Tudor mothers-in-law – Tudor Life Magazine

Margaret Beaufort is often shown as the mother in law from hell, but nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, Henry relied on her advice and guidance in the early years of his reign, but that doesn’t mean she dominated him or had a poor relationship with Elizabeth of York. No diubt, the young, slightly feisty Queen needed guidance and help as a young mother and Margaret introduced regulations regarding confinement during childbirth, designed to help mothers as she had a difficult labour when only thirteen but there is no evidence that Margaret interfered beyond being a concerned grandmother.

The relationship between Elizabeth Wydeville and Margaret Beaufort was complicated. The two women were from opposite sides but had made a pact for Henry to marry Elizabeth in order to facilitate Henry’s rise to the crown. There is very little evidence one way or the other about their relationship once Henry was on the throne although there does seem to be a rift with her daughter for a short time. In 1487 Elizabeth Wydeville retired to Bermondsey Abbey under controversial circumstances, but lived here on £400 a year and in relative luxery. She was not forced to retire as some historians, including David Baldwin believed, but went in order to live a more religious retirement. Although she gave up her lands and estates this has been misinterpreted to mean she was deprived of them. However, she disposed of them to the care of her daughter as she no longer needed them in her new status. Elizabeth was not a prisoner and visited the court including the christening of her granddaughter, Princess Margaret and was with Elizabeth during various laying in and other events.

Why is her retirement controversial? Elizabeth, according to some historians was suspected of supporting Lambert Simnel and John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, whose rising claimed to put him on the throne as either Edward, Earl of Warwick or Edward V, presumed dead. Her retirement was thus forced upon her to stop her from scheming. But why not just lock her up if this was so and she could still scheme from a religious house if she could receive visitors? Others have seen her as having too much influence over her daughter and Philippa Gregory took up this theme causing EW to cast spells to help with those plots until Elizabeth tells Henry to get rid of her mother or they will have no peace. This is also nonsense. Elizabeth of York was quite capable of making her own decisions and was growing closer to her husband as a wife and mother. Henry is also accused of being cruel in his sinister treatment of poor EW but there is also the possibility that EW wanted to retire. After all she had no role in the Tudor Court, she had no role as the mother of an heir or young King or as a Queen Mother as the role is a modern one. She was no longer a young woman and it is possible that her health was poor or she was simply tired after the ordeal of the last few years. After all her own plotting had sent her into Sanctuary during the Protectorate of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, after the death of her second husband, Edward iv. She wanted her son, Edward V crowned within days without the consent of the Council or the Lord Protector, but when she heard Richard was on his way, her son in tow, off she went, with all the silver, if you believe the conventional story and took her daughters and younger son with her into the Sanctuary at Westminster. This was actually the Bishops Palace and not an undercroft. Her brother and son from her first marriage were arrested and would later be executed as traitors in a perfectly legal move by Richard as High Constable of England because they were implicated, as was Elizabeth later on in a conspiracy against him. Not everyone accepted this and although most historians accept it, Susan Higginbotham does not. The evidence in the sources is ambitious.

Elizabeth then went through the trauma of not knowing the fate of her two sons, after they were housed first in the Royal Palace of the Tower to prepare for the coronation of Edward V and then, after it was discovered that they were illegitimate, elsewhere in the complex. After Richard was offered the crown by the Three Estates of the Realm, he was crowned King Richard iii. Within a few weeks, even though they were still being seen by their doctor, rumours flew of their disappearance. By the end of the Summer those rumours turned to stories that her sons were dead, but nothing was ever proven and this is a mystery and bone of contention today. Elizabeth was in Sanctuary for another year and during this time plotted against Richard and formed an alliance with Margaret Beaufort. When things calmed down, for reasons which remain unclear, unless she really did know secretly her sons were alive, another theory put by David Baldwin, John Ashdown Hill and Matthew Lewis, Elizabeth struck a bargain with Richard iii, came out of Sanctuary and her daughters came to court. Elizabeth was given a generous income, but kept in comfortable house arrest, more or less. Now she had gone through a number of changes, seeing her daughter Elizabeth crowned and married to a stranger, become a grandmother, seen other daughters married or betrothed and been possibly implicated in another plot. Just why she would want to remove Henry when her eldest daughter was now Queen, however, seems bizarre. Her role as a mother and ex Queen had been fulfilled. Now surely it was simply time to retire in peace and grace and watch her daughter and son in law produce the next generation of Kings and Queens with pride.