Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville: How One Secret Marriage Changed English History

Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville shared one of the most surprising and controversial royal marriages in English history. Their secret wedding in 1464 defied every expectation of medieval kingship—no foreign alliance, no political strategy, and no royal approval. Elizabeth Woodville, a Lancastrian widow with two sons and no dowry, was an unlikely match for a young Yorkist king whose crown was far from secure. Yet Edward IV chose love—or at least personal preference—over diplomacy, igniting a political storm that rocked the English court, enraged his allies, and reshaped the royal succession.

Let’s explore who Elizabeth Woodville was, how their marriage happened, why it shocked the nobility, and how it changed the course of English history.

Transcript of Why Edward IV’s Marriage to Elizabeth Woodville Shocked the English Court

Today we are going to talk about the marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. It’s one of those very famous marriages that changed the course of history. So we’re going to talk about how Edward met Elizabeth, who Elizabeth was, whether the marriage was valid, the reaction to the marriage—everything about it.

You know how kings are supposed to marry for politics—secure an alliance, bring in a tidy dowry, ideally avoid marrying someone whose family fought against you in a civil war? Edward IV took one look at all of that and then just completely ignored it.

Today, we’re going to look at the scandalous, dramatic, and politically disastrous marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville: a king with everything to prove and a crown that wasn’t exactly nailed down, and a Lancastrian widow with two children, no dowry, and a family that everyone at court loved to hate. And yet, against all odds, they were married for nearly two decades and their union changed the course of history.

So who was Elizabeth Woodville? Well, Elizabeth Woodville was not supposed to end up as a queen. She was the daughter of Sir Richard Woodville, a former knight who had risen through service to the Crown, and Jacquetta of Luxembourg, who had been married to the Duke of Bedford, uncle of Henry VI.

Jacquetta’s noble pedigree was excellent. Richard’s—not so much. Jacquetta’s marriage to Richard was similar to Catherine of Valois when she married Owen Tudor. It was one of those love matches that happened after her first husband died, and so that’s how she ended up married to Richard Woodville. Together, the two of them had a famously large family—15 children in total. While Jacquetta’s royal blood gave the family some social weight, they were still seen as upstarts.

Elizabeth Woodville’s first marriage had been to Sir John Grey of Groby, a Lancastrian who died fighting for Henry VI at the Battle of St. Albans. That left Elizabeth a young widow, probably in her early twenties, with two sons to support and some very sticky legal issues around their inheritance.

She needed help and in 1464, she set out to ask the new king—as one does. Edward IV had only recently taken the throne after defeating Henry VI. He was young, charismatic—he had rizz, as my daughter likes to say or as the young’uns like to say. And at least officially, he was unmarried.

According to later legend, Elizabeth met him beneath an oak tree at Whittlebury Forest, with her sons in tow, and pleaded for their lands to be restored. The story goes that Edward was instantly smitten, tried to seduce her, and was firmly rebuffed. In one version, she held a dagger to her throat and told him she’d rather die than dishonor herself.

So—the tree did exist. The Queen’s Oak stood near Potterspury until it fell in 1997. Whether or not any of that is true, what we do know is that within a matter of weeks, Edward was making regular visits to the Woodville home at Grafton. Soon after that, they were secretly married.

The wedding took place on May 1st, 1464—May Day, an auspicious date for lovers. It happened quietly at the Woodvilles’ home, possibly at the chapel at Groby, with only Elizabeth’s mother, Jacquetta, and a small number of attendants present.

No royal proclamation, no council approval, no public ceremony. Just a king, a widow, and a priest. To say this was unconventional is a massive understatement. Kings did not marry commoners—especially not ones who came with baggage. Especially not ones who had children.

Elizabeth was at least five years older than Edward. She was a mother of two. And—worst of all in the eyes of the Yorkist court—she was a Lancastrian. She brought no dowry, no foreign alliance, and no new lands. What she did bring was proven fertility and an extensive family who were very eager to benefit from her new status.

Edward kept the marriage secret for several months. At the time, his chief advisor and cousin, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick—the so-called Kingmaker—was deep in negotiations to arrange a diplomatic marriage between Edward and Bona of Savoy, the sister-in-law of the French king. So you can imagine how that conversation went when Edward finally told him that he’d already married a knight’s widow from Northamptonshire.

When Edward finally revealed the marriage that autumn, his council was stunned—stupefied. Not just surprised—furious. Warwick, who had just returned from France thinking he was negotiating a royal wedding, now found out that the king had secretly married a Lancastrian widow.

In political terms, it was a slap in the face. Warwick had built his entire strategy on diplomatic alliances and his own influence over Edward. Now, the king had bypassed him entirely and handed an enormous amount of influence to the Woodvilles.

Within months, Elizabeth’s relatives began receiving titles, marriages, and offices. Her brother John married the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, who was in her sixties. Another brother, Lionel, got a bishopric. Her sisters were paired off with nobles—sometimes at the expense of Warwick’s own kin or political allies.

Even though much of this advancement came from Edward himself, the entire Woodville family was soon viewed as greedy, opportunistic, and dangerously powerful. And of course, there were whisperings that Elizabeth had bewitched the king.

That’s not metaphorical. She and her mother, Jacquetta, were accused—seriously and repeatedly—of using sorcery to ensnare Edward. The charge was, of course, never proven. Jacquetta was actually tried and cleared, but the idea stuck around. And when Richard III came to power nearly two decades later, he would recycle the same accusation.

So, did they marry for love? Well… maybe. Edward was certainly impulsive and famously fond of women. He was said to be the most handsome man in Europe at the time, and contemporary accounts do suggest a very strong personal connection. But it would be naive to think there weren’t other considerations.

Marrying Elizabeth helped Edward distance himself from Warwick and signal that he was going to rule in his own way. She might have been a Lancastrian, but her mother was from Luxembourg, and the marriage did help to win over some of the old Lancastrian loyalists.

Still, this wasn’t how things were done. Royal marriages were public. They were political. By choosing a domestic bride—especially one without a title, a dowry, or any kind of powerful foreign relatives—Edward broke with every expectation of medieval kingship. And while the marriage may have worked on a personal level, the fallout would echo for years and years and years.

Then there’s the infamous pre-contract allegation. In 1483, after Edward’s sudden death, his eldest son, Edward V, was set to inherit the throne. But before his coronation could happen, Edward’s younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, claimed that Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth had been invalid all along.

According to this story, Edward had already been pre-contracted—essentially informally married—to another noblewoman, Lady Eleanor Butler, before he wed Elizabeth. If that’s true, it would have made all of Edward’s children illegitimate and ineligible for the crown, which would mean the crown would go to the next person in line—conveniently, Richard.

The man who made this claim was Richard Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells—not exactly a household name. And conveniently, Eleanor Butler was already dead by this point, so she couldn’t confirm or deny it. Neither could Edward, of course, because he was also dead.

The alleged pre-contract had never been raised during Edward’s reign—not in 1464 when the marriage was announced, not during the rebellion of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence in the 1470s, not even in Warwick’s earlier attempts to discredit Elizabeth and the Woodvilles. It only surfaced when Richard needed a reason to take the throne.

It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the pre-contract story was more political fiction than legal fact. But either way, it worked. Richard declared Edward’s sons illegitimate, had himself crowned Richard III, and locked the boys in the Tower of London, where they were last seen that summer.

So was the marriage between Edward and Elizabeth valid? Legally, yes. Secret marriages weren’t ideal, but they weren’t invalid either. There was a priest, there were witnesses, and the couple stayed married for 19 years. If there had truly been a prior pre-contract, it could—and likely would have been dealt with long before Richard decided to weaponize it.

What Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth did do, though, was prove just how disruptive a love match could be at the highest level of power. The resentment it caused helped to fuel decades of factionalism. It gave Warwick the Kingmaker a reason to turn traitor. It provided Richard III with the excuse he needed to seize the crown. And it set the stage for the Tudor dynasty, born out of Elizabeth’s daughter’s marriage to Henry VII.

Despite the scandal, the gossip, and the political blowback, Edward never attempted to annul his marriage. He never wavered in keeping Elizabeth as his queen. And when he died, he asked to be buried beside her at Windsor. Whatever brought them together—love, fancying each other, politics, or all three—it was definitely a union that neither of them ever abandoned.

Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, the original Tudor history podcast, started in 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. In 2019 she created Tudorcon, which is now a yearly event, in addition to writing books, and running TudorFair.com - a whimsical Tudor Merch shop.

She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 30 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history (how exciting when she got to interview Alison for the first time!). In addition to history, she is passionate about travel, and has lived in 3 countries and 4 states (not counting her perpetual state of confusion), and her family (who help her host her YouTube channel occasionally).

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