Lady Eleanor Talbot facts for kids

Lady Eleanor Talbot (c. 1436 – June 1468), also known by her married name Eleanor Butler (or Boteler), was an English noblewoman. She was a daughter of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury. After the death of Edward IV of England in 1483 it was claimed by Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, that she had had a legal precontract of marriage to Edward, which invalidated the king's later marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. According to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, this meant he, rather than Edward's sons, was the true heir to the throne. Richard took the crown (as Richard III) and imprisoned Edward's sons, who subsequently disappeared.

After the overthrow and death of Richard at the hands of Henry Tudor, the precontract alleged by Richard was presented as a fiction to justify Richard's usurpation of power and to cover his murder of the princes. Some historians have agreed with this view. Supporters of Richard, however, have argued that the precontract was real and that it legitimised his accession to the throne.

Known life

In 1449, 13-year-old Eleanor married Sir Thomas Butler (or Boteler), son of Ralph Boteler, Lord Sudeley. Thomas died at an unknown date before Edward IV of England's overthrow of the House of Lancaster on 4 March 1461. Her father-in-law Lord Sudeley took back one of the two manors he had settled on her and her husband when they married, even though he did not have a license for the transfer. Edward seized both properties after he became king.

Eleanor died in June 1468. She was buried on 30 June in Norwich.

Allegations

Edward IV, alleged to have precontracted marriage to Eleanor Talbot

After King Edward's death in 1483, his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was appointed protector to the as-yet-uncrowned king Edward V. Richard placed Edward and his younger brother in the Tower of London. He then proclaimed that they were illegitimate. According to the French chronicler Philippe de Commines he acted with the support of Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells. Stillington had been briefly imprisoned and fined for speaking out against Edward IV in 1478. Commines later wrote,

The bishop discovered to the Duke of Gloucester that his brother king Edward had been formerly in love with a beautiful young lady and had promised her marriage upon condition that he might lie with her; the lady consented, and, as the bishop affirmed, he married them when nobody was present but they two and himself. His fortune depending on the court, he did not discover it, and persuaded the lady likewise to conceal it, which she did, and the matter remained a secret.

Richard then persuaded Parliament to pass an act, Titulus Regius, which debarred Edward V from the throne and proclaimed himself as King Richard III. At a meeting held on 23 January 1484 the former king's marriage was declared illegal. The document states:

And howe also, that at the tyme of contract of the same pretensed Mariage, and bifore and longe tyme after, the seid King Edward was and stode maryed and trouth plight to oone Dame Elianor Butteler, Doughter of the old Earl of Shrewesbury, with whom the same King Edward had made a precontracte of Matrimonie, longe tyyme bifore he made the said pretensed Mariage with the said Elizabeth Grey, in maner and fourme abovesaid.

Opponents of Richard declared that the precontract was fiction. Richard's leading enemy, Henry Tudor, allied himself with Elizabeth Woodville, promising to re-legitimise her children if Richard was overthrown. After Henry's army defeated and killed Richard at the Battle of Bosworth Field on 22 August 1485, he came to the throne as Henry VII. He ordered the copy of Titulus Regius in parliamentary records to be destroyed, along with all others (one copy was later found to have survived).

Stillington later joined the rebellion of Lambert Simnel against Henry in 1487. He was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower until his death in 1491.

Possible issue

It was suggested that Eleanor had given birth to a child, possibly fathered by King Edward IV, shortly before her death.