Elizabeth Woodville: The Double Standard of the Ricardian Redo
A reorganization of realities pt 3
We are not one or the other, we are the both/and
Binaries have us so bound to unspoken expectations of standard behavior that we are tripping over our own two feet to oppress ourselves. We’ve been subjugated into suppression, believing ourselves to only exist as labels, as roles, instead of whole beings capable of immense depth and joy, with limited time to experience either.
“We don’t see each other as each other, we see each other for what we think one another should be.” -Alok1
There are no bad people, there are harmed people. Harmed people then turn around and harm other people, projecting the internal shame felt as external pain imposed onto others. The innocent elementary school learning of good/bad, light/dark, day/night warps into a sinister puppet-master, dictating our social performance to ensure the broad label of ‘good’ is ascribed to us. Yet all of us are capable of harm, micro and macro, and the steeper the ladder of our personal privileges, the deeper the unconscious behaviors lay that perpetuate that harm. Good and bad, in terms of behavior, is as much of a spectrum as gender, and always has been.
“These false beliefs and oppressive ideologies are upheld by systems, structures, and behaviors created and designed to overtly and subtly normalize, condition, and indoctrinate both those oppressed for femininity and womanhood and those benefiting from masculinity and manhood.” - 2
As I dive into these medieval matriarchs, I don’t ever wish to portray them as good or bad, rather as whole. The men in their stories aren’t inherently the bad guys, they are guys that have done bad. The difference is that the actions of the men were always measured through the assumption of positive intent, the patriarchal nature of then and now subliminally implying the justification regardless of outcome or hurt. Whereas the women were viewed through the lens of inherent inferiority, systematically and perpetually blamed for the sins of Eve. Men’s persecution is then deemed morally sound, allowing women’s objectification and secondary status to be imposed and assumed, not to be questioned. The women explored here may have existed over 500 years ago, but that archaic paradigm is just as familiar to modern women as it would have been to medieval women.
To quote from
’s The Logic of Misogyny3 “when women challenge male dominance, they are liable to be written off as greedy, grasping, and domineering. When they are perceived as insufficiently oriented to men’s interests, they are perceived as cold, selfish, and negligent. Such hateful and hostile reactions are frequently directed either at women who challenge men’s power and authority, or at women who decline to serve men, flatter them, or hold their gaze admiringly. Misogyny isn’t simply hateful; it imposes social costs on noncompliant women, who are liable to be labeled witches, bitches, sluts, and “feminazis,” among other things. The misogynist’s bullying can feel like a moral crusade, not a witch-hunt.”
Elizabeth Woodville, a queen consort that was conspicuously compliant in her queenly duties still fell victim to misogyny-fueled moralistic bullying because she represented a defiance from patriarchal control. Elizabeth performed her gender exquisitely by 15th century standards. She provided Edward with a nursery full of royal princesses and princes, interceded appropriately yet didn’t interfere with her husband’s politicking, and ran her household according to her husband’s grandiose standards. Christine de Pizan would have been proud. There are also no surviving records that she showed external disapproval to her husband’s gallivanting with evidence that she even became quite familiar with his bastard children. Patriarchal discrimination dictates that Elizabeth could have fulfilled her roles in ways that met everyone’s needs yet there would still be room for folks to assume her insufficiencies because alas, she is but a woman.
In 1483, when Elizabeth’s patriarchal protector, Edward IV, died in his bed Elizabeth didn’t just lose a husband, England lost it’s hard earned stability it had felt in the latter half of Edward’s reign. Edward’s early demise meant that a child was once again thrust upon the throne, as Edward V was but 12/13 years old. The last time England was led by a child, Henry VI, the country saw intense instability, favorites of the court greedily taking possession of all they could through manipulating a mentally unstable maturing monarch. Elizabeth, in her aforementioned appeasing nature, went against her better instincts and listened to her husband’s closest friend, William Hastings, instructing her to tell her son to travel with a small guard of just 2,000 men instead of the considerable contingent Elizabeth had desired to call. As Sarah J Hodder writes “Elizabeth reportedly proposed that the young king should be escorted to London with a powerful army. According to Strickland, Hastings vetoed the idea asking her insolently against whom the young sovereign was to be protected?”4 Against her better judgment, she backed off, wanting to diminish any spark of ‘murmuring and disturbance,’ according to the Croyland Chronicle.
Upon finding out about the demise of his brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester, Elizabeth’s brother-by-law, wrote “loving letters to Elyzabeth the Quene, comforting hir with many woords and promising his allegiance and to increase the credit of his carefulness and natural affection towards his brother’s children.” If you know English history of the 15C, you know this would turn out to be a BIG LIE. And much like the perpetrator of the American BIG LIE of 2020, Richard’s personal brand of misogyny painted women as “powerful, disgusting corrupters—the vixens, sirens and monsters.” So much so that it is impossible to retrospectively look at Elizabeth without seeing Richard’s influence within her historical character. “What unites these varieties of misogyny, past and present, and moralistic and non-moralistic alike, is that they enforce the patriarchal order by lifting men up and taking down women.”5
At the time of his brother’s death, Richard was arguably the most powerful peer in the realm. Amounting to what could be considered a “semi-independent palatinate,” Edward had given Richard unencumbered power of the North, save for one small contingency which left Richard vulnerable. Should Richard’s ward George Neville die childless, the considerable Neville lands would be reverted back to the Neville family after Richard’s lifetime, meaning it wasn’t inheritable by Richard’s son, Edward of Middleham, thus impacting his long-term security. This was a problem. Richard was well loved in the north, in part due to his good governance as well as his wife’s family name of Neville, for she was the daughter of Elizabeth’s deceased enemy, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. The kingmaker’s daughter might not yet have known in late April of 1483 when her brother-by-law died that she was going to fulfill her father’s dying wish and be crowned the next queen consort of England.
There are roughly two vein’s of thought on what happens (and why) next. Crudely surmised, one is that Richard was in moralistic patriarchal protector mode ensuring that his and his family’s position were secured under immense threat from Elizabeth and her affinity. The other is that Richard was a bloodthirsty Machiavellian sort, willing to do whatever it took to satiate his greed. A.J. Pollard asserts “[Richard] may have believed that he alone had the ability as well as the right to rule England during the minority. He may also have had deep-seated fears about his future if he once lost royal favour.”6 Though I agree with Pollard’s assessment of the both/and happening within Richard, both righteousness and fear, I also believe that patriarchal bias allows us to dilute Richard’s misdeeds and retrospectively impose altruistic intentions while actions proved otherwise.
“Whilst Elizabeth and her daughters waited in London for the arrival of her eldest son, Gloucester had also set out on the long journey down from his home in the north of England to London.” On the way to London, Richard met with Elizabeth’s son and brother, Richard Grey and Anthony Woodville, who were escorting the new king to London. The men shared a pleasant dinner, potentially reminiscing of their shared experiences with the newly deceased gregarious Edward IV and discussing what was to come. The next morning, Richard, with the Duke of Buckingham, suddenly seized Richard Grey and Anthony Woodville, arresting them and ordering them to be sent off and imprisoned within one of Richard’s northern castles. “The two dukes then rode off to meet Edward to escort him to London themselves.”7
“When news of their arrest reach Elizabeth back in London, she realised something was terribly wrong. For the second time in her life, believing herself and her family to be in danger, she gathered her belongings and fled into sanctuary with her daughters and her younger son Prince Richard. Dorset, appreciating the danger to himself after the arrest of his brother and uncle, also took sanctuary alongside his mother.”8 Elizabeth’s flee to sanctuary with belongings is eternally scrutinized and used as evidence of her supposed greed, though the only surviving will of Edward IV’s (from his 1475 French campaign) states in two separate lines that “she raay take of the sarae such as she shall thinke to bee moost necessarie and convenient for her, and have the use and occupation therof during her liff.” Edward also wanted Elizabeth to “enjoye all her owne goods catelles stufF beddying arrases tapestries verdours stuif of houshold plate and jouelx and all other thing which she now hath and occupieth, to dispose it freely at her will and pleaser without let or interruption of oure Executours.”9 Confirmation bias means that historians are quick to point out that Elizabeth removed royal treasure upon her hasty departure, but refuse to recognize that by the only surviving will of Edwards, she was only taking what she potentially thought of as rightfully hers as dowager queen and mother to the new king. As Christine De Pizan pointed out in 1405, “women are kept so short of money that they tend to hang on to the little they have because they know how hard it is to lay their hands on any more.”10
Once back in London, Richard placed the young Edward V into the Tower of London for “safekeeping” and proceeded to persuade (with threat of force) Elizabeth to release her younger son, Richard of Shrewsbury, into his care. Elizabeth had little choice, though sanctuary offered protection within a church, the Plantagenets had already shown they were willing to deface holy grounds to achieve their desires. One can only imagine the weight of grief Elizabeth was holding. She had just lost her husband, her brother and son were being held by a man whom she had believed was an ally but was proving otherwise, she had to flee to safety with her children, again, and was deprived of all comfort and security. All of that coupled with the heart-breaking rumors that had started to permeate the walls of sanctuary: her two young sons with Edward IV were dead in the tower.
On July 6th, 1483 Richard, duke of Gloucester was crowned Richard III of England. The mystery of the Princes in the Tower remains as one of England’s most infamous unsolved crimes. Edward and Richard, the sons of Elizabeth Woodville and Edward IV, were seen less and less by contemporaries until all accounts of them disappeared. “One of the last attendants to see the boys was their physician, John Argentine, who according to Mancini reported that Prince Edward daily sought remission of his sins because he believed that death was facing him.”11 Regardless if Richard III carried out the heartless deed or not, he orchestrated their demise by strategically removing them from the Woodville affinity and then brutally beheaded the Woodville men in his possession.
Richard’s patriarchal propaganda machine spun vast narratives to discredit Edward, Elizabeth and their kin while also asserting his own righteousness to bear the crown. He renewed the whisperings of witchcraft, accusing Elizabeth’s mother, Jacquetta, of having utilized charms to bewitch Edward into marrying Elizabeth. He maligned his own mother by insinuating that Edward wasn’t the duke of York’s true-born son. He mysteriously found evidence that Edward was married to another prior to Elizabeth, thus invaliding their marriage and bastardizing their children, positioning himself as the one true heir. He did all this while pontificating that he was going to dispel the lascivious lifestyle Edward had thrust upon the realm which exacerbated unrest and law-breaking. In short, he was going to Make England Great Again. Richard’s ascension to the throne was decisive and methodical, utilizing women as stepping stones to access wealth and power. In all, he was the perfect patriarch.
“In a world where women held no official position at court, it was difficult to find a legitimate reason to attack them. The idea of accusing them of witchcraft was therefore an easy option. It required very little proof, and was incredibly difficult to disprove as it was inherently a covert act performed in private.” - Gemma Hollman, Royal Witches
So much of how we view Elizabeth today is through Richard’s success at performing as a patriarchal protector. “So strong is his appeal in the twentieth century that a flourishing society exists, dedicated to the task of clearing his name.”12 He spun his web so strongly that even 20th century historians assuredly accuse Elizabeth of ‘coldly eying’ a young Richard, though not a single contemporary source credits her of this behavior, or as even capable of such behavior. As Kate Manne said above: “Such hateful and hostile reactions are frequently directed either at women who challenge men’s power and authority, or at women who decline to serve men, flatter them, or hold their gaze admiringly.”
Greed, the gateway drug of patriarchal violence, the unnamed deity worshiped through hushed tones, false smiles and disingenuous actions. Compartmentalized as something somehow separate from everyday character, forgiven in lieu of performance piety, is as much a common theme today in American politics as it was in 15th century England. Often minimized as a ‘means to an end,’ greed is exhibited through behavior, yet is unequally applied to the socialized genders. Historical paradigms within a patriarchy see women’s greed as intrinsic, whereas the men’s greed is a by product of strength/power/leadership/advancement. Though there is endless evidence of Richard’s lust of wealth and power, much like Donald Trump, he positioned himself as the ‘law and order’ champion, ensuring that regardless of his behavior, his image was that of patriarchal protector. Lock her up, am I right?
“The fool is all too ready to spot his neighbour’s misdeed even though he is blind to his own great crimes.” - Christine De Pizan
When men perform masculinity within a patriarchy, they are rewarded for their oppressive behavior, male identity being firmly ‘rooted in an ethic of domination.’13 Centuries of patriarchal violence have mutilated our ability to differentiate between respect and control, assuming one necessitates the other. In a patriarchy, misogyny is seen as a means to an end rather than the abuse that it actually is. “Think of misogyny, then, as the law enforcement branch of a patriarchal order.”14 These patriarchal enforcers, Donny and Richard alike, show us who they are yet we refuse to see them within their actions, forever protected by patriarchal propaganda.
When is it that we will start calling a spade a spade?
Quoting Alok from their episode of the Man Enough podcast
Patriarchy Blues: Reflections on Manhood, by Frederick Joseph
The Logic of Misogyny, by Kate Manne
The Woodville Women: 100 Years of Plantagenet and Tudor History, by Sarah J Hodder
New York Times, David Brooks
Richard III and the Princes in the Tower, by A.J. Pollard
See #4
See #4
Edward IV’s 1475 will, available via archives
The Book of the City of the Ladies, by Christine De Pizan
See #4
See #6
The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, by bell hooks
See #3