Elizabeth Woodville

Elizabeth Woodville was Queen consort of England as the spouse of King Edward IV from 1464 until his death in 1483. At the time of her birth, her family was midranked in the English aristocracy. Her first marriage was to a minor supporter of the House of Lancaster, Sir John Grey of Groby he died at the Second Battle of St Albans, leaving Elizabeth a widowed mother of two sons. Her second marriage, to Edward IV, was a cause clbre of the day, thanks to Elizabeths great beauty and lack of great estates. Edward was only the second king of England since the Norman Conquest to have married one of his subjects, and Elizabeth was the first such consort to be crowned queen. Her marriage greatly enriched her siblings and children, but their advancement incurred the hostility of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, The Kingmaker, and his various alliances with the most senior figures in the increasingly divided royal family.

Elizabeth Woodville was born about 1437, possibly in October, at Grafton Regis, Northamptonshire. She was the firstborn child of a socially unequal marriage that had briefly scandalised the English court. Her father, Sir Richard Woodville, was merely a knight at the time of her birth. The Woodvilles, though an old and respectable family, were genteel rather than noble a landed and wealthy family that had previously produced commissioners of the peace, sheriffs, and MPs rather than peers of the realm. Sir Richards own father had made a good career in royal service, rising to become chamberlain to the Duke of Bedford. Sir Richard followed his father into service with the duke, and so first met his wife Jacquetta of Luxembourg. The daughter of Peter of Luxembourg, Count of SaintPol, and Margaret de Baux, she had been married to the Duke of Bedford in 1433 at the age of 17. The duke was significantly older than Jacquetta of Luxembourg, his second wife, and he was in ill health. He died in

Source: Wikipedia