Thank you Olga
I meant Arthur and Kathy.
The picture of young H7 is very alike to the pictures we have of H6. I wouldn’t say he is anyway he comes close to being a stud muffin, but he is pleasing in appearence. He has his mother eyes I think.

Olga I’m not sure if I’ve read this right, buut when Lambert Simnel played his power games, it was alleged that she was somehow involved. Whether that was with support with men or money I don’t know. But it could be of course, that Henry just couldn’t be assed to provide her with an income and household befitting her status. After all he did much the same thing to Kathy, made her live in the court as a pensioner of sorts.

The fact there were even rumours of her involvement is quite interesting.

Rumours are rumours *shrug* it doesn’t mean there is any truth in them. So far it seems pretty doubtful. Why would she try to knock her daughter and grandson off the throne for Clarence’s son, and an impostor at that? It’s not as if she and Clarence were remotely close at any point.
Unless of course you want to subscribe to the theory that one of her sons was alive and she was planning to replace Simnel with her son after the rebellion but that is getting a little far-fetched, even for my wild speculations.

I think you may be right Bob. I can see no reason at all why EW would really want to support the pretenders. She certainly wouldn’t gain anything from it. I agree that there was no love lost between Henry Tulip and E.W. E.W belonged to the past, a time of war and violence. When Henry Tulip won Bosworth, E.W became obsolete a relic of the past. I believe she did go to the convent of her own volution.
E.W had seen her children safely married, she knew her sons were dead, or suspected they were dead. E4 was dead and to be honest I think he was her true love. All the people that were from her time as Queen were dead, and most of her freinds and family were dead. I believe M.B and E.W tolerated each other, although I think M.B made it clear that she was the the only dominate matriarch in the court.

Boleyn said …Edward was perhaps concerned about the lack of a male heir, but he didn’t villify or berate her for her lack of a male heir. When EW had Eddy Junior he perhaps breathed a sigh of relief….

apart from the obvious/apparent differences in personality between Edward IV and Henry VIII, there’s some significant differences in circumstance as well – by 1521 Henry VIII is 30, by the time he finally marries Anne Boleyn he’s in his early 40’s – added to which he is the last Tudor prince, one sister is Queen of Scotland and her children are, from recall, disbarred from the throne because they aren’t born in England, and the other sister is kind of in disgrace because of her marriage to Charles Brandon.

Henry is it, there’s no fall back, no reserve: time and his child producing history is not on his side.

Edward IV on the other hand is younger, in 1470 he’s only 28, he has several healthy daughters, and in addition the House of York is positively brimming with young, healthy, battle hardened potential successors – George, Duke of Clarence, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as well as the children of Edwards many sisters. if Edward had lived till he was 60 instead of dying at 41, he would have two adult sons, one younger brother (Clarence was exected for treason by Edward in 1478), grandchildren and countless adult nephews to fill the line of succession.

Henry doesn’t have that, he might be a complete shit, but he has problems with very serious outcomes to deal with: he has no male heir, and the last attempt to put a woman on the throne resulted in a 20 year civil war. it may not fit the narrative, but this is not a man who is changing wives purely because he gets bored quickly.

Boleyn said

The only real bugbear I have about EW is her apparent non concern about what had happened to her boys. It seems to me at least as she simply didn’t care. Surely as their mother she would have wanted to know the truth, be they dead or alive. It was almost as if she said “Oh well shit happens, best get Elizabeth married to Henry Tulip and have done with it.” Did she not care about her boys at all.

I’m sorry because I am going to rant, but why on earth would you say that? Why shouldn’t she help her daughter safeguard herself and their family? The betrothal had been spoken about years before Richard III deposed his brother’s family, then she and Margaret made an alliance when they were both suffering under Richard III, and Elizabeth of York was stuck at court being humiliated by him. I don’t even understand why people need to constantly slander Elizabeth Woodville. She suffered terrible losses and everyone wants to tell us what they would have done in her position. How can anyone even know she didn’t actually know the truth? All of the evidence points to the Woodvilles and their supporters accepting the boys had been murdered. Most of Richard’s subjects thought the same thing. She was trapped, she was powerless, half her family had been murdered by Clarence and Gloucester over the years, she had lost her sons and she still had four or five daughters to worry about.

As for Edward’s mistresses, Elizabeth was constantly pregnant for fourteen years. He could only sleep with her a few months out of each year, it’s hardly surprising he had mistresses. Of course she held onto his love, she was beautiful and clever and gave him a child every other year, why do you think henry VIII was never satisfied with his wives? His great-grandmother, grandmother and mother all had loads of kids, Elizabeth of York had four boys.

Actually Boleyn made a very interesting point. EW never accused anyone, including Richard, of murdering her sons. In fact an argument can be made for her coming out of sanctuary and making peace with Richard was because she knew what had happened to them and they were not dead. As for her daughters being humiliated by Richard – this is also not true. Richard promised to find them husbands of suitable rank, to provide them with appropriate dowries and stated that their husbands would have to treat them well, otherwise they would answer to him.

EofY was part of the court for Christmas 1484 and was richly dressed, so much so that it was mentioned in the Croyland Chronicle!

There is no evidence that Richard murdered the princes, or even that they were dead by the time H7 married EoY. There is a local tradition around Gipping Hall, in Essex, that EW and the boys stayed there for a time around 1484 – the place belonged to Sir James Tyrrell and it is also possible that he conveyed them, from there, to Margaret of Burgundy’s court.

But, Olga, Richard was negotiating a marriage for her with a Portuguese prince. Of course she would have been dressed richly, Why do you think it was Richard which organised her clothes? More likely it was Anne, as Elizabeth was part of her household.

There was absolutely no purpose in Richard marrying EoY. She was not an heiress to the crown, she was the illegitimate daughter of his brother. Uncle-Niece marriages were not usual in England, unlike the Hapsburgs of Spain, and would not have strengthened Richard’s position one iota. Richard, in fact, after Anne’s death, was in negotiations to marry Joanna of Portugal, who was a Lancastrian heiress by blood, so had the marriage occurred, the unification of York and Lancaster would have taken place much earlier.

Olga said … I was reading about a statement Stanley made about Margaret Beaufort discussing the affinity between Henry and Elizabeth with others at court (it’s in the Calendar of Papal Registers)…>

without being dismissive, thats not ‘people’ discussing it, thats (at that stage in the WotR) deluded and desperate Lancastrians discussing it.

this is not unakin to my 16 yo self discussing my upcoming marriage to Jennifer Lopez or Helena Christiansen with my school friends – wild, laughable, deluded fantasy. i can see a logic of tying the last Lancastrians into the Yorkist dynasty, and with two sons first in the line of succession, the idea of doing so at the ‘cost’ of marrying Edward IV’s eldest daughter to said Lancastrian would have looked pretty cheap, but being able to see the logic of it is very different to seriously considering it, especially when the same daughter could be married off the heir to the throne of France.

does anyone recall if there was a serious proposal from MB that she marry Richard DoG before he married Anne Neville, or was that just another of the ‘dramatisations’ of our friend Gregory?