for their restoration upon his visiting her mother at Grafton [see Edward IV].
Edward's first thoughts were to take a dishonourable advantage of his suppliant, but she withstood all oners to be his paramour and so increased his passion by her refusal that, without asking the advice of his councillors, who he knew would oppose his wishes, he made up his mind to marry her. The wedding took place at Grafton early in the morning of 1 May 1464, none being present but the parties themselves, the Duchess of Bedford, the priest, two gentlemen, 'and a young man to help the priest sing.' The fact was very carefully kept secret, and the king, after spending three or four hours with his bride, left her for Stony Stratford, where it was supposed that he had returned to rest after a day's hunting. A day or two later, it is said, he sent a message to Lord Rivers that he would come and pay him a visit, and he was received again at Grafton, where he stayed four days, this time as an avowed guest, though not as an avowed son-in-law, the bride being so secretly brought to his bed that hardly any one knew it except her mother.
The marriage was made known at Michaelmas, with results which principally belong to political history [see Edward IV]. The queen's influence was also apparent in the advancement of her own relations. Her sister Margaret was married in October to Thomas, lord Maltravers, who many years after succeeded his father as Earl of Arundel. Another sister, Mary, was married two years later to William, son and heir of Lord Herbert, who after succeeding his father as Earl of Pembroke, exchanged that title for the earldom of Huntingdon. Other sisters also were well provided for in marriage, and Lord Rivers, the queen's father, from being a simple baron was promoted to an earldom. All this excited much envy. But a very justifiable indignation was felt at the marriage procured for her brother John, for the young man, who was only twenty years old, consented to become the fourth husband of Catherine, duchess of Norfolk, a woman of nearly fourscore. That such a match should have led to much unhappiness is only what we might expect, but the words in which this seems to be intimated by William Worcester are enigmatical to modern readers. 'Vindicta Bernardi,' he says, 'inter eosdem postea patuit.'
The queen's relations were exceedingly unpopular, not only with the old nobility, whom they supplanted, but with the common people. This was shown by the manifestos published by the insurgents in Robin of Redeadale's insurrection, and even in the very end of Edward's reign strong indications of the same fact appear in contemporary records (Gairdner, Life of Richard III, App. pp. 393-4). The queen herself does not appear to have possessed those conciliatory qualities which would have diminished the prejudice entertained against her as an upstart, and it is clear that she and her relations were a great cause of the dissensions which prevailed in Edward's family.
She was crowned at Westminster on Whitsunday, 26 May 1465. The first three children of the marriage were all girls — Elizabeth, Mary, and Cecily. One of the king's physicians named Master Dominick had assured him the queen was about to give him a son on her first confinement; and at her delivery he stood in the second chamber anxious to get the first news. As soon as he heard the child cry he inquired secretly at the chamber door 'what the queen had,' on which he was answered by one of the ladies, 'Whatsoever the queen's grace hath here within, sure it is that a fool standeth there without.'
Except a visit to Norwich with the king in 1469 (Paston Letters, ii. 354-5), there is little to record in the domestic life of Elizabeth till the time that her husband was driven abroad in 1470. Just before receiving the news of his flight she had victualled and fortified the Tower against any enemies who might attack it, but hearing that he had fled the kingdom to avoid being made prisoner by the Nevills, she hastily withdrew into the sanctuary at Westminster, where she gave birth to her eldest son [see Edward V]. There she remained half a year while Henry VI was restored and her husband attainted, but in April following her husband, having returned, came and delivered her from her confinement and lodged her at Baynard's Castle, where they rested together one night before he quitted London again to fight Warwick at Barnet. Some time after these events she was praised by the speaker of the House of Commons for her 'womanly behaviour and great constancy' while her husband was beyond the sea (Archæologia, xxvi. 280).
In September 1471 she went on pilgrimage with the king to Canterbury (Paston Letters, iii. 17). In 1472 she appears to have accompanied him on a visit to Oxford, where her brother, Lionel Woodville, who had just been elected chancellor of the university, received them with an oration. Early in 1473 she was in Wales with the prince, her eldest son by the king (ib, iii. 83). But the chief events in her life after her husband's restoration were the births of her children. In 1471 she had a daughter, who died young, and was buried at Westminster. Richard,
