Elizabeth Widville, Lady Grey: Edward IV's Chief Mistress and the 'Pink Queen' - Softcover

Ashdown-Hill, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1526765837 ISBN 13: 9781526765833

Publisher: Pen and Sword History, 2020

Synopsis

"This is not a book that simply picks up a few known facts and creates a semblance of a chronology and a fictionalized biography of the person. This is a truly exhaustive study of all the resources available…" – Olga Nunez Miret, author & translator

Wife to Edward IV and mother to the Princes in the Tower and later Queen Elizabeth of York, Elizabeth Widville was a central figure during the War of the Roses. Much of her life is shrouded in speculation and myth – even her name, commonly spelled as ‘Woodville’, is a hotly contested issue.

Born in the turbulent fifteenth century, she was famed for her beauty and controversial second marriage to Edward IV, who she married just three years after he had displaced the Lancastrian Henry VI and claimed the English throne. As Queen Consort, Elizabeth’s rise from commoner to royalty continues to capture modern imagination. Undoubtedly, it enriched the position of her family. Her elevated position and influence invoked hostility from Richard Neville, the ‘Kingmaker’, which later led to open discord and rebellion.

Throughout her life and even after the death of her husband, Elizabeth remained politically influential: briefly proclaiming her son King Edward V of England before he was deposed by her brother-in-law, the infamous Richard III, she would later play an important role in securing the succession of Henry Tudor in 1485 and his marriage to her daughter Elizabeth of York, thus and ending the War of the Roses.

Elizabeth Widville was an endlessly enigmatic historical figure, who has been obscured by dramatizations and misconceptions. In this fascinating and insightful biography, Dr John Ashdown-Hill brings shines a light on the truth of her life.

About this title

About the Author

Dr John Ashdown-Hill is a well-known medieval historian, having published extensively on a variety of topics within that period but focussing mainly on the Yorkist era. He is best-known for his pivotal role in uncovering the burial place of King Richard III for and for tracing collateral female-line descendants of Richard’s elder sister to establish his mtDNA haplogroup, which matched the mtDNA of the bones found in the Leicester car park. He continues to write about this period of history, and in 2015 he was awarded an MBE ‘for services to historical research and the exhumation and identification of Richard III’.

Edition details

• Publisher: Pen and Sword History
• Publication date: 2020
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1526765837
• ISBN 13: 9781526765833
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224