Elizabeth Woodville a medieval queen consort. Her acts included making pilgrimages, obtaining a papal indulgence for those who knelt and said the Angelus three times per day, and founding the chapel of St. Erasmus in Westminster Abbey. Following Edward IV's sudden death, possibly from pneumonia, in April 1483, Elizabeth Woodville became queen dowager. Her young son, Edward V, became king, with his uncle, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, acting as Lord Protector. In response to the Woodvilles' attempt to monopolise power, Gloucester quickly moved to take control of the young king and had Anthony Woodville, 2nd Earl Rivers, and Richard Grey, brother and
Richard Woodville (died 1441) 1435), who followed his father as an administrator and politician. From at least 1268, the Woodville family had been tenants in the village of Grafton Regis, where they occupied the manor house next to the church, and had acquired lands in neighbouring parishes. According to Hasted, it was John Woodville who acquired the manor of Mote at Maidstone in Kent, which eventually came to Richard. By 1411 he was serving in France in the garrison of Guînes, then part of the English territory of the Pale of Calais, under the Duke of Clarence, King Henry V's brother. In 1415 and