Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Duchess of Bedford and later Countess Rivers, is best-known to history as the mother of Edward IV’s Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, and her story has been fictionalised in the latest of novelist Philippa Gregory’s Cousins’ War series of historical novels. In reality very little is known of her, although she has emerged with a reputation as an ambitious self-aggrandiser.
Her Early Life and First Marriage
As a girl Jacquetta was considered so unimportant that her parents didn’t even bother to record the date of her birth, though sources put it around 1416. And there is little record of early life although, as Philippa Gregory outlines in her biographical note, it is likely that she would have followed the normal upbringing of girls in her class, being sent away to learn the requisite accomplishments for her ultimate career – marriage.
The course of Jacquetta’s life was largely determined by her high birth. As a daughter of the Count of St Pol, Conversano, and Brienne (and thus a scion of the French nobility) she was expected to make a dynastic marriage – despite the fact that she was, as Lisa Hilton puts it, ‘irrefutably not royal’. And when, in 1433, such a marriage took place (Jacquetta being then aged 17) it was a splendid one.
Jacquetta’s groom was the (recently-widowed) Duke of Bedford. Younger brother of the late English King, Henry V, he was then regent of France and second in line to the English throne. The match outraged Philip of Burgundy and caused tensions within the English position in France: but the marriage was short-lived and Bedford died less than three years later.
Jacquetta Marries for Love
Left as a young, wealthy and privileged Royal Duchess, Jacquetta’s position at the English court was not dissimilar to that of her childhood in that it was expected that she (and her wealth) would be disposed of in a suitable marriage by the men of the royal court. But Jacquetta had other ideas and, in an episode mirroring the later marriage of her daughter to King Edward IV, was secretly married to a man way below her station – Sir Richard Woodville.
The marriage cost her both money and influence, though she retained her royal status. The couple retired from court to Grafton in Northamptonshire, where they raised a family of 14 children, 12 of whom survived to adulthood. Among these, the most notable was her eldest daughter, Elizabeth who, as a young widow, captured the attention of the King and married him – and, in the process, turned the Lancastrian-supporting Rivers family into staunch Yorkists.
Mother of the Queen
Elizabeth’s marriage catapulted the Rivers family to the heart of court life. At a time when power was seen as a way to enrichment, Sir Richard became Treasurer of England and Jacquetta may well have been instrumental in ruthlessly arranging the marriages of her many children to wealthy spouses – not least, the marriage of her twenty-year old son John to the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, who was then in her sixties (Lucia Diaz Pascual).
Inevitably, power and wealth created enemies and, during a time of conflict not just between the houses of York and Lancaster but among their various supporters, the rise of the Rivers family created envy and was was followed by their fall. Sir Richard and two of their sons were executed for treason on the orders of the Earl of Warwick and Jacquetta herself faced trial for witchcraft.
The charges were serious and carried a capital penalty. It was claimed that she had used magic to entrap the young king into his secret and (in the minds of some) unsuitable marriage. Philippa Gregory suggests that it is by no means implausible that Jacquetta may have used herbs or chanted spells, and it is remarkable that the Earl of Warwick, at whose behest she was tried, did not attempt to have the death sentence passed upon her.
After her release she sought sanctuary with her daughter in Westminster Abbey as Edward continued to fight for his throne. The death of Warwick at the Battle of Barnet in 1371 restored her to a position of influence as the mother of the Queen and thus she remained until her death in 1472, aged around 56.
As a woman, Jacquetta’s power to act independently was limited. But her role in the marriage of her daughter to the king (she was one of the few witnesses) and in the enrichment of her family clearly demonstrate that a woman of power and wealth, given sufficient ambition, was able to exert some kind of influence – not always benign – on affairs of state.
Sources
- Lucia Diaz Pascual, ‘Luxembourg, Jaquetta de, duchess of Bedford and Countess Rivers (c.1416–1472)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online edition (login required), Oxford University Press
- Philippa Gregory, David Baldwin and Michael Jones The Women of the Cousins’ War Simon & Shuster 2011
- Lisa Hilton Queens Consort: England’s Mediaeval Queens Phoenix 2008
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