Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00July the 6th, 1483, and Westminster Abbey was packed tight for the coronation of one of
00:11England's most controversial kings, Richard III. His name and the battles of his violent era are
00:19familiar parts of our history. Cowton, Bosworth, the Wars of the Roses, when the rivalry between
00:27two great dynasties tore the nobility apart. But my story is not about kings and their great power
00:36struggles. It's about the remarkable women whose stories have been hidden by these tales of conflicts
00:42and alliances. Almost by accident, I spent my working life researching and writing the secret
00:52histories of virtually unknown women who appear as the wife or mother of a more famous man.
01:01Three of them in particular have fascinated me for years. They're at the heart of our story,
01:07and on the day that Richard was crowned, they could all be found here in Westminster.
01:13The first is Anne Neville. At this extravagant ceremony, she was transformed into the leading
01:22woman in the realm. As Richard's wife, she was the new queen.
01:29She brought with her the love and the loyalty of the North of England, and she was so important
01:34that Richard honoured her with a joint coronation.
01:37As the daughter of the most powerful noble in the realm, Anne was destined for greatness from
01:45birth, and by her side was another extraordinary woman. Dressed in scarlet, carrying the queen's
01:54train, was Margaret Beaufort, the second most important woman in the country. She had deliberately
02:00placed herself at the heart of this new court. Margaret's ambitions were bound up with her only son,
02:08Henry Tudor. Never far from the centre of power, the Margaret I know was a skilled politician who believed
02:16herself guided by God. And out of sight, at this great occasion, was the third woman. Hidden in the sanctuary of the
02:25Abbey, in fear of her life, was Elizabeth Woodville, the former Queen of England, and Richard's declared enemy.
02:34She had risen the furthest and fallen the hardest. Elizabeth was the commoner queen, an English beauty who enchanted a king.
02:44This is my chronicle of these three women, the former queen, the new queen, and the woman who planned to be greater than them both.
02:54We call this conflict the Wars of the Roses, but they called it the Cousins' War, a war between kin, not countries.
03:02And that is why the women really matter. They had to survive a violent family feud and utterly ruthless men.
03:11But women were actors on their own account, capable of fierce loyalty and shocking treachery.
03:18Living in a world where women's roles were strictly limited and their behaviour judged as good or bad by a misogynistic church,
03:26they had to exercise their power in hiding.
03:30In a time of bloodshed, these three tenacious women would become canny allies and grow into calculating adversaries.
03:40Here in windswept Wales, 30 years before the Cousins' War met its bloody climax, a fragile 12-year-old girl was facing a new life, a new home and a new husband.
04:04A man twice her age, who she barely knew.
04:08Margaret Beaufort was an heiress to valuable lands, but that gave her no power over her own life.
04:17But Margaret would have known that as a young woman from a noble family, she would never have had any choice over her husband.
04:24She probably would not even have been consulted.
04:27The medieval marriage was to forge family alliances.
04:31It was nothing to do with love.
04:36With no control over her own destiny, Margaret turned to God at a young age.
04:42Later in her life, this devotion would earn her respect and status.
04:47But as a child, Margaret's fate had been decided by no less than the King of England, Henry VI.
04:54He had given her in marriage to his half-brother, Edmund Tudor.
05:01The aristocracy in the late Middle Ages were a social and political elite.
05:06And they were always seeking to increase their land holdings and increase their status.
05:13So they did this by securing desirable marriages to other aristocratic families.
05:19Margaret Beaufort was a very desirable commodity in the late medieval marriage market.
05:26Margaret and all her possessions were transferred to Edmund Tudor, and she was brought here to his estates in Wales.
05:42At 12 years old, Margaret was old enough to marry, but she was small for her age and still a little girl.
05:55Even her contemporaries would have thought that she was too young and too physically undeveloped for the marriage to be consummated.
06:02Her 24-year-old husband had different ideas.
06:12He wanted a son to inherit his property and title and would not delay.
06:18He took young Margaret into the marital bed, and just months after marrying Edmund Tudor, Margaret was pregnant.
06:28Even by the standard of the time, this was a selfish, brutal act.
06:33But Edmund was so determined to secure Margaret's estates, and the all-important heir, that he risked both her life and that of the unborn child.
06:48Margaret might have been forgiven for cursing the man who had ordered her into this frightening life, but she didn't.
06:55She remained fiercely loyal to Henry VI, the king who was now her brother-in-law.
07:04Henry VI had reigned for over 30 years.
07:08He sat on the throne alongside his wife, the formidable Margaret of Anjou, not only as ruler of England, but as head of a great dynasty, the House of Lancaster.
07:20But Henry's reign was troubled.
07:23His nobles thought him feeble and unstable.
07:26His weakness encouraged disagreement at the highest levels of English society,
07:32and strengthened the ambitions of another English noble line, the House of York.
07:39Lancaster against York would scar England for decades to follow,
07:45and overshadow the lives of our three young women, Margaret Beaufort, Anne Neville and Elizabeth Woodville.
07:54Safely distant from the troubled royal court, leading the quiet life of an English country lady,
08:10was the beautiful wife of a mid-ranking English knight.
08:13Elizabeth Woodville was the mother of two boys living in rural Leicestershire,
08:19but her family was extraordinarily well connected.
08:26Elizabeth's parents were leading lights at the court of Henry VI,
08:31because her mother, Jaquetta, was born into the Royal House of Luxembourg,
08:35an ancient European family who could trace their lineage back through recorded history into myth.
08:42The family seat was a fairytale castle that dominated the roads and rivers between France, Germany and the Low Countries.
08:57And as a child, Elizabeth must have heard the whole family story from her mother Jaquetta,
09:02a story wrapped in magic and mystery.
09:06Jaquetta's ancestor, Count Siegfried, was said to have married a water goddess, Melusina,
09:13a being half woman, half fish, rather like a mermaid.
09:18She made the family castle of Luxembourg magically appear on her wedding night,
09:23and their marriage was a happy one, until the count broke his vow of giving her absolute privacy once a month,
09:31and she flew away with her daughters and was never seen again.
09:41This was an age when people believed in the power of the supernatural.
09:45Their connection with the water witch would have given the Woodville women a strange and mysterious allure.
09:51But more vital than their European heritage were their English alliances.
09:57Known as the Rivers family, they were Lancastrian loyalists,
10:01steadfast followers of the King Henry VI.
10:09So when the tension between the houses of Lancaster and York broke into open conflict,
10:14they were quick to rally to Henry's cause.
10:17The men in Elizabeth's family all readied themselves for war against the Yorkist rebels.
10:24The House of York had a new young champion and claimant to the throne, Edward of York.
10:33His family had long coveted the kingdom, and in 1461 he was ready to fight for the prize.
10:43The noble families of England were divided behind the banners of York and Lancaster.
10:49But one family would matter more than any other in this great struggle.
10:53The family of Anne Neville.
11:07Her childhood was one of opulence and privilege beyond the dreams of anyone else in the country.
11:13She was the youngest daughter of Richard Neville, the wealthiest noble in England,
11:17with a fortune that put him at the centre of English power politics.
11:21Anne was born here in Warwick Castle, the main power base of her spectacular father, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick.
11:32He was without question the supreme noble in England,
11:36and starting to be thought of as greater than the King himself.
11:42Warwick controlled lands from the south of England all the way up to the border with Scotland.
11:47Mostly concentrated in the north and the midlands, but there were some quite powerful estates down in the south too.
11:54So effectively you could draw a line from London to Berwick, which would always go through land zone by him.
12:00Warwick's standard, the bare and ragged staff, would have been known to almost everyone in the country, a symbol of his unrivalled power and influence.
12:15Effectively, the Neville family were princes in their own kingdom.
12:22They could raise armies, they could fight their own private wars.
12:26They effectively owned the lives of the men who lived and worked on their lands.
12:29So they had enormous influence, and especially in the north country, which was outside of the diaspora of royal power, they were the rulers.
12:40For young Anne, it all meant a gilded life, but there was a price to be paid for luxury and security.
12:46She may have been his daughter, but for Warwick, she was also a valuable piece to be played in the complex game of aristocratic alliance.
12:55Anne had no brothers. She and her sister would inherit everything.
13:01Even when they were tiny, the entire Neville could see their unequalled marriage potential and eyed them up as valuable wives for their sons.
13:11Anne was one of the two most desirable heiresses in England, and making a good marriage alliance for her was one of the principal political decisions for Warwick.
13:21He had aspirations to be as close as possible to the throne, and in an age when all politics was family politics, dynastic politics,
13:29it was clear that his two young daughters were going to be very important parts of that strategy.
13:37But right now, the Earl of Warwick was engaged in a different strategy, how to topple a king.
13:44His sympathies and ties were with the House of York, and he threw his considerable power base behind Edward, backing his challenge against the Lancastrian king, Henry VI.
13:59War was now inescapable, and taking sides, as the violence escalated, were our three young women.
14:08Anne Neville, daughter of the mighty Earl of Warwick, and Elizabeth Woodville, the beautiful young wife of a Lancastrian knight, each had a life-changing stake in the outcome of these troubles.
14:19For Margaret Beaufort, the pious child bride, life had taken a menacing turn.
14:28A long way from family and friends, and with war looming, Margaret Beaufort had endured terrible suffering.
14:41The husband who had forced her into pregnancy was dead, a victim of the plague, and she had another great burden.
14:48Aged 13, she was now a mother.
14:55In the cold gloom of Pembroke Castle, Margaret had faced the most dangerous moment of any medieval woman's life, the ordeal of childbirth.
15:06Childbirth was much more dangerous in the 15th century than it is now.
15:12We estimate that about one in ten women died in childbirth.
15:18There was nothing they could do about very common complications like eclampsia and hemorrhaging.
15:25If you hemorrhaged, you died.
15:26If the baby got stuck in the birth canal, or was a breech presentation, there was almost nothing they could do.
15:33They could do a caesarean, but only after the mother had died, because they understood that it would be fatal.
15:39So, if you think about the number of things that we've got an answer to now,
15:44and think about the fact that they didn't have any answer to them then,
15:48you can understand what a dreadfully frightening experience it would have been for women.
15:52Margaret would have been acutely aware of the fatal dangers facing her as she went into labour.
16:02And because of her size, she was greatly at risk.
16:07The birth was long and difficult.
16:11Both she and the baby were expected to die.
16:14Margaret, small, still a child herself, was probably permanently physically damaged.
16:20She would never bear another child.
16:32Against all the odds, Margaret survived this agonising childbirth and delivered a son.
16:41Unusually, she didn't christen him for his father, but chose instead a royal name.
16:46She called him Henry, after the child's uncle, the king, who Margaret revered as a saint.
16:53Perhaps she felt, as she emerged from the ordeal of childbirth,
16:57that this baby, who had caused her so much pain, was destined for greatness.
17:01Why did this vulnerable young woman have such a determined belief that she and her child could rise so far?
17:11Her background was noble, but tainted.
17:14Just like the king, she was descended from Edward III, through his third surviving son, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.
17:22But there was one major difference between her and Henry VI.
17:30The Beaufort Line was a bastard line.
17:33Like many men of the time, John of Gaunt fathered illegitimate children.
17:37Unusually, he later married his mistress and had his bastards legitimised by an act of parliament.
17:47But it was clearly agreed the Beaufort Line could never take the throne.
17:52So the Beauforts were of the royal family, but also not of the royal family.
18:00And from a Beaufort point of view, I think that must have really rankled.
18:05They would have seen that as a considerable injustice,
18:08that we've been legitimated, we're part of the royal family,
18:12that we're very, very close to the royal family,
18:15so why are we being excluded from succession to the throne?
18:18Bastards or not, Margaret knew she was close to the throne.
18:23But she saved her greatest ambitions, however unlikely,
18:27for the son that she insisted would carry the royal name Henry.
18:35As the war between the cousins started,
18:38our women stood on different sides of the conflict.
18:41For the House of Lancaster, Margaret Beaufort remained devoted to Henry VI.
18:47The family of Elizabeth Woodville were also aligned with King Henry,
18:53as he stood against the Yorkist Edward's forces.
18:56But on the other side of the conflict was Anne Neville.
19:01Her father, the Earl of Warwick, was Edward of York's main ally.
19:04All three women had to watch anxiously as the war that was going to determine the rest of their lives
19:12escalated from early skirmishes to its pivotal moment, Towton.
19:22Edward had quickly gathered all his forces together
19:24and they met on the battlefield of Towton in Yorkshire.
19:28And Towton was the bloodiest battle of the Civil Wars, of the whole of the Wars of the Roses.
19:37The Lancastrians and Yorkists probably put between 20,000 and 30,000 men in the field.
19:43But significantly, most of the English nobility was present at Towton.
19:47That's what really singles out Towton as a very special battle.
19:52This was the battle that was going to decide the Wars of the Roses.
19:56The Earl of Warwick had attracted the best soldiers and gunners to the Yorkist banner,
20:02greatly boosting their chances of success.
20:04Edward, who had been Warwick's military pupil, fought as always in the middle of his men.
20:11And he was a fantastic symbolic figure, tall, very good-looking,
20:15and he fought with an axe with his standard behind him,
20:19a really inspiring figure to his troops.
20:25There was a high death rate, although no-one knows exactly what the death rate was.
20:29The word went round 25,000 people died in the battle.
20:34Almost every great northern family lost a son.
20:39It was said that all the fields from Tadcaster to Towton,
20:43a distance of more than two miles, were filled with the bodies of dead men.
20:48It was a bloody but decisive victory for Edward.
20:54Towton was the moment, the battle,
20:56that actually secured Edward von Throne.
21:00It established the House of York.
21:04The slaughter at Towton toppled the House of Lancaster and King Henry.
21:09He fled into exile with his wife and son,
21:12but England had not heard the last of him or his cause.
21:17Young Edward of York was triumphantly crowned Edward IV,
21:20and our three young women experienced dramatic upheaval.
21:28Anne Neville's status rose with that of her powerful father, Warwick.
21:33He had made Edward's victory possible,
21:36and people now called him the Kingmaker.
21:38Anne's good fortune was in sharp contrast to the new life facing Elizabeth Woodville.
21:49Her side had lost, and her husband had died fighting for the Lancastrian cause.
21:54It was a terrible blow for Elizabeth.
21:59She had lost her husband, and she was now a widow with two little boys.
22:04And to make matters worse, her mother-in-law was refusing to pay her the allowance that she was owed under her marriage contract.
22:13With no source of income, Elizabeth's future looked very bleak.
22:17Also facing anxious times was the 17-year-old Margaret Beaufort.
22:29The King she worshipped almost as a saint had been deposed.
22:34Many of her family and allies were dead.
22:37Even worse, the future for the son she adored looked uncertain.
22:42The new king would control the destiny of wealthy young fatherless heirs.
22:48And Henry Tudor was a valuable prize.
22:52If a boy's father was dead, then care and custody of him, guardianship if you like, wardship, could be given or sold,
23:02because again this was big business, to another noble.
23:05The noble would then be able to administer the boy's lands and also to dispose of him in marriage,
23:13which could be an advantageous business.
23:15In return, he was supposed to protect the boy's interests and teach him everything he should know.
23:21See that he was taught a certain amount of book learning, perhaps, you know, things to do with the estate,
23:26but also, and most importantly, the art of war.
23:29Margaret Beaufort was powerless to prevent her son Henry from being moved into the home of one of the York King Edward's strongest supporters,
23:43the experienced soldier, William Lord Herbert.
23:46In Herbert's household, Henry would have been given a basic military training,
23:54and we know that certainly from the age of nine, if not earlier.
23:58There was a regular exercise routine where these children were drilled, first of all,
24:05with wooden toy replica, spears, swords, shields, and then the real thing.
24:13From now on, if Margaret wanted to see Henry, she would have to make the long journey to Raglan,
24:24Lord Herbert's magnificent castle in Wales,
24:28and she would have to accept hospitality from a Yorkist.
24:34Although wardship was a normal part of medieval aristocratic life, Margaret must have found it very hard to bear.
24:40Her son had been taken from her and placed with her enemy, and there was nothing she could do about it.
24:47But in taking Henry out of Margaret's hands, and putting him with one of his favourites,
24:53the King had merely underlined how important he was.
24:56We know that Margaret visited Henry at least once.
25:05She stayed with her son in Raglan Castle for about a week,
25:09before she had to face the pain of separation once again.
25:12And I think it did affect her very strongly.
25:19It was her only child. She was not able to have another one.
25:24And their relationship had been forged in this time of terrible danger.
25:29First of all, she'd learned that her husband had succumbed to the plague.
25:33She was alone and vulnerable.
25:36And that gave an intensity to their relationship.
25:40And I think when they were then separated, it impacted on her a lot.
25:44It must have been terribly hard for Margaret to leave her son in the hands of the enemy,
26:00even if she knew he was being raised as a nobleman in the house of a favourite of the King.
26:04Worse for her must have been the fear that the Yorks would be turning him to their side,
26:11that the boy she had named for the Lancastrian King was becoming a Yorkist.
26:21Margaret had dreams for her son that could only be realised through years of patient scheming.
26:27But immediate action was needed to save the children of the widow Elizabeth Woodville.
26:34Margaret was dead, she had no source of income, and she and her boys were facing ruin.
26:44To save her family, she was forced to turn to the man who had brought this misery on them.
26:50Edward, the newly crowned King.
26:55According to the traditional story, Elizabeth waited for Edward under an oak tree with her two fatherless boys.
27:02When the King appeared, she stepped forward and begged him to help her.
27:08Edward, a notorious womaniser, was so struck by Elizabeth's beauty, he fell for her at once.
27:16Edward did just fall hard for Elizabeth.
27:20It was love or lust, whichever way you care to look at it.
27:23She was beautiful, all reports say, and in the way that the age most admired.
27:29I mean, the age admired a willowy figure, golden hair, white skin, perhaps grey or blue eyes.
27:35Apparently powerless, without friends or family who could help her, Elizabeth's situation had seemed hopeless.
27:46But she still had one powerful tool available to her.
27:50In many ways, Elizabeth was trading her beauty, her sexual appeal for great position, and good on her really.
28:04Because a woman didn't necessarily have very many weapons in the 15th century.
28:08And if she was going to try and carve her own place in the world, her looks and her allure were really one of the strongest tools she had.
28:19The young King may have assumed that he could have a secret affair.
28:28He'd had many lovers. Other women were happy to be his mistress.
28:34It was said that he went for women of all sorts.
28:38Noble, lowly, married, unmarried.
28:42And the chronicler does say, rather nicely, with, you know, some admiration,
28:46that, nonetheless, he overcame none by force.
28:49He did all by, you know, money and promises.
28:52But that having won them, he then dismissed them.
28:59Elizabeth resisted Edward's advances.
29:02Chroniclers at the time reported that she was so determined, she held him off with his own dagger.
29:08There's stories that he held a knife to her throat, that she held a knife to his throat,
29:14but that either way, she said, if she was too low to be his wife, she was too high to be his concubine.
29:22And that might have appealed to Edward.
29:24In Elizabeth, he'd met a woman who was not prepared to be dismissed.
29:28Elizabeth left the completely love-struck king with only one option.
29:42One morning, he rode to the river's home for a secret ceremony
29:46that would change the fortunes of the House of York and of the nation.
29:49According to the chroniclers,
29:51Jacquetta was the only family member present when Edward and Elizabeth were married on May Day,
30:01a day for lust, for love and for the celebration of life.
30:06The marriage was consummated immediately.
30:08And for the next few weeks, the handsome young king of the House of York
30:13was creeping every night into a staunchly Lancastrian home to be with his bride.
30:18Elizabeth's mother must have encouraged this secret passion because she knew that their marriage could reap enormous benefits for the Woodville family
30:32and pave the way to Elizabeth's role as the first woman of England.
30:37If Edward could keep his throne, she would be queen.
30:40But Elizabeth's new husband, the king, had underestimated the outrage his marriage would cause,
30:51especially amongst powerful nobles like the Earl of Warwick.
30:55When the news escaped, when Edward told the council,
30:59they and his family were absolutely horrified.
31:04Kings were supposed to make a big public marriage with a foreign princess
31:09for the advantage of the country, not make a love match.
31:14And indeed, it was even said that Edward was proving himself to be no true monarch
31:19in doing something so undignified and extraordinary.
31:27In the eyes of the English nobility, she was wrong on practically every count.
31:31The fact that she was a widow really meant that she was kind of second-hand.
31:34She was tarnished by this previous relationship.
31:36They did call her a bigamist.
31:38And the fact that she had children by this previous marriage made it considerably worse.
31:43She was so much the wrong person for him to have married.
31:48Edward's choice of bride was not just scandalous.
31:51It was deeply offensive to the man who had made him king in the first place,
31:56Warwick the Kingmaker.
31:58For a start, Elizabeth Woodville's family had been traditional Lancastrians.
32:04So what was a Yorkist king doing marrying her?
32:07For another, Warwick was in the middle of negotiating a diplomatic, advantageous continental alliance for Edward.
32:16So he looked a fool when he was suddenly told that no, no, Edward was married already.
32:19Edward had forgotten his duties as king and recklessly chosen his own bride for no other reason than blind love.
32:31Or was it even worse than love?
32:35No other English king had married for love before.
32:37Was young Edward in the grip of intemperate lust?
32:42Suspicious rumours began to circulate that would have dangerous repercussions.
32:47Perhaps some malign influence was at work.
32:50Some people even suggested that Edward had been seduced by witchcraft.
32:55Belief in witchcraft was universal in the 15th century, in the power of spells, incantations, charms and herbs.
33:10What's more, it was one of the few accusations from which even royal rank couldn't protect a woman.
33:16There'd already been, in that century, two royal women imprisoned for it.
33:20But the enchanted Edward was sure of his choice, and Elizabeth's transformation was complete.
33:31From obscure country lady, she had emerged as the new Queen of England.
33:37And in May 1465, Edward officially confirmed her status with a highly glamorous and lavish ceremony in Westminster Abbey.
33:56Elizabeth entered the Abbey barefoot, dressed in purple, followed by the lords and ladies of the court.
34:02She passed through the choir, knelt and prostrated herself before the high altar, while the archbishop conducted the service, anointing her on her forehead and breast.
34:14Then, after receiving the coronation ring on her finger and the crown on her head, she was solemnly led to the throne itself.
34:22In the magnificent Abbey, Edward paraded his new Queen in a dazzling show, attended by the most important nobles of Europe.
34:38The public spectacle of her coronation could not have been more unlike the secret wedding at the Rivers family home.
34:49That had been a private, personal affair. This was a matter of international politics.
34:55As Queen of England, Elizabeth Woodville was the first of our women to win the highest position in the realm.
35:06Margaret Beaufort seemed further from achieving her aspirations than ever before.
35:11And Anne Neville had seen her father, the kingmaker, sidelined by the new king.
35:18But he wouldn't take this treatment lightly.
35:22He was still the richest noble in the land, and he set out to prove it,
35:27with flamboyant demonstrations of his wealth.
35:29Entertaining, giving large banquets and parties, was a way of showing off your wealth, your power, and also networking.
35:42So Warwick, yes, he did entertain lavishly, he did give very large parties.
35:47And even as he moved about the countryside, he would have a large retinue of men-at-arms,
35:51he would have his banners, his emblems with him.
35:53So that every stage of his life was a kind of carefully choreographed ballet,
35:58to manifest his power upon the world.
36:03When his brother was promoted to Archbishop of York,
36:06the second most powerful position in the church,
36:09Warwick the kingmaker threw an enormous feast.
36:15We have the menu of the feast,
36:18and it shows that the Neville's will go to extraordinary lengths to demonstrate their wealth.
36:22The feast lasted several days,
36:25and 2,000 guests drank their way through 25,000 gallons of wine,
36:31and ate, among other things, 4,000 mallard and 500 buck and stag.
36:40One table at this great Neville dinner was reserved for the young people,
36:44the royal kinsmen and women of the House of York.
36:47Seated together with some ladies of the royal court were Anne Neville and Richard of Gloucester,
36:55the king's younger brother.
36:57She was nine, and he was 13, and he was invited to the feast because he was her father's ward.
37:03So Anne and Richard were growing up in the same household.
37:05It was a mark of Anne's high status that she was living under the same roof as the king of England's own brother,
37:13the boy who would become Richard III.
37:16Anne Neville was brought up, if not to think of herself quite as a princess,
37:22then certainly something close to it.
37:24She knew that her father had great wealth, great influence and very important political connections,
37:29and I think that this must have informed her sense of herself, of who she was,
37:33and what her expectations of her life might be.
37:35Anne's father, Warwick the kingmaker, was becoming more and more resentful of the new Queen of England,
37:45the former loyal Lancastrian and commoner, Elizabeth Woodville.
37:49As Queen, Elizabeth could use pillow talk to influence her husband the king,
37:56and this was of huge benefit to her family.
37:59She had five brothers and seven sisters,
38:03who were found excellent marriages and great positions in the realm.
38:08The Woodvilles were a large, extensive, enthusiastic and, some said, rapacious family,
38:16who very quickly began snapping up the available positions, awards, heirs to marry.
38:27It did look to their enemies as though the Woodvilles were staging a takeover of the country.
38:34But not even the Earl of Warwick could deny that in her most important duty to king and country,
38:41Elizabeth exceeded expectations.
38:46As Queen, Elizabeth's main job was to produce heirs,
38:50making the dynasty secure and proving that it was blessed by God.
38:55Elizabeth was expected to be fertile, and she didn't disappoint.
38:59Within the first five years of her marriage to Edward, she gave birth to three daughters.
39:07The birth of royal heirs was attended by much ritual and superstition.
39:11Each time Elizabeth had a baby, she had to follow a strict protocol.
39:20When the Queen was expecting to give birth, she would effectively retire from the court.
39:27There would be a ceremonial mass that was attended by a lot of people, sort of, as a farewell.
39:31And then she retired into a suite of rooms that had been specially prepared for her.
39:38At this point, women of her household would take on roles that had previously been fulfilled by men and deliver what was needed.
39:46The Queen passed the last few weeks of her pregnancy, served exclusively by women.
39:57There's a wonderful description of the inner sanctum, the room where she was actually going to give birth.
40:01It's very dark and warm. There's got to be carpets on the floor, on the ceiling and the walls.
40:08It's got to be blue with fleur-de-lis.
40:11Blue, of course, was the colour of the Virgin Mary, and so fleur-de-lis was her symbol.
40:14So it's connecting in with this.
40:17This sumptuous main bed, which the bedspread would be edged in velvet and ermine.
40:23But then there was a pallet bed, which had a big canopy over it, in crimson, with gold crowns all over it.
40:33After giving birth, the Queen was expected to rest for two months before she ceremoniously re-entered public life.
40:42There was a long procession to the chapel, and that's where she would be churched.
40:47The ceremony of purifying, which had a bishop putting holy water over her.
40:51And then after that, they went in for mass.
40:59All of this ritual was designed to celebrate the arrival of what might be the future king.
41:06For Edward, a usurper of the throne, these customs were a very public way to reaffirm his dynasty.
41:13This contemporary image of Elizabeth with her three daughters is not just a reminder of her fertility.
41:26It demonstrates how unusual she was as a royal medieval mother.
41:29She has her children by her side.
41:33She didn't farm them out to aristocratic connections, as other high-status mothers did.
41:38She kept them by her.
41:40She was a devoted mother, in a way that we can understand today.
41:43But she had failed in one key duty.
41:49Elizabeth hadn't yet produced the all-important son and heir.
41:53And as each daughter arrived, the Earl of Warwick's resentment grew.
41:57Eight years after putting Edward on the throne, Warwick the Kingmaker could no longer tolerate the Grasping Rivers family,
42:09and his relationship with Edward collapsed completely.
42:12Warwick was deeply resentful that he had been replaced in the central councils of the king,
42:20indeed as the most principal supporter and subject and minister of the crown,
42:25by, in particular, Earl Rivers, Queen Elizabeth Woodville's father.
42:33The Kingmaker began to enact his rebellion.
42:37Against the king's wishes, he married his eldest daughter to the king's brother,
42:41George, Duke of Clarence, cementing a dangerous alliance in opposition to Edward.
42:47Together, Warwick and George issued a proclamation
42:50against certain seditious persons in court.
42:57Warwick the Kingmaker declared that the king was being misled by these evil ministers.
43:02The government of the kingdom was falling into wrack and ruin,
43:04and he, Warwick the Kingmaker, was going to put it right.
43:06After eight peaceful years in England, war was looming once more.
43:14Having installed Edward on the throne, Anne Neville's all-powerful father
43:19now set out to remove him and seize control.
43:23When the Kingmaker took up arms against the king at Edgecote Moor,
43:27England was pitched into the most unstable time in its history.
43:30Once again, the families of these three women went to war.
43:37Anne Neville saw her father boldly turn against the king he'd once served.
43:42Elizabeth Woodville was about to pay an awful price for her meteoric rise to power.
43:47And Margaret Beaufort's adored son, who'd been growing up in the house of a Yorkist noble,
43:55was about to come under terrible threat.
44:04On the eve of battle, Margaret would have been at her home, praying for a York defeat.
44:08But her loyalties would have been divided, because fighting for the enemy was her 12-year-old son, Henry.
44:15He had been led into his first battle by his guardian, the Yorkist commander, William Herbert.
44:21Margaret must have been beside herself, praying for a York defeat, hoping for the safety of her son.
44:27The battle was a disaster for York.
44:39Henry's protector, William Herbert, suffered an awful fate.
44:44He was overwhelmed by rebels, dragged away and executed by Warwick the Kingmaker.
44:49The boy, Henry, who must have seen all this happen, was abandoned on the battlefield.
45:00Margaret sent out frantic messages to try and find out what had happened to her son.
45:05She must have feared he was captured or dead.
45:08But the boy had been escorted from the battlefield in a state of terror.
45:20He and Herbert's widow had found safety in a house nearby.
45:24Margaret sent a party of trusted servants to find him and generously rewarded those who had saved her son.
45:30For Henry himself, she sent a gift, a reminder of his inescapable destiny, a bow and arrows.
45:42Without her son, Margaret's ambitions would come to nothing.
45:46And this battle had come close to taking him from her.
45:50But Elizabeth Woodville would suffer devastating, permanent loss with Warwick the Kingmaker's victory.
46:00Warwick's triumph meant that he became England's ruler.
46:07He captured Elizabeth's husband, the King, and imprisoned him in his castle.
46:14But his treatment of the Woodville family was much more savage.
46:19He seized the Queen's father and brother, and without trial or charge, had them beheaded.
46:25This was an act of pure revenge, driven by hatred and jealousy.
46:32Having dealt with the men of the family, Warwick turned his attention to the matriarch, Jaquetta.
46:38He sent an armed guard to snatch her from her home and imprisoned her here in Warwick Castle.
46:44Grief-stricken, having just lost her husband and her son, Jaquetta now faced their murderer as he accused her of a crime punishable by death.
47:04Capitalising on rumours circulating from the marriage of King Edward and Elizabeth, Warwick claimed that Jaquetta had used magic to bewitch the King into marrying her daughter.
47:17Witchcraft in the 15th century is the ability to influence what happens to another person, either by making them sick, making them love you or hate you, making them lucky or unlucky by cursing them.
47:41Fear of the power of the witch tapped into fear of woman's power in general.
47:50I mean, a witch could be this old crone over a cauldron, but she could also be young and beautiful, wielding a dangerous sexual magic.
47:59And, of course, that very much ties in all too neatly with the story of Elizabeth Woodfield's marriage and how it was made.
48:11Jaquetta's fate was in the hands of her sworn enemy and the murderer of her husband and son.
48:18As she waited in this castle, the odds were stacked against her.
48:22One word from the Earl of Warwick was enough to condemn her to death by strangulation.
48:32Warwick didn't just want Jaquetta dead, he wanted to prove her malign influence on the young king.
48:39And he staged a full show trial with witnesses.
48:42He even produced two little figures, one representing the king and one the queen, which he claimed Jaquetta had bound together with witchcraft and sorcery.
48:57But, incredibly, Jaquetta escaped her punishment.
49:01The kingmaker realised he had overreached himself.
49:04He didn't have the support of England's political elite and he was forced to set the king free.
49:09Edward intervened and cleared his mother-in-law's name, but the kingmaker's accusations would have permanent consequences.
49:24Jaquetta was publicly named as a witch, the royal wedding condemned as the product of witchcraft.
49:32A slur was laid on Jaquetta and on her daughter Elizabeth that would follow them throughout their lives,
49:37even to the grave and beyond, into the records of history.
49:45After a brief period of imprisonment, Edward IV was back in power.
49:49In March 1470, he forced Warwick the kingmaker and his own brother, George Duke of Clarence, into exile as traitors.
49:58The rebels took their wives and children and fled across the channel.
50:04Unable to find a safe port, they were nearly wrecked in stormy seas.
50:09The kingmaker's thirst for power had brought his family into terrible danger.
50:16This was a far cry from Anne Neville's life of luxury in England.
50:24They're really fleeing for their lives.
50:26And as this is happening, as if that wasn't traumatic enough, her sister Isabel has gone into premature labour with her first child.
50:32There's no-one on the ship to help them, they've got no medicine, there's certainly no question of a doctor.
50:38So the only people who would have been able to help Isabel were her mother, her sister Anne, and their very few maids.
50:44This must have been a terrifying experience for Anne, and a very traumatic one,
50:49because Isabel, although she survived, lost her baby.
51:10Anne's life of privilege was completely torn from her.
51:12Her father, who had seemed invincible, had been defeated.
51:17Her sister had lost the heir.
51:20They were in exile from their castles and lands,
51:23and there was no way of knowing how they would ever get back to England.
51:31Having dragged his family into this situation, Warwick needed a drastic plan to save them.
51:37And he found it.
51:38He would switch sides and forge an alliance with his enemies in the House of Lancaster.
51:45Warwick went to Margaret of Anjou, wife of the deposed Lancastrian King Henry VI,
51:52with an astounding proposal.
51:55Warwick's strength was always as a diplomat.
51:59He was brilliant at manipulating people, he was brilliant at making implausible alliances cement.
52:03And the idea he came up with in France was absolutely preposterous.
52:09He planned to marry his younger daughter, Anne Neville, to Prince Edward, the son and heir of Henry VI, and Marguerite of Anjou.
52:18Warwick managed to convince Marguerite that the only future for the Lancastrian cause lay in this marriage.
52:24She didn't let him off lightly, he had to grovel on his knees for a good 15 minutes.
52:30But Warwick pulls it off, this incredible, improbable alliance,
52:34and his daughter is betrothed to the Prince of Wales, which means potentially that she will be Queen of England.
52:40It was an extraordinary turn of events. Warwick was prepared to trade a lifetime of loyalty to York to see his daughter Anne on the Lancaster throne.
52:58Of course, nobody thought to ask Anne's opinion of this plan. It was not her choice.
53:08Her marriage was the key to reversing her family's fortunes and saving the House of Lancaster.
53:15The betrothal made, Anne's father left her in Normandy and returned to England, raising a huge army to destroy King Edward.
53:24Edward is completely caught unawares. It's one of those rare moments in Edward's career where he's been unable to second-guess his opponent.
53:35Luck has run out for him, and faced with his inability to put an army together in a short period of time,
53:43he and his closest advisers decide that flight is really the only option.
53:47Edward IV was forced to abandon his throne and the Yorkist cause and flee England.
53:57The Lancastrian King Henry VI was restored in his place.
54:04With her husband on the run, Elizabeth Woodville, the former Queen of England, was now in grave danger.
54:09Anne Neville's life had returned to its former glory. Her father, the Kingmaker, was once again the most powerful noble in England.
54:20For Margaret Beaufort, seeing her hero restored to the throne was reward for years of patient scheming.
54:27When her husband Edward escaped abroad, Elizabeth Woodville was left powerless with nowhere to turn.
54:41Pregnant once again, she sought sanctuary with her mother and daughters in Westminster Abbey.
54:47The concept of sanctuary was a kind of right of asylum, whereby if a fugitive won their way to a church or monastery,
54:57or in a place of sanctuary, they could claim that right, and for as long as they stayed there, the law couldn't touch them.
55:04The authorities could not come in and haul them out by force, so it gave at the very least a breathing space.
55:11As a devout man, Henry VI would not breach Elizabeth's right to protection.
55:20This must have been a terrible time for Elizabeth.
55:23Her husband was far away, perhaps never to return, and she was entirely reliant upon the kindness and generosity of the Abbey staff.
55:32Her only contact with the outside world were messages smuggled in by loyal Londoners,
55:37and in stark contrast to her previous royal births, she faced delivering this new baby in cramped, cold surroundings.
55:46On November the 2nd, 1470, in the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey, with her mother and three young daughters present,
55:59Elizabeth Woodville gave birth to a boy, Edward IV's all-important male heir.
56:05Elizabeth named him Edward for his father, and had him baptised in the Abbey like a poor man's son, not like a future king for the House of York at all.
56:18What should have been a moment of great rejoicing was actually a time of great anxiety.
56:24What would the future hold for this little boy?
56:26But Elizabeth Woodville's anxiety for her child, the exiled king's son, was in stark opposition to the opportunities Margaret Beaufort now saw for her boy.
56:45The child's uncle, the ailing King Henry VI, was back on the throne, and Margaret immediately arranged for the two to meet.
56:53It was an encounter that would have lasting significance for the young mother.
57:01Henry Tudor's official historian later reported that the frail king had met the boy and said,
57:08This is he, and to whom both we and our adversaries must yield and give of over the dominion.
57:17It would come to pass that Henry should in time enjoy the kingdom.
57:24We know that they met, but this premonition was probably claimed by Margaret after the event.
57:31She believed that her son was the Lancastrian king's rightful heir, and that one day, Henry Tudor would sit on the throne of England.
57:43This was not yet Margaret's moment.
57:46Her ambitions for her son could wait.
57:48Her side, the house of Lancaster, was strengthened by a new alliance.
57:54The marriage between Anne Neville, the kingmaker's daughter, and the king's son and heir, Edward, Prince of Wales.
58:05At this moment it was Anne who seemed to have it all.
58:08Her father's plan to put his daughter on the throne of England was coming together.
58:13She was Princess of Wales, married to Henry VI's son, and if the king could just hold on to his crown, one day she would be Queen of England.
58:27Next time, Anne Neville emerges from the shadow of her kingmaker father.
58:31Elizabeth Woodville fights for survival, and Margaret Beaufort sees her way clear to power.
58:40.
59:10You