Elizabeth of York is known today as the matriarch of the Tudor dynasty, her nearly 20-year marriage with Henry VII generally happy and drama-free. She died young, at the age of 37, on the day of her birthday having recently given birth to a daughter named Katherine. On hearing of her death Henry was plunged into shock, mourning in private and allowing only his closest courtiers to approach him. He made plans though almost immediately for his wife's burial at Westminster Abbey, and on the day after her death, on the 11 February 1503, London prayed for the soul of the woman they had called queen for almost two decades and who had helped end the Wars of the Roses; decades of civil war that affected not only England but also Scotland and Wales.
Henry specified that Londoners perform no less than 636 masses for the queen's soul on that day, as her body was taken to be embalmed and prepared for her funeral. She was placed in a lead coffin which had been inscribed with her name and her status as queen. This was then placed into another coffin of wood, and draped with black and white velvet, decorated with a cross of white damask fabric.
Elizabeth of York, (c) Jo Romero |
The queen had died at the Tower of London, where she had given birth to the baby Katherine, and her body was taken first to the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, attended by the Dean of Westminster and the Dean and Chaplains of the King's Chapel. A canopy was placed over the queen's coffin and held by four knights at its arrival into the chapel. Her principle mourners were Lady Elizabeth Stafford who followed the queen with the rest of her ladies in procession behind her, and Katherine Lady Courtenay, the queen's sister. Katherine was led by the Earl of Surrey and the Earl of Essex and took her position at the head of the coffin. According to contemporary accounts the queen's body lay at the chapel inside the Tower for ten days, and on the eleventh, 22 February 1503, it began its final journey to Westminster.
Drawn by six horses, Elizabeth's coffin was covered with black velvet with an effigy of her placed on an accompanying stage, carried through the streets of London. The effigy was dressed in her royal robes, a crown on her head and a sceptre in her hand, to show the inhabitants what she would have looked like in life. This effigy can be seen today at Westminster Abbey in the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Gallery upstairs, which you need a separate ticket for, but it's well worth it.
It is clear that Elizabeth was well-loved by the people as their queen, and her Privy Purse accounts detail gifts given to her by subjects including peasecods, birds, apples and cherries, carried by hand to the wooden doors of the various palaces she stayed at. Londoners would have looked on at the solemn and impressive cavalcade, with ladies of honour riding slowly on horseback along with servants, members of the nobility and also representatives of the church. The banners of the Virgin, the Salutation, the Assumption and the Nativity were held high and fluttered in the winter air. There would have been a sombre quietness as the funeral procession continued through the streets passing shops and homes.
Foreign visitors too came to pay their respects, including the Venetian, French and Spanish ambassadors who the queen had worked with tirelessly to ensure the running of state business alongside her husband, most notably the Spanish diplomats involved in the marriage of her and Henry's son Prince Arthur to Katherine of Aragon. On the journey to Fenchurch Street and at Cheapside, the procession was greeted by the symbolic appearance of thirty-seven virgins, dressed in white, in recognition of the queen's age and perceived purity.
On arrival at the abbey, the coffin was anointed with incense, the abbot and priests bearing holy water. On the following morning, the 23 February, Katherine Lady Courtenay with others attended Mass and then offered palls to the coffin, again thirty-seven in number, which it is said they kissed before placing down. Fitzjames, Bishop of Rochester, preached a sermon, his words echoing around the great abbey, and the palls were then removed. The ladies left the abbey, while Elizabeth's effigy was placed at St Edward's shrine. The Bishop of London finally oversaw the burial, as Elizabeth's body was lowered into its grave.
Henry VIII, Elizabeth's eldest son after the death of Arthur in 1502, commissioned the Italian sculptor Pietro Torregiani (sometimes also given as Torregiano) to create the tomb that we see at Westminster today. Finished in bronze, it has carved angels, shields and a life-like effigy of the couple laying side by side, their hands in prayer. It was commissioned soon after the death of his father Henry VII, and Henry was so impressed with Pietro's work that he commissioned him to create a similar one of his grandmother Margaret Beaufort, which can be seen in another part of the abbey nearby. The monument to Elizabeth and Henry, which can be glimpsed through spaces in the ornamental screens around it, serves as a memorial to the couple who began the Tudor dynasty and to a queen that is often overlooked in favour of the later dramatic stories of her son's six wives. She was loved by the people she ruled over and there is currently a resurgence in popularity towards her, as historians work to highlight the difference she made to the age and the real power she held in early Tudor England.
You might also like Visiting the Tomb of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York and Prince Arthur's Tomb, Worcester.
Source: Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York, Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas, W Pickering, London 1830