Elizabeth Woodville

Elizabeth Woodville (born 1437—died June 7/8, 1492, London) wife of King Edward IV of England. After Edward’s death popular dislike of her and her court facilitated the usurpation of power by Richard, duke of Gloucester (King Richard III).

A woman of great beauty, she was already a widow with two sons when Edward IV married her in May 1464. The match was repugnant to the ruling nobility of the House of York because she was a daughter of the Lancastrians, the traditional enemies of the Yorkists, and because she was not of royal rank. Her penchant for procuring high offices and titles of nobility for her relatives increased her widespread unpopularity.

Because Elizabeth bore Edward two surviving sons and five daughters, the Yorkist succession seemed secure. Within three months after the death (on April 9, 1483) of Edward IV, however, Gloucester had defeated Elizabeth’s party and seized the throne from Edward IV’s son and successor, the 12-year-old Edward V. It is not entirely clear why Elizabeth, who had taken sanctuary, surrendered her younger son (on June 16) and later her daughters to Richard III. Soon both sons disappeared from Richard’s custody, presumably murdered.

After Henry Tudor became king as Henry VII in 1485, he married Elizabeth’s eldest daughter; but in 1487 Elizabeth was disgraced—probably for treasonable activities—and forced to withdraw to a convent, where she died five years later.