Blood Sisters: The Hidden Lives of the Women Behind the Wars of the Roses. Sarah Gristwood
to Henry VII and Elizabeth of York. She subsequently became the first wife of Arthur’s brother Henry VIII.
LANCASTER: the name of one of the two great rival houses, the other being York, sometimes identified by the symbol of the red rose.
MARGARET: besides Margaret Beaufort, the name was borne by Margaret (or Marguerite) of Anjou (1430–82), queen to Henry VI and mother to Edward of Lancaster. Margaret (Margaret ‘of Burgundy’ or ‘of York’, 1446–1503) was also the name of the youngest daughter of Cecily Neville and Richard, Duke of York, sister to Edward IV and Richard III, who was married to Charles, Duke of Burgundy. Yet another Margaret was Margaret Tudor (1489–1541), eldest daughter of Elizabeth of York and Henry VII, who was married to the king of Scots.
MARY: the younger daughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York was Mary Tudor (1495/6–1533), who would be married to the king of France. The name also belonged to Mary of York (1467–82), one of Elizabeth of York’s sisters, as well as to Mary of Burgundy.
NEVILLE: name of the great northern family to which Cecily and Anne both belonged, Anne’s father Warwick being the son of Cecily’s brother, Salisbury. The Neville family was a particularly extensive one, not all of whose members would necessarily be on the same side.
PASTON: name of the Norfolk gentry family whose letters, down the generations, provide an invaluable background to this period.
RICHARD: name borne by Richard, Duke of York (1411–60); by his youngest son Richard III (1452–85); and by the younger of the two ‘Princes in the Tower’ (1473–83?).
SOMERSET, DUKES OF: John Beaufort, Earl (later first Duke) of Somerset (1404–44) was Margaret Beaufort’s father. He was succeeded by his brother Edmund Beaufort, second Duke of Somerset (1405–55), who in turn was succeeded by his son Henry, the third duke (1436–64). When Henry was executed his younger brother, another Edmund (1439–71), assumed the title of fourth duke, although it was never formally granted to him.
STAFFORD, SIR HENRY (1425?–71): second husband of Margaret Beaufort, a son to the Duke of Buckingham.
STANLEY, THOMAS, LORD STANLEY, EARL OF DERBY (1435?–1504): third husband of Margaret Beaufort and a powerful magnate.
SUFFOLK, WILLIAM DE LA POLE, DUKE OF (1396–1450): favourite minister of Henry VI and Marguerite of Anjou. He was married to Alice Chaucer (1404–75), a granddaughter of the poet Chaucer. William was succeeded by his son John (1442–91) who, despite the family’s Lancastrian affiliations, was married to Elizabeth, sister to Edward IV and Richard III, daughter of Richard, Duke of York and Cecily Neville.
TUDOR: the family name of Henry VII, of his father Edmund (1428–56) and his uncle Jasper (1431–95). The Welsh Tudors were a comparatively obscure family until Edmund’s father Owen (1400–61) became the second husband of Henry V’s widow.
WARWICK, RICHARD NEVILLE, EARL OF (1428–71): known as the ‘Kingmaker’ for the prominent role he played in placing the house of York on what had previously been a Lancastrian throne. He was the father of Isabel and Anne Neville, both of whom he married to York brothers.
WOODVILLE (or Wydeville): the birth family of Elizabeth Woodville, Edward IV’s queen. Notable among her numerous siblings was her eldest brother Anthony (1440?–83), who became Earl Rivers on his father’s death.
YORK: (as in Richard, Duke of, above). The second of the two great warring families, often identified by the symbol of a white rose.
Of the seven women whose stories I explore, the fashions of the times mean that two are called Elizabeth and three, Margaret. I have therefore referred to the York princess who married the Burgundian ruler as Margaret ‘of Burgundy’, while giving Margaret of Anjou the French appellation she herself continued sometimes to use after marriage – Marguerite. The family originally spelt as ‘Wydeville’ has been given its more familiar appellation of ‘Woodville’, and other spellings and forms have sometimes been modernised. The quotations at the top of each chapter have been drawn from Shakespeare’s history plays.
REIGNS
| Henry IV | 1399–1413 | Lancaster |
| Seized the throne from his cousin Richard II | ||
| Henry V | 1413–22 | Lancaster |
| Henry VI | 1422–61 | Lancaster |
| Succeeded to the throne before he was a year old, and at first ruled in name only | ||
| Edward IV | 1461–70 (first reign) | York |
| Seized the throne from Henry VI | ||
| Henry VI | October 1470–April 1471 | |
| (‘Readeption’) | Lancaster | |
| Edward IV | 1471–83 (second reign) | York |
| Edward V | April–June 1483 | York |
| Richard III | 1483–85 | York |
| Henry VII | 1485–1509 | Lancaster |
| Henry VIII | 1509–47 | Tudor |
PROLOGUE
February 1503
She had died on her thirty-seventh birthday and that figure would be reiterated through the ceremony. Thirty-seven virgins dressed in white linen, and wreathed in the Tudor colours of green and white, were stationed in Cheapside holding burning tapers; thirty-seven palls of rich cloth were draped beside the corpse. The king’s orders specified that two hundred poor people in the vast and solemn procession from the Tower of London to Westminster should each carry a ‘weighty torch’, the flames flickering wanly in the February day.1
For Elizabeth of York had been one of London’s own. Her mother Elizabeth Woodville had been the first English-born queen consort for more than three centuries, but where Elizabeth Woodville had been in some ways a figure of scandal, her daughter was less controversial. She had been a domestic queen, who gave money in return for presents of apples and woodcocks; and bought silk ribbons for her girdles, while thriftily she had repairs made to a velvet gown. Elizabeth rewarded her son’s schoolmaster, bought household hardware for her newly married daughter, and tried to keep an eye out for her sisters and their families. The trappings of the hearse showed she was a queen who had died in childbirth, a fate feared by almost every woman in the fifteenth century.
She had been, too, a significant queen: the white rose of York who had married red Lancaster in the person of Henry VII and ended the battles over the crown. Double Tudor roses, their red petals firmly encircling the white, were engraved and carved all over the chapel where she would finally be laid to rest.
The records describe how on her death Henry ‘took with him certain of his secretest, and privately departed to a solitary place to pass his