How safe were women under the Tudors?

----- Original Message -----
From: "marion davis" <phaecilia@...>
To: <>
Sent: Thursday, March 25, 2004 2:44 PM
Subject: RE: Lightbulb goes on


> Marie wrote: Is it possible that after Anne's death
> Richard might have sought a solution in a double
> diplomatic alliance, with himself taking a bride
> from, say, Spain or Portugal, at the same time packing
> Elizabeth off abroad as a bride for more junior member
> of same royal house? Said royal house would not be a
> risk as their link to the English royal house would be
> mainly invested in Richard and his descendants.
>
> ***
>
> Would there be any records of such a proposal in
> Spanish or Portuguese archives? If records for
> Spanish/English and Portuguese/English interactions
> could be found, it would partly compensate for the
> loss of English records for Richard's reign.
>
> Is it likely that Tudor reasons for destroying English
> records of Richard III's reign (and other Yorkist
> documents as well) would cause Spanish or Portuguese
> archivists or historians to destroy their own records?
>
> Could Henry VII have paid them enough to do that?
> Seems like that would be a very risky thing to pay
> someone to do. Whoever he paid might just take the
> money and leave the records alone. Henry VII wouldn't
> be able to prove the documents were destroyed.
>
> Would he even have thought of trying to erase
> Richard's reign from other countries' archives?
>
> ***
>
> It could be that richard couldn't arrange the sort of
> match he felt appropriate for Elizabeth in the
> timescale involved.
>
> ***
>
> That's possible. It took about 2 years for Charles
> the Bold and Edward IV to arrange Charles' marriage to
> Margaret of York, didn't it?
>
> ***
>
> Just another thought. If Elizabeth's brothers - or
> even one of them - were still alive, might Richard
> have felt that Elizabeth wasn't the issue?
>
> ***
>
> If it were possible to prove that Richard felt
> Elizabeth wasn't the issue, because he could produce
> Edward V and Richard of York alive and well if
> necessary, that would settle a lot of arguments.
>
> But I have trouble understanding Elizabeth Woodville's
> behavior. Did she agree to leave sanctuary and send
> her daughters to Richard's court because she knew her
> sons were alive? Or did she believe/know they were
> dead and agree to Richard's request because she was
> pragmatic? Did she hope to revenge herself on Richard
> more easily by leaving sanctuary and allowing her
> daughters to go to Richard's court? Who did she see
> her own best interests with at the time? What does
> Elizabeth Woodville's behavior tell us?
>
> ***
>
> Or might he have felt that, even with Elizabeth
> married ,Tudor would still have invaded, and that if
> he won her life would then be at risk?
>
> ***
>
> Are you saying that Henry VIi might have executed
> Elizabeth of York because he couldn't marry her and
> claim the throne in her right? Would marriage to
> Elizabeth of York entitle a gentleman to inherit the
> crown?
>
> Would Richard have feared for Elizabeth's life at that
> time? We know that the Tudors earned a reputation for
> executing women, but I remember reading somewhere that
> women weren't executed before the Tudors took over.
>
> Is that correct? I can't remember reading or hearing
> anything about execution of women except for heresy or
> witchcraft.
>
That's right, I said after speaking to a Society Group Chairman. In fact,
political executions of women didn't start until Henry VIII's reign - his
two wives, Margaret of Salisbury, later Lady Jane and Mary Stuart. Until
well after 1509, women were not executed except for "objective" crimes
(heresy, witchcraft, murder, arson) but neither were they taken seriously as
potential monarchs.
Lady Margaret became the logical Yorkist claimant in 1499 (Warwick
beheaded, no issue, Clarence's attainder reversed) but lived almost another
forty years, longer than her de la Pole cousins, some of her sons and her
other cousin Buckingham.
I would think Elizabeth of York would have been very safe under Henry VII
if she had married someone else. Henry could have confirmed her
bastardisation or married one of her sisters.
Henry VIII was a different character completely - by 1553, the claimants
to the English crown were all female.

Stephen.

> I remember reading in Hughes' "Arthurian Myths and
> Alchemy" that Elizabeth of York's grandmother
> Jacquetta of Luxemburg was suspected of witchcraft.
>
> I've also asked about the risks of putting her
> impatience for Queen Anne to die in writing (if
> Elizabeth of York did such a thing, which I doubt).
> It seems to me that such a statement could easily lead
> to an accusation of witchcraft. In that case, why
> wasn't Elizabeth of York accused of killing Anne
> instead of Richard?
>
> But how likely is it that Henry VII would have tried
> to execute Elizabeth of York for witchcraft if she'd
> been married? How would that benefit him? Would it
> have prevented the gentleman she was married to from
> claiming the crown in her right?

Mary Tudor married Phillip II but he was not regarded as King of England.
Subsequent queens' husbands were only consorts except William III (a joint
claimant). Mathilda was crowned in the 12th century but her husband was not.
>
S.

> Considering the Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warwick
> stories, it may be more likely than I think.
>
> Marion
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from the desk of Paul Trevor Bale

> Mathilda was crowned in the 12th century but her husband was not.
Stephen was crowned King. Matilda never was. She claimed the crown that
should have been hers, but the majority of the ruling class wanted a man in
spite of her better claim as the daughter and only surviving child of Henry
the First.