I am very pleased to welcome Anne Easter Smith, author of Queen By Right
to One Book Shy today as she shares some very interesting things she turned up while researching Cecily Neville, Duchess of York.
Cecily Neville’s So-Called Affair
by Anne Easter Smith
I was drawn to writing about Cecily Neville as soon as I began researching my first--and what I thought would be my only--book “A Rose for the Crown
.” I could not write Richard III’s story without knowing a lot about his parents and his siblings. Oddly, Cecily did not appear at all in that book, but in a few scenes her absence hung over the brothers Edward and Richard and you feel she is an indomitable presence in their lives. Indeed, I think one of the reasons Edward chose not to reveal his secret marriage to Elizabeth Woodville for so long was because he feared a slap upside the head from Proud Cis. And boy, did she give him one when the marriage was finally outed, and, according to the Italian visitor Dominic Mancini who was in London in 1484--twenty years after the fact--and was the first to write about the rumor, Cecily “fell into a frenzy.” It was partly because of the scorn she had for this upstart nobody Woodville woman who must now be called queen that she began to style herself, “Cecily, the king’s mother, and late wife unto Richard, by right king of England and of France and lord of Ireland.” Or as my title infers, “Queen by Right.”
One of the stories about Cecily that I was determined to get to the bottom of was the one about her having an affair with an archer in the garrison at Rouen named John Blaybourne that allegedly produced a son, our Edward IV, on April 22, 1442. Here’s what we know:
Although no proof exists of her statement, according to Mancini she is supposed to have retorted in anger at the Woodville-marriage time that Edward shouldn’t even be on the throne because he was a bastard. But the rumor must have reached other ears before Mancini’s because in 1477, when her son, George of Clarence, finally aroused his brother Edward’s anger enough to be imprisoned for treasonous activity, he blurted out that Edward was a bastard. That was a final straw for Edward and George was clapped in the Tower. Even then, the devoted mother Cecily found Edward on a pilgrimage to Thomas Becket’s shrine in Canterbury and went down on her knees to beg her oldest son to spare George.
It was said that Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy and husband of Cecily’s daughter Margaret, would often refer to Edward as “Blaybourne” in fits of rage, and he died in 1477.
And then there is the time in 1483 when all hell broke loose following Edward’s unexpected death and Richard of Gloucester was made Protector (and some would say--but not me--that he was actively seeking the crown). The preacher Dr. Shaw is supposed to have proclaimed from Paul’s Cross to a crowd of Londoners that Richard should wear the crown because he was the legitimate son of his father, Richard, duke of York, and that the sons of Edward were illegitimate on two counts: one is that Edward had been previously secretly contracted to a woman before he secretly wed Elizabeth, and the second is that Edward himself was a bastard. But if he did slight Cecily in public, it is very doubtful that Richard would have sanctioned such a slander of his mother. And if he had, you would think Cecily would have denounced her son and not supported his accession, but the fact is they remained on good terms until Richard’s death.
There has been a recent calculation done as to the whereabouts of Duke Richard at the alleged time of Edward’s conception, and it is true that he was in Pontoise at the exact time modern calculations for gestation would have him and Cecily in Rouen. Look it up, guys, it’s 52 miles from Pontoise to Rouen, and Richard was known to be a fast rider. But why did it have to be in Rouen. May I suggest that during a break in the fighting (and there was one), could Richard not have met Cecily somewhere between the two cities? A horse and rider can cover 20-30 miles a day easily--and 100 if you want to kill the animal! But there is no record of Richard being in Rouen on that fateful day of conception, so I came up with the meeting in the middle solution. I have them meet at a shrine to St. Clothilde in Les Andelys--a popular pilgrimage site, 33 miles from Pontoise, and voila! a romantic tryst in secret. Certainly plausible and certainly doable.
So I say phooey to the affair! Cecily knew and liked her place far too well on the social scale to stoop so low as to have given herself to an archer and soil her reputation. As for six-feet-three-inch Edward not looking like his father, he could just as easily have inherited his stature and golden hair from his Neville blood. His sister Margaret is known to have been very tall for her time and golden haired.
Those are the facts, and I think Cecily is just another of us who has been hurt by rumors.
“Thank you Julie, for hosting me here at One Book Shy of a Full Shelf”. – Anne Easter Smith
Anne, thank you so much for sharing this interesting post with us. It is fascinating how you have made Cecily come alive for all of us. I agree with your point that she would have been too aware of her duties and what may befall her if she were to engage in a meaningless affair with someone so far below her.
For more information please visit Anne Easter Smith’s WEBSITE and FACEBOOK PAGE. You can also read my 4.5 Jewel Review of Queen By Right.
I'd also like to thank Amy from Historical Fiction Virtual Book Tours for including me on this fantastic blog tour. Please check out the other lovely bloggers who are also sharing their thoughts on this fantastic book by clicking HERE. But before you do.....
One of you lucky readers will now be given the chance to win a copy of Queen By Right of your very own! Thanks to Anne and Amy, I have one copy to give away.
Must be 13 years of age or older
US residents only - book will be shipped by publisher
Leave a comment for Anne on this blog post WITH your email address
Drawing will close June 16th.
Winner will have 72 hours to respond to winning email
~~~~~ Disclaimer: All opinions expressed on this blog are 100% my own. I do not receive monetary compensation for my reviews but do utilize affiliate links. I may receive books in order to facilitate a review, but this does not guarantee a good review - only a completely honest one. Each review post denotes how I obtained the book.
