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ONE
In early 1483, plague sweeps through England.
Edward IV loses both of his sons and his youngest daughter.
His brother Richard loses his wife Anne Neville and their only son.
The king only has daughters still living.
The dead, disgraced Duke of Clarence’s children are barred from inheriting the crown.
Richard becomes heir, although the king and his queen are determined to try for another son, despite their immense grief.
But Edward IV dies himself three months later and when the doctors examine the dowager queen, they determine that there is no possibility of an heir from the recently deceased king.
Richard seeks a disposition to marry his niece Elizabeth, who is popular with the people.
It is too much for the English to accept a queen regnant, but they think it only proper that she be accorded the title of queen consort, as her father’s heir.
Theirs is a quiet love, warm and respectful, rather than a tempestuous passion.
He never can much stand her mother and her many Woodville relatives, but he is a doting husband and finds good matches for her surviving sisters, ones that Elizabeth advises about and approves of.
Richard’s reign is one of relative peace, a welcome respite from the chaos and uncertainty of earlier decades.
In France, Henry Tudor often thinks he ought to be the king of England, but no one except his mother really agrees.
TWO
Elizabeth Woodville never gives the king a son, only daughters.
Beautiful, merry girls, but girls nonetheless.
Edward IV sometimes wishes he could name his eldest daughter Elizabeth as his heir. She is clever and charming and beloved by the people. But he knows that is not enough, not to keep her and their dynasty safe.
His dead, treacherous brother Clarence’s children are barred from the succession because of their father’s attainder, and so he turns to his brother Richard, who is married and with a son, and that is that, as far as he is concerned.
Elizabeth Woodville fumes at her daughters being passed over for Richard and his half-Neville son.
Elizabeth of York is more realistic. She has always expected to be queen consort in a foreign country, but the prospect of queen regnant is a dangerous one. Besides, she loves her uncle, who has always doted on her as his favourite niece.
In time, Edward IV dies and Richad III ascends.
But he loses his heir and then his queen to illness, and their House stands once more on shaky foundations.
In England, Edward IV’s illegitimate son scents blood in the air. In France, Henry Tudor ponders the opportunity.
Richard, although he grieves his wife sincerely, knows he must marry again.
And he pays a king’s ransom for the dispensation to wed his niece Elizabeth, both to shore up his claim and also to produce an heir.
He is gentle with her, and she soothes the stresses of ruling for him. They find joy in the simple things – an entertaining game of cards, Elizabeth playing the lute for him, reading out loud together.
When Elizabeth gives birth to two sons in the first two years of their marriage, the pretenders to the throne melt away like fog in the morning sun.
Over thirty years later, their eldest son becomes Richard IV.
THREE
Richard III wins the Battle of Bosworth.
Some whisper that he gave Elizabeth of York the head of Henry Tudor as a courting gift, but that’s just a rumour … probably.
Richard has rarely bothered with charm, but his charisma is in full force now.
He shows himself to be an ardent lover, who – the head rumour aside – gives perfectly respectable gifts like books, flowers, jewellery, horses and even sometimes palaces.
It makes sense, to marry the former king’s eldest surviving daughter, a move copied from the plans of the upstart boy Richard killed on the battlefield. Still, Richard seems determined to show that this is not just politics, that there is a story the bards can sing and the poets write about.
And if Elizabeth is charmed, then who can blame her?
Richard, for all the nasty rumours, can be amiable when he wishes. And he is clever and well-read, gallant when the mood takes him and considerate enough to keep his sarcasm and dark humour to a minimum in front of his sweet niece.
She will be queen, too, where not too long ago she was called illegitimate by the English parliament.
She will be Queen of England, her homeland, surrounded by people who cheer for her and close to the sisters she loves.
Besides, she is tired. The time in Sanctuary was long and dull, her mother’s hysterics tiresome and stressful. She mourns her brothers, but she cannot change the past – officially, it has been declared that agents of Henry Tudor had them killed and Elizabeth chooses to believe that, chooses to focus on the future and what good she can do for England, rather than on the past.
She was already beloved, but her schemes to battle poverty and increase education, and her charity works, make her even more so. And they say she softens the king, that Richard III’s offers of mercy are entirely her doing.
There is always talk of the princes in the tower and the underhanded way in which Richard III took the throne, but many people forget as the years pass by.
The realm is in relative peace and conditions improve for even the poorest.
By the time Richard and Elizabeth’s son is crowned as Richard IV, very few would ever doubt his right to rule.
FOUR
They marry barely a month before the Battle of Bosworth.
For all that many are cynical about Richard’s reasons, the truth is that they are almost foolishly in love.
Infatuated and adoring, together as much as they can be.
Ever aware of the danger approaching, of the short time they might have together.
Elizabeth’s mother calls her a fool, but her sister Cecily understands, can see that her feelings are real and so are Richard’s.
They make the most of their time. Elizabeth makes Richard feel young and free and happy in a way he’s never really been able to before. He adores her and is adored in turn.
For a while, it is almost like a fairytale.
And then it is a tragedy.
Richard falls at the Battle of Bosworth to Henry Tudor.
There is a problem, though, an obstacle to Tudor’s plans.
Queen Elizabeth is with child.
The next eight and a half months are fraught and difficult.
The country divided, Tudor proclaiming himself king but few ready to fully commit to his cause.
Everyone is waiting, waiting, waiting …
Elizabeth gives birth to a son, a boy she names Richard in defiance of all the advice she is given.
Edward would have been a safer name, but Elizabeth has a spine of steel beneath her pretty face and delicate gowns – she will not denounce her dead husband and sully their love.
She knows she will struggle to hold the throne in her own name, but she can do it for her son. A man is preferable to a child, but her son Richard is far more royal than Henry Tudor, and for all Richard III was a divisive and often loathed figure, Elizabeth herself is beloved by the people.
Baby Richard is the grandson of Edward IV and the son of Elizabeth of York. His claim trumps Henry Tudor’s by pretty much anyone’s reckoning.
Tudor slinks back to France.
He consoles himself with the thought that children die all the time in this dangerous, disease-ridden world, and he might yet have his chance.
He never does, though.
Elizabeth of York, the newest Dowager Queen Elizabeth, guards and fights for her son’s rights with all the ferocity of a mother bear.
She never marries again, despite many offers. She doesn’t think she’ll ever find someone who suited her as Richard did and, besides, she does not want to endanger her son’s inheritance by bearing a child by another man who might one day think they had a claim.
Young Richard thrives, clever and serious, but with a streak of mischief that brings joy to his mother’s eyes.
Elizabeth and her council rule wisely in his minority, and he rules well when he comes of age.
Elizabeth lives to see Richard marry Infanta Catalina, known in England as Catherine of Aragon and then, on her marriage, as Queen Catherine. She lives to see the births of all of their children, four of whom live to adulthood.
And when she dies, ready to be reunited with the husband she had such a brief time with on earth, Elizabeth knows that her and Richard’s legacy is secured.
FIVE
Richard does not usurp his nephew.
He still intercepts the new king’s party on their way to London, although Earl Rivers and his companions are only imprisoned, none of them executed.
Edward is installed in the Tower of London and the Dowager Queen, fearful and accusing, flees into Sanctuary with her daughters and younger son. When forced to give her younger son up to join his brother, she tells all and sundry that Richard has dastardly plans.
But, despite her dark predictions, the coronation goes ahead and Edward IV is succeeded by Edward V.
Richard, as Lord Protector, seeks to minimise the king’s contact with his maternal relatives. The king’s younger brother and the York princesses are welcome and their mother is tolerated, but her family is not.
Few seek to protest this state of affairs. Richard is royal, adult and competent, and few of the powerful nobility like the Woodville family, considering them upstarts who have had more than their fair share of royal favour.
Edward V and his brother continue their education, while Richard deals with most of the practicalities of ruling. The Dowager Queen, in a fit of pique over the exclusion of her relatives, refuses to preside over the court, so the king’s eldest sister Elizabeth does so.
Elizabeth of York pleases wherever she goes, far more amiable and charming than her serious, somewhat priggish brother.
Four years pass, during which Richard and his niece Elizabeth become ever closer.
Working together in relation to court matters, Elizabeth often mediating between her mother’s many complaints and Richard’s responding frustration. She is a consoling presence when Richard’s son and wife die in quick succession, and one of the only people capable of persuading him to take a break from endless state matters for a game of cards or a dance.
Negotiations proceed for Edward V’s marriage, with a French match likely. Elizabeth’s own marriage is discussed frequently, and she has a dozen suitors in those years, but the discussions never come to anything.
And then … disaster strikes.
The king has a cough, which turns into something nastier, leaving him bedbound and seriously ill.
Meanwhile, his younger brother has an accident while riding, falling and breaking his neck.
Edward V never learns of his brother’s death, the doctors too fearful of his delicate health to tell him. It is all in vain, though, for he survives only another few weeks.
The question of the next heir is a tricky one.
Elizabeth is the eldest daughter of Edward IV and the eldest sister of Edward V, but she is a young woman and the country has seldom welcomed that.
The dead Duke of Clarence’s son is excluded due to his father’s attainder, and so that leaves Richard.
The nobility are in nearly unanimous agreement that it ought to be him. He is capable, familiar with matters of state, and still of an age to remarry and sire heirs.
Still, while they wonder whether his new queen ought to be French or Spanish, or from another European country, Richard is firm – he will request a dispensation from the Pope and he will marry his niece Elizabeth.
The announcement provokes mixed feelings. The affinity is close – cousins might often marry, but uncle and niece less so – and it means there is no chance for an international alliance. But Elizabeth is popular with the common people, whose champion she has been since the start of her brother’s reign, and it neatly ties two branches of the family and their respective claims, for there are some who think Elizabeth ought to be queen in her own right.
Richard’s concerns are somewhat political, but largely personal. He knows a queen regnant is a difficult concept for many to accept, but he is well aware of his niece’s rights and does not wish to deprive her of the title that ought to be hers. Besides, they worked well together in the years of her brother’s reign, and he wishes to continue to do so, likes the idea of a queen who he knows and understands.
Richard gets his dispensation and his chosen bride.
Elizabeth bears him five children – two sons and three daughters – who survive to adulthood.
Theirs is a warm, happy and productive marriage.
SIX
Richard insists that he didn’t kill her brothers.
He promises that he didn’t poison his wife to hurry her along to the grave.
He swears all the dreadful stories about him are lies
Elizabeth believes him.
At least, that is what she proclaims to the world, with a placid smile on her face and a new crown on her head.
However, her own innermost thoughts are known to nobody but herself.
After all, what good would it do to argue? Her brothers have disappeared, are almost certainly dead. And Anne Neville is very definitely dead, and no sorrow of Elizabeth’s for her poor aunt can bring her back.
Prayers and hopes are all well and good, but they will not help her right now.
Maybe she believes her uncle. He’s always been a favourite of hers, after all, and he’s always been fond of her above all his nieces and nephews.
Or perhaps she simply needs to believe it, in these circumstances. She might choose not to think too closely about her new husband’s denials, for her own peace of mind.
Elizabeth of York has always been more practical than her mother.
So, Elizabeth marries her uncle and becomes queen.
Richard defeats Henry Tudor on the battlefield and secures his reign.
Elizabeth does good works and is beloved for her kindness and charity. She never shows any sign of dissent or disagrees with her husband in public. In private, she makes pleas for clemency when she thinks that these might be granted and she is usually rewarded with some mercy for those she champions.
She is an exemplary queen and a loving mother to the two sons and two daughters she bears over the next ten years.
Richard’s reign lasts thirty-two years and, by the end, most people would call him an able, dutiful king, even if he lacks the charisma and charm of his brother.
Elizabeth lives through it all, and she lives to see her son crowned as Richard IV.
No one ever knows what Elizabeth truly thinks about her husband. She does not leave a diary or many personal papers, and she takes that secret to the grave.
But she is buried next to her husband, at her own wish, and people make of that what they will.
SEVEN
They marry in secret, on the eve of the Battle of Bosworth.
Consummate their marriage quickly and hungrily.
She wants to give him luck, to give him even more of a reason to survive and come back to her.
But she still loses him, for he is betrayed by Lord Stanley and then slain on the battlefield, despite fighting bravely in the thick of the battle while Tudor kept himself at a safe distance.
Elizabeth hopes and prays that he has left her with a child, some part of him that she can keep.
And then her courses come and she weeps alone for hours and hours, desolate and grief-stricken.
In the end, she marries Henry Tudor.
There is no other real choice for her, not if she wants to keep her family safe.
On her wedding night, she feigns discomfort and pricks her finger so there is blood on the sheets.
Henry never guesses the truth. Elizabeth is good at concealing her innermost thoughts and feelings from him, and the memory of Richard is a sacred one that she will never share with the husband that fate has given her.
She is an excellent and well-loved queen, but her smile is always sorrowful and Henry Tudor never has her heart, however much she loves the children he gives her.
It takes over five hundred years for someone to stumble across the small chest Elizabeth had hidden away in a property that her sister Cecily once lived in.
Inside is a marriage certificate and half a dozen love letters.
Only then does the world learn the truth of Elizabeth and Richard’s love.
EIGHT
Richard III is like a villain in a fairytale.
A murderous and foreboding figure lusting after his niece, corrupting her purity with his darkness, forcing her into marriage after his battlefield victory over Henry Tudor, who ought to have been her prince charming but who now lies dead and forgotten in a shallow grave.
Richard desires her, watches her with hungry and covetous eyes.
He needs her as well, knows that her presence by his side will stave off many thoughts of rebellion with the scant comfort that at least Edward IV’s poor daughter is honoured as queen, even if it is with a king like Richard III.
She is beautiful even as she weeps silently at the altar, a scene noted by half a dozen chroniclers of the day and, in the centuries that follow, the subject of over a hundred paintings.
He is all smug pleasure. She is sorrowful endurance.
Richard does not treat her harshly, for the people would likely riot at such a thing.
He gives her jewels and dresses, horses and books, a lavish household and – within reason, excluding those who favoured Henry Tudor – her own choice of ladies to attend her.
She does her marital duty, grateful at least that he has the self-control not to impose his attentions on her too often. It unnerves her, a little, how tender and solicitous he is when she goes to his bed, how much he truly wishes to please her.
Elizabeth had loved him as an uncle when she was younger, before he stole the crown and likely killed her brothers and forced her into this unwanted union. She knows he wishes she would love him now, but too much has passed for that and, if he has her body, he will still never have her heart.
Her children are her greatest consolation. Two sons and a daughter, heirs enough to firm up the shaky foundation of her usurping husband’s kingship.
Some will say that Elizabeth of York’s was a life of sorrow, but that would be a lie.
There is joy as well as misery, light as well as darkness.
Elizabeth makes the best of what she has, regardless of the hand fate has dealt her.
NINE
He is nervous of public opinion, well aware of how shaky his reign is right now, and ready to deny ever wishing to marry her.
But Elizabeth is strong-willed and refuses to let him give her up.
They can weather any storm together, she tells him, and she is determined to stand by his side.
Their marriage sends shockwaves throughout England.
And no matter how often Elizabeth insists it is her choice, rumours and stories persist that this is some wicked scheme of her uncle’s.
Even her own mother and sisters think she has gone mad, cannot accept that she loves Richard.
She does not believe the awful things they say about him. She is sure he did not order her poor brothers to be killed.
Eventually, with Elizabeth firmly by Richard’s side, with her smiling face as she dances with him, with the swell of her stomach that proclaims there is to be an heir that unites two branches of their family, the tide of opinion starts to change.
Henry Tudor – disgusted with what he sees as Elizabeth’s betrayal, although she had never claimed to offer him her hand – does not find the support he needs. He dies on the battlefield when many who might have supported him choose to stand by the union of Richard and Elizabeth’s claims.
They have one son, then two, then three. And two daughters for good measure. All of them hearty and hale.
“You see,” she whispers to her mother’s grave many years later, “Richard is innocent. The curse we set has not touched our family.”
Henry Tudor died without sons, without heirs, his line ended. He, she thinks, must surely be the one responsible for the disappearance of her brothers.
They do not live to see it, but Elizabeth and Richard’s line continues unbroken down the centuries.
A vindication of Elizabeth’s unwavering trust in the man she loved.
TEN
Civil war erupts in England in January 1470.
A bloody massacre, in the end, decimating those with royal blood and the aristocracy.
Henry VI and his heir Edward of Westminster both end up dead.
The Duke of Clarence falls on the battlefield, not yet having fathered an heir.
Edward IV dies of his wounds a few weeks after the war comes to an end, leaving his widow Elizabeth Woodville and three small daughters.
Richard, by then barely eighteen, becomes Richard III.
He makes a French match, but his wife is sickly and she dies in childbirth after they have been married for seven years, the child surviving only three days.
He makes a Spanish match next and gets a son, but the boy does not thrive and both he and his mother are later swept away by a plague that wreaks havoc in England.
All the while, his sister-in-law has been raising her daughters in state and comfort away from the chaos of court.
Richard dotes on his nieces, sending them lavish gifts. He exchanges letters with the eldest, Elizabeth, who likes to hear stories of her beloved father’s younger years from the brother who had so much longer with him than she did.
Elizabeth comes to court in 1483, invited by her uncle, as the most royal lady in the land, to preside over the yuletide celebrations in the absence of a queen.
And he is smitten by his niece – beautiful and gracious, with a sunshine smile and soothing presence.
The papal dispensation is expensive, but Richard considers it entirely worth it.
This marriage is one of love rather than of alliance, and they are quickly more comfortable with each other than Richard ever was with his previous wives.
All of England breathe a sigh of relief when the new queen produces a son ten months after her marriage, then another two for good measure in the years that follow, as well as a little girl that is the image of her mother.
After the deadly years of civil war and then the worries of over an heir to the throne, it is now a golden world.
REALITY (OF SORTS)
Elizabeth has known her Uncle Richard all her life.
He might have been at court infrequently, but he has always been her favourite uncle.
She is loathe to believe the worst of him, even with the rumours swirling around as her mother drags them all into Sanctuary.
And when she and her sister Cecily go to his court, he is so kind, will not allow anyone to insult them regardless of their legal illegitimacy.
He makes an effort to be charming with Elizabeth, to entertain and amuse. The attention is flattering, and the comfort of his warmth is very welcome.
Some say they fell in love then, that they might even have consummated that love before the Battle of Bosworth.
Others say she only feigned affection to keep her family safe, that she could never love the man who everyone said had killed her brothers.
Some say they were going to marry.
Others remind the world that he denied it.
And, yet, there is no smoke without fire – surely there must have been something to all the rumours about them?
Whatever the case, Richard fell at the Battle of Bosworth and Elizabeth married Henry Tudor.
They say she grew to love her husband, regardless of what she might have felt for her uncle.
Still, there are some who say that a marriage between Richard III and Elizabeth of York was a likelier prospect than history would have you believe.