Category: Queens Of England

Marriage of Jane Grey to Guildford Dudley

25/5/2020

On the 25th May 1553 the marriage of Jane Grey, the daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk and Francis Brandon and Guildford Dudley, the son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland and Jane Guildford at Durham Place, Northumberland's house in London.

During the first few months of 1553, Edward VI, under the influence of the Duke of Northumberland, had made an amendment to his Devise for the Succession in which he disinherited his half-sisters Mary and Elizabeth and named Jane his heir. By the May of that year and as part of his master plan Northumberland arranged the marriage of his son Guildford to Jane.

Two months later, the boy king was dead and Jane was proclaimed queen and in a surprising act of defiance refused to allow Guildford to be named king, therefore scuppering Northumberland's plans to control both Jane, Guildford and England. Soon after events took a downturn with surprising speed. By July Jane was deposed, by November she had been tried and found guilty and by the beginning of February, she was awaiting the day of her execution.

You can see the couple played here by Helena Bonham Carter and Cary Elwes in the 1986 film Lady Jane (which I quite liked but many didn't)

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Ealhswith, Alfred the Great's Queen

22/5/2020

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On the 5th December in 902 occurred the death of Ealhswith, the wife of Alfred the Great.

In the year 869 Alfred was in Gainsborough, he was accompanied there by Burgred who was King of Mercia from 852 until 874. Burgred was the last true independent king of Mercia, whose reign was disrupted by frequent Viking invasions which began almost immediately after he ascended the throne.

This Lincolnshire town was the home of Ealhswith, the daughter of Aethelred of the Earldom of Gaini, from were Gainsborough takes its name.

Bishop Asser in his biography of Alfred wrote:

"was betrothed to and married a wife from Mercia, of noble family, namely the daughter of Æthelred, of the
ealdorman of the Gaini. The woman's mother was called Eadburh, from the royal stock of the king of the
Mercians. I often saw her myself with my very own eyes for several years before her death.
She was a notable woman, who remained for many years after the death of her husband a chaste widow, until her death."

Ealhswith married Alfred in Gainsborough and afterwards they feasted at the Gainsborough Castle, home to the Earls of Gaini. Today, the town's castle is long gone but standing on the site is the towns famous Old Hall. Gainsborough remembers Ealhswith with Elswitha Hall a fine town house of red brick which stands next to Gainsborough's Guildhall, overlooking the River Trent.

Alfred, it seems, despite famously standing up to the marauding vikings, was a superstitious man, it has been said that he did not wish Ealhswith to be given the title of queen, this was due to the antics of a former queen of Wessex who had the same name who had accidentally poisoned her husband. Ealhswith supported Alfred as king for over thirty years and no doubt during this time Alfred considered his wariness justified.

Little is known of Ealhswith life but we do know that she was the mother of five children two of which became great leaders. Aethelflaed her daughter was the ruler of Mercia from 911 until her death, and Edward the Elder was king of England from 899 until 924.

On Alfred's death Ealhswith was bequeathed three estates, one was Edington in Wiltshire, which you can see in the images below, where in 879 Alfred fought against an uncoordinated band of Vikings under its leader Guthrum who Alfred later persuaded to convert to Christianity.

Ealhswith was commemorated in two 10th century manuscripts where it is written that she was

"the true and dear lady of the English"

She was buried in the Benedictine abbey in Winchester that was begun by Alfred but finished by her son Edward the Elder.

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Medieval Women: Philippa of Hainault

24/1/2020

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On this day in 1328, King Edward III of England married Philippa of Hainault at York Minster, just eleven months after Edward had become king of England.

Edward III - St Mary's Church Shrewsbury

Edward's father, King Edward II had sent the Bishop of Exeter to Hainaut to check out the four daughters of William, Count of Hainaut. In a letter to the king the Bishop writes of his impression of the fourteen-year-old Philippa. In the letter, he describes her as a child but it has been argued that the description is of Philippa's older sister Margaret.

A description of Philippa can be found the register of the Bishop of Exeter which reads:

"The lady whom we saw has not uncomely hair, betwixt blue-black and brown. Her head is clean-shaped; her forehead high and broad, and standing somewhat forward. Her face narrows between the eyes, and the lower part of her face is still more narrow and slender than her forehead. Her eyes are blackish-brown and deep. Her nose is fairly smooth and even, save that it is somewhat broad at the tip and also flattened, and yet it is no snub-nose. Her nostrils are also broad, her mouth fairly wide. Her lips somewhat full, and especially the lower lip. Her teeth which have fallen and grown again are white enough, but the rest are not so white. The lower teeth project a little beyond the upper, yet this is but little seen. Her ears and chin are comely enough. Her neck, shoulders, and all her body are well set and unmaimed; and nought is amiss so far as a man may see. Moreover, she is brown of skin all over, and much like her father; and in all things, she is pleasant enough, as it seems to us. And the damsel will be of the age of nine years on St. John's day next to come, as her mother saith. She is neither too tall nor too short for such an age; she is of fair carriage, and well taught in all that becometh her rank, and highly esteemed and well-beloved of her father and mother and of all her meinie, in so far as we could inquire and learn the truth."

Phillipa and Edward were married for forty years, she gave Edward thirteen children, three of them died as a result of the Black Death in 1348.

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Anne of Bohemia

20/1/2020

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On this day in 1382, the marriage of Richard II to Anne of Bohemia, Richard was eight months younger than Anne, they were both fifteen years of age.

Image: Manuscript held at the Bodleian Library shows Richard with Anne.

Anne was the daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV and Elizabeth of Pomerania and was described at the time of her marriage by a Westminster chronicler as a ' tiny scrap of humanity'

Criticism of the match began when the king was forced to pay Wenceslas of Bohemia, Anne's brother, £4,000,000 (in today's money) for the right to marry his sister. Adding insult to injury Anne brought no dowry and her large entourage was paid for, in part, by the king.

Anne was crowned queen of England two days later.

Their twelve-year marriage was considered to have been a happy one but despite that there were no children and therefore no heir. Following Anne's death of the plague at the Sheen in 1394 Richard had the building demolished.

In 1396 Richard would marry the seven-year-old Isabella of Valois.

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Funeral of Catherine of Aragon

29/1/2018

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Catherine of Aragon died in the first week of January 1536 it was on this day she was laid to rest at Peterborough Cathedral.

Catherine was Henry VIII's first and 'true wife,' abandoned when she was no longer any use to him. In the furore that surrounded Henry's relationship with Anne Boleyn, it was said that Anne poisoned Catherine. Today, however, it is widely considered that she died of cancer, and most probably a broken heart.

Catherine had written of her fears to Charles V in the November of the previous year

"My tribulations are so great, my life so disturbed by the plans daily invented to further the king's wicked intention, the surprises which the king gives me, with certain persons of his council, are so mortal, and my treatment is what God knows, that it is enough to shorten ten lives, much more mine."

Henry did not attend Catherine's funeral, and in one last cruel act against his wife, he also forbade their daughter Mary to attend. It was written that the queens funeral waggon was

"was covered with black velvet, in the midst of which was a great silver cross; and within, as one looked upon the corpse, was stretched a cloth of gold frieze with a cross of crimson velvet, and before and behind the said waggon stood two gentlemen ushers with mourning hoods looking into the waggon, round which the said four banners were carried by four heralds and the standards with the representations by four gentlemen." and once inside the cathedral Catherine's coffin was "placed under the chapelle ardente which was prepared for it there, upon eight pillars of beautiful fashion and roundness, upon which were placed about 1,000 candles, both little and middle-sized, and round about the said chapel 18 banners waved.”

Below you can see the tomb of Catherine at Peterborough Cathedral if you look closely you can see that people are still leaving pomegranates in remembrance of her.

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Marriage of Eleanor

1/11/2016

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Married today in 1254 King Edward I to Eleanor of Castile.

Statues of Edward and Eleanor at Lincoln Cathedral.

It is thought that their marriage was a happy one. Eleanor travelled with Edward continually from the time of their marriage, even through the troubled times of war.

Edward is said to have had no extramarital affairs or illegitimate children during his time with Eleanor and in return she gave him sixteen children, their youngest Edward would rule England after his father.

Edward's thirty-six year marriage to Eleanor ended with her death in Nottinghamshire in 1290. It seems, that the man who history has named Hammer of the Scots, was at home at least, a big softy. In her memory, Edward erected twelve elaborate monuments in the places where her body rested on its journey to Westminster Abbey.

One of the few remaining Eleanor Crosses in the grounds of Lincoln Castle

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Marriage of Jane Grey to Guildford Dudley

Ealhswith, Alfred the Great's Queen

Medieval Women: Philippa of Hainault

Anne of Bohemia

Funeral of Catherine of Aragon

Marriage of Eleanor

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