Tudor Queens of England by David Loades

had produced three daughters and one son, all of them alive and well. In 1472 she bore another daughter, Margaret, who lived only a short while, and in 1473 (as we have seen) a second son, Richard. There then followed Anne (1475), George (1477), Catherine (1479) and Bridget (1480), of whom only George died young. It could be argued that Edward had found the ideal way to keep his wife out of political mischief and her fecundity made up for at least some of the qualities in which she may have been lacking. Meanwhile her frequent pregnancies gave her husband the opportunity to play the fi eld, which he did apparently with enthusiasm and success. We do not know how many bastards Edward sired because he did not usually acknowledge them and only two appear in the records – Arthur, subsequently Viscount Lisle, and Grace, who was placed in Elizabeth’s household, and was to be with her when she died. Grace may have been an unusually amiable child, or she may have been intended as a reminder to Elizabeth not to presume upon her connubial attractions. If Elizabeth ever resented these wanderings she was wise enough to say nothing and she certainly could not complain that her husband was neglecting her for other women.
    The one political incident in which she is alleged to have been involved in these years was the second and fatal fall from grace of the King’s brother the Duke of Clarence. Clarence was a surly, abrasive person, and although his return to allegiance in 1471 had been of great importance, Edward never really trusted him. His wife, Isobel, died on 22 December 1476, and there was soon talk of his re-marriage to his niece, Mary of Burgundy. Duke Charles was killed at Nancy in January 1477 and his widow Margaret was Clarence’s sister. Margaret was desperate to preserve the integrity of the Burgundian inheritance, now in the hands of a mere girl, and saw a marriage within her own family as a means to enlist English support. Edward would not entertain the suggestion, for the good reason that if his brother ever disposed of the great power of Burgundy, he might well be tempted to try his luck again at home. For rather similar, if less potent reasons, he would also not countenance a union between Clarence and Margaret, the sister of the King of Scots, which was also suggested. The Duke sulked, publicly and offensively. He also, apparently, became tangentially involved in necromancy when some members of his household joined with a group that was trying to use the black arts to discover when Edward would die. This was the treasonable offence of ‘compassing and imagining’ the King’s death. The group were convicted by a special commission on 19 May 1477, and two of them were put to death.
    20 If, as seems likely, this was intended as a warning to Clarence, he paid no heed. Even before the verdict was delivered he

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    had accused one of Duchess Isobel’s former servants of having poisoned her. He had the unfortunate Ankarette Twynho seized and taken to Warwick by force, where she was convicted by an intimidated jury and hanged on 13 April.
    21 The Duke had simply taken the law into his own hands in manifest contempt of his brother’s authority and for that reason was arrested towards the end of June and committed to the Tower.
    Elizabeth had no particular reason to sympathize with Ankarette Twynho but she did have good reason to fear and dislike Clarence. Not only did she not forget his pretensions in 1470, which had been made more threatening by the birth of his son in 1475, she also blamed him for the deaths of her father and uncle. Warwick, who shared that responsibility, was out of reach, but the Duke was now suddenly vulnerable to revenge. There is no direct evidence and the story may simply be a part of that ‘black legend’ that subsequently gathered around the Queen and her kindred but it is quite likely that Elizabeth urged her husband to deal with his troublesome brother once and