Elizabeth of York take Richard with him, so the boy could reside in the Tower and keep his brother Edward company. Elizabeth Woodville, under duress, eventually agreed. Two months later, on 22 June 1483, Edward IV's marriage was declared invalid. It was claimed that Edward IV had, at the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, already been betrothed to Lady Eleanor Butler. Parliament issued a bill, "Titulus Regius" ("The Title of the King"), in support of this position. This measure legally bastardised the children of Edward IV, made them ineligible for the succession, and declared Gloucester the rightful king, with the right
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