Merry Widows

In the middle ages, and indeed stretching well beyond that time, marriage was an economic contract. At the top end of society it was also political and very often the political considerations greatly outweighed all other factors. Needless to add the young couple had no say in the matter and for the most part would have accepted their fate without protest as they were schooled from an early age to this fate. It had even become a practice in the 15th century to betroth and marry children when they were too innocent to have any idea at all of the implications of marriage.

In those uncertain times women were often widowed at an early age and had a second chance at marriage and there is good evidence to show that once they were free from parental and political pressure they chose to marry for love. I want to look at two of those women, both high born, who chose love over other considerations once they had the opportunity. They are Catherine of France and Jacquetta of Luxembourg. They both married sons of Henry IV for their first marriages and both married for love once they became widows. What is more interesting is that the offspring of these second marriages had considerable impact on the destiny of England - indeed, the grandchildren of both women married in 1485 to found the Tudor dynasty.

Henry V was a very clear-headed and focussed man. When he succeeded his father in 1413 he resolved to claim what he believed was his French inheritance and to reinforce this claim he set his sights on marrying the daughter of the king of France. The invasion of 1415 which culminated in the improbable victory at Agincourt on October 25th actually achieved little more than to give the English a toehold in France. It was the campaigns in succeeding years that achieved the reconquest of Normandy and several of the other territories that were once part of the Angevin Empire and, in 1420, the French king, Charles VI, worn down by years of struggle and presiding over a weakened, riven kingdom, signed a treaty with Henry V. His daughter Catherine was to marry Henry and a key clause in the treaty acknowledged Henry as his heir. On the death of Charles, Henry would become king of France as well as king of England. The issue raised by Edward III in 1340 would at last be settled.

Marriage of Henry V and Catherine de Valois

Inconveniently, Charles also had a son, also Charles, who was dispossessed by the treaty. Even more inconveniently, Henry died six weeks before the ageing king Charles VI in 1422, leaving an infant son as his heir who became king of England and, nominally, king of France. Although the French might have been persuaded to accept Henry V in his prime, they had less reason to accept an unknown infant. Charles the Dauphin, later Charles VII, was a full-grown man and by right of birth, if not by treaty, the king of France. The English had a strongly led regency under Henry’s younger brother John, duke of Bedford and the English were able to control northern France for about 15 years before it began to erode and eventually collapse.

Funeral effigy of Catherine of Valois

Catherine de Valois, wife of Henry V and mother of Henry VI, was born 27 October 1401 in Paris. Her mother Isabeau of Bavaria had married Charles in 1387 and bore at least 12 children and Catherine was the youngest daughter. She had two older sisters who survived childhood. One of them, Jeanne, married the duke of Brittany and another,  became a nun. The sons fared less well. Only one, Catherine’s younger brother Charles, survived to become king of France. Several older brother died before the age of 21 and one was poisoned. When she was married to Henry V 4 June 1420 he was 14 years her senior. She gave birth to their one child on 6 December 1421 at Windsor castle. Her husband died of dysentery at Vincennes, a few miles away from Paris where she was staying at the time. She apparently made no attempt to visit him during his last hours which may tell us a lot about their relationship.

Back in England she was the queen dowager, and at first glance in a powerful position. The council were certainly mindful of that and in 1425, the three year old Henry was moved to a separate household to be brought up and educated under the care of ? (Wolfe says she had care of him until he was 7 years old) There is no evidence that Catherine raised any serious objections and it may be that she was not particularly interested in the boy. She herself had been brought up in a dysfunctional household. Her father had a strain of madness that had violent outbreaks at times and her mother was a politically ambitious woman who, despite her large brood, showed little maternal affection for them.

Catherine was rather constrained as a widow. Her remarriage held all sorts of political ramifications for the ruling council and they wanted to retain control of her. She soon fell in love with Edmund Beaufort, earl of Somerset. Like the Lancastrian kings, Beaufort was descended from Joh of Gaunt by his mistress and third wife Katherine Swynford and this liaison was regarded as politically dangerous. When Humphrey, duke of Gloucester learned of the affair and her intention to marry he intervened and the council enacted a law that no-one should marry Catherine without the consent of council. The act of 1428 stated that if the queen dowager was to marry without the king’s consent then her husband would forfeit all lands and possessions. This was sufficient to deter Edmund Beaufort.

Once that liaison had been terminated Catherine turned her attention to Owen Tudor and in the next few years bore him five children. Tudor was a welshman and a knight who had done service in France. He appears to have been appointed master of the queen’s wardrobe while she was living at Windsor castle and this brought the two into contact with one another. The first child, Edmund, was born c 1430. The couple moved to the country far from the prying eyes of court and the facts of the liaison were undiscovered for some years. Owen Tudor was granted the rights of an Englishman by Parliament in 1432, so clearly most at court were ignorant of the liaison or the children. Some say that there was a secret marriage but this is unknown; however the children were later recognised as legitimate issue.

Eventually the couple were discovered. The duke of Gloucester had Owen Tudor committed to Newgate Prison and Catherine was sent to Bermondsey Abbey, pregnant with a fifth child. Her children were put under the care of Catherine de la Pole, the abbess of Barking and a sister of the Earl of Suffolk.  The child, a daughter, died soon after birth and Catherine was seriously ill afterwards and died at the age of 36 on 3 January 1437.

After Catherine’s death Owen was accused of breaking the law by marrying the queen. He was acquitted of this charge, which would suggest that he denied that they had married. On his return to Wales however, he was arrested and sent to Newgate. his possessions were seized, which may suggest that there were those who did not believe his denial. He tried to escape in 1438 but was re-arrested and placed in Windsor Castle.

His fortunes started to change in 1439. He was pardoned by the king and released on bail of £2000, which was cancelled in 1440. 1442

Henry VI, her first son was now 16 years old and in a position to make decisions. He chose to honour his mother with a state funeral and burial in Westminster Abbey. He was surprisingly generous to his half brothers and sister. Owen Tudor was given an annuity of £40 and the two elder sons, Edmund and Jasper, were created earls of Richmond and Pembroke respectively. The third brother Owen became a monk. Further, in 1453, possibly mindful that he had not produced an heir at that time, he declared his half brothers legitimate. Edmund was married to the heiress to the House of Somerset, Margaret Beaufort. Margaret was only about 10 years old at the time of her marriage and it was customary not to begin conjugal relations too early. Edmund Tudor was impatient and soon after her first period made her pregnant. He was subsequently captured by Yorkist forces and died on 1 November 1456 of the plague whilst in prison. After his death Margaret gave birth to Henry Tudor on 28 January 1457. It was a difficult birth for an immature body and we guess that Margaret was damaged from the experience as she was never able to conceive another child. Such are the tenuous threads that make up royal history; that child was to become Henry VII. 

Perhaps Humphrey of Gloucester was right to be worried after all.

The second widow is Jacquetta of Luxembourg, daughter of the Count of St Pol, perhaps not a grand as Catherine of Valois but with a lineage which could be traced back to Charlemagne. She came to attention after John, duke of Bedford, younger brother of Henry V, and regent of France lost his first wife, Anne of Burgundy. The English position in France was weakening at the time and relations with Burgundy were precarious, so the match was proposed by Jacquetta’s uncle, the Bishop of Thérouanne. The couple were married at the bishop’s palace on 29 April 1433. She was 17 years old and contemporary reports describe her as lively and attractive. Bedford however was her senior by 27 years. He was also in declining health. His struggle to maintain the English position in France after Henry V’s death with sometimes lukewarm support from home had worn the man down. His health eventually failed him and he died on 14 February 1435.

His young widow was well provided for but, while she was not as politically important as Catherine, the king’s council made provision that she not remarry without the kin’s permission when he was granted her dower rights 6 February 1436. 

It is very difficult to assess her first marriage at a distance of almost 600 years but it is notable that the marriage of almost two years produced no issue. Jacquetta accompanied her husband in both England and France and in view of her later fecundity the absence of children with the duke is worth comment.  John did have two illegitimate children, a boy, Richard, who was alive in 1434, and a daughter Mary. She married Peter de Montserrat and died after 1458. He was unable to successfully father children by his first wife, Anne of Burgundy. He married her in 1423 and she died during childbirth (as did the infant) on 14 November 1432. It is quite possible that other unsuccessful pregnancies preceded this, but none were recorded.  Jacquetta was young and strong and without doubt capable of bearing children. Yet there was no pregnancy of record during the more the two years of their marriage, and this is a puzzle. The duke was certainly in poor health at this time but in the previous year (1433) he was still notionally potent. The couple were separated in age by 27 years; he was old enough to be her father. However he was a man past his prime and as it turned out very near to the end of his life. He had been worn down by his responsibilities in France and almost constant campaigning. He may have been at a stage in his life when he was no longer interested in the sexual act. That, together with his manifold responsibilities may have kept him and Jacquetta from enjoying a proper union. It is also possible that she had no appetite for him and they may have mutually agreed to not sharing the same bed, both content to maintain the outward show of the marriage for the diplomatic purposes behind the union.

During this period of widowhood her attention was drawn to a very good looking and athletic young knight, Sir Richard Woodville. He was probably at the time in his mid-twenties. His father had been a chamberlain to the duke of Bedford and he himself was in the duke’s service. There was a strong romantic attraction on both sides. She however was a duchess; he was of lesser status. Around this time his father inherited the Northamptonshire estates of the Woodvilles and within a few years he would also come into this inheritance. He was not badly off, but there was a large gap between their respective social status.

Nonetheless Jacquetta was determined to have her man and they married secretly, certainly before 23 March 1437 when Parliament fined the couple £1000. They paid up. Her family and authorities in England were annoyed but concluded that there was not much that could be done, which seems to hint that Jacquetta was already pregnant at the time. The baby she was carrying was born that year and may have been a boy, named Richard. He must have died in infancy because the first child to survive to adulthood, Elizabeth, was the beautiful woman who would propel the family to enduring fame, or notoriety, depending on your viewpoint. In 1464 in circumstances which would have seemed improbable to a writer of fiction, she married Edward IV, king of England.

From the successful birth of Elizabeth, Sir Richard and Jacquetta produced a large and healthy family over the next twenty years. Sir Richard in the meantime made progress in his career being appointed to various important positions. He was created a baron by Henry VI in 1448 and the family’s economic circumstances improved. Around 1440 they were able to purchase the Grafton Manor from the Duke of Suffolk.

Queen Elizabeth, wife of Edward IV

The marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Grey (nee Woodville) in 1464 astonished contemporaries and even today we find it equally astonishing. Elizabeth nevertheless had many qualities that fitted her for the role of queen and an objective assessment would be that she acquitted herself well. She did however have a large number of kinfolk to provide for and this caused resentment against the “Woodvilles” which was eventually to prove their undoing. Elizabeth had two sons from her first marriage, five brothers and an equal number of sisters. All were given status and the girls were matched with plum marriages. The men meanwhile, as they grew up and included members of the wider Woodville kinship formed a sizeable faction at court. The Tudors, if a comparison can be made between the two families, came to three in number, father and two sons, and were never a threat to the establishment. 

Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond

Two high born women made a love match after they were widowed from their first arranged marriages. Both were wealthy enough to make that choice. Neither saw any destiny in this. They simply felt entitled to some happiness and were content to take a chance on love. For Jacquetta this worked out well. She was a strong and wealthy woman and bore a lot of children, all of whom turned out to be intelligent and talented. She faced tragedy late in life when her husband and one of her sons were executed by the earl of Warwick in 1469 but she was able to see her daughter crowned queen of England and her other daughters make highly placed marriages. Her sons achieved positions of some eminence. Catherine had a neglected childhood and may not have been a good mother. She did not appear to have much contact with her first born son and attended neither of his coronations, either in England or France. How she fared with her Tudor children we do not know. She seems to have found love and happiness with Owen Tudor and deliberately opted out of the political mainstream. She had no wish to model herself on her politically active mother. 

Henry Tudor

In the 1430s two knights of middling rank each married a high born widow. A grandson of one and a granddaughter of another became king and queen of England in 1485. Who could have predicted that?

Elizabeth of York