American Moonchild

As for why ... barely any historians are even aware of Elizabeth's position as councillor, and the few who are never emphasize or explore it the way that they should, so it's not like there's been a great deal of analysis on it. But we can speculate.

J.L. Laynesmith has suggested that Elizabeth may have been given an official position partly to compensate her for comparatively reduced dower compared to her Lancastrian predecessors. However, since earlier 14th century queens with similar dowers to Elizabeth were never appointed to such positions, nor were Lancastrian queens when their comparatively larger dowers proved largely insufficient to reach the 10,000 marks of income they were promised, and since we know that Elizabeth was given numerous grants in the late 1460s and 1470s which would have significantly increased her income, this theory is too contrived to take seriously.

Another theory I've seen is that Elizabeth was given a formal position to ensure that her authority wouldn't get challenged/questioned because of her unsuitable origins compared to her predecessors. I find this even more unlikely. For one, we already know that Elizabeth's authority was believed to be respected, as she was sent to preside over the commission of trials in Hereford with her infant son until Edward IV himself arrived. For another, Elizabeth was literally working with her own family: her brother Anthony, her cousin Richard Haute, her son Richard Gray, and several other Woodville associates. Why on earth would either she or Edward worry that her authority would be questioned by her own relatives, who we know obeyed her and worked alongside her in several other matters? It's ... very, very illogical to me. Moreover, if they believed Elizabeth's authority would be questioned, what was the point of appointing her to the council in the first place? Her presence would then be a liability for Edward V, so unless anyone is trying to argue that both she and Edward IV were actively trying to sabotage their own son's administration, it makes no sense to go by this interpretation. After all, queens (and women in general) in in late medieval England were not expected to have these kinds of governing positions; absolutely no one would have expected or wanted Elizabeth to have them. It would have been easy for her to have been involved in a far more informal and limited way, as other queens had been, or at most to have some recognized influence in the "normal functioning of an otherwise normal institution" (Helen Maurer) comprised only of men, as had been the case for Margaret of Anjou. But Elizabeth's role went far beyond that and was far more unconventional, as she was made part of the institution herself, in her own right. I fail to understand why on earth Edward IV would have done this if he and Elizabeth thought she didn't have the authority see it through? The opposite makes infinitely more sense to me: the fact that Elizabeth was formally appointed in these councils reflects the extent of her influence and Edward's respect for her (clearly considerable) abilities.

I think Elizabeth's appointment was most probably linked to Edward IV's wider landed policy: "throughout his reign he encouraged the formation of regional power bases for his most trusted supporters" (Horrox). According to Gunn, "they acted like traditional magnates. But they were visibly the king's men. Their position represented a clear shift in the previous balance between royal power and that generated by noble status and landed wealth". Edward's appointment of Elizabeth to their sons' councils seems to have followed a similar pattern - "his wife's close involvement with the Welsh administration would enable him to maintain such personal influence even here" (Laynesmith). This theory can be supported by looking at the wider context. One, as I mentioned, Elizabeth's position as a councillor and administrator for Prince Edward was not an isolated incident; she was also part of her second son Richard of Shrewsbury's council in 1478 and was named one of his feoffees. Clearly, then, Elizabeth's close involvement in their sons' administration was part of a deliberate strategy from the royal couple. Moreover, during Edward's second reign, Horrox has observed that Elizabeth's interest in East Anglia was regarded as "the main instrument of royal authority there", accompanied by territorial readjustments for her favor by 1475. This coincided with the buildup of power bases for Edward's supporters, particularly his brother Richard of Gloucester, and does suggest Elizabeth's appointment was keeping up with that broader policy.

However, whatever Edward's potential "reasons" may have been*, it does not change how remarkable Elizabeth's appointment was. Not only was there no precedent in late medieval England for such a thing, but precedent was also actively against it - while queenship was an inherently political position, institutional sexism did prevent virtually all queens after Eleanor of Provence from holding formal positions in matters of state beyond their queenship (regent, councillor, Protector) that their male counterparts were readily given; Elizabeth's appointment seems to stand out as the singular exception**. Moreover, it was completely unnecessary from a practical standpoint - considering Edward could and did appoint several other several other family members, magnates and councillors (including Elizabeth's brother, Anthony) as administrators, there was no real need for Elizabeth to be included as well. Nor could it have been prompted by external circumstances, as the Yorkists were the most secure in 1471 than they ever had been since their usurpation in 1461. Ultimately, at the end of the day, Elizabeth's position as councillor comes down to Edward's respect/regard for her capabilities and does say something about the influence she must have had as queen.

The reason I tend to emphasize Elizabeth's appointment in councils so much is because it's been almost completely overlooked in scholarly/popular histories as well as general commentaries of this time period. And that's not even getting into all the additional powers that she and others from the council were given, which have certainly never been acknowledged in scholarship at all. It's absolutely bizarre to me, given how much it would enhance our understanding of not just Elizabeth's life or Edward IV's reign but also late medieval English queenship as a whole. Currently, it makes the majority of relevant history books very jarring to read - on one hand, you have historians like Helen Maurer and Lisa Benz emphasizing the impossibility of queens holding formal positions of authority in governance (in Benz's case, acting as though it didn't make much of a difference in a way that entirely erases/downplays institutional sexism of that time period (after all, there's a wealth of difference between Isabella of France carrying out informal diplomatic missions to France and Catherine of Aragon being formally named the first female ambassador in Europe)), and on the other hand, you have some of Elizabeth Woodville's historians casually mentioning her formal appointment as a councillor and moving on with zero awareness of just how unique and remarkable that was.

Of course, most historians (A.J Pollard, Lynda Pidgeon, Flora Croce, Carolyn Anne Donohue, Alexander R. Brondarbit, etc) don't seem to be aware of Elizabeth's appointments at all. Not only is it unfair to Elizabeth and her own queenship, but it also weakens their overall analysis and leads to false and entirely distorted conclusions.

AJ Pollard's conclusion was without a doubt the most ridiculous - he claimed that Elizabeth “played virtually no part in politics until after Edward IV's death and was content to play the conventional supportive role of queen and mother ... [she] was not an active or influential political figure at court.” This is a classic case of trying to "defend" Elizabeth by diminishing her, and simultaneously manages to ignore 1) the inherently active and political nature of queenship, 2) the fact that Elizabeth did seem to have the most personal influence with Edward, 3) the fact her position as a councillor meant that she did have an elevated and unusually powerful political role well beyond the norm for late medieval queens. It speaks of Pollard's own lack of research and consideration for Elizabeth, imho.

Similarly, Lynda Pidgeon claimed that "Elizabeth’s influence with Edward IV was less than with family members who were part of the king’s council or that of her son, Edward, Prince of Wales". I've spoken more about some of the things Pidgeon has said here, but to repeat - we already know Elizabeth had considerably more influence with Edward IV than her family did. Even if we ignore that, it makes no sense to claim that Elizabeth's influence was less than her family members who were part of royal councils because she herself was part of the Prince of Wales's council. Elizabeth - not her family, not Richard of Gloucester, not Hastings - headed the list. Even in the hypothetical scenario where Elizabeth wasn't appointed to such positions, it cannot be used to judge her or any other queen's influence, because late medieval queens of England weren't given or expected to have these formal political positions in the first place (which does not change the fact that queenship was an important "office" with the potential for immense influence). In itself, the lack of such positions would have said nothing about any queen's personal influence and everything about the institutional sexism of their time. But as it so happens, we know that Elizabeth was unusually and remarkably appointed to councils, so Pidgeon's statement is doubly ridiculous where she specifically is concerned.

A few historians (Laynesmith, Katherine J. Lewis, etc) and blogs also tend to frame Elizabeth's marriage and queenship as a direct response to Margaret of Anjou's. I want to make a separate post discussing (ie: debunking) this because it is truly bizarre, but to summarize - it is sometimes claimed that Edward wanted to marry Elizabeth partly because she was not "unconventional" like the perceived image of Margaret, and that Margaret's increasing assumption of power in the late 1450s (which is in itself ambiguous and uncertain, btw) may have limited the influence Elizabeth could wield as queen. Neither of these makes any sense, and both do a major disservice to Elizabeth and her own unique circumstances. We don't know what Elizabeth was like as an individual, so the first point is based purely on wish-fulfilling speculation, but at any rate, it is illogical to the extreme to claim that Edward was actively trying to avoid marrying a woman perceived as controversial when he literally chose to marry a woman "whose origins broke all established conventions of English queenship" in a clandestine ceremony and then insisted on crowning her "against the will of all his lords". It is equally illogical to claim that Margaret's power could have resulted in a diminishment of Elizabeth's when Elizabeth was literally given more political authority during her queenship than Margaret had during hers; she was given exactly the kind of formal positions in governance that Margaret lacked (/was denied), via her appointment to councils. There was demonstrably no diminishment going on - on the contrary, we know that Elizabeth was an unusually powerful queen. Moreover, I find the double standards here very frustrating. If you (generally speaking) want to claim that Yorkist attacks against Henry VI and Margaret would have affected Elizabeth's queenship and marriage to Edward, then you have to - by default - accept Ian Mortimer's claim that Henry V's attack against his own stepmother Joan of Navarre would have affected Catherine of Valois's queenship and marriage to Henry. Most people I've seen rightfully disagree with Mortimer and find him ridiculous, so I don't understand why the exact same line of reasoning is applied to Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville (for whom it is even more illogical) other than blatant historical double standards***. To claim such things about Elizabeth is to disregard literally everything about her own life and very unusual circumstances to make the discussion revolve entirely around Margaret of Anjou instead, for no reason. It also goes without saying that it's a profoundly stupid argument that relies on hypothetical fantasy "what ifs" about what could have potentially happened (or perhaps what you wish had happened, which seems to be the case here...) rather than looking at actual evidence to see what actually did or did not happen.

Even texts that deal with wider topics during this time period can sometimes be weakened by their failure to include/emphasize Elizabeth's position in councils. For example, Alexander R. Brondarbit wrote a book literally titled Power-brokers and the Yorkist State, 1461-1485, with an entire chapter focusing on women, and yet never even mentioned (let alone explored) Elizabeth's remarkable political role; this led to his generally well-researched work seeming somewhat incomplete as a result. (In general, I found it odd that the individual woman this book seems to have spent the most time analyzing was Margaret of Anjou; meanwhile, Elizabeth - the one who surely should have been at the forefront, as the Yorkist queen? - was generally discussed only as part of a collective, grouped-together with others such as her family, Cecily Neville and her sisters-in-law. This imbalance and lack of individual interest for Elizabeth is pretty common in scholarship, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating/unfair). Likewise, Carolyn Anne Donohue's thesis on Yorkist England claimed that "women were not entrusted with offices of state or position in the localities, as the men at the centre of the regime were". Generally speaking, this was true across most kings' reigns in medieval England: as I said, institutional sexism did exist and did affect women's scope of activities; it does no one any favors to deny or diminish it. But in the context of Yorkist England, which was Donohue's topic of discussion in her thesis, this statement is objectively incorrect: Edward IV (unusually for late medieval kings) did entrust his queen with official positions of exactly that type during his second reign, and it does not do scholarship any favours to ignore or remain ignorant of it.

What I'm trying to point out is that the absence of this in most books about Elizabeth isn't just a small quibble or minor gap of information. Her appointment to councils was a central and remarkable aspect of Elizabeth's queenship; overlooking it has either completely warped most historians' analyses about her or rendered them deeply incomplete. It has also clearly affected the way historians analyze her time period as a whole.

There's also something to be said about how, in the gendered binary through which scholarship on English monarchies desires to operate, both Elizabeth's negative archetypes (a femme fatale, ambitious intriguer, grasping social-climber, irrational/hysterical woman, dominant wife, bad mother, literal spell-casting witch, etc) and her far rarer and more limited "positive" archetypes (a mater dolorosa, very arguably a romantic heroine, although these can also be very dismissive/dehumanizing at times) are both regarded as very "feminine" in nature. In other words, Elizabeth is almost always defined by her subversive/threatening or - more rarely - conforming femininity, not by an assumption of masculinity. It's worth considering how that plays a role in how people perceive her. In this particular case, I think it's too damn Convenient that the narrative historians and commentors are infinitely more willing to accept is the one where Elizabeth schemed behind-the-scenes to surround her son with her family in order to enrich the Woodvilles and indirectly influence events through them, rather than the actual historic truth that she herself was part of that traditionally male institution, that her position was explicitly officialized rather than behind-the-scenes, and that she really did have an elevated ("exceptional") political role. It's just something to think about, both when it comes to this and how Elizabeth is generally perceived in other capacities.

*I've always thought it's Odd™ how people's first reaction to hearing of Elizabeth's elevated role is to repeatedly try and rationalize/justify it rather than just ... accept it. It stands in stark contrast to how invented political roles for so many other late medieval royal women are readily accepted for no reason. Most people are fully willing to accept the false idea of Isabella of France, Philippa of Hainault or Joan of Navarre being appointed as regents (they weren't), or that Margaret of Anjou had far more political authority than she actually did (the whole point of the late 1450s was that Margaret had to use traditional channels of power already available to her as queen ... and even then, we know that Henry VI was independently active - for example, he was the one who reconciled Nicholas ap Gruffydd to the crown, a move that has been erroneously credited to Margaret by historians even though there's no evidence that she was involved - if not especially effective for the most part, so the nature and extent of Margaret's undoubtedly active role has to remain ambiguous). I find Margaret Beaufort especially relevant here because her extensive judicial role during Henry VII's reign is, unlike the examples above, genuinely accurate (although her role in the North specifically seems to have been informal given her lack of official positions and absence from patent rolls + commissions). In particular, it's interesting how nobody rushes to rationalize Margaret's role or think of "reasons" for Henry giving his mother the authority that he did, even though, I would argue, a case could be made that her role was perhaps prompted by external circumstances (specifically the fact that Henry VII lacked male relatives apart from his uncle Jasper, who was already focused on Wales). Instead, Margaret's role is automatically and rightfully viewed a sign of her influence, her importance, and Henry's immense respect for her. So why isn't Edward IV's appointment Elizabeth be viewed in the same way, if not more so, given the fact that Elizabeth's appointment chronologically came first? After all, Edward himself stated that Elizabeth was the one "in whom we singularly place our trust" and even the pro-Yorkist Croyland Croyland believed that he could be "too greatly influenced" by her - so why is it so difficult to accept that he did really empower her in a truly unusual way and that it is truly reflective of her influence?

**It's clear that no 15th century queen save Elizabeth was given such formal positions. It doesn't seem as though any queen in the 14th century was given such positions either - I'm not as well-versed there so I can't say for certain, but there is no mention of any such appointments in any book and Lisa Benz's Three Medieval Queens affirmed the same. Likewise, it's clear that neither of Edward I's wives ever had the kind of additional formal political positions that his mother Eleanor of Provence had been given.