The Daily Mail is reporting that King Charles III may give his support to DNA testing on the bones that may belong to the two sons of King Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville: King Edward V (1470-1483) and Prince Richard, Duke of York (1473-1483). The two boys, the elder the rightful king of England, were most likely murdered on the orders of their uncle, Richard III.
What will be needed is the mDNA (mitochondrial DNA) passed through the female line, most likely through a descendant of King Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth's daughters.
They had four surviving daughters:
* Elizabeth of York: (1466-1503)
* Cecily of York (1469-1507)
* Anne of York (1475-1511)
* Katherine of York (1479-1527)
Elizabeth married Henry VII. They had two surviving daughters: Margaret (1489-1541) and Mary (1496-1533)
Margaret's first husband was King James IV of Scotland.
They had one surviving child, James V, who had one legitimate child, Mary, Queen of Scots. Margaret's second husband was Archibald Angus, 6th Earl of Angus. One child, a daughter, Margaret Douglas (1515-1577) married Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox. This marriage produced two sons: Henry, Lord Darnley (who married his first cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots), and Charles, 1st Earl of Lennox, the father of one daughter, Lady Arbella Stuart, by his wife, Elizabeth Cavendish, the daughter of Bess of Hardwick. Lady Arbella was married to William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset (a great-grandson of Princess Mary, Elizabeth of York's younger daughter.)
Princess Mary was married twice. Her first marriage to King Louis XII of France lasted less than a year. Her second marriage to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk was a love match.
The couple had two daughters: Lady Frances (1517-1559) and Lady Eleanor (1519-1547).
Lady Frances married Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk. This marriage produced three surviving daughters: Lady Jane (1537-1554), Lady Katherine (1540-1568), and Lady Mary (1545-1578).
Lady Jane succeeded her cousin Edward VI as Queen Jane. Her reign lasted for nine days. All three sisters married but the only sister to have descendants is Lady Katherine (by her second marriage to Edward Seymour (1st Earl of Hertford). The couple had two sons, Edward and Thomas. Edward's line is extant. Thomas's marriage was childless. Edward's descendants will not have the same mDNA as the Princes in the Tower due to male line descent from Katherine.
Lady Frances's only child by her second marriage to Adrian Stokes was a stillborn daughter, who was named Elizabeth.
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| This portrait is either Eleanor or her daughter, Lady Margaret |
Lady Eleanor Brandon was the wife of Henry Clifford, the 2nd Earl of Cumberland. They had one daughter, Margaret, who married Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Stanley. Four sons, no daughters. The second son Ferdinando, 5th Earl of Stanley, was the father of three daughters.
Cecily of York had two daughters, Elizabeth and Anne by her 2nd marriage to John Welles, 1st Viscount Welles, who was the maternal half-brother of Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII. Both girls died in childhood.
According to several sources, Cecily's third marriage to Thomas Kyme produced a daughter, Margaret (1503-1532), who married John Weatherby. Her biography in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography states that "There is disagreement over whether Cecily and Kyme also had children. The claim that they did seems to derive entirely from the later tradition that misidentifies Kyme as a gentleman of the Isle of Wight, and it is likely that the marriage was childless."
The third sister, Anne of York married in 1494/1495, to Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, later 2nd Duke of Norfolk (uncle of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard). Anne died young, and the couple had no surviving children.
Katherine of York was the first wife of William Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon. They had one daughter, Lady Margaret Courtenay (c1499-before 1526) who was the first wife of Henry Somerset, 2nd Earl of Worcester. This marriage was childless.
There are no surviving matrilineal lines of descent for the four married daughters of Edward VI and Elizabeth Woodville.
Elizabeth Woodville was the daughter of Richard Woodville and Jacquetta of Luxembourg. She had seven sisters, Anne, Jacquetta, Mary, Joan, Margaret, Martha, and Catherine. All married English nobles.
Elizabeth Roberts, a British opera singer, is a matrilineal descendant of Margaret Woodville and her husband, Thomas Fitzalan, the 10th earl of Arundel. The couple had two sons, William, the 11th Earl of Arundel and Edward, and two daughters, Margaret and Joan. Margaret married John de la Pole, 1st Earl of Lincoln who was the son of John de la Pole, 2nd Duke of Suffolk] and Elizabeth of York, who was the sixth child of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville.
John de la Pole was the nephew of Edward IV and Richard III. This marriage was childless.
The younger daughter, Joan, was the first wife of George Nevill, 5th Baron Bergavenny. They had two daughters, Elizabeth (who married Henry Daubeney, 1st Earl of Bridgewater) and Jane (the wife of Henry Pole, 1st Baron Montagu.
Elizabeth's marriage was childless. Joan was the mother of two sons and two daughters, Catherine and Winifred. Catherine married Francis, the 2nd Earl of Huntington. They had eleven children, including five daughters. Winifred was married twice. She had two sons and one daughter by her second marriage to Sir Thomas Barrington.
8 comments:
How was the identity of Richard III established? Wasn’t it though a descendant of one of his sisters?
Jacquetta's grandchildren were Stanleys. Perhaps there is a female descendant there.
Start working on it
Donna, Yes, through his sister Anne of York
I have read in another piece of news that Elizabeth Roberts is a descendant of Margaret Woodville.
Lady Jane was the niece to Edward, one Generation down.
Cu
Andrea
Lady Jane Grey was the first cousin of Edward VI, son of Henry VIII. Her grandmother, Princess Mary was the niece of Edward V
Actually Andrea is partly right. It was Lady Frances Brandon who was first cousins with Edward VI.
Henry VII - Henry VIII - Edward VI
Henry VII - Princess Mary - Lady Frances
Lady Jane was indeed one generation down from being his first cousin, which can sometimes be colloquially referred to as a nephew/niece/nibling, but is actually a first cousin once removed.
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