinsy-a complication of tonsillitis that can cause breathing difficulties-that it was said he was near death. He was unable to swallow and could barely open his mouth.27 His mother came to nurse him, bringing sweet wine and ordering physic for him. It seems that the loss of Elizabeth-and of Arthur the year before-impacted badly on Henry; as for the remaining six years of his life, his health steadily declined.28 By 1504 he had become "a weak man and sickly, not likely to be no long-lived man."29 He could not remain in solitude; life had to go on. The Emperor Maximilian, "hearing that Queen Elizabeth had died, sent a solemn emba.s.sy to visit and comfort the King," whom he had heard was "sorrowful and sad at the death of so good a queen and wife." On Palm Sunday, March 15, his wasted frame clad in blue velvet,30 Henry rode to St. Paul's Cathedral "in great triumph" with the Imperial amba.s.sador riding by his side. "And there the bishop made an excellent and comfortable oration to the King concerning the death of the Queen."31 Henry also wore blue mourning for the ceremonies of Maundy Thursday on March 19.32 In April he paid off Elizabeth's ladies, gentlewomen, and servants, and in May he settled her funeral expenses, and rewarded her dry nurse with 3.6s.8d. [1,620].33 The sad news of the Queen's death had reached Spain by April 11, when Queen Isabella wrote at once to her amba.s.sador in England: "We are informed of the death of the Queen of England, our sister. We have spoken of the audience you are to seek, and the consolation you are to administer upon our part to the King of England, our brother. He is suffering from the loss of the Queen his wife, who is in glory."34 Henry VII never did secure the canonization of Henry VI-Pope Julius II asked too high a price-so his plans for a shrine in the new Lady Chapel at Westminster were abandoned in favor of his own monument being built to the east of the altar. He had always envisaged a fine tomb for himself and his queen. In 1506 he considered a design by Guido Mazzoni, based on the effigy of Charles VIII at St. Denis. The following year he commissioned a black-and-white marble tomb chest with gilt effigies of himself and Elizabeth, which may have been designed by Mazzoni, although royal craftsmen were to execute the work; but these effigies were never made, because Henry VIII "disliked" the designs, according to a later note on the estimate.

It seems Henry VII did too. In his will of 1509 he left a lavish sum of money to be spent on his chapel and monument; the total eventual cost was at least 20,000 [9.7 million], about 5,000 more than his son estimated. He also left minute instructions for a different tomb, still with a black-and-white marble chest; this was to have "our and our wife's images" in gilt-bronze lying on it, side by side, "as good or better than any of the other kings and queens in the abbey."35 The new chapel was consecrated the day after the King's death in 1509, so that he could be buried there in the large vault that had been constructed at the east end. As he ordered, he was laid next to Elizabeth; her body had been exhumed and placed in the vault so it could rest beside his for eternity.

The vault measured 2.7 meters long, 1.5 meters wide, and 1.4 meters high. Both bodies were encased in anthropoid lead coffins marked by Maltese crosses, with only the King's bearing a coffin plate. These were in turn chested in wooden outer coffins. Urns containing the entrails of the royal couple may have been buried with them. Bacon observed that Henry VII "dwelleth more richly dead in the monument of his tomb than he did alive at Richmond or any of his palaces."

In October 1512, Henry VIII commissioned the Florentine sculptor Pietro Torrigiano to build a Renaissance-style tomb for his parents over the vault. Torrigiano, a fearless, volatile man who broke Michelangelo's nose during a fight, had worked under Pinturicchio on the Borgia apartments in the Vatican. Before 1507 he had traveled to England in the company of some Florentine merchants. By 1511 he had come to the attention of the young King, who asked him to design a fine tomb and effigy for Margaret Beaufort in the south aisle of the new Lady Chapel. In producing this outstanding sepulchre, which is reckoned to be his masterpiece (and on which Elizabeth of York's arms appear), Torrigiano proved himself superior to any sculptor then working in England, and so earned himself the honor of building a tomb for the founders of the Tudor dynasty. It was the first major Renaissance monument to be erected in England, and was designed as the centerpiece of the Lady Chapel, which would in time come colloquially to be known as "the Henry VII Chapel." In 1516, Torrigiano was also contracted to build the princ.i.p.al altar in the chapel. He returned to Rome while these works were being executed, hoping to persuade Benvenuto Cellini to come to England to a.s.sist him, but Cellini refused on account of Torrigiano's arrogance and pride, and because he did not want to live among "such beasts as the English."36 Torrigiano's innovative marble tomb, one of the greatest sepulchres in Westminster Abbey, is considered to be "the finest Renaissance tomb north of the Alps."37 It is of white and black touchstone work with elaborately decorated gilt-bronze pilasters and Corinthian capitals at each corner. Tudor roses, portcullises, dragons, greyhounds, and crowns abound in the ornamentation of the monument. The tomb chest of Tournai marble is decorated with an exquisitely carved frieze, copper-gilt Italianate figures, and gilt-bronze medallions with reliefs of the Virgin Mary and the King's patron saints; cherubs sit at the head and feet of the tomb, supporting the royal arms. The monument is surrounded by a ma.s.sive intricate bronze grille by one Thomas the Dutchman, dating from 1505 and bearing royal badges and emblems. Originally it was adorned with thirty-two figures of saints, of which only six survive, and enclosed a chantry chapel with its own altar, long vanished, although the step on which it stood remains, along with the bar that once supported a canopy over the altar.

In 1512, Henry VIII commissioned Humphrey Walker and Nicholas Ewen, coppersmiths, to cast gilt-bronze effigies of his parents under the direction of Torrigiano. They took six years to complete, and rest on a white marble plinth. The tomb cost the King 1,500 [569,400]; it was finished on January 5, 1519. It appears that the sculptors used the death masks from the funeral effigies of the King and Queen as models for their tomb effigies. The quality of their workmanship is superb, and the naturalism of the heads, hands, and figures marks a departure from the stiff formalism of medieval effigies, and set a new standard for royal tomb sculpture. Elizabeth is portrayed with a slender figure, when in reality she was buxom and plump in her latter years; she and Henry lie side by side with their hands joined in prayer. They wear plain attire without any trappings of royalty, for their crowns-the only regalia ever to adorn the effigies-were lost or stolen after 1677, when they appear in an engraving of the tomb by John Dart in Francis Sandford's A Genealogical History of the Kings and Queens of England. It is this very simplicity that invests them with a realism at once majestic and pious, and in true Renaissance tradition shows the King to be a scholar, humanist, and great prince. The serene figure of Elizabeth wears traditional ceremonial robes-a square-necked surcoat with a low-slung girdle over a gown with cuffs and a chemise inset, a mantle secured by ta.s.seled cords, and her customary long gable hood, beneath which (unlike in portraits) her wavy hair is loose in token of her purity and her queenship. It bears a good resemblance to her portraits and her funeral effigy. Her head rests on two cushions and her feet on a lion.38 Henry VII's will made lavish and precise provision for perpetual daily Ma.s.ses to be said at the tomb altar for his soul and that of his late wife. Four candles, each eleven feet high, were to be kept burning around the monument, and on feast days and solemn ceremonials of the Church, thirty candles were to enclose it, each taller than a man. The candles were to be replaced when they had burned down to a height of three feet. Each year, on the anniversaries of the deaths of Henry and Elizabeth, no fewer than a hundred candles were to be lit in the chantry. Fines were to be imposed if the monks defaulted on these obligations.39 Thus did the King hope to ensure the safe pa.s.sage of his soul and Elizabeth's through Purgatory to eternal bliss. Alas, the dissolution of Westminster Abbey in 1540 put an end to these sacred rites.

The tomb survived with much of its splendor intact. Elizabeth, wrote Fuller, "lieth buried with her husband in the chapel of his erection, and hath an equal share with him in the use and honor of that, his most magnificent monument." Writing in the reign of her granddaughter, Elizabeth I, John Stow also found much to admire in this "sumptuous sepulchre and chapel," with its breathtaking Perpendicular fan-vaulted roof, Tudor emblems, and brilliant stained-gla.s.s windows that flooded the interior with light. It was, opined Bacon, the stateliest and daintiest chapel in Europe.

A white marble tablet inset in the bronze frieze to the right hand of the Queen's effigy bears the Latin inscription placed there on the order of Henry VIII: Hic jacet regina h.e.l.lisabect, Edwardi IIII quondam regis filia, Edwardi V regis nominate soros, Henrici VII olim regis conjux, Atque Henrici VIII mater inclyta.

Obit autem suum diem turri Londiniarum, Die Febrii 11, Anno Dom. 1502 [sic], 37 annorum etate functa.

This translates as: "Here rests Queen Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV, sometime king; sister of Edward V, who bore the name of king; formerly wedded to King Henry VII; and also the ill.u.s.trious mother of Henry VIII; who closed her life in the palace of the Tower of London on February 11, in the year of Our Lord 1502 [sic], having completed her thirty-seventh year." This recital of the Queen's royal connections was intended to proclaim the n.o.ble ancestry and connections of the Tudor dynasty, as was a further inscription around the tomb, also placed there by her son: "Here is situated Henry VII, the glory of all the kings who lived in his time by reason of his intellect, his riches, and the fame of his exploits, to which were added the gifts of bountiful nature, a distinguished brow, an august face, an heroic stature. Joined to him his sweet wife was very pretty, chaste, and fruitful. They were parents happy in their offspring, to whom, land of England, you owe Henry VIII."

Impeccably connected, beautiful, ceremonious, fruitful, devout, compa.s.sionate, generous, and kind, Elizabeth fulfilled every expectation of her contemporaries. Her goodness shines forth in the sources, and it is not surprising that she was greatly loved. She had overcome severe tragedies and setbacks, and emerged triumphant. We have seen how it is possible to reconcile her much debated actions before her marriage with the gentle queen who emerges after it. Certainly the sources show that, as Queen, she played a greater political role than that with which most historians have credited her, and that she was active within her traditional areas of influence. It is also clear that, far from being in subjection to Henry VII and Margaret Beaufort, she enjoyed a generally happy relationship with both of them-and with Henry at least up until the last year of her life.

Elizabeth is often unfairly overshadowed by her successors, the wives of Henry VIII, but she was more successful as Queen than any of them. For this, and for her integrity, her sweet good nature, and her many kindnesses, her memory deserves to be celebrated.

19.

"As Long as the World Shall Endure"

In November 1504, Henry VII settled an annual payment of 10 [4,860] on the University of Cambridge for holding a commemorative requiem service for Elizabeth in the church of St. Mary the Great on the anniversary of her death, for "as long as the world shall endure." This was first marked on February 11, 1505, and continued up to the Reformation of the 1530s.1 Although Elizabeth's death left him free to make a profitable marriage alliance, Henry never took another wife. In the 1530s a Scots chronicler, Adam Abell, would recall that, in the aftermath of his bereavement, he kept Katherine Gordon so often in his company that "some [thought] that they were married."2 Yet there is plenty of evidence that Henry's grief for Elizabeth was raw and genuine, and maybe Katherine Gordon, who had been close to her too on a daily basis, could offer some comfort at this time. His accounts show that she remained a support to him to the end of his life, partnering him at cards and obtaining medicines for him as his health declined; she even painted cloths of religious scenes to hold up before him as he lay dying; so maybe he did find solace with her.3 But he did not marry her.

It would probably be fair to say that the loss of Prince Arthur and Queen Elizabeth aged Henry prematurely. But he was a pragmatic man with only one son to succeed him; just that one life stood between the continuance of his dynasty and the ruin of all he had worked for-and he had good reason to know how fragile young lives could be. At forty-six, he was young enough to sire more children-and doubtless lonely.

On hearing of the pa.s.sing of Elizabeth, Queen Isabella expressed concern about propriety and the welfare of Katherine: "Now that the Queen of England is dead, in whose society the princess our daughter might have honorably remained as with a mother, it would not be right that the princess should stay in England."4 So when, just weeks after Elizabeth's death, King Henry, reluctant to return Katherine's dowry, suggested he marry her himself, the Spanish sovereigns were horrified at the prospect of such an "unnatural" union, and declined the honor. On June 24, 1503, Katherine was betrothed to Prince Henry, who was formally created Prince of Wales in 1504. Henry VII toyed with the idea of several other potential foreign brides, but in each case negotiations foundered.

It has been said that Elizabeth exerted a beneficial influence on him and that he became more miserly, suspicious, and harsh after her death, while his court was a more somber place, but the theory of "an imaginary deterioration" in his character was dismissed years ago by G. R. Elton as being based "only on insufficient knowledge of the facts." However, it is inconceivable that the loss of his son and his wife, in the s.p.a.ce of ten months, would not have left Henry a sadder man, and changed him in other ways too, not always for the better. The glory days were behind him now, and the last years of his reign also witnessed a decline in his health. Sentimentally, he retained the services of Elizabeth's minstrels, who played for him at every New Year celebration up to his death; in their poignant melodies he could perhaps recapture happy memories of the years he had spent with his late wife, who shared his love of music.5 After Queen Isabella's death in 1504, which left her widower Ferdinand as a mere king of Aragon, Henry would neither permit his heir to marry Katherine of Aragon, nor would he return Katherine or her dowry to Spain. He made young Henry secretly abjure his betrothal, and kept the princess in England in increasing penury for the rest of his reign.

Isabella's pa.s.sing reawakened Henry's fears about the legitimacy of his t.i.tle. According to Bacon, after the death of Elizabeth he had fretted that there would be some question over his continuing to reign, and he'd had cause, for one of his spies in Calais reported speculation there that Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, a descendant of Edward III, was the rightful successor of Elizabeth, who some people still clearly regarded as the true Queen of England; Prince Henry was not even mentioned.6 Henry "conceived that the case of Ferdinand of Aragon after the death of Queen Isabella was his own case after the death of his own queen. For if both of the kings had their kingdoms in the right of their wives, they descended to the heirs and did not accrue to the husbands. And though his own case had both steel and parchment more than the other, that is to say a conquest in the field and an Act of Parliament, yet notwithstanding, that natural t.i.tle of descent in blood did (in the imagination even of a wise man) breed a doubt that the other two were not safe nor sufficient. Wherefore he was wonderful diligent to inquire and observe what became of the King of Aragon in holding the kingdom of Castile,"7 which Ferdinand was soon successfully to wrest from his daughter Juana (who had succeeded her mother as Queen) on the grounds that she was mad. Henry's concern shows he had always been aware that public opinion generally held that he was King in right of his wife. One pedigree roll showing the descent of Prince Arthur bypa.s.sed Henry and his immediate forebears completely, and showed Cadwaladr's line stretching down through the Mortimers to Edward IV and Elizabeth, through whom, it was made clear, Arthur derived his claim to the throne.8 This may explain why the King kept Prince Henry, his surviving son and heir, under such close supervision that the boy ended up isolated-"locked away like a woman" and brought up more like a girl than a boy, as the Spanish amba.s.sador Gutierre Gomez de Fuensalida put it, adding, "He is so subjugated that he does not speak a word except in response to what the King asks him." Henry's bedchamber could only be accessed through his father's,9 and he was not allowed much freedom of movement, spending his formative years mainly with his tutors, "sober and discreet" old men, and the n.o.ble boys who had been selected as his companions. He grew up to be learned and pious, but lacking in experience of life. Probably the King had fears for the succession and the health of this one remaining son, in whom were now vested all the hopes of his dynasty, which would explain why the prince was never sent to Ludlow as Arthur had been.

Yet Henry VII also seemed reluctant to instruct his heir in the art of government or allow him to read state papers. It is possible that he had already a.s.sessed his son's character and potential and come to fear him, or that factions might form around him. On one occasion the King got so angry with young Henry that it looked "as if he sought to kill him"; instead, he locked him up until his anger had cooled.10 This treatment may have proceeded from dread that those who were dissatisfied with his rule would rally around Elizabeth's son and clamor for his succession. It was perhaps for this reason that Henry was "not greatly willing to cast any popular l.u.s.ter" on his children,11 although he had certainly given Arthur due prominence in happier days.

Henry VII died on April 21, 1509, at Richmond Palace, of tuberculosis. Despite his having brought peace and prosperity to England and enhanced her reputation in Europe, he was not mourned. He was succeeded by seventeen-year-old Henry VIII, who became famous-or notorious-for marrying six wives, breaking with the Church of Rome, and founding the Church of England in the process, with himself as its Supreme Head. He would die in 1547, and in the early seventeenth century there was still to be seen beside his vault in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, a funeral banner bearing the arms of his parents, Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.12 Henry VIII was succeeded in turn by his three children, Edward VI (reigned 154753, on whose death Elizabeth of York's male descendants became extinct), Mary I (reigned 155358), and Elizabeth I (reigned 15581603). Seventy years after Elizabeth of York's right to succeed had been pa.s.sed over virtually without comment, Henry VIII's lack of surviving sons had made it possible for a woman to rule in her own right.

It is almost certain that Henry VIII named the future Queen Elizabeth I, his daughter by Anne Boleyn, after his mother, Elizabeth of York, not only because of his fond remembrance of her, but also to proclaim his daughter's descent from the legitimist royal line. At Elizabeth's coronation procession in 1559 the figures of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York appeared in a pageant in Gracechurch Street, London, "so set that one of them joined hands with th'other, with the ring of matrimony perceived on the finger,"13 and seated beneath a cloth of estate in their respective red and white roses symbolizing the union of Lancaster and York, of which the Virgin Queen was now the embodiment: The two princes that sit under one cloth of state, The man in the red rose, the woman in the white: Henry the VII and Queen Elizabeth, his mate, By ring of marriage as man and wife unite.

Both heirs to both their bloods, to Lancaster the King, The Queen to York, in one the two houses did knit, Of whom, as heir to both, Henry the Eight did spring, In whose seat his true heir, thou Queen Elizabeth, doth sit.14 The feisty and formidable Elizabeth I was the very ant.i.thesis of the mild and self-effacing grandmother whose name she bore. The Virgin Queen did not look to the gentler Elizabeth as a role model; she preferred to emulate her magnificent sire, Henry VIII. Proving that a woman could rule as capably as any man, she enjoyed a long and successful reign, but never married. She was the last of the Tudors.

Elizabeth's blood flowed on, however, through her daughter Margaret, the ancestress of the Stuart monarchs of Great Britain, and through them to the Hanoverians and the House of Windsor. Her namesake, Queen Elizabeth II, is her descendant in the sixteenth generation.

Of Elizabeth's surviving sisters, Cecily, who had perhaps borne Thomas Kyme two children,15 died on August 24, 1507. Hall states that she was buried at Quarr Abbey, a Cistercian monastery on the Isle of Wight; if so, her tomb and its location was lost at the Reformation. Yet there is evidence in the Beaufort account books that she died at the Old Palace at Hatfield, Hertfordshire, after lodging there for three weeks, and was interred at "the friars," which may have been the friary at King's Langley where her ancestor, Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, was buried.16 Anne (Lady Thomas Howard) died between November 1511 and 1513, and was buried in Thetford Priory, Norfolk. Her remains were later removed to Framlingham Church.

After Elizabeth's death, Henry VII sent Katherine and her children home to Tiverton in Devon, where she lived as a dependent of the Earl of Devon, her father-in-law. William Courtenay remained in prison until Henry VII's death in 1509, after which he was freed by Henry VIII, but he did not long enjoy his liberty, for he died in 1511. Katherine then took a vow of perpetual chast.i.ty. She pa.s.sed away in November 1527 at Tiverton Castle, and was buried in Tiverton parish church, where her son, Henry Courtenay, Marquess of Exeter, erected a tomb to her memory, now gone.

Both John Speed and John Weaver, writing in the seventeenth century, state that the nun, Bridget, died in 1517, but Thomas More, writing in 1513, states that Elizabeth's only surviving sister, Katherine, was still living, which suggests that Bridget was then dead. She was buried in the priory church at Dartford, but her grave too was lost at the Dissolution.

More states that "representing the virtue of her whose name she bore, [Bridget] professed and observed a religious life in Dartford," and Speed says she "spent her life in holy contemplation unto the day of her death"; but it has been suggested that she had a b.a.s.t.a.r.d daughter, Agnes of Eltham, who was born around 1498. It is possible that Agnes was an orphan whose wardship was administered by Dartford Priory, but until Elizabeth of York's death in 1503 she was maintained by the crown, and when she married Adam Langstroth, a wealthy Yorkshire gentleman, in 1514, she had "a considerable dowry."17 It is not inconceivable that the teenage Bridget, pushed into a convent at the age of seven, and perhaps not very bright anyway, had no vocation for the religious life and embarked on an affair that resulted in a child; and that the Queen supported that child, as she had supported her sisters. It is equally possible that Agnes was simply one of the children Elizabeth took pleasure in patronizing. She died in 1530.

Margaret Beaufort, who was widowed in 1504, survived her son. She had played a mother's part to Henry and Mary, the grandchildren who were left to her, after Elizabeth's death and Margaret's departure for Scotland,18 and in 1509 acted as unofficial regent for Henry VIII during his brief minority.19 She died in the Abbot's House at Westminster Abbey on June 29, 1509, the day after her grandson reached eighteen. Her fine bronze tomb effigy by Torrigiano shows her in her customary widow's wimple.

Elizabeth's daughter Margaret married James IV on August 8, 1503, at Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh, and was crowned Queen of Scots the same day. She bore six children, among them James V, father of Mary, Queen of Scots. James IV was killed at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. The following year, Margaret took a second husband, Archibald Douglas, Earl of Angus, to whom she bore a daughter, Margaret Douglas, later Countess of Lennox and mother of Henry Stewart, Lord Darnley, who married Mary, Queen of Scots, and fathered the future James VI of Scotland. In 1603, James succeeded Elizabeth I as the first sovereign of the House of Stuart to reign over a united Great Britain. Margaret Tudor died of palsy in the autumn of 1541 at Methven Castle, and was buried in the Carthusian Abbey of St. John in Perth.

Her younger sister Mary, the beauty of the family, judging by all reports, was married in 1514 to the ailing King Louis XII of France. Widowed in 1515, she caused a scandal by marrying, for love, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. But when Henry VIII's anger had cooled, and the errant couple agreed to pay a crippling fine, he received them back into favor. Mary bore four children, one of whom, Frances Brandon, became the mother of the ill-fated Lady Jane Grey, who was set up as a puppet queen for just nine days in 1553 and was beheaded on Mary I's orders the following year. Mary Tudor died on June 25, 1533, at Westhorpe Hall, Suffolk, and was buried in the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds. Later, her remains were moved to St. Mary's Church, where a white stone slab in the chancel marks her grave.

The future Henry VIII had not attended his mother's funeral; none of her children had, but Henry's tutor, chaplain, and servants walked in the procession and no doubt witnessed the obsequies and committal, and could have told him about the stark, mournful pageantry that surrounded that final act. The effect on an eleven-year-old who had been close to his mother was probably devastating.

That Henry was grief-stricken by his mother's death is attested on good evidence. A richly illuminated ma.n.u.script, the "Vaux Pa.s.sional" in the National Library of Wales in Aberystwyth,20 dating from the early sixteenth century, is believed to have been in Henry VII's own library, and contains an illumination showing the presentation of a book to the King, who can be identified by his heraldic emblems. Behind the throne to one side is an empty black-draped bed, and kneeling beside it, his red-haired head buried in his arms, is a young boy in a green tunic. Almost certainly this image portrays the young Henry weeping for his mother. In front of the bed kneel two girls in black hoods who are probably his sisters, thirteen-year-old Margaret and seven-year-old Mary. The ma.n.u.script, which still has its original crimson-velvet binding, contains two French texts: "La Pa.s.sion de Nostre Seigneur," which invites the reader to reflect on the sufferings of Christ, and Georges Chastellain's poem "Le miroir de la mort," an aid to meditation on the futility of worldly pleasures in the face of death. All the other illuminations show scenes from the Bible or cla.s.sical history.

The ma.n.u.script was later owned by Jane Vaux, the wife of Sir Richard Guildford. She had served Elizabeth of York and was later governess to Margaret and Mary; she died in 1538. It is possible that the Pa.s.sional was a gift to her from Henry VII or Henry VIII. The ma.n.u.script descended through the Vaux and Fermor families, from whom it was probably acquired by Sir Kenelm Digby in the seventeenth century. His decendants had it in their library at Peniarth, Merioneth. It was bought for the National Library of Wales in 1921.21 Thomas More, in his elegy of 1503, refers to Henry as Elizabeth's "loving son." This, and the portrayal of him in the illumination, suggests that his closeness to his mother was well known. There is also his own testimony to his grief at her loss: four years afterward, in January 1507, in a letter to Erasmus about the untimely demise of the Archduke Philip, he wrote: "Never since the death of my dearest mother hath there come to me more hateful intelligence. And to speak truth, I was the scanter well-disposed toward your letter than its singular grace demanded, because it seemed to tear open the wound to which time had brought insensibility. But indeed those things which are decreed by Heaven are so to be accepted by mortal men."22 These heartfelt words show that Henry had grieved deeply for Elizabeth and been close to her, and that at fifteen he was already familiar with the raw pain of loss when he learned of Philip's pa.s.sing. The news of his mother's death must have come as a terrible shock. Already, in his short life, he had seen two brothers and a sister die young, and soon another sister would die too. The impact of these events on the young Henry should not be underestimated, and his misery can only have been compounded by the total withdrawal of his father, followed by the illness that threatened to deprive the boy of his other parent. It may well have been these terrible events that gave Henry VIII his lifelong fear of illness.

Elizabeth's influence on him is hard to gauge. Given Henry's checkered matrimonial career-six wives, two beheaded, three divorced, and only one son to show for it-post-Freudian historians have sometimes taken a psychological view, speculating that he was so traumatized by losing a mother he idolized that he developed an Oedipus complex, which drew him irresistibly into incestuous relationships while being outraged by them; yet it has since been questioned whether such a condition as an Oedipus complex even exists.

It is tempting to speculate that, had Elizabeth lived, Henry's marital career would not have been so colorful. It is possible that his six marriages represented attempts to re-create the marital harmony of his parents, and mirror their example. The way he comforted Katherine of Aragon after the death of their son echoes the way his parents had consoled each other after Arthur died. Henry's eagerness to marry Katherine, six years his senior, may have stemmed partly from the fact that she had been beloved by his mother; possibly she appeared as a mother-subst.i.tute figure to him. Certainly the qualities he admired in his wives-fidelity, dignity, piety, virtue, fruitfulness, intelligence, and docility-were those his mother had in full measure. And, as Marie Louise Bruce has pointed out, he would have been too young to perceive any flaws in Elizabeth's character. For him, she probably remained the epitome of all that was desirable in a queen-with disastrous consequences for his own wives, who would suffer by comparison with such impossible perfection.

Henry inherited Elizabeth's books and ma.n.u.scripts, as well as his father's, and would appoint the antiquarian John Leland, whom he made keeper of the King's books around 1530, to put them all in order in the new library at Whitehall Palace.23 No doubt the King prized the cross his mother had given him-one "set with a table diamond and three good pearls"-which had cost her 13.6s.8d. [6,500].24 He evidently cherished her memory. When he became King, he appointed to his service, and Queen Katherine's, several men and women who served or had been related to his mother, possibly for her sake, and rewarded many who had served her well (see Appendix II).25 The death of his third wife, Jane Seymour, in 1537 in childbed, twelve days after the birth of Henry's long-awaited son and heir, probably revived sad memories of his mother's pa.s.sing, and his advisers consulted Garter Herald as to the ceremonial that had been observed at Queen Elizabeth's funeral so that it could be replicated at Jane's; a banner bearing the arms of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York was carried in the procession.26 By the end of Henry VIII's reign it was generally accepted that Henry VII had owed his crown to Elizabeth of York. In 1533 the Imperial amba.s.sador, Eustache Chapuys, observed that Henry VIII had "received the princ.i.p.al t.i.tle to his realm through the female line."27 In 1541, Henry's kinsman, Sir Anthony St. Leger, was reported to him for saying that the King's father had no just t.i.tle to the crown till he married Edward IV's daughter. When questioned, St. Leger insisted he had been misquoted and actually said that Henry VII's t.i.tle was not perfect until he married Elizabeth of York, because some of his advisers had urged him to claim the throne by right of conquest, "but now, thanked be the Lord, all t.i.tles be in the King our master." Henry VIII was satisfied with this line of reasoning.28 When, in 1674, workmen were dismantling the forebuilding to the White Tower, during demolition of the old royal palace, they discovered-ten feet under the rubble infill of a spiral staircase, just as Sir Thomas More had described-a wooden chest containing the skeletons of two children. It was recorded that sc.r.a.ps of rag and velvet adhered to the bones. The velvet was evidence that these were children of high status, and it was a.s.sumed they were the Princes in the Tower. On the orders of Charles II they were reburied as such in an urn in Westminster Abbey, just a few feet from where Elizabeth of York, the princes' sister, lay at rest. The bones were examined in 1933, and the results, while not conclusive, were compatible with those of Elizabeth's lost brothers, Edward V and Richard, Duke of York. In 1965 dental tests on the remains of Anne Mowbray proved a familial link between her and the skeletons in the urn.29 However, in 1789, workmen restoring the tomb of Edward IV in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, accidentally broke into the vault containing the coffins of the King and Elizabeth Wydeville, and discovered a small vault next to it, which held the bodies of two children. It was a.s.sumed that they were those of Princess Mary and George, Duke of Bedford, and their names were added to the inscription on the restored tomb. But in 1810, when Wolsey's tomb house was excavated to construct a burial vault for George III and his family, the coffin of George, clearly labeled "Serenissimus princeps Georgius filius tercius Christianissimi principis Edvardi iiij," was found, and next to it one that was almost certainly Mary's, as the contemporary account of her funeral states she was buried beside her brother.30 In 1813 both were moved into their parents' vault. Unfortunately, on neither of the occasions when Edward IV's vault was opened were the coffins of the two unidentified children opened, examined, or even described.

It has been suggested that they could have been the Princes in the Tower, perhaps secretly laid to rest with their parents by a guilty Richard III, but until further investigations are made-and the sovereign's permission would be required for that-there is too little evidence to say whose remains they are.31 It is likely that the bones are those of royal children, but no other royal children are recorded as having been buried, with graves unaccounted for, in St. George's Chapel prior to 1789.

A clue to the mystery may lie in Westminster Abbey. A history in the abbey's library records that when the sarcophagus of Elizabeth's infant sister Margaret was opened, it was empty. At the Reformation the sarcophagus was moved from the steps of St. Edward the Confessor's shrine to the side of his chapel, so it is possible the body was removed at that time to Windsor. As to who the other child may be, that remains a mystery.

The full splendor of the incomparable and richly adorned chapel in which lay the remains of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York did not long outlive them. It was despoiled and stripped of some of its fittings during the Reformation that spanned the reigns of their son, Henry VIII, and grandchildren, Edward VI and Elizabeth I, and more depredations took place later under Oliver Cromwell. The upper part of the fine screen around the tomb, most of the images of saints that adorned it, much of the wondrous gla.s.s of the chapel and the original altars, placed there with such veneration, were all destroyed, and the last of the gla.s.s was lost during the Second World War Blitz.

In 1625 the vault below Henry VII's tomb was opened for the burial of James I. At that time the large wooden outer coffins encasing the lead coffins of Henry and Elizabeth were removed to make s.p.a.ce for the vault's new inc.u.mbent, leaving the bodies wrapped only in lead. They had originally been placed on either side of the vault, but were moved to one side to accommodate James I's coffin, and the head sh.e.l.l from Elizabeth of York's coffin was temporarily laid upon Henry VII's. It is possible that the visceral urns were removed and later placed in the nearby vault of General George Monck.

On February 11, 1869, the vault was again opened, on the instructions of Dean Stanley, who examined its contents. A drawing was made by Sir George Scharf, Director of the National Portrait Gallery, of the lead coffins lying in a row: James I's to the left, and the smaller ones of Elizabeth of York (center), marked by a Maltese cross, and Henry VII (right).32 Those of the two kings were identified by inscriptions.33 The tomb has not been disturbed since, and Elizabeth sleeps on in peace.

Elizabeth of York, "the most virtuous princess and gracious Queen." (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.1) Edward IV and Elizabeth Wydeville with their children: the future Edward V kneels in front of his brother on the left, and Elizabeth of York heads her sisters, Mary, Cecily, Anne, and Katherine, on the right. "In those days you would have seen a royal court worthy of a most mighty kingdom, filled with riches, and, surpa.s.sing all else, those beautiful and most delightful children." (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.2) Edward IV, Elizabeth's father. "The commons love and adore him as if he were their G.o.d." (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.3) Elizabeth Wydeville, Elizabeth's mother. "Now take heed what love may do." (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.4) Elizabeth and her sisters, Mary, Cecily, and Anne. "She manifested toward her brothers and sisters an unbounded love." (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.5) One of the restored rooms at Cheyneygates, the former house of the Abbot of Westminster, where Elizabeth lived in sanctuary with her mother and siblings for eighteen months in total, "in right great trouble, sorrow and heaviness." (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.6) Thomas, Lord Stanley, later Earl of Derby-Elizabeth's "Father Stanley"-who intrigued with her against Richard III. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.7) Richard III, the uncle who had Elizabeth declared a b.a.s.t.a.r.d. She called him "her only joy and maker in this world." (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.8) Fotheringhay Church, where Elizabeth witnessed the solemn reburial of her grandfather, Richard, Duke of York, in 1476. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.9) Sheriff Hutton Castle, Yorkshire, where Elizabeth was effectively held prisoner by Richard III in 1485. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.10) Elizabeth's husband, Henry VII, as a young man. "He was governed by none," yet there is evidence that he came to respect Elizabeth's judgment and confided in her. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.11) Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond, Elizabeth's mother-in-law. "Everyone that knew her loved her," and the two women got on well together. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.12) "The joining of the Houses of Lancaster and York": imaginative painting of the wedding of Henry and Elizabeth by J. R. Brown, ca. 1901. "Two t.i.tles in one thou didst unify, when the red rose took the white in marriage." (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.13) "The rose both red and white in one rose now doth grow." The Deanery, Winchester Cathedral, the former Prior's House, where Elizabeth's first child, Arthur, was born in 1486. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.14) The birth of a prince, from the Beauchamp Pageant, ca. 148387. "Behold, the royal child Arthur arises, the second hope of our kingdom." (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.15) "O Commonwealth, the Queen with joyous heart takes up her glorious crown." The coronation of a queen, from the Beauchamp Pageant, ca. 148387. Although this drawing depicts Joan of Navarre, wife of Henry IV, it was executed eighty years later, around the time of Elizabeth's coronation. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.16) Bermondsey Abbey, south of London, where Elizabeth's mother was sent "for divers considerations" in 1487. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.17) The Palace of Westminster, with Westminster Abbey in the background, as it would have looked in the reign of Elizabeth's son, Henry VIII. (St. Stephen's Chapel can be seen in the center, with Westminster Hall behind it to the right.) Elizabeth was born here. She spent much time at Westminster, which was the foremost of the royal palaces in her day. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.18) Perkin Warbeck, the "feigned lad," who claimed to be Elizabeth's brother, Richard, Duke of York. He could "move pity and induce belief, as was like a kind of fascination and enchantment to those that saw or heard him." (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.19) Edward IV's great hall at Eltham Palace, where Henry and Elizabeth's "right dearly well-beloved" younger children spent much time in their early years. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.20) "Madam, I pray you forget not me to pray to G.o.d that I may have part of your prayers." Inscriptions written by Elizabeth and Henry VII in a Latin missal of 1498, owned by one of her ladies. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.21) Elizabeth's signature appears at the bottom of this page in The Hours of Elizabeth the Queen. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.22) Carved reliefs of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York on the Sudbury Hutch of ca.1500. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.23) The two foremost residences of the House of York, which pa.s.sed to Elizabeth in 1495. (Left) Baynard's Castle, on the Thames in London, where her father, Edward IV, and her uncle, Richard III, were in turn offered the crown. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.24) Fotheringhay Castle, a Yorkist stronghold since 1377 (modern reconstruction). (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.25) The Paradise Bed, perhaps commissioned by Derby for the visit of the King and Queen to Lathom or Knowsley in 1495. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.26) Lathom House, the seat of Thomas Stanley, Earl of Derby, and Margaret Beaufort, where Henry and Elizabeth stayed in 1495. "There is something so particular and romantic in the general situation of this house." (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.27) Margaret Tudor, Elizabeth's eldest daughter, in 1503. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.28) The tomb of Elizabeth's second daughter and namesake in Westminster Abbey. "Atropos, most merciless messenger of death, s.n.a.t.c.hed her away" at the age of three. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.29) Elizabeth's "fair sweet son," the future Henry VIII, in infancy. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.30) "A delightful small, new rose, worthy of its stock." Terra-cotta bust of a laughing child, possibly Prince Henry, by Guido Mazzoni, ca. 1498. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.31) Elizabeth of York, a portrait possibly painted in 1502, the year that may have witnessed a rift between the King and Queen. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.32) Henry VII in later life: "a dark prince and infinitely suspicious." Terra-cotta bust by Pietro Torrigiano, ca. 150911. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.33) Stained-gla.s.s windows depicting Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, dating from ca. 153740 and based on the Whitehall mural. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.34) Elizabeth of York, detail from Remigius van Leemput's copy of Hans Holbein's lost Whitehall Palace mural of 1537. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.35) Richmond Palace, "this earthly and second paradise of England," built by Henry VII to showcase the Tudor dynasty. Drawing by Anthony van Wyngaerde, 1555. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.36) "The delight of the Britons" and "the glorious hope of the realm": Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales, artist unknown, ca. 1520. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.37) Katherine of Aragon, portrait by Miguel Sittow ca. 1505. Arthur "had never felt so much joy in his life as when he beheld the sweet face of his bride." (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.38) Henry VII and Elizabeth of York kneeling with all their "ill.u.s.trious progeny" before St. George. Votive altarpiece of ca. 15039, Flemish School. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.39) Elizabeth and her four daughters. Nineteenth-century copy of a lost panel painting related to the St. George altarpiece. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.40) Henry and Elizabeth and their children in "The Ordinances of the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception," dating from March 1503. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.41) Henry and Elizabeth and their children from an early sixteenth-century genealogy of the kings of England. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.42) Reconstruction of Hampton Court as it was when Elizabeth visited in 1502 and 1503. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.43) Raglan Castle, Wales, where Elizabeth stayed on her long progress of 1502. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.44) The Minoresses Convent at Aldgate, after the fire of 1797. Elizabeth was in touch with her kinswoman, the Abbess, when she visited the Tower in 1502, at the time Sir James Tyrell probably confessed to murdering her brothers, the Princes in the Tower. (Ill.u.s.tration credit i1.45) "Merciful G.o.d, this is a strange reckoning." The Queen's lodgings a