Elizabeth Woodville is my favorite queen. I’ll be honest, I didn’t know anything about her until I read Philippa Gregory’s book, The White Queen. There is a lot we don’t know about Elizabeth and Edward’s relationship but I like to think of it as a fairy tale amongst a nightmare of a warring country.
Elizabeth was always described as a beautiful woman, as was her daughter, Elizabeth of York. The first image below is one that I found through the National Portrait Gallery and have never seen before now. This is by far my favorite portrait of Elizabeth Woodville. It is unlike the others I’ve seen. Her hair is down and it does not portray the large forehead that was fashionable during this time.
Suppo1sed to be a portrait of her at Queen’s College Cambridge
Hi,
We have a lovely manuscript of the Book of Hours in our Special Collections, which probably belonged to Elizabeth Woodwill (MS. 6 Hours of the Guardian Angel, Redcliffe Collection) which has an illustration depicting the manuscript being presented to Elizabeth by another women (the copyist?) and with a dedicatory poem of which the first letters form an achrosticon of Elizabeth’s name.
Gergely Juhász
Liverpool Hope University
Oh how I wish I could see it! (I’m American) I am a huge fan of everything Elizabeth Woodville. She was an amazing woman and queen.
Drop me an e-mail (see my academic profile above) and I’ll try to dig up a photo for you. Let me know when you are next in England and I’ll be happy to show it to you, too.
Greg
Oh my goodness! I am Elizabeth’s great-granddaughter. I just saw this, and I recently published an historical novel called I.Am.Elizabeth. about Elizabeth of York and Elizabeth Woodville. I will be in England next month. Would there be any chance that I could see this precious book????