#it's actually quite credible. considering we know that she did claim *she* loved henry more than catherine

[richmond-rex]

I don't buy that Richard III wanted to marry Elizabeth in the first place though. It would completely delegitimise his own claim to kingship, not to mention he was planning to marry her off to the Duke of Beja (possibly to get her out of England?), and I do think that whilst the Croyland Chronicle is much more objective than say, More and Vergil, it's still quite anti-Ricardian and has a tendency to report rumour as fact. I do agree that Ricardians portraying EoY as madly in love with him is pretty offensive to her, and seems to be part of their whole 'blame the women' mentality.

Hi! Yeah, sorry if I didn't express myself very well. My intention was to tell what Croyland had said i.e.: what was the mentality of the time regarding Richard's intentions. I don't know if we can call the continuator of the Croyland Chronicle anti-Ricardian though it is accepted that he was definitely pro-Edward IV — given the context of Richard's usurpation and the continuator's liking for Edward IV perhaps it is natural that he would be critical of Richard III. But there were other chroniclers at the time commenting on the rumours as well, for example, the writer of The Great Chronicle of London recorded: “After Easter, much whispering was among the people that the King had poisoned the queen his wife, and intended with a license purchased to have married the eldest daughter of King Edward. Which rumors and sayings with other things before done caused him to fall in great hatred of his subjects.” The version that reached Henry Tudor in France was one where Richard had already married Elizabeth (news that 'pinched Henry by the very stomach').

I'm interested in what people thought about it, I don't know if Richard III actually wanted to marry his niece. Certain scholars like Rosemary Horrox and A. J. Pollard think he really did consider marrying Elizabeth before opting for another course of action. It can't be denied that he was engaged in active negotiations with Portugal by the time of his death — those didn't involve Elizabeth of York necessarily (it involved 'a daughter of King Edward IV'), though it makes sense that people think she was the one intended. Every scholar seems to agree that marrying Elizabeth would have been an unsound political decision and if the continuator is to be believed in the following aspect at least, so did Richard's advisors. In the Croyland narration, it doesn't matter if Richard really wanted to marry his niece, he was perceived as such and his advisors refuted the idea with every argument they had. Besides citing that the North would turn against him in sympathy for Anne Neville, the continuator mentions that they brought him “more than twelve Doctors of Divinity, who asserted that the pope could grant no dispensation in the case of such a degree of consanguinity”.

It's a rather specific detail that, like many others involved in the continuator's narration, adds to his credibility as a recorder. A marginal note transcribed from the MS lets us know that he was a doctor of canon law and a member of the king's council, who, according to himself, was sent by Edward IV as his envoy to the Duke of Burgundy at Abbeville. Of course, he had personal biases that influenced how he narrated the events. That the continuator implies that he himself believed in the rumour is not so important; what's important is that he lets us know that other people believed in it. Personally, I don't know if Richard wanted to marry Elizabeth and I'm not really interested in wondering at his personal feelings, motivations or thoughts in this matter, though I understand that there are people who are 🌹x