Woodville Family

The Last Christmas at Grafton: 1463

As promised, here’s my entry for the 2009 Virtual Advent Tour. Naturally, it features my favorite family, the Woodvilles. (December 1463, at the Woodville family manor at Grafton. The walls of the manor are full of holes, which have been haphazardly stuffed with old Lancastrian banners. There is a profusion of chickens inside the manor’s […]

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Letters from Oxford, and Some Google Books Lurve

If there’s one thing that I am thankful for this Thanksgiving, it’s Google Books. I can’t tell you how many trips to the library it’s saved me, or how many books I’ve found on Google Books that aren’t available in the library. Anyway, last night I was looking up a letter in what I thought

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Dumb-Cluck Woodville Statement O’ the Day

In a discussion group, I was alerted to the current Wikipedia entry on Jacquetta Woodville (“Wydeville” for you purists here). Among other misinformation, it contains this particular gem: “She arranged for her 20-year-old son, John Woodville, to marry the widowed and very rich dowager Duchess of Norfolk, Catherine Neville. The bride was at least forty

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A Melusine Sighting, A Brand-New Theory, and a Father’s Love

In 1445, Margaret of Anjou was present at Nancy at the wedding of her sister, Yolande, to Ferry de Vaudemont. It was a grand occasion, marked by days of jousting, and King Charles VII himself showed up. But what image was on his shield, pray tell? None other than Melusine, the fairy that with a

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Margaret Woodville, Daughter of Anthony Woodville

Of Elizabeth Woodville’s five brothers who lived to adulthood, none left legitimate children. Indeed, only one brother is known to have left an out-of-wedlock child—and that brother was Anthony Woodville, usually thought of as the most straitlaced member of the family. He left a daughter, named Margaret. Margaret’s mother has been identified as Gwenllian, daughter

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Richard Grey, Elizabeth Woodville’s Second Son

Richard Grey was the younger of Elizabeth Woodville’s two sons by her first husband, Sir John Grey, who died at the second battle of St. Albans on February 17, 1461. Richard’s birth date is unknown, although his older brother, Thomas Grey, was probably born around 1455, according to the inquisition postmortem of his uncle Richard

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A Woodville Meets a Boleyn

One of the fascinating things about doing historical research is seeing how people’s paths cross. The William Boleyn who was appointed to a commission with Anthony Woodville in November 1482 was the grandfather of none other than Anne Boleyn: Nov. 12. Commission to the king’s kinsman Anthony, earl Ryvers, Henry Heydon, Westminster. William Boleyn, Richard

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