18 January 1486 – King Henry VII marries Elizabeth of York at Westminster Abbey, uniting the Houses of Lancaster and York and symbolically ending the Wars of the Roses. Henry was about to turn 29 whilst his bride was a beautiful 19-year-old. The marriage ceremony was conducted by Thomas Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, and was undoubtedly a lavish occasion with little expense spared. Bernard Andre documented in his biography of his patron that ‘After the celebration of the royal nuptials, great gladness filled all the kingdom’. Andre continued that ‘when people heard that Henry and Elizabeth were joined in happy marriage, they built fires for joy far and wide, and celebrated with dances, songs, and feasts in many parts of London’. Henry VII is often accused of delaying the marriage and only proceeding with the match due to pressure from his Yorkist supporters. It is certain however that Henry honoured his oath to marry Elizabeth as soon as was logistically possible. In the months which followed Bosworth the immediate focus of the king and his council was to attend to the pressing matter of governing a kingdom fractured by war. Furthermore there were two obstacles which needed to be settled before the wedding could go ahead; Firstly Elizabeth was legally a ‘bastard’ and secondly she was related to her potential husband in the fourth degree of kinship which required a papal dispensation to set aside. A faculty of dispensation was received from Rome on 16 January with a full confirmation of papal dispensation produced on 2 March, thus ensuring the canonical validity of the marriage.
Posted on: Sat, 18 Jan 2014 09:38:17 +0000
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