Jacquetta of Luxembourg of Anjou. At Towton, however, the tables turned in favour of the Yorkists. Edward IV met and soon married the widowed Elizabeth Woodville in secret; though the date is not accepted as exactly accurate, it is traditionally said to have taken place (with only Jacquetta and two ladies in attendance) at the Woodville family home in Northamptonshire on 1 May 1464. Elizabeth was crowned queen on 26 May 1465. The marriage, once revealed, ruined the plans of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, Edward's cousin, who had been negotiating a much-needed alliance with France via a political marriage for Edward. With
Elizabeth Woodville to the throne with any degree of validity. To strengthen his claim and unite the two feuding noble houses, Elizabeth Woodville and Margaret Beaufort agreed that the latter's son should marry the former's eldest daughter, Elizabeth of York, who upon the death of her brothers became the heiress of the House of York. Henry Tudor agreed to this plan and in December 1483 publicly swore an oath to that effect in the cathedral in Rennes, France. A month earlier, an uprising in his favour, led by Buckingham, had been crushed. Richard III's first Parliament of January 1484 stripped Elizabeth of