Tudor Queens of England by David Loades

was no wife for a prince such as himself; for she was not the daughter of a Duke or an Earl, but her mother, the Duchess of Bedford had married a simple knight, so that although she was the child of a duchess and the niece of the Count of St.Pol, still she was no wife for him.
    4
    Edward must have expected this reaction. The reason for his delay in making the news public was less embarrassment at having acted on impulse than a desire to give her time to acclimatize herself to the idea before being exposed to the role of royal consort. In other circumstances he might have waited a lot longer, but in the summer Louis XI started signalling that he wanted closer contacts with England. He began, not perhaps very wisely, to fl atter the Earl of Warwick, seeing in him the real manager of English policy. It was through negotiations that were so initiated that the marriage offer of Bona of Savoy arose. Bona was not strictly a member of the royal family, being the daughter of the Duke of Savoy, but she was Louis’ sister in law, and thus of his extended kindred. The offer was attractive to Warwick, who made positive signals, but he was not authorized to negotiate so important a matter on the King’s behalf. The discussions were postponed, fi rst to 8 June and then until the 1 October. During September, therefore, Edward had to declare himself, and either issue instructions for the marriage to be concluded
    – or not. The King met his Council about the middle of the month and revealed his true situation. On Michaelmas Day, 29 September, Elizabeth was formally presented to the court as Queen in Reading Abbey
    .5
    Politically, the reaction was not as hostile as Edward might have feared. As Waurin makes clear, there was a great deal of ‘tutting’. Both the Queen Mother and the Duke of Gloucester are supposed to have been offended but as the Duke was barely 12 years old at the time his opinion need not be taken too seriously. Both the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence took part in the Queen’s
    ‘coming out’ and although Warwick is later supposed to have been seriously antagonized he did not show much sign of it at the time. The person who had the best reason to be upset was Louis XI, but he seems to have shrugged the whole affair off as diplomatic hitch and continued to pursue the idea of an alliance. It was 10 October before he fi nally learned that his conference was not going 48

T U D O R Q U E E N S O F E N G L A N D
    to resume but he was not unduly discouraged and kept up his contacts with Warwick. It is possible that both the King of France and the Earl began to look askance at the King of England at this time but their overt hostility came much later and in other political circumstances. Elizabeth was crowned with due pomp at Westminster on 26 May 1465, when Edward made the most conscientious efforts to elevate her in the public estimation. Not only were large sums spent on cloth of gold, and upon scarlet and gold uniforms for the heralds, but more than 40 new knights of the Bath were created (more than at Edward’s own coronation) and the occasion was graced with the attendance of the Queen’s uncle, Jacques de Luxembourg. Jacques played a prominent part in the coronation tournament but the real purpose of his presence was to emphasize Elizabeth’s European status, via her mother.
    6 She m ust have been in the early stages of pregnancy at the time of her crowning because the eldest child of her second marriage was born on 26 February 1466. The young Elizabeth’s baptism was used as an occasion for a display of ‘togetherness’, perhaps aimed at a sceptical public. Her godmothers were her two grandmothers, Cecily Duchess of York and Jacquetta of Luxembourg, who were popularly supposed not to be on speaking terms, while the godfather was none other than the Earl of Warwick. The fact that she was a daughter may have caused a certain amount of headwagging because both of Elizabeth's children by her fi rst