Handwriting of the Kings and Queens of England, W. J. Hardy, 1893
Elizabeth Woodville (born circa 1437, died June 8, 1492) was queen of England as the spouse of King Edward IV from 1464 until his death in 1483. At the time of her birth, her family was of middle rank in the English social hierarchy. Her mother, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, had previously been an aunt by marriage to King Henry VI. Elizabeth first married Sir John Grey of Groby, a minor supporter of the House of Lancaster. He died in 1461 at the Second Battle of St. Albans, leaving Elizabeth the widowed mother of two sons.
Elizabeth remarried to King Edward IV, and she immediately became a sensation for her great beauty and lack of great estates. Not since the Norman Conquest of 1066 had a king of England married one of his subjects, and Elizabeth was the first such consort to be crowned queen of England. Her marriage greatly enriched her siblings and children, but their advancement incurred the hostility of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, nicknamed "the Kingmaker", and his various alliances with the most senior members of the increasingly divided royal family. This hostility turned into open discord between King Edward and Warwick, culminating in the said Warwick becoming loyal to the Lancastrian cause, and Elizabeth's father, Richard Woodville, being executed in 1469.
After Edward's death in 1483, Elizabeth remained politically active and influential even after her son, the short-reigned boy king, Edward V, was overthrown and usurped by King Richard III. The child Edward and his younger brother Richard disappeared and are presumed to have been assassinated. To this day the boys are somewhat ominously known together as The Princes in the Tower. Elizabeth then played a critical role in securing the accession of King Henry VII in 1485, who married her daughter, Elizabeth of York, ended the Wars of the Roses, and established the Tudor Dynasty. Through her daughter, Elizabeth was grandmother to the infamous King Henry VIII and great-grandmother to Queen Mary I, King Edward VI, and Queen Elizabeth I.
Elizabeth, now the Queen Dowager, signed in her own hand this receipt, itself written by a scribe, for the arrears of a pension of £400 a year allowed by her son-in-law, dated May 21, 1491. It is the only known surviving example of her handwriting.
The letter:
Be hyt remembyrd that I Quene Elyzabethe late wyffee to the exelent prynce, Kyng Edward the iiijth, have reseyvede the xxi day of May the vjth yere of King Herry the viith of John Lord Denham tresorer of Ynglond be the handdes of Thomas Stolys, on [one] of the reseyte, xxxli in party of payment of CCli due to me at ester last past as hyt aperyth be my annuete grauntyd be the Kyng. In wytnes wher of I have endosyd thys byll wythe my hand the day and yere above said.
ELYSABETH.
ELYSABETH.
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