page_title: Elizabeth of York
section_title: Wife of the king
hierarchical_section_title: Elizabeth of York / Wife of the king
caption_attribution_description: The inscription shows that the work was a gift for Francis Walsingham, to whose family its provenance can be traced. Along the bottom, it reads: "THE QUENE. TO. WALSINGHAM. THIS. TABLET. SENTE. MARKE. OF. HER. PEOPLES. AND HER. OWNE. CONTENTE". Inscription around the frame: "A FACE OF MUCHE NOBILLITYE LOE IN A LITLE ROOME. FOWR STATES WITH THEYR CONDITIONS HEARE SHADOWED IN. A SHOWE A FATHER MORE THEN VALYANT. A RARE AND VERTUOUS SOON. A ZEALUS DAUGHTER IN HER KIND WHAT ELS THE WORLD DOTH KNOWE. AND LAST OF ALL A VYRGIN QUEEN TO ENGLANDS JOY WE SEE SUCCESSYVELY TO HOLD THE RIGHT, AND VERTUES OF THE THREE". Mixing portraiture and allegory, the painting anachronistically shows Henry VIII, his three children, and Queen Mary's husband, Philip of Spain, alongside figures from mythology. Henry sits on his throne in the centre, with his son Edward, the future Edward VI, kneeling beside him receiving the sword of justice. Henry died in 1547, but on the left of the picture his daughter Mary is shown next to Philip, whom she didn't marry until 1554 when she was queen, with Mars, god of war, behind them, symbolising the wars they fought. Elizabeth, by contrast, stands on the right of the picture holding the hand of Peace, who treads the sword of discord underfoot, as Plenty attends with her cornucopia. Painted in Elizabeth's reign c.&#160;1572, the picture stresses her legitimate descent from the Tudor dynasty and her role as a bringer of peace and prosperity to the realm. Owing to a similarity of style and composition with Lucas de Heere's Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (1559) and other works, the art historian Roy Strong has attributed the work to de Heere; the art scholar and curator Karen Hearn, however, regards the attribution as speculative. Another source for the composition may be the anachronistic (Queen Jane Seymour died shortly after giving birth to Prince Edward) group portrait The Family of Henry VIII (c. 1545). Prototypes for the portraits have been detected in paintings by Holbein (Henry), Scrots (Edward), Mor (Mary and Philip), and, less confidently, Hilliard (Elizabeth). (Reference: Hearn, pp. 81–82.)
context_page_description: Elizabeth of York was the first queen consort of England of the Tudor dynasty from 18 January 1486 until her death, as the wife of Henry VII. She married Henry in 1486 after his victory at the Battle of Bosworth Field, which marked the end of the Wars of the Roses. Together, Elizabeth and Henry had seven children.
  After the death of her father, King Edward IV, Elizabeth's brothers the "Princes in the Tower" disappeared, their fate uncertain. Although the 1484 act of Parliament Titulus Regius declared the marriage of her parents, Edward and Elizabeth Woodville, invalid, she and her sisters were subsequently welcomed back to court by Edward's brother, King Richard III. As a Yorkist princess, the final victory of the Lancastrian faction in the Wars of the Roses may have seemed a further disaster, but Henry Tudor knew the importance of Yorkist support for his invasion and promised to marry Elizabeth before he arrived in England. This may well have contributed to the hemorrhaging of Yorkist support for Richard.
  Although Elizabeth seems to have played little part in politics, her marriage appears to have been a successful and happy one.
context_section_description: As the eldest daughter of Edward IV with no surviving brothers, Elizabeth of York had a strong claim to the throne in her own right, but she did not assume the throne as queen regnant. There was no queen regnant until 1553, when her granddaughter, Mary I, acceded to the throne, and the last attempt a female made at ruling in her own right resulted in disaster  when the mother and uncle of Henry II of England fought bitterly for the throne in the 12th century.   Though initially slow to keep his promise, Henry VII acknowledged the necessity of marrying Elizabeth of York to ensure the stability of his rule and weaken the claims of other surviving members of the House of York. It seems Henry wished to be seen as ruling in his own right, having claimed the throne by right of conquest and not by his marriage to the de facto heiress of the House of York. He had no intention of sharing power. He consequently chose to be crowned on 30 October 1485, before his marriage.
  Henry VII had the Act of Titulus Regius repealed, thereby legitimising anew the children of Edward IV, and acknowledging Edward V as his predecessor. Though Richard III was regarded as a usurper, his reign was not ignored. Henry and Elizabeth required a papal dispensation to wed because of Canon Law frowning upon 'affinity": Both were descended from John of Gaunt or his older brother Lionel in the 4th degree, an issue that had caused much dispute and bloodshed as to which claim was superior.  Two applications were sent, the first more locally, and the second one was slow in reaching Rome and slow to return with the response of the Pope. Ultimately, however, the marriage was approved by papal bull of Pope Innocent VIII dated March 1486 (one month after the wedding)  stating that the Pope and his advisors "approveth confirmyth and stablishyth the matrimonye and coniuncion made betwene our sou[er]ayn lord King Henre the seuenth of the house of Lancastre of that one party And the noble Princesse Elyzabeth of the house of Yorke.
  Because the journey to Rome and back took many months, and because Henry as king wanted to be certain that nobody could dispute that his wedding to Elizabeth was unlawful or sinful, the more local application was obeyed first - it was sent to the papal legate for England and Scotland, which returned in January 1486.   Cardinal Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, officiated at the wedding of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York on 18 January 1486 in Westminster Abbey. Their first son, Arthur, was born on 20 September 1486, eight months after their marriage. Elizabeth of York was crowned queen on 25 November 1487. She gave birth to several more children, but only four survived infancy: Arthur, Margaret, Henry and Mary.
  Despite being a political arrangement at first, the marriage proved successful and both partners appear to have slowly fallen in love with each other. Thomas Penn, in his biography of Henry VII writes that "[t]hough founded on pragmatism, Henry and Elizabeth's marriage had nevertheless blossomed throughout the uncertainty and upheaval of the previous eighteen years. This was a marriage of 'faithful love', of mutual attraction, affection and respect, from which the king seems to have drawn great strength."
caption: A posthumous family portrait (c. 1572) of Henry VIII showing three of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York's grandchildren: left to right Mary Tudor and her husband Phillip II of Spain; Henry VIII with his son Edward; Elizabeth is at right
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