August 10, 1439: Birth of Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter

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1st Duke of Clarence, Anne of York, Duchess of Burgundy; and George Plantagenet, Duchess of Exeter, Duchess of Suffolk; Margaret, Earl of Rutland; Elizabeth of York, Edmund, Edward III of England, Edward IV of England, House of Anjou, House of Lancaster, House of York, Plantagenet Dynasty, Wars of the Roses

Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter, (August 10, 1439 – 14 January 1476), was the first child of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville.

Cecily Neville was the youngest of the 22 children of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, in this case born to his second wife Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmorland. Her paternal grandparents were John Neville, 3rd Baron Neville de Raby, and Maud Percy, daughter of Henry de Percy, 2nd Baron Percy.

Her maternal grandparents were John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, and his third wife Katherine Swynford. John of Gaunt was the third surviving son of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault.

This meant that Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter was descendant of King Edward III of England through both of her parents.

Anne of York was thus the eldest sister of kings Edward IV (1461–1483) and Richard III (1483–1485).

Her other siblings were:

Edmund, Earl of Rutland (1443 – 1460). He was killed at the age of 17 either during or shortly after the Battle of Wakefield, during the Wars of the Roses.

Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk (1444 – c.1503). She was married to John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk. John was the eldest son of William de la Pole, 1st Duke of Suffolk and Alice Chaucer. His maternal grandparents were Thomas Chaucer and Maud Burghersh.

Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy (1446 – 1503)—also by marriage known as Margaret of Burgundy—was Duchess of Burgundy as the third wife of Charles I the Bold and acted as a protector of the Burgundian State after his death.

George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence (1449 — 1478). He played an important role in the dynastic struggle between rival factions of the Plantagenets now known as the Wars of the Roses.

Though a member of the House of York, he switched sides to support the Lancastrians, before reverting to the Yorkists. He was later convicted of treason against his brother, Edward IV, and was executed.

First Marriage

In 1447, aged eight years old, Anne was married to Henry Holland, 3rd Duke of Exeter (1430–1475). During the Wars of the Roses, Exeter sided with the House of Lancaster against his wife’s family the House of York.

Exeter was a commander at the great Lancastrian victories at the Battle of Wakefield and Second Battle of St Albans. He was also a commander at the Lancastrian defeat at the Battle of Towton. He fled to the Kingdom of Scotland after the battle, then joined Margaret of Anjou, queen consort of the Lancastrian King Henry VI, in her exile to France.

On March 4, 1461, Anne’s younger brother Edward, Duke of York, was declared in London as King Edward IV. Exeter was attainted but the new king gave his estates to Anne, with remainder to their daughter Anne Holland.

Anne and Exeter separated in 1464 and divorced in 1472. During the restoration of Henry VI, Anne remained loyal to her brother Edward, and, in what seems to have been her only intervention in politics, worked hard to persuade her brother George, Duke of Clarence, to abandon the Lancastrian cause. If not decisive, her arguments certainly had some effect and thus she played some part in Edward’s restoration.

By the Duke of Exeter, Anne had one daughter, Anne Holland (1461 – 1474), who was married in October 1466 at Greenwich Palace to Thomas Grey, Lord Astley, son of Edward IV’s queen Elizabeth Woodville by her first husband.

Lady Astley died sometime between August 26, 1467 and June 6, 1474 without children. Grey subsequently married Cecily Bonville, 7th Baroness Harington, another rich young heiress, by whom he had issue.

Second Marriage

Anne married secondly in about 1474 to Thomas St. Leger (c. 1440 – 1483), a loyal follower of her brother, King Edward IV (1461–1483). He took part in the Duke of Buckingham’s attempted rebellion against King Edward’s younger brother and eventual successor King Richard III (1483–1485), on the failure of which he was executed in 1483.

In 1476, King Edward IV had, however, extended the remainder of most of the former Duke of Exeter’s lands to the King’s sister, Anne, and to any heirs of her body. Thus, if she remarried, any future children could inherit them.

Anne died giving birth to her only daughter by Thomas, Anne St. Leger (1476 – 1526), who due to the special remainder was heiress to the estates of her mother’s first husband Henry Holland. She married George Manners, 11th Baron de Ros, and was mother of the royal favourite Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland.

This date in History. October 2, 1452: Birth of Richard III, King of England and Lord of Ireland.

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Battle of Bosworth Field, Bishop of Bath Titulus Regis, Duke of York, Edward V of England House of Tudor, House of Anjou, King Edward IV of England, King Henry VII of England, King Richard III of England, Kings and Queens of England, Plantagenet Dynasty, Wars of the Roses

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Richard III, King of England and Lord of Ireland. The focus today of this blog entry is whether or not he was a usurper.

Richard III (October 2, 1452 – August 22, 1485) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1483 until his death in 1485. Richard was born on October 2, 1452 at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire, the eleventh of the twelve children of Richard, Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the youngest to survive infancy. Richard III was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. For those keeping track, the House of Anjou, AKA the Plantagenet Dynasty, ruled England and Ireland for 330 years, 8 months, 3 days beginning with the accession of Henry II on December 19, 1154 and ending with the defeat and death of Richard III on August 22, 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the last decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, marking the end of the Middle Ages in England.

When Richard, Duke of York, brother Edward IV died in April 1483, Richard was named Lord Protector of the realm for Edward’s eldest son and successor, the 12-year-old Edward V. Arrangements were made for Edward’s coronation later that year on June 22, 1483.

Richard III, King of England and Lord of Ireland

However, before the king could be crowned, the marriage of King Edward V’s parents, Edward IV and Elisabeth Woodville was declared bigamous and therefore invalid. Therefore, now officially illegitimate, their children were barred from inheriting the throne. On June 25th, an assembly of lords and commoners endorsed a declaration to this effect and proclaimed Richard as the rightful king. He was crowned on July 6, 1483. The young princes, Edward and his younger brother Richard, Duke of York, were not seen in public after August and accusations circulated that they had been murdered on Richard’s orders.

When I began studying English Royalty I believed that the claim that Edward IV’s marriage was illegal was the rationalization by Richard III and his party in order for Richard to justify usurping the throne. Was there a basis for such a claim? Indeed there was a basis for his claim and it was taken seriously at the time.

The basis for this claim was the evidence that prior to Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, Edward was already pre-contracted to marry a wealthy widow by the name of Lady Eleanor Butler. Lady Butler had passed away by the time Richard claimed the throne and therefore couldn’t corroborate this claim. Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, a stalwart supporter of Richard, was the chief witness to the pre-contract of marriage between Edward IV and Lady Butler. According to Roman Catholic Church Law at the time, a pre-contract was a solemn oath to marry in the presence of clerical witnesses and this pre-contract took precedence over any other form of marital arrangement. This contract was legal and binding and therefore had to be legally dismissed for the parties to be free to marry somebody else.

As stated elsewhere in this blog regarding the legality of the succession, no king, at least by this time period, could alter the succession to the crown by decree or declaration. Parliament was firmly the Legislative body of the Kingdom and all laws proposed needed to be passed by Parliament, even changes to the succession. View yesterday’s blog entry on the succession of Queen Mary I where her brother Edward IV tried to bypass his half-sisters but his Will was not approved by Parliament prior to his death, thus making an attempted alteration to the succession illegal.

Therefore in order to legally justify Richard III’s taking of the throne in June of 1483 an Act of Parliament was issued in January 1484 entitled “Titulus Regius (The Title of King)” The Act stated that Edward IV’s marriage had been bigamous and therefore invalid. In the nullification of the marriage it also rendered all the children of the marriage as illegitimate, namely the young King Edward V and his brother Richard, Duke of York.

An interesting note is that the Titulus Regius did not actually name Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath as the main clerical witness for the claim of the pre-marital contract of Edward IV and Lady Butler. Instead the Titulus Regius named a Burgundian chronicler, Phillipe de Commines, as the main witness to the contract. The source of Phillipe de Commines witnessing the event was written in his memoirs where he said he witnessed the signing of the pre-contract between Edward IV and Lady Butler.

Edward IV, King of England and Lord of Ireland

An another interesting point about the Act making Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville’s children illegitimate is that the taint of illegitimacy did not tarnish the desirability of their daughter Princess Elizabeth of York. In order to heal the rift in the family, and it seems to bolster Richard III’s hold up the throne, he sought the hand of his niece in marriage. Her mother, Queen Elizabeth (formerly Elizabeth Woodville) flatly refused his advances. Even after Richard was deposed the new king, Henry VII, successfully won the hand of Princess Elizabeth of York and United the warring branches of the English Royal Family. Elizabeth of York’s stain of illegitimacy didn’t bother Henry nor prevent her from becoming Queen Consort of England. She really had a better claim to be a Queen Regnant of England but that’s another story.

One of the first acts of Parliament convened by Henry VII after he became king was to repeal Titulus Regius. This restored the legitimacy of the marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, and the legitimacy of their children, including Elizabeth of York. Henry honoured his pledge of December 1483 to marry Elizabeth of York. They were third cousins, as both were great-great-grandchildren of John of Gaunt. Henry and Elizabeth were married on 18 January 1486 at Westminster Abbey.

Today the vast majority of historians view the marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville as legally valid. That’s not to say the pre-contract between Edward IV and Lady Butler didn’t occur, it vary well may have, there just isn’t enough evidence to determine, either for away, if the pre-contract was made.