Eleanor The Secret Queen: The Woman who put Richard III on the Throne by John Ashdown-Hill

Author:John Ashdown-Hill [Ashdown-Hill, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-01-18T16:00:00+00:00

17

Death

The dowager Countess of Shrewsbury enjoyed Edward IV’s generosity for less than two years, for she died on Sunday 14 June 1467, at the age of 63, and was buried in the Jesus Chapel of St Paul’s Cathedral.¹ If she came to London for her mother’s funeral, Eleanor may have met any number of important people on that occasion, for London was particularly crowded at that time due to the opening of Parliament, the presence in the capital of ambassadors from the Duke of Burgundy, the great tournament between Lord Scales and the Bastard of Burgundy at Smithfield, and the return of her uncle, the Earl of Warwick, from his embassy in France.

Warwick was, at this point, very angry with the king because in the matter of the negotiations for the marriage of Margaret of York the king was once again ignoring his advice. Also his brother, George, Archbishop of York, had just been dismissed as chancellor, a promised royal marriage for one of his nephews had been cancelled, and Edward IV was blocking the marriage of Warwick’s daughter, Isabel, to the Duke of Clarence. Warwick was also at odds with Elizabeth Woodville’s kindred, and in fact in incipient rebellion. Any hint to him at this point of the existence of a marriage between his niece and the king would have been potentially very dangerous for Edward.

However, Eleanor had kept silent for six years, and there is no reason to suppose that, even if she met her uncle at her mother’s funeral, she spoke to him of her marriage to the king. The only hint that Warwick might have had some awareness of the Talbot marriage lies in his insistent promotion of his daughter Isabel’s marriage to the Duke of Clarence, and he might well have adopted that policy in any event, since in 1467 Edward IV had, as yet, no son by Elizabeth Woodville, and Clarence therefore still had a good chance of one day being king.

Moreover, it is possible that Eleanor herself was unwell by this time, for she died just over a year after her mother, on 30 June 1468, at the comparatively early age of 32.² It is not known what caused her death. Buck merely remarks laconically that the king did not kill her with kindness,³ a vague phraseology which permits varied interpretations. The circumstances surrounding the event were certainly somewhat unusual, although there is no proof of anything sinister.

On 4 June 1468 Eleanor made a deed of gift in favour of her sister Elizabeth.⁴ The witnesses included her cousin by marriage, Sir William Catesby (whose son was later celebrated in rhyme as Richard III’s ‘Cat’, and was ultimately hanged by Henry VII in the aftermath of the battle of Bosworth). Among other things, this deed proves Eleanor’s active association with the Catesby family. In the deed Eleanor, describing herself as ‘lately the wife of Thomas Boteler, knight, now deceased’,⁵ conveyed to her sister absolutely, and with immediate effect, the Warwickshire manor of Fenny Compton,

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