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FRANCIS LANCELOTT, ESQ. Queens of England. Vol.1.

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FRANCIS LANCELOTT, ESQ.
Queens of England. Vol.1.
page 309



childhood. These intrigues, however, were successfully opposed by the Duchess of Bedford ; and as the King deeply loved his wife, he, at her earnest request, called a council at the palace of Heading, where the court was then staying, and on Michaelmas-day, 1464, presented her to the assembled lords and prelates, as his lawful wife. From the palace Elizabeth was conducted with regal pomp to the Abbey church of Beading, and there, after making her offering, publicly pronounced Queen. The dress she wore on this occasion was costly and beautiful. Upon her head was a lofty richly jewelled crown, adorned with the fleurde-lis. Her long trained dress was of the richest blue and gold baudekin, bordered with ermine; her shoes were " pointed pigacies," and her neck was embellished with a rich pearl necklace. In December, a second council met at Westminster, confirmed Elizabeth's marriage with the King, and settled on her an income of four thousand marks a year. This shew of approbation, however, could neither satisfy the nation nor silence the slanders of the nobles, who, not without reason, were jealous of the elevation to the throne of a woman whose father originally was but a poor knight. To excuse the King, reports were circulated that he had been decoyed into the marriage by the more than natural magical arts of his wife's mother ; and such was the credulity of the times, that many believed the tale. But the King, desirous to prove that Elizabeth was not of so mean a descent as had been reported, invited over her maturai uncle, James of Luxemburgh, who, with a retinue of one hundred knights, attended her coronation. This ceremony wasperformcd with great pomp. On the twenty-third of May, 1465, Edward kept his court at the Tower, and created thirty-eight Knights of the Bath, of whom five were judges, and four citizens of London. The favour of the Londoners for the Queen having been obtained by this and other prudent measures, the mayor and city authorities met Elizabeth on the next day at Shooter's Hill, and conducted her in state to the Tower. On the Saturday she was conveyed through the city on a litter to Westminster, and on the Sunday anoint ed Queen with the usual solemnities, by the archbishop, Cardinal Bourchier. The birth of a daughter at Westminster in 1466,christened, after her mother, Elizabeth, confirmed the influence of the Queen and her relations. The King, to the disparagement of the noblest families in tiie land, heaped honours and wealth upon every member of theWoodville family. The Queen's father, Earl liivers, received the Treasurership of England, and soon afterwards the more exalted post of Lord High Constable. The five sisters became respectively the wives of the Duke of Buckingham, the heir of the Earl of Essex, the Earls of Arundel and Kent,and the Lord Herbert. Her brother, Anthony, married the rich orphan daughter of Lord Scales. Her money-grasping brother John, when in his twenty - first year, wedded for her great jointure the opulent and decrepit Duchess of Norfolk, then in her eightieth year, whilst her eldest son, by her former marriage, was created Marquis of Dorset, and united in matrimony to the King's niece, Anne, daughter and heiress to the Duke of Exeter. These alliances gave umbrage to most of the nobles ; many of them saw with deep concern the projects they had formed for the advancement of their children by marriage overturned. The high-spirited Earl of Warwick, whose power and policy had placed the King upon the throne, who commanded the whole naval force of England, who was Captain of Calais, and Lieutenant of Ireland, and in whoso veins flowed the blood of the mighty Plantagencts, although he dissembled his wrath, was so deeply mortified at being cast into the shade by the influence of the daughter of a mere esquire, that he resolved on the first fitting opportunity to dethrone the King. Warwick had many serious causes of eomplaint against the King. The almost regal power possessed by him since 1460, was being daily diminished by the dominating influence of the Woodvilles. The hope he had so long nourished, that Edward would marry his daughter Isabella, was for ever destroyed by the elevation of Elizabeth. The heiress of Exeter


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