Part 5 (1/2)
Pietro Carmeliano, an Italian poet who had transferred from Richard III's service to Henry VII's, recognized that, upon the murder of her brothers, Elizabeth-that ”beautiful, marriageable virgin”-had become her father's heiress.23 Undoubtedly she had a better claim to the throne than Henry did, but there is no record of her resenting Henry relegating her to the role of Queen consort instead of Queen regnant. Although the Pope himself called her ”the undoubted heir of that famous King of immortal memory, Edward IV”24 and Giovanni de' Gigli, the papal collector in England, recognized that Edward's ”firstborn, should of right succeed her mighty sire,”25 and there were those who thought that Henry and Elizabeth should reign as joint sovereigns, no one seriously considered that a woman-even the legitimate, rightful heiress of the House of York-could actually rule alone as Queen regnant. On the contrary, her crown was the inheritance she would bring to her husband. As one song would put it, ”the Queen's t.i.tle, by fortune's adventure, he hath.”26 Traditionally women could transmit the crown-the royal houses of Plantagenet, York, and Tudor derived their claim through the female line-but not wield sovereign power. Even Margaret Beaufort, with all her astute capabilities, had never been regarded-or regarded herself-as a contender for the throne.
There was no Salic law in England barring women from the throne, as there was in France, so there was nothing to prevent a woman from ruling, but memories of female misrule were long. People remembered how, in the twelfth century, the haughty, overbearing Empress Matilda's attempt to pursue her lawful claim to the throne had resulted in a civil war so b.l.o.o.d.y that it had been said that ”G.o.d and His saints slept.” That experience had left the English with an enduring prejudice against female rulers.
The notion of a woman wielding dominion over men was seen as unnatural and against the laws of G.o.d and Nature. As Buckingham had bluntly put it, ”It was not women's place to govern the kingdom, but men's.”27 Women were regarded as weak, irrational creatures at the mercy of their reproductive cycle, their chief function being the bearing of children. They were seen as unfit to lead armies in battle and interfere in affairs of state. Once wed, they had no control over their own property. In law, they were regarded as infants. Their primary purpose was to be wives and mothers, subordinate to their menfolk, in whose interests their marriages were arranged. Thus, no one spoke out in favor of Elizabeth of York ascending the throne in her own right as England's lawful queen, and in this respect, in Parliament, Henry VII ”would not endure any mention of the Lady Elizabeth, no, not in the nature of a special entail” of the crown.28 It would be left to the granddaughter who was named for her, Elizabeth I, to prove that a woman could rule successfully.
There were those who felt strongly that Henry VII should have become King only through marriage to Elizabeth. He would remain unpopular with several of his n.o.bles ”for the wrong he did his queen, that he did not rule in her right.”29 Resentment festered in all ranks of society, and in time it would emerge as one of the chief causes of discontent on the part of his subjects, and provide a convenient pretext for his enemies to move against him.
In an act attainting Richard III as a traitor, Parliament made no direct mention of Elizabeth's brothers, the Princes in the Tower, but referred to ”homicides and murders, in shedding of infants' blood” among the many crimes attributed to him30-the kind of crimes of which traitors were often accused. Some modern historians have commented on the fact that the princes are not specifically named in the act. Given that repeal of t.i.tulus Regius had legitimated Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, Henry VII might have been expected to publicize their murders in order to show that Elizabeth was the undoubted heir of York, and to stain Richard's name more foully. The omission of their names has therefore been seen as proof that the princes still lived.
There is little evidence that the early Tudor monarchs actively pursued a policy of character a.s.sa.s.sination against Richard III.31 Henry VII had good reasons for wanting to avoid any mention of the heirs of Edward IV. One was that it was not in his interests to raise the specter of Elizabeth's b.a.s.t.a.r.dy. The other was that, almost certainly, he had no hard evidence of the princes' murder, and was relying on the a.s.sumption made in 1483 that Richard had gone ahead with his plan to destroy them. Had their bodies been found, Henry would surely have publicized the fact; it would have saved him a lot of trouble in the long run, because from the commencement of his reign there were ”secret rumors and whisperings (which afterward gained strength and turned to great troubles) that the two young sons of King Edward IV, or one of them (which were said to be destroyed in the Tower) were not indeed murdered, but conveyed secretly away, and were yet living; which, if it had been true, had prevented the t.i.tle of the Lady Elizabeth.”32 Henry's failure to establish beyond doubt that the princes were dead probably accounts for his unwillingness to accuse Richard III openly of having them killed; there was then a legal presumption that, without a body, there could be no charge of murder.
In legitimizing Edward IV's children, Henry VII could not but have been aware that he was acknowledging Edward V's just t.i.tle, so he must have been convinced that the princes were dead, for if they still lived, they posed a serious threat to his crown. Much has been made of two royal pardons granted by Henry to Sir James Tyrell in the summer of 1486, but there is no evidence that these relate to the murder of the princes. Very likely Henry himself did not know for certain what had happened to the boys, and it would have been highly damaging to the crown to publicize the fact that the brothers of the Yorkist heiress had effectively disappeared-hence the official silence on the matter.
What Elizabeth felt about the ”secret rumors and whisperings” of the survival of her brothers is not recorded. Maybe she believed there was no truth in them; but if there was doubt in her mind, then soon the realization would have followed that she faced a ma.s.sive conflict of interests in marrying the man who occupied the throne to which they had a better claim, and that his hold on it-not to mention her own position-might then prove precarious. If so, she might have reasoned that she had done well to survive the past two years with her legitimacy restored and a crown within her grasp, and that it was better to accept the status quo than to stir up controversy; and of course she was in no position to challenge Henry Tudor's t.i.tle. But it may be that her brothers were never far from her mind, and that the possibility of their survival was to haunt her for many years to come.
Now that Parliament had recognized Elizabeth Wydeville as Edward IV's rightful queen, it restored her ”estate, dignity, preeminence, and name” and repealed Richard III's act confiscating her property.33 This was not returned to her, but she was allowed her widow's jointure of thirty manors plus rents, as well as the rights and privileges normally enjoyed by a queen dowager. Parliament restored to Margaret Beaufort all the estates confiscated in 1483, and granted her rights as a sole person, ”not wife or covert of any husband,”34 which gave her control over her huge fortune. Thereafter the King, grateful for all she had done to further his cause, ”allotted her a share in most of his public and private resources.”35 Her status at court as ”my lady the King's mother” was to remain unchallenged. It was such that, from 1499, after years of signing herself ”M. Richmond,” she began using the royal style ”Margaret R.” The R stood for Richmond, of course, but it sounded suitably regal, and the Lady Margaret was already enjoying commensurate influence; effectively, she acted as an unofficial queen dowager and wore her countess's coronet whenever she appeared in public, whereas the King and Queen only appeared in their crowns on state occasions.
During this Parliament the King rewarded those who had served him loyally and helped him to win the crown. Lord Stanley was made Earl of Derby and given the offices of Constable of England and Chief Steward of the Duchy of Lancaster. Jasper Tudor, Henry's uncle, was created Duke of Bedford. On November 7, Elizabeth was probably present at Jasper's wedding to her aunt, Katherine Wydeville, widow of the Duke of Buckingham.
Henry Tudor had triumphed. But ”although all things seemed to be brought to a good and perfect conclusion, yet the harp still needed tuning to set all things in harmony. This tuning was the marriage between the King and Elizabeth.”36 There was no cause now for any further delay. Elizabeth had been legitimated, and a dispensation for her marriage to the King could be applied for. By November 4 a new coinage was being minted with a double rose symbolizing the union of Lancaster and York on the reverse-proof of Henry's firm resolve to proceed to the marriage.37 But he still appeared in no hurry to fulfill his vow to wed Elizabeth. He clearly did not want it to be thought that their union was a matter of political necessity.38 Bernard Andre a.s.serts that, as Christmas drew nearer with no sign of any marriage preparations, Elizabeth grew anxious, for she had heard reports that the King had considered marrying Anne, d.u.c.h.ess of Brittany, who could bring him a great duchy coveted by the French king; or, it was said, his personal choice was Katherine, the youngest daughter of his former guardian, William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke, a girl he had known since childhood, and whom he had considered as a bride earlier that year.
There was no substance to these reports, but they ”bred some doubt and suspicion in divers that [the King] was not sincere, or at least not fixed in going on the match England so much desired, which conceit also, though it were but talk and discourse, did much afflict the poor Lady Elizabeth herself.”39 Bacon says she greatly desired this marriage, and to corroborate that we have Stanley's evidence that her love for Henry had grown on acquaintance during the few weeks they had been seeing each other.40 Elizabeth did not know it, but Maximilian of Austria had his sights on her as a bride. His late wife, Mary of Burgundy, had a claim to the throne of England through her grandmother, Isabella of Portugal, a descendant of John of Gaunt, which Charles the Bold had unsuccessfully a.s.serted in 1471. Now Maximilian began entertaining the idea of marrying Elizabeth, which he felt would be sufficient to make good his claim.41 It is doubtful that Elizabeth would have been interested, with her hopes set on Henry, and certain that the King would not have permitted such a marriage.
In a Latin epithalamium commissioned by Henry as Elizabeth's morning gift, to be given to her after their wedding night, Giovanni de' Gigli tells how Elizabeth was longing to marry her king, and frustrated at being made to wait.42 Given Lord Stanley's evidence that she had come to love Henry deeply and intimately,43 this may be no fanciful portrayal, and it chimes with her earlier eagerness to marry Henry Tudor (or Richard III), and with Andre's testimony to her anxiety. Possibly she regarded Henry as the chivalrous knight errant who had rescued her and her family from the slur of b.a.s.t.a.r.dy and the clutches of the man who had spurned her. Gigli imagines her agonizing: Oh, my beloved! My hope, my only bliss!
Why then defer my joy? Fairest of kings, Whence your delay to light our bridal torch?
Our n.o.ble House contains two persons now, But one in mind, in equal love the same.
O, my ill.u.s.trious spouse, give o'er delay, Your sad Elizabeth entreats; and you Will not deny Elizabeth's request, For we were plighted by a solemn pact, Signed long ago by your own royal hand.
Gigli then presents a touching picture of Elizabeth whiling away the waiting time, longing for Henry to name the day: How oft with needle, when denied the pen, Has she on canvas traced the blessed name Of Henry, or expressed it with her loom In silken threads, or 'broidered it in gold.
And now she seeks the fanes [temples] and hallowed shrines Of deities propitious to her suit, Imploring them to shorten her suspense, That she may in auspicious moment know The holy name of bride.
This reads convincingly, for we know from her privy purse expenses how frequently Elizabeth made offerings at shrines, especially in times of stress.44 Her fears were soon to be allayed. The rumbles of discontent about her delayed nuptials could be ignored no longer. Parliament wanted her for Queen consort and was keen to see the King honor his vow to wed her. Some members were of the opinion that his claim to rule by right of conquest rather than by right of blood ”might have been more wisely pa.s.sed over in silence than inserted in our statutes, the more especially because in that Parliament, a discussion took place with the King's consent, relative to his marriage with the Lady Elizabeth, in whose person it appeared to all that every requisite might be supplied which was wanting to make good the t.i.tle of the King himself.”45 On December 10, as Henry VII sat enthroned in the Parliament chamber, Sir Thomas Lovell, Speaker of the Commons, announced that the King wished ”to take for himself as wife and consort the n.o.ble Lady Elizabeth, daughter of King Edward IV, from which marriage, by the grace of G.o.d, it is hoped by many that there would arise offspring of the race of kings for the comfort of the whole realm.” The emphasis was not on Elizabeth's t.i.tle, but on her eminent suitability to be Queen and bear Henry heirs, for-as the speaker emphasized-the succession ”is, remains, continues, and endures in the person of the lord King, and of the heirs legitimately issuing from his body.” All the Lords Spiritual and Temporal rose to their feet and, facing the throne with bowed heads, urged the King to proceed to this union of ”two bloods of high renown”; to which he replied that ”he was very willing to do so; it would give him pleasure to comply with their request.” And so ”it was decreed by harmonious consent that one house would be made from two families that had once striven in mortal hatred.”46 In a Latin oration made to the Pope after the marriage,47 Henry VII's envoy explained that ”the King of England, to put an end to civil war, had, at the request of all the lords of the kingdom, consented to marry Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV,” on account of her beauty and virtue, ”though he was free to have made a profitable foreign alliance.” This last was a bluff, part of Henry's strategy to show the world that his crown was his by right, not in right of his wife, whose t.i.tle he omitted to mention. Given the abysmal history of the warring royal houses over the past thirty years, marriage to the Yorkist heiress was probably the most profitable match he could have made, with peace being far more crucial to the future welfare of his kingdom than a fat foreign dowry-and it was surely what he had intended all along. It is highly unlikely that he had ever seriously contemplated marrying anyone else. He was aware that marriage with Elizabeth was a political necessity if he wanted to secure the loyalty of the Yorkists, and that, if he did not fulfill his vow to wed her, and thus publicly humiliated her, he risked alienating the many people who saw her as the true successor of the Plantagenets.
As Lord Stanley was soon to testify, the King was ”moved and led to contract marriage with the lady for the sake of the peace and tranquillity of his realm, and by the entreaties and pet.i.tions of the lords and n.o.bles, both spiritual and temporal, and of the whole commonalty of the same realm, who in Parliament a.s.sembled requested him to do so, and made prayers and great entreaties to him.” William de Berkeley, Earl of Nottingham, would add that ”in conscience he believed that the King intends to contract marriage with the lady, if it can be done by the law of the Church, both on account of the singular love which he bears to her, and also on account of the special prayers and entreaties of the lords and n.o.bles, both spiritual and temporal, and of the whole commonalty of his said realm of England.”48 Thus Henry's motives in marrying Elizabeth seem to have been largely political. But there was more to it than that, on both sides. Lord Stanley, under oath, was to tell the papal legate ”that the aforesaid lady has not been captured nor compelled, but of great and intimate love and cordial affection desires to contract marriage with the said King, to the knowledge of this sworn [witness], as he says in virtue of his oath.”49 Stanley knew Elizabeth well, so his testimony is good evidence that her heart was involved as well as her ambitions; this being so, it is easier to understand her future relations with Henry. Loving him, she was all the more prepared to mold herself to what he wanted her to be, especially now that her hopes of a crown were to be fulfilled. Sir Richard Edgecombe and Sir William Tyler were also emphatic that Elizabeth had not been ”ravished,” or captured, as the word meant then. Nottingham's testimony to ”the singular love” Henry bore Elizabeth50 is corroborated by Andre's statement that, even before being pet.i.tioned by Parliament, the King ”had come to know [Elizabeth's] purity, faith, and goodness,” and ”G.o.d [had] inclined his heart to love the girl.”
Having made a show of giving in to Parliament's request, Henry, ”like a prince of just faith and true of promise, detesting all intestine and cruel hostility, appointed a day to join in matrimony ye Lady Elizabeth, heir of the House of York, with his n.o.ble personage, heir to ye line of Lancaster: which thing not only rejoiced and comforted the hearts of the n.o.ble and gentle men of the realm, but also gained the favor and good minds of all the common people.” The latter were soon ”much extolling and praising the King's constant fidelity and his politic device, thinking surely that the day had now come that the seed of tumultuous factions and the fountain of cruel dissension should be stopped, evacuated, and clearly extinguished.”51 On December 10, after the date of the wedding had been set for January 18, the Lord Chancellor prorogued Parliament, announcing that, before it rea.s.sembled, ”the marriage of the King and the Princess Elizabeth would take place.”52 From that day, Elizabeth was treated as Queen of England. On December 11, the King ordered that preparations for the nuptials were to go ahead: a celebratory tournament was proclaimed, ”then wedding torches, marriage bed, and other suitable decorations were made ready.”53 Elizabeth was declared d.u.c.h.ess of York, as heiress to her father and her other ill.u.s.trious forebears,54 a move calculated to please the Yorkist faction.
According to Lord Stanley, Henry and Elizabeth had several discussions about being ”joined together in the fourth and fourth degrees of kindred,” and he heard them say ”they wished to make use of an apostolic dispensation in the matter of such impediment.”55 Pope Innocent VIII was now approached for a special dispensation. Giovanni de' Gigli wrote to him, urging the marriage as the best means of establis.h.i.+ng peace in England. Henry's emissary to the Vatican was instructed to praise Elizabeth in a formal oration to his Holiness: ”The beauty and chast.i.ty of this lady are indeed so great that neither Lucretia nor Diana herself were ever more beautiful or more chaste. So great is her virtue, and her character so fine, that she certainly seems to have been preserved by divine will from the time of her birth right up until today to be consort and Queen.”56 No mention was made of Elizabeth's claim to the throne;57 again, Henry did not want to be seen to be King in right of his wife. Already he was finding that his bride's royal lineage was proving an embarra.s.sment as well as an advantage.
Henry did not need to wait for the Pope's sanction to arrive. He and ”the most ill.u.s.trious Lady Elizabeth, eldest legitimate and natural daughter of the late Edward, sometime King of England,” drew up a joint pet.i.tion to the papal legate, Giacomo Pa.s.sarelli, Bishop of Imola, ”setting forth that whereas the said King Henry has, by G.o.d's providence, won his realm of England, and is in peaceful possession thereof, and has been asked by all the lords of his realm, both spiritual and temporal, and also by the general council of the said realm, called Parliament, to take the said lady Elizabeth to wife, he, wis.h.i.+ng to accede to the just pet.i.tions of his subjects, desires to take the said lady to wife, but cannot do so without dispensation, inasmuch as they are related in the fourth and fourth degrees of kindred, wherefore pet.i.tion is made on their behalf to the said legate to grant them dispensation by his apostolic authority to contract marriage and remain therein, notwithstanding the said impediment of kindred, and to decree the offspring to be born thereof legitimate.”58 On January 14, at Westminster, the couple appointed proctors, who presented their pet.i.tion to the legate in the Chapel of St. Mary the Virgin in St. Paul's Cathedral. Two days later, after hearing testimony from the mandatory eight witnesses required by the Church, including Lord Stanley, and taking into account the people's impatience to see the marriage concluded, Imola issued an ordinary dispensation allowing Henry and Elizabeth to marry (which was confirmed in a brief issued by the bishop on March 2 following). Given that this was just two days before the wedding, and that preparations for it were nearing completion, Henry must have been advised that the dispensation would be forthcoming, and that the Pope's bull would be just a formality.59 The marriage could go ahead. It was now five months since the King had emerged triumphant at Bosworth.
”At last, upon the eighteenth of January [1486] was solemnized the so long expected and so much desired marriage between the King and the Lady Elizabeth,”60 and ”great gladness filled the kingdom.” The wedding took place at Westminster with ”great magnificence displayed to everyone's satisfaction.”61 It is uncertain whether it was solemnized in the abbey or in St. Stephen's Chapel. Surprisingly, no detailed account survives, which may be because the ceremony took place in the greater privacy of St. Stephen's. The bridegroom was twenty-nine, the bride nearly twenty.
”The Pope had opportunely sent a legate to celebrate the nuptials,”62 but it was Cardinal Thomas Bourchier, the aged Archbishop of Canterbury, who performed the ceremony ”in the sight of the Church.”63 As Bernard Andre colorfully put it, ”his hand held the sweet posy wherein the white and red roses were first tied together.”
Among the wedding guests were Elizabeth's aunts, Anne Wydeville, Lady Wingfield, and Margaret Wydeville, Lady Maltravers. Her grandmother, Cecily, d.u.c.h.ess of York, did not attend, but Henry VII evidently approved of her, as in 1486 he granted her an annuity and renewed her license to export wool.64 Elizabeth went to her wedding in a gown of silk damask and crimson satin costing 11.5s.6d. [5,500],65 with a ”kirtle of white cloth of gold damask and a mantle of the same suit, furred with ermine.” Giovanni de' Gigli, in his Latin epithalamium, conjures a charming-probably imaginary-portrait of the princess on her wedding day, as his poem was almost certainly written beforehand. It suggests, however, the kind of jewels that Elizabeth might have worn: Your hymeneal torches now unite And keep them ever pure. O royal maid, Put on your regal robes in loveliness.
A thousand fair attendants round you wait, Of various ranks, with different offices, To deck your beauteous form. Lo, this delights To smooth with ivory comb your golden hair, And that to curl or braid each s.h.i.+ning tress And wreath the sparkling jewels round your head, Twining your locks with gems; this one shall clasp The radiant necklace framed in fretted [symmetrically patterned] gold About your snowy neck; while that unfolds The robes that glow with gold and purple dye, And fits the ornaments with patient skill To your unrivalled limbs; and here shall s.h.i.+ne The costly treasures from the Orient sands: The sapphire, azure gem that emulates Heaven's lofty arch, shall gleam, and softly there The verdant emerald shed its greenest light, And fiery carbuncle flash forth rosy rays From the pure gold.66 It was not customary then for a bride to be wholly attired in white-that was a tradition begun centuries later by Queen Victoria-but for her to wear the richest materials. It was her flowing hair, threaded with jewels, not the color of her clothes, that proclaimed her virginity.
Henry was gorgeously attired in cloth of gold. The clerk of the works of the King's Wardrobe was paid 95.3s.6d. [46,500] for ”divers stuffs bought for the day of the solemnization of the King's marriage”; 23s.4d. [770] was paid ”for the Queen's wedding ring,” which was of gold, weighing two-thirds of an ounce, and heavy compared with modern wedding rings; it had been purchased before the beginning of January.67 According to the eleventh-century Sarum Rite, the pre-Reformation form of the marriage service then in use, Elizabeth vowed to take Henry for her wedded husband, ”for fairer, for fouler, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to be blithe and bonair [amiable] and buxom [obedient, in the sense of obliging] in bed and at board” till death parted them.
Andre says ”the most wished day of marriage was celebrated by them with all religious and glorious magnificence at court, and by their people, to show their gladness, with bonfires, dancing, songs, and banquets throughout all London, both men and women, rich and poor, beseeching G.o.d to bless the King and Queen and grant them a numerous progeny.” The ”great triumphs and demonstrations, especially on the people's part, of joy and gladness” were greater ”than the days either of [Henry VII's] entry [into London] or his coronation, which the King rather noted than liked.”68 ”Gifts flowed freely on all sides and were showered on everyone, while feasts, dances, and tournaments were celebrated with liberal generosity to make known and to magnify the joyful occasion and the bounty of gold, silver, rings, and jewels. Then everyone, men and women, prayed to G.o.d that the King and Queen might have a prosperous and happy issue.”69 Giovanni de' Gigli's epithalamium had more of joy and relief in it than mere flattery: Hail! Ever-honoured and auspicious day, When in blest wedlock to a mighty king, To Henry, bright Elizabeth is joined.
Fairest of Edward's offspring, she alone Pleased this ill.u.s.trious spouse.
So here the most ill.u.s.trious maid of York, Deficient nor in virtue nor descent, Most beautiful in form, whose matchless face Adorned with most enchanting sweetness s.h.i.+nes.
Her parents called her name Elizabeth, And she, their firstborn, should of right succeed Her mighty sire. Her t.i.tle will be yours If you unite this Princess to yourself In wedlock's holy bond.
But now the royal pair were one, and a child, Gigli predicted, would shortly gambol in the royal halls, and grow up a worthy son of the King, emulating the n.o.ble qualities of his parents and perpetuating their name in his ill.u.s.trious descendants forever.70 Inevitably, much was made of this union of the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster, which was seen as symbolizing the end of the conflict between the two royal houses. ”By reason of which marriage, peace was thought to descend out of Heaven into England, considering that the lines of Lancaster and York were now brought into one knot and connexed together, of whose two bodies one heir might succeed, which after their time should peaceably rule and enjoy the whole monarchy and realm of England.” This was written by the chronicler, Edward Hall, from the perspective of the reign of Henry VIII, whom he greatly admired. Vergil attributed the marriage to ”divine intervention, for plainly by it all things which nourished the most ruinous factions were utterly removed, the two houses of Lancaster and York were united and from the union the true and established royal line emerged which now reigns.” Hall even went so far as to compare this ”G.o.dly matrimony” with the union of G.o.d and man in Christ.
Most English people believed that the royal wedding would bring an end to the civil wars and herald a new era of peace and stability; consequently it was very popular, and it won for Henry Tudor the loyalty of many who had supported the House of York. Victory had given Henry ”the knee of submission,” wrote Bacon, but ”marriage with the Lady Elizabeth gave him the heart; so that both knee and heart did truly bow before him.”
The nuptial union of Lancaster and York was a continuing theme in Tudor propaganda. ”Now may we sing, we two bloods all made in one,” Bessy rejoices in Brereton's poem. Thomas Ashwell, an English composer skilled in polyphony, wrote an early form of the National Anthem, ”G.o.d save King Henry, wheresoe'er he be,” in honor of the marriage.71 In 1509, at the coronation of Henry VIII, the court poet, Stephen Hawes, reputed (probably without foundation) to have been a b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of Richard III, lauded the King's parentage: Two t.i.tles in one thou didst unify When the red rose took the white in marriage.72 More than a century later the union was still being extolled, indeed, immortalized, by Shakespeare in Richard III: We will unite the white rose and the red.
Smile Heaven upon this fair conjunction That long hath frowned upon their enmity!- What traitor hears me, and says not Amen?
England hath long been mad and scarred herself; The brother blindly shed the brother's blood, The father rashly slaughtered his own son, The son, compell'd, been butcher to the sire: All this divided York and Lancaster, Divided in their dire division.
O now let Richmond and Elizabeth, The true successors of each royal House, By G.o.d's fair ordinance conjoin together!
And let their heirs-G.o.d, if Thy will be so- Enrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace, With smiling plenty, and fair prosperous days!
Now civic wounds are stopped, peace lives again That she may long live, G.o.d say Amen!