Everything about Cecily Of York totally explained
Cecily of York (
March 20,
1469 -
August 24,
1507), was the third, but eventual second surviving, daughter of King
Edward IV of England and his
Queen consort, the former Lady
Elizabeth Woodville, daughter of
Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers.
Birth and Family
Cecily was born in
Westminster Palace. She was a younger sister of
Elizabeth of York and
Mary of York, and an older sister of
Edward V of England; Margaret of York;
Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York;
Anne of York;
George Plantagenet, Duke of Bedford;
Catherine of York; and
Bridget of York. She was a niece of
Richard III of England, senior sister-in-law of
Henry VII of England, an aunt of
Henry VIII of England, and a great-aunt of
Edward VI of England,
Mary I of England, and
Elizabeth I of England.
Reign of Edward IV
In
1474, Edward IV contacted a marriage alliance with
James III of Scotland, whereby Cecily was betrothed to the future
James IV of Scotland. Because of this she was for a time styled
Princess of Scots. This agreement was, however, unpopular in the
Kingdom of Scotland, and later military conflicts between Edward IV and James III negated the marriage arrangement.
With her older sisters, Cecily was present at the wedding of their brother the Duke of York in 1478. In
1480, Cecily was named a
Lady of the Garter, along with her next elder sister Mary.
In
1482, Cecily was betrothed to
Alexander Stewart, 1st Duke of Albany, the younger brother of James III, who had recently allied with her father and had personal ambitions for the Scottish throne. He was killed on
August 7,
1485, without the marriage having taken place, but the death of Edward IV in 1483 had already changed the marriage prospects for his daughters in any case.
Reign of Richard III
After the death of their uncle Richard's wife
Anne Neville, it was rumoured that Richard was considering marriage with one of his nieces. These rumours included Cecily, who was now the second eldest surviving daughter of Edward IV. According to Commines, only two of the elder daughters of Edward IV were declared illegitimate at the time that their younger brothers were excluded from the throne by the Act of
Titulus Regius.
Cecily was married to
Ralph Scrope of Upsall, a younger brother of
Thomas Scrope, 6th Baron Scrope of Masham, and a supporter of Richard, but the marriage was annulled on the accession of her future brother-in-law, Henry of Richmond, as King
Henry VII of England. Many published works fail to note this earlier, nullified, marriage. Years later, Cecily's discarded first husband succeeded another elder brother to the family barony becoming
Ralph Scrope, 9th Baron Scrope of Masham. He died circa 1515.
Reign of Henry VII of England
The Lancastrian claimant, Henry, Earl of Richmond, had announced at Rennes, France that he intended to unite the rival royal houses of Lancaster and York, by marrying a daughter of Edward IV, and thus bring to an end the conflicts of generations of descendants of
Edward III now known as the
Wars of the Roses. His first choice was
Elizabeth of York, the eldest of the late king's daughters, but had she died, Henry's marital intentions would have turned to Cecily herself, as he stated explicitly in his declaration.
In
1487, after the accession of
Henry VII of England, and his marriage to her older sister, Elizabeth, Cecily was married to a staunch Lancastrian nobleman,
John Welles, 1st Viscount Welles, the son of
Lionel Welles, 6th Lord Welles and
Margaret Beauchamp of Bletso. Her new husband was a maternal half-brother of
Lady Margaret Beaufort, and thus an uncle of the half-blood of Henry VII, and both by politics and blood, a royal
favourite.
Cecily played a role in various major royal ceremonies during the earlier years of Henry VII's reign, as befitted her position in the
Royal Family, as sister of a queen consort and sister-in-law of a king regnant. She carried her nephew,
Arthur, Prince of Wales, heir to the throne, at his christening; attended her sister Elizabeth of York at her coronation as queen consort; and bore the train of
Catherine of Aragon at her wedding to Prince Arthur. There is also a record of her lending money to her sister, the queen, in 1502.
Cecily, had three children, Robert, Elizabeth, and Anne Welles, Elizabeth and Anne both died young, and unmarried. Viscount Welles died on
February 9,
1499. Cecily's grief was considerable, and all the correct heraldic and religious honours were paid to her husband.
Despite her apparent mourning, some three years into her first widowhood, and having lost two of the children by her late husband, she contracted a marriage which has been described as being
rather for comfort than credit (see Fuller's
Worthies, vol. 2, p. 165). Cecily's third and final marriage, to
Thomas Kyme, Kymbe, or Keme, an obscure Lincolnshire squire, otherwise called Sir John Keme or Kene, of the Isle of Wight, took place sometime between May 1502 and January 1504. It is thought to have been a love match, entered into entirely from the princess's own liking.
Green states that she chose a partner to suit herself who was also someone so unthreatening as to be beneath the notice of the king or likely to arouse his jealousy. This wedding took place without the king's approval or permission. The princess appears to have miscalculated her brother-in-law's attitude. The king banished Cecily from court and all her estates were confiscated.
After the intervention of the king's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort, some of Cecily’s lands were restored. She was to enjoy only a lifetime interest in those remaining to her, and to have nothing to pass on to her husband, or to any children of their union.
Cecily lived out the balance of her life quietly, far from court. In the royal account books, there's a gap in the record of her final years. Existing details about her final years in this last marriage are scanty and conflicting. Two children, Richard and Margaret (or Margery) are mentioned in the enhanced copy, dated 1602, of the heraldic Visitation of Hampshire (1576) made by Smythe, Rouge Dragon pursuivant at the
College of Arms, indicates that they lived, married, and had offspring. The children of the princess and her last husband were granted no royal titles or styles, nor did they enjoy any royal favours, lands, or positions at court.
Death and Burial
Princess Cecily died in 1507, at the age of 38, only a few years after contracting her last marriage. She lived at East Standen in the Isle of Wight,
not in great wealth.
According to
Edward Hall's
Chronicle, she was buried in relative obscurity in
Quarr Abbey,
Isle of Wight. Horrox disputes this pointing to evidence from the Beaufort account books that states she died at
Hatfield,
Hertfordshire, after a three-week sojourn there, and was buried at a place that must have been local, known as 'the friars'. The writ of
diem clausit extremum, which supplies her death date, styles her as
late wife of John, late Viscount Wells, omitting any reference to her last husband or their children. If she was indeed buried in the precincts of Quarr Abbey, near her last home, then Cecily's tomb and any record of its precise location was lost when Quarr Abbey was destroyed during the Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries. Quarr's building materials were reused.
A stained glass portrait of Cecily, originally from a larger "royal window" depicting Edward IV's family is in the north transept of
Canterbury Cathedral, and another stained panel is now in Glasgow's
Burrell Collection. These are, along with another window in the parish church of
Little Malvern,
Worcestershire, her only surviving memorials.
Further Information
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