Elizabeth of York: A Tudor Queen and Her World by Weir Alison

Author:Weir, Alison [Weir, Alison]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
ISBN: 9780345521385
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2013-12-03T00:00:00+00:00

On November 25, St. Katherine’s Day, Elizabeth went to her coronation sumptuously attired in a kirtle, gown, and mantle of purple velvet, furred with ermine bands, and the same circlet of gold garnished with pearls and precious stones that she had worn the day before. This circlet was probably a gift from Henry; from the late fourteenth century at least, it had been customary for the crown worn by a queen in her coronation procession to be given to her by the King.11

With Cecily again bearing her train, Elizabeth entered Westminster Hall with her attendants and took up her position beneath a purple silk canopy of estate supported by silver lances held by the barons of the Cinque Ports. Here, she waited for the procession to form. She was attended by her aunt, the Duchess of Suffolk, her fourteen-year-old cousin, Margaret of Clarence, now the wife of Sir Richard Pole, and Margaret Beaufort.

As Elizabeth passed on her way to the abbey on a “new bay-cloth” (baize) striped runner, the people surged forward behind her, each one eager to snip off a piece of the stuff on which she had trodden, such valued souvenirs were traditionally their perquisite. But the crowd was too boisterous: “there was so much people inordinately pressing to cut the bay-cloth that certain persons in the press were slain, and the order of the ladies following the Queen was broken and distroubled.” This tragic incident cannot but have blighted the day for Elizabeth, who must have been painfully aware of the tragedy enacted in her wake.

In the calm of the abbey, Cecily was once more train bearer as Elizabeth walked along the nave, supported on either side by the bishops of Ely and Winchester; going before her were her uncle, John de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, carrying a gilt scepter topped with the fleur-de-lis,12 as he had at her mother’s coronation; William FitzAlan, Earl of Arundel, who bore the rod with the dove; and—in his robes of estate—Jasper Tudor, Duke of Bedford, who had the honor of bearing the consort’s crown. Also in the procession was the Earl of Oxford, as Lord Great Chamberlain, wearing “his Parliament robes.” After the Queen and Cecily “followed the Duchess of Bedford and another duchess and countess, appareled in mantles and surcoats of scarlet, furred and powdered, the duchesses having on their heads coronets of gold richly garnished with pearl and precious stones, and the countess on her head circlets of gold in like wise garnished, as doth appear in the book of pictures thereof made”—which, sadly, does not survive.

There was no tradition that prevented kings from attending the coronations of their consorts, but Henry VII allowed his wife to enjoy her hour of glory alone. He watched the whole ceremony with Margaret Beaufort and “Lady Margaret Pole, daughter to the Duke of Clarence,”13 from behind a “well-latticed” screen covered with cloth of Arras, which stood on a “goodly stage” specially erected between the altar and the pulpit. Elizabeth Wydeville

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