edwardslovelyelizabeth:«Those chronicles that give a date for Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodvill

«Those chronicles that give a date for Edward IVandElizabeth Woodville’smarriageeach specify the same one: 1 May. This date is compatible with the known movements of Edward, who was at Stony Stratford the night of 30 April 1464 and could have made an excursion to and from Grafton that morning, as claimed by Fabyan in the sixteenth century:
«[I]n most secret manner, upon the first day of May, King Edward spoused Elizabeth […] which spousals were solemnised early in the morning at a town called Grafton, near Stony Stratford; at which marriage were no persons present but the spouse, the spousess, the Duchess of Bedford her mother, the priest, two gentlewomen, and a young man to help the priest sing. After which spousals ended, he went to bed, and so tarried there three or four hours, and after departed and rode again to Stony Stratford, and came as though he had been hunting, and there went to bed again. And within a day or two after, he sent to Grafton to the Lord Rivers, father unto his wife, showing to him he would come and lodge with him a certain season, where he was received with all honour, and so tarried there by the space of four days. In which season, she nightly to his bed was brought, in so secret manner, that almost none but her mother was of counsel.»
Several historians, however, have questioned the May Day date. As David Baldwin notes, ‘The idea of a young, handsome king marrying for love on Mayday may have been borrowed from romantic tradition’. J.L. Laynesmith agreed that ‘1 May is a suspiciously apt day for a young king to marry for love. May had long been the month associated with love, possibly originating in pre-Christian celebrations of fertility and certainly celebrated in the poetry of the troubadours’.
Whether the couple were married on May Day or later, the scant record does bear out Hall’s claim that a priest was present at the wedding. A Master John Eborall, whose church of Paulspury was close to Grafton and Stony Stratford, is said to have offered in 1471 to intercede in a land dispute involving the queen ‘supposing that he might have done good in the matter, forasmuch as he was then in favour because he married King Edward and Queen Elizabeth together’. A chronicle known as Hearne’s Fragment adds that the priest who married the couple was buried at the high altar of the Minories in London, but leaves a blank space for the man’s name.”
- «The Woodvilles: The Wars of the Roses and England’s Most Infamous Family» by Susan Higginbotham.
Pictured: The marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville. Illuminated miniature from Vol 6 of the Anciennes chroniques d'Angleterre by Jean de Wavrin, 15th century.