A Calendar of Queens –Minus One

Recently I came across an interesting article on Royal Central   listing all the Queens who had anniversaries relevant to June-births, deaths, coronations, marriages and the start of  their reigns. However, I did notice a couple of  things in it that I would query–an error and an omission.

CALENDAR OF QUEENS

First the error. The article mentions that Elizabeth Woodville, who died on June 8, 1492, having been packed off to Bermondsey Abbey,   was the first ‘non-royal’ Queen of England. In fact, she was not. Most of the Queens were not themselves royal but children of the nobility–the daughters of Counts and Earls. Elizabeth’s father was not titled at the time of her birth, so she was neither a princess nor of the nobility,  but she did actually have some royal English ancestry through her mother, Jacquette of Luxembourg, daughter of Peter, Count of St Pol, who was descended  on her father’s side from Henry III via his daughter Beatrice of England,  and on her maternal side from King John via his daughter Eleanor of England.

The omission is Lady Eleanor Talbot, the probable first wife of marry-secretly-in-haste Edward IV who died died sometime in June 1468. Even if you don’t believe in the pre-contract, despite considerable circumstantial evidence including Edward mysteriously paying for repairs  of the church in the village where Lady Eleanor held the manor and handing out loaves of bread to each villager,  she should have been mentioned even if only as a ‘disputed’ consort.

If Lord Guildford Dudley, husband of the short-reigning Jane (Grey) can get a mention as  ‘disputed’ on the Wiki entry about Consorts, Eleanor, I think, deserves at least that much! (Sudeley Castle, which has connections to Lady Eleanor through her Boteler marriage has now embraced her story and has a display about her–hurrah!)

There are other ‘disputed’ consorts later in history, of course, as listed comprehensively  in John Ashdown-Hill’s book Royal Marriage Secrets, and even other bigamous marriages. Most interestingly, perhaps, is  the second wedding of Henry VIII, Edward’s think-alike grandson, to Anne Boleyn–he “married” her in a secret ceremony BEFORE his annulment from Katherine of Aragon was finalised… (And people  still somehow imagine Edward couldn’t possibly have done much the same?)

 

 

 

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