Elizabeth Woodville, Countess Rivers Elizabeth Woodville, Countess Rivers Elizabeth Woodville, Countess Rivers and 8th Baroness Scales (died 2 September 1473), born Elizabeth de Scales, was the sole heir of Thomas Scales, 7th Baron Scales. Elizabeth first married Henry Bourchier (d. 1462), second son of Henry Bourchier, 1st Earl of Essex. Her second marriage to Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers produced no children. The earl was a sibling of Elizabeth Woodville, queen consort of Edward IV. He became Lord Scales in his wife's right, and was summoned to Parliament by that title. After Elizabeth died in 1473, Anthony married a daughter of Henry FitzLewis named
Elizabeth Woodville she was forced to yield pre-eminence to Henry's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, and her influence on events in these years, and her eventual departure from court into retirement, remains obscure. Elizabeth Woodville was born about 1437, possibly in October, at Grafton Regis, Northamptonshire. She was the first-born child of a socially unequal marriage between Sir Richard Woodville and Jacquetta of Luxembourg, which briefly scandalised the English court. The Woodvilles, though an old and respectable family, were gentry rather than noble, a landed and wealthy family that had previously produced commissioners of the peace, sheriffs, and MPs rather than peers of