Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/207

 spiritual and temporal and the lord mayor and aldermen of London were called to witness this engagement, which was evidently intended to destroy the hopes which the Earl of Richmond built upon his future marriage with Elizabeth of York, and it was so far successful that not only did the ladies leave sanctuary, but the queen dowager abandoned Richmond's cause, while her daughter Elizabeth was treated with so much attention at court that strange rumours arose in consequence. It was noticed particularly that at Christmas following dresses of the same shape and colour were delivered to the queen and to her, from which it was surmised by some that Richard intended getting rid of his queen either by divorce or death, and then marrying his niece. When the queen actually died on 16 March following (1485), a report at once got abroad that this marriage was seriously contemplated. If indeed we are to believe Sir George Buck, a seventeenth-century antiquary who professes to write from documentary evidence, Elizabeth herself had cherished the hope of it for months, and was impatient for the day the queen would die. No one else, however, appears to have seen the document which conveys so serious an imputation, and we cannot think it justified by anything we really know of Elizabeth's conduct or character. The report nevertheless created so much indignation that Richard's own leading councillors induced him publicly to disavow any such intentions before the mayor and citizens of London. Anxious, however, to discourage the Earl of Richmond's hopes, he sent Elizabeth to Sheriff Hutton Castle in Yorkshire, where she remained till the battle of Bosworth was fought in August following.

The account given of Elizabeth's conduct at this time in the 'Song of the Lady Bessy' is no less open to suspicion in some matters than that of the antiquary above mentioned; but it certainly is not altogether fabulous. It exhibits Elizabeth as a paragon of excellence, declares that she utterly loathed the proposal of King Richard to put away his queen and marry her, and sets forth in detail how she induced Lord Stanley to intrigue against the usurper, and how she was, in fact, the chief organiser of the confederacy with the Earl of Richmond. But the poem is important chiefly as having certainly been (at least in its original form, for it has no doubt been a good deal altered in parts) the composition of a contemporary, one Humphrey Brereton, a servant of Lord Stanley, afterwards Earl of Derby; and it is our sole authority for several facts of interest about Elizabeth, recapitulated by Nicolas, as follows, viz.: That she 'was especially commended to the care of Lord Stanley by Edward IV on his deathbed; that she lodged in his house in London after she quitted the sanctuary; that she was privy to the rising in favour of Richmond; that she could write and read both French and Spanish; that Brereton was sent into Cheshire to Stanley's son. Lord Strange, to his brother, and to other relations, entreating them to support Richmond's cause; and that he was the bearer of letters to Henry in Brittany, together with a letter and a ring from Elizabeth to him.' We may add that in one place Elizabeth's golden hair is incidentally referred to, and we have got perhaps the most trustworthy facts in a few words.

After Henry VII had won the battle of Bosworth he sent for Elizabeth. But although it was certainly expected that he would have married her at once, and that she would have been crowned as queen on 30 Oct., the day of his coronation, he deferred marrying her for five months; and some time before he made her his queen it appears that he declared her Duchess of York (Ven. Cal. i. No. 506). His own title to the crown, derived through his mother from a bastard son of John of Gaunt legitimated by act of parliament, was not altogether satisfactory; but for that very reason, apparently, he wished parliament to recognise it as sutticient. So the houses met in November, and enacted, without stating any reasons, that the inheritance should 'be, rest and abide' in his person and the heirs of his body; and afterwards, on 11 Dec., the speaker petitioned him that he would be pleased to marry the lady Elizabeth, 'from which by the grace of God many hoped there would arise offspring of the race of kings for the comfort of the whole realm' (Rolls of Parl. vi. 270, 278). Thus invited, he actually married her on 18 Jan. following at Westminster, though it would almost seem that he had intended waiting longer still; for as he and Elizabeth were within the prohibited degrees, he applied to Pope Innocent VIII for a dispensation as soon as his title was ratified in parliament; but instead of waiting till he received the document, he took advantage of the presence in England of the Bishop of Imola, a papal legate empowered to grant a limited number of such dispensations, and was actually married six weeks before the expected brief was even issued, for it was dated 2 March. This brief, however, was confirmed by a bull dated 27 March, issued by the pope motu proprio without solicitation, excommunicating all who should rebel against Henry. On 23 July another bull was issued to confirm what