Edward Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon

Notes:

Died:
decapitation

Henry married Gertrude Blount on 25 Oct 1519 in Newport, Devon, England. Gertrude was born in 1502 in Hertfordshire, England; died on 25 Sep 1558 in Wimborne Minster, Devonshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Died:
pleurisy

William married Catherine "of York" Plantagenet about 1495. Catherine (daughter of Edward Plantagenet, King of England IV and Elizabeth Woodville) was born on 14 Aug 1479 in Eltham Palace, Greenwich, Kent, England; died on 15 Nov 1527 in Tiverton Castle, Devon, England; was buried in Tiverton, Devonshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Edward IV, son of Richard, Duke of York and Cicely Neville, was born in 1442. He married Elizabeth Woodville in 1464, the widow of the Lancastrian Sir John Grey, who bore him ten children. He also entertained many mistresses and had at least one illegitimate son.

Edward came to the throne through the efforts of his father; as Henry VI became increasingly less effective, Richard pressed the claim of the York family but was killed before he could ascend the throne: Edward deposed his cousin Henry after defeating the Lancastrians at Mortimer's Cross in 1461. Richard Neville, the Kingmaker, Earl of Warwick proclaimed Henry king once again in 1470, but less than a year elapsed when Edward reclaimed the crown and had Henry executed in 1471.

The rest of his reign was fairly uneventful. He revived the English claim to the French throne and invaded the weakened France, extorting a non-aggression treaty from Louis XI in 1475 which amounted to a lump payment of 75,000 crowns, and an annuity of 20,000. Edward had his brother, George, Duke of Clarendon, judicially murdered in 1478 on a charge of treason. His marriage to Elizabeth Woodville vexed his councilors, and he allowed many of the great nobles (such as his brother Richard) to build uncharacteristically large power bases in the provinces in return for their support.

Edward died suddenly in 1483, leaving behind two sons aged twelve and nine, five daughters, and a troubled legacy.

Edward married Elizabeth Woodville on 1 May 1464 in Grafton Regis, Northants, England. Elizabeth (daughter of 1st Earl Rivers Richard Woodville and Jacquetta de Luxembourg, Duchess of Bedford) was born in 1437 in Grafton Regis, Worcestershire, England; died on 8 Jun 1492 in Bermondsey Abbey, Surrey, England; was buried in Windsor, Berkshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

http://www.britannia.com/bios/ewoodville.html

Queen of Edward IV, daughter of Sir Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers, and Jacquetta, Duchess of Bedford, of the great house of Luxemburg, Elizabeth Woodville was probably born in 1437. Her first husband was Sir John Grey of Groby, a Lancastrian, who fell at St. Albans in 1461. By him she had two sons, Thomas and Richard, and it was when she was supplicating King Edward IV for the restoration of their estates that he fell in love with her.

Edward married her privately in 1464, and, when the marriage was declared at Reading Abbey (Berkshire), it at once provoked the hostility of the family of Neville, which had put Edward on the throne. The rivalry of the Nevilles with the Woodvilles soon succeeded to that of the Yorkists and Lancastrians, for Elizabeth was a greedy, unscrupulous woman who insisted on the King showering lands and wealth on all her relations.

She bore Edward numerous children, the first of whom was her eldest daughter, Elizabeth, afterwards Queen of Henry VII ; the best known were the 'Princes in the Tower,' Edward V and his brother, Richard, Duke of York, afterwards murdered, apparently, by their uncle, Richard III. The elder of these boys was born while Edward was in exile in 1470 and the Queen had 'taken sanctuary' at Westminster.

On the death of Edward IV the unpopularity of the whole Woodville family was at once manifest and the Queen had to take sanctuary again. The most extraordinary point in her career was reached when the wily Richard tempted her to come to his Court again and she went through some sort of reconciliation with him. Henry VII never trusted her and, in 1487, she went to reside in the nunnery at Bermondsey on a pension. The refoundation of Queens' College, Cambridge, in the beautiful gallery of which there is an authenticated portrait of her, is the only good thing recorded of her.

Edited from Emery Walker's "Historical Portraits" (1909).