The New Murrey and Blue blog

Reblogged from A Medieval Potpourri @sparkypus.com

Unfortunately no reliable image has survived of Eleanor Butler/Boteler née Talbot but the above image of her younger sister, Elizabeth,  duchess of Norfolk, may give us some idea of her appearance.  15th century stained glass. Holy Trinity Church, Long Melford, Suffolk. 

Dear Reader –  since I begun the writing of this post, and doing some delving, as you do, I have to say I have changed my mind somewhat as to exactly how ‘secret’ the marriage of Lady Eleanor Talbot  (d.1468) and Edward IV (b.1442-d.1483) actually was – but more about that later.  This marriage, which I will refer to here as the Talbot marriage, made possibly in February 1461,  has been called a  ‘precontract’ which has confused some people into thinking it was merely some sort of engagement and not what it actually was – a legal and binding marriage.  That an earlier legally binding marriage had indeed taken place –  thus putting the legitimacy of the children of Edward and Queen Elizabeth Wydeville (c.1437-1492) in jeopardy – had certainly been mooted as early as 1478 because it was somewhere around then that Elizabeth had become aware she was in the awkward position of being the bigamous wife of Edward IV.   We know this because Mancini reported that by then she knew that by established custom (ie a long held belief) she was not the legal wife of the king (1).   Worse, much worse still,  was the fact that among those who were aware her marriage was bigamous was none other than her brother-in-law George, duke of Clarence,  who had links with Bishop Stillington who in turn had links to the Talbot marriage.  What to do?  Clearly the awful realisation would also have dawned on her that her marriage to Edward, being invalid,  rendered their children illegitimate and according to the canon laws of the times unable to inherit.  This applied especially to Edward’s heir Edward, Prince of Wales, who would be unable to inherit the throne upon the death of his father.   Presuming that Elizabeth had been unaware at the time of her ‘marriage’ to Edward the eventual dawning of the truth led a probably highly panicked Elizabeth to ‘persuade’ her husband,  apparently without too much difficulty,  to execute his brother to silence him.  Oh to have been a fly on the wall to witness those hairy scenes between Edward and Elizabeth!  Mancini’s report describing how the queen, and others,  knew about the first legal marriage derails the argument that it was nothing more than a falsehood and ruse invented in 1483 to enable Gloucester to take the throne.  Thus another myth bites the dust.  If it was indeed the case, as seems highly likely,  that the Talbot marriage was fairly common knowledge then it makes it difficult to understand how Richard duke of Gloucester was actually in the dark about it as late as 1483.  Did he indeed know about the story, but his well known loyalty to Edward led him to remain silent until his brother’s death and the emergence of the truth into the open forced his hand?  The existence  of Edward’s first legal marriage is supported by several primary sources i.e. Croyland Chronicler, Mancini, de Commynes and as mentioned even Edward’s queen, Elizabeth Wydeville. 

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