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Home / People / Elizabeth Woodville

Historical person

Elizabeth Woodville

1437–1492

Elizabeth Woodville became queen of England after secretly marrying Edward IV in 1464. A widow from the Lancastrian-affiliated Grey family, she brought numerous Woodville relatives into royal marriages and offices, provoking resentment among established Yorkist nobles. After Edward’s death she took sanctuary while Richard III seized the throne and her sons disappeared. She later supported Henry Tudor’s invasion and the marriage that united her daughter Elizabeth of York with the new king.

Elizabeth is the protagonist of Philippa Gregory’s The White Queen and a major figure in Sharon Kay Penman’s The Sunne in Splendour. She appears throughout Wars of the Roses fiction as either an ambitious outsider advancing her family or a resourceful queen defending her children. Stories of witchcraft and secret marriage are especially attractive to novelists but derive largely from hostile political claims.

In non-fiction, Elizabeth Woodville is discussed in Dan Jones’s The Hollow Crown. Dan Jones’s The Hollow Crown approaches the subject through political ambition and government, family, marriage and personal loyalty, and court politics and dynastic power.

Historical context

Historical periods linked to Elizabeth Woodville

Wars of the Roses 1455–1487 CE

Series

Series featuring Elizabeth Woodville (7 series)

The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels in Order

by Philippa Gregory 16 books 4.4

The Plantagenet and Tudor novels form a chronological sequence of connected but independently readable stories about women near the English throne. They move from the Lancastrian court and the Wars of the Roses through the rise of the Tudors, Henry VIII’s marriages, the mid-Tudor religious crisis and the…

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Wars of the Roses in Order

by Conn Iggulden 4 books 4.4

The Wars of the Roses series follows the dynastic struggle from the weakness of Henry VI’s government through the rise of York, Edward IV’s victories and exiles, and the final contest between Richard III and Henry Tudor. The novels combine court politics with the major military turning points…

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Kathryn Swinbrooke Mysteries in Order

by Paul Doherty 7 books 4.4

The Kathryn Swinbrooke Mysteries follow a physician and apothecary working in Canterbury during the unsettled Yorkist years after the Wars of the Roses. Kathryn’s medical knowledge allows her to distinguish natural death from poisoning, injury and deliberate deception, while her independence brings her into investigations involving civic officials,…

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House of York in Order

by Amy Licence 2 books 4.4

The House of York series follows Edward of York from adolescence to kingship during the Wars of the Roses. It begins amid Henry VI’s recurring incapacity and Richard, Duke of York’s challenge to Lancastrian government, then traces the battles and family losses that bring the young Edward to…

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Tudor Dynasty in Order

by Joanna Hickson 2 books 4.3

The Tudor Dynasty sequence traces the family’s survival during the later Wars of the Roses. First of the Tudors centres on Jasper and Edmund Tudor, Margaret Beaufort and the protection of the young Henry Tudor after the collapse of Lancastrian power. The Tudor Crown continues with Henry in…

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Plantagenet Saga in Order

by Jean Plaidy 14 books 4.1

The Plantagenet Saga spans the dynasty from Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine to Richard III. Across fourteen novels, family rebellion, disputed succession, royal marriage and war connect the Angevin Empire, the conquest of Wales, conflict with Scotland, the Hundred Years’ War and the Wars of the Roses.

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New World Rising in Order

by Robyn Young 2 books 4.2

New World Rising follows the fictional half-brothers Jack Wynter and Harry Vaughan through the dynastic upheavals that ended Plantagenet rule and opened the early Tudor age. Sons of the Blood begins in 1483 with Edward IV’s death, the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower and Richard III’s…

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Standalone books

Standalone books featuring Elizabeth Woodville (4 books)

Non Fiction

Non Fiction featuring Elizabeth Woodville (1 book)

Biographies, histories and other non-fiction are listed separately from the historical novels above.