Elizabeth Woodville for his mother-in-law", despite the fact that the simplicity was the queen dowager's own wish. Elizabeth was laid to rest in the same chantry as her husband King Edward IV in St George's Chapel in Windsor Castle. Edward IV's love for his wife is celebrated in sonnet 75 of Philip Sidney's "Astrophel and Stella". (written by 1586, first pub. 1591). She appears in two of Shakespeare's plays: "Henry VI Part 3" (written by 1592), in which she is a fairly minor character, and "Richard III" (written approx. 1592), where she has a central role. Shakespeare portrays Elizabeth as a proud
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