Elizabeth: England's Slandered Queen by Arlene Okerlund

Author:Arlene Okerlund [Okerlund, Arlene]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: England/Great Britain, Royalty, Biography & Autobiography, Women's Studies, 15th Century
ISBN: 978-0750959841
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2014-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

War and Peace

Early 1475 found England preparing for war. Edward had first announced his intention of invading France during the Parliament of October 1472,1 and in the meantime had been raising funds from citizens willing to attack the enemy, but reluctant to pay the cost of the invasion. Naval preparations had been ongoing for several years, with ships bought or hired, officers commissioned, and crews assembled. Archers, still nine-tenths of the army, were summonsed, and hundreds of thousands of arrows were made by craftsman. Cannon, powder, sulphur and artillery were stored at the ports for shipment to the continent. The King himself planned to lead the largest English army ever to invade France.

In the midst of these military preparations, Queen Elizabeth pursued her charitable and educational interests. On 10 March 1475, she issued the first set of statutes to Queens’ College, Cambridge. From her first intercession in 1465, when Edward was dissolving institutions created by Henry VI, the Queen had been central in saving Queens’ College and securing pardons after Margaret’s defeat at Tewkesbury. A college historian writes about Elizabeth: ‘Piety, natural reason and her duties as queen combined to make her “specially solicitous concerning those matters whereby the safety of souls and the public good are promoted, and poor scholars, desirous of advancing themselves in the knowledge of letters, are assisted in their need.”’2

In issuing the statutes, Elizabeth formalised the administrative structure of the institution, providing for such essential details as the election of the president, the establishment of his residence, office and authority, the supervision of the land, and the designation of stipends for the president and scholars. By this time, Queens’ College had grown from four fellows to twelve, and a new college seal incorporating Elizabeth’s coat of arms with those of England replaced the coat of arms of Margaret, who was still imprisoned in the Tower.

A contemporary handwritten account of the college’s founding refers to Queen Margaret as ‘fundatrix nostra prima’ (our first founder), while a second account, apparently written after the death of Andrew Doket in 1484, refers to Queen Elizabeth as the ‘vera fundatrix’ (true founder), who, according to the law of succession, completed the founding of the college when Margaret was unable to finish the task. This historian credits Elizabeth with leading the college to its end, issuing its statutes, and obtaining many privileges from the King.3 The designation of Elizabeth as vera fundatrix has led subsequent critics to accuse her of trying to displace Margaret and take exclusive credit for founding the college. Such a view misconstrues the evidence, since the historical account not only gives due credit to Margaret, but was written by an anonymous cleric sometime after the death of Edward IV in 1483, when Elizabeth was in no position to influence anyone – even college historians.

A copy of the Statuta Collegii Reginalis in the collection of the University of Cambridge Library (QCV 65) names the ‘Co-Foundresses of this College’: ‘Queen Margaret of Anjou, wife to K. Henry the sixth’ and ‘Queen Elizabeth, wife to K.

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