Public Family Trees/Tudor/Elizabeth Woodville

Queen consort of England

Elizabeth Woodville

ยท Female ยท Grafton Regis, Northamptonshire, England

2

Generation

0

Ancestors

20

Descendants

1

Children

1

Marriages

Biography

Elizabeth Woodville was queen of England as the wife of Edward IV and the maternal grandmother of Henry VIII. Born at Grafton Regis in Northamptonshire around 1437 to Sir Richard Woodville and Jacquetta of Luxembourg, she was a widow with two young sons when she married the king in secret in 1464, an unprecedented match with an English subject that startled the court and brought her large family rapid advancement. Shโ€ฆ

Life Timeline

Family

Married Edward IV Plantagenet

A partnership that connects two branches of the Tudor family.

Next Generation

Family line continues

1 child recorded in this branch.

Legacy

Queen consort of England

A defining role in the story of the Tudor family.

Died1492

Died

The close of a life whose connections continue through the family record.

Your turn

Map your own family the way Elizabeth's is mapped

Free, with no sign-up to start. Add yourself, then your parents and grandparents, and watch the tree grow.

Private by default. Export to GEDCOM any time.

More people in the Tudor family tree

View all 51 people
Passed on
๐Ÿ‘ฉ

Catherine of Valois

Gen 1 ยท 1401 - 1437

Catherine of Valois was a French princess who became queen of England as the wife of Henry V and, by her second marriage, the grandmother of Henry VII. Born in Paris in 1401, the youngest daughter of Charles VI of France and Isabeau of Bavaria, she was married to Henry V in 1420 under the Treaty of Troyes, which was meant to settle the Hundred Years' War by making her husband heir to the French throne. Their only child succeeded as Henry VI of England at the age of nine months. Widowed at twenty, Catherine formed a lasting union with Owen Tudor, a Welshman of her household, and their sons Edmund and Jasper Tudor grew up under the protection of their royal half-brother. She died in 1437 and was buried at Westminster Abbey.

Gen 1View record โ†’
Passed on
๐Ÿ‘จ

John Beaufort

Gen 1 ยท 1404 - 1444

John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, was an English nobleman and soldier of the Lancastrian royal house and the father of Lady Margaret Beaufort. Born in 1404, he was a grandson of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, through Gaunt's marriage to Katherine Swynford, whose children were legitimated by parliament but later barred from the succession by a clause of doubtful authority. Captured in France as a young man at the Battle of Bauge, he spent some seventeen years as a prisoner of war before being ransomed. He was created Duke of Somerset in 1443 and given command of an expensive expedition to France that achieved nothing and ended in his disgrace at court. He died in 1444, leaving his infant daughter Margaret as his heiress and, through her, the Tudor line.

Gen 1View record โ†’
Passed on
๐Ÿ‘จ

Richard Plantagenet

Gen 1 ยท 1411 - 1460

Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, was the English magnate whose claim to the throne opened the Wars of the Roses and whose sons became Edward IV and Richard III. Born in 1411, he inherited vast estates and a double descent from Edward III, through his father Richard of Conisburgh and his mother Anne Mortimer. He served as the king's lieutenant in France and in Ireland and twice as Lord Protector during the incapacity of Henry VI, pressing his case against the court party led by Queen Margaret of Anjou. In October 1460 parliament recognised him as heir to the throne in place of the king's son, but he died at the Battle of Wakefield that December. Through his granddaughter Elizabeth of York his blood passed into the Tudor line.

Gen 1View record โ†’
Passed on
๐Ÿ‘ฉ

Margaret Beaufort

Gen 2 ยท 1443 - 1509

Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, was the mother of Henry VII and the source of the Lancastrian claim that put the Tudors on the English throne. Born at Bletsoe Castle in Bedfordshire in 1443, the only surviving child of John Beaufort, 1st Duke of Somerset, she was a great-granddaughter of John of Gaunt. Married to Edmund Tudor at twelve and widowed within a year, she gave birth to her only child at Pembroke Castle in 1457. Through the Yorkist decades she worked steadily for her exiled son's cause, helping to arrange the understanding with the Woodvilles that preceded Bosworth. As the king's mother she was a formidable landowner, a patron of printing and learning, and the founder of Christ's College and St John's College, Cambridge. She died in 1509.

Gen 2View record โ†’
Passed on
๐Ÿ‘จ

George Plantagenet

Gen 2 ยท 1449 - 1478

George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, was an English prince of the House of York, a younger brother of Edward IV and Richard III and the father of Margaret Pole. Born at Dublin Castle in 1449 while his father served as the king's lieutenant in Ireland, he was created Duke of Clarence at his brother's coronation in 1461. In 1469 he married Isabel Neville, elder daughter of the Earl of Warwick, and joined his father-in-law's rebellion against the king before changing sides again and being reconciled. Relations with Edward IV broke down once more after Isabel's death, and he was attainted by parliament and died in the Tower of London in February 1478. His daughter Margaret carried the Plantagenet bloodline into the Tudor century.

Gen 2View record โ†’
Passed on
๐Ÿ‘จ

Henry VII Tudor

Gen 3 ยท 1457 - 1509

Henry VII was the first Tudor king of England, reigning from 1485 to 1509 after defeating Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field. Born at Pembroke Castle in 1457, the posthumous son of Edmund Tudor and Lady Margaret Beaufort, he spent most of his youth in exile in Brittany and France in the care of his uncle Jasper Tudor. His marriage to Elizabeth of York in January 1486 joined the rival houses of Lancaster and York and produced the combined red and white rose that became the dynasty's badge. He suppressed a series of pretenders, restored the crown's finances through close personal control of revenue and a formidable network of bonds, and married his children into the ruling houses of Spain and Scotland. He died at Richmond Palace in 1509.

Gen 3View record โ†’
Passed on
๐Ÿ‘ฉ

Margaret Pole

Gen 3 ยท 1473 - 1541

Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, was an English noblewoman and one of the last of the House of Plantagenet, a first cousin of Elizabeth of York and for many years a trusted figure at the court of Henry VIII. Born in 1473 to George, Duke of Clarence, and Isabel Neville, she was married to Sir Richard Pole, a loyal servant of Henry VII, and bore five children, among them Cardinal Reginald Pole. Henry VIII restored her to the earldom of Salisbury in her own right in 1513, a rare distinction for a woman, and appointed her governess to Princess Mary, to whom she remained devoted through the years of Mary's disgrace. Her family's opposition to the king's religious policy brought her attainder in 1539 and her death at the Tower of London in 1541.

Gen 3View record โ†’
Passed on
๐Ÿ‘จ

James V Stewart

Gen 5 ยท 1512 - 1542

James V was king of Scots from 1513 to 1542, the son of James IV and Margaret Tudor and the father of Mary, Queen of Scots. Born at Linlithgow Palace in 1512, he succeeded before his second birthday and spent his minority under a succession of regents and, from 1525, in the custody of his stepfather the Earl of Angus, from whom he escaped in 1528 to rule in his own right. He rebuilt royal finances, kept Scotland aligned with France and with Rome against the reformation pursued by his uncle Henry VIII, and remodelled the palaces of Falkland and Stirling in the new Renaissance style. His first wife, Madeleine of Valois, died soon after their marriage; his second, Mary of Guise, bore him a daughter six days before his own death at Falkland Palace in December 1542.

Gen 5View record โ†’
Passed on
๐Ÿ‘ฉ

Margaret Douglas

Gen 5 ยท 1515 - 1578

Lady Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lennox, was an English and Scottish noblewoman, the daughter of Margaret Tudor and the Earl of Angus and the grandmother of James VI and I. Born at Harbottle Castle in Northumberland in October 1515 while her mother was in flight from Scotland, she was brought up largely at the English court as a favoured niece of Henry VIII and a close companion of Princess Mary. She was twice imprisoned for making marriage arrangements without royal consent before marrying Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, in 1544. Her persistent dynastic manoeuvring secured the marriage of her son Lord Darnley to Mary, Queen of Scots, uniting the two strongest claims to the English succession. She died in London in 1578.

Gen 5View record โ†’
Passed on
๐Ÿ‘ฉ

Mary I Tudor

Gen 5 ยท 1516 - 1558

Mary I was queen of England and Ireland from 1553 to 1558, the first woman to rule the kingdom in her own right. Born at Greenwich in 1516, the only surviving child of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, she was declared illegitimate after her parents' marriage was annulled and spent years separated from her mother and out of favour at court. Restored to the succession by her father's will in 1544, she took the throne in 1553 with wide popular support after the attempt to install Lady Jane Grey collapsed within days. She married Philip II of Spain in 1554 and devoted her reign to restoring papal authority and Catholic worship in England, a campaign whose severity against Protestants dominated her later reputation. She died childless at St James's Palace in November 1558.

Gen 5View record โ†’
Passed on
๐Ÿ‘ฉ

Jane Grey

Gen 6 ยท 1537 - 1554

Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen of England in July 1553 and held the throne for nine days, the shortest reign in English history. Born at Bradgate Park in Leicestershire in 1537, the eldest daughter of Henry Grey and Frances Brandon and a great-granddaughter of Henry VII, she was among the best-educated women of her generation, reading Latin and Greek and corresponding with continental reformers; the scholar Roger Ascham left a famous account of finding her reading Plato while her family hunted. In May 1553 she was married to Lord Guildford Dudley, and on the death of Edward VI she was named queen under his device for the succession. Support collapsed within days in favour of Mary I. She died at the Tower of London in February 1554, aged about seventeen.

Gen 6View record โ†’

Related Family Stories

Habsburg Family Tree - The House of Habsburg

The House of Habsburg was one of the most powerful royal dynasties in European history, ruling Austria from 1282, supplying almost every Holy Roman Emperor between 1438 and the empire's dissolution in 1806, and reigning over Spain and its overseas empire from 1516 to 1700. Named for a castle in what is now Switzerland, the family rose from modest Swabian counts to sovereigns of lands stretching from the Danube to the Andes, and its senior line ended only in 1918 with the fall of Austria-Hungary. ## Origins The dynasty takes its name from Habsburg Castle in the Aargau, in present-day Switzerland, held by a family of counts with scattered lands in Swabia and Alsace. Its fortunes changed in 1273, when the prince-electors chose Rudolf I as King of the Romans after a long interregnum. Rudolf defeated Ottokar II of Bohemia in 1278, took the duchies of Austria and Styria, and granted them to his sons, moving the family's centre of gravity permanently to Vienna. Two centuries later the marriage of Maximilian I to Mary of Burgundy, and of their son Philip the Handsome to Joanna of Castile, converted a regional Alpine power into a continental one within a single generation. ## Notable members Charles V inherited Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, Naples and the Spanish Americas, and on his abdication in 1556 divided them: Spain and the Low Countries to his son Philip II, the Austrian lands and the imperial title to his brother Ferdinand I. The Spanish branch ran from Philip II through Philip III and Philip IV to Charles II, whose death in 1700 without an heir set off the War of the Spanish Succession. The Austrian branch ran from Ferdinand I through Ferdinand II and Ferdinand III to Charles VI, whose daughter Maria Theresa became the only woman to rule the Habsburg lands in her own right. Her marriage to Francis I Stephen of Lorraine founded the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, which produced Joseph II, Leopold II, Marie Antoinette, Francis II, and the long-reigning Franz Joseph I. ## Significance For six centuries the Habsburgs shaped the map of Europe less by conquest than by marriage, holding together a multilingual realm of Germans, Hungarians, Czechs, Poles, Italians, Croats and others under a single crown. They led the Counter-Reformation, halted Ottoman expansion at Vienna in 1683, and gave Europe both the Thirty Years' War and the Congress system that followed Napoleon. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 triggered the First World War, and the abdication of Charles I in 1918 ended Habsburg rule. | Fact | Details | | --- | --- | | Founder of the royal line | Rudolf I of Habsburg, King of the Romans from 1273 | | Family seat | Habsburg Castle, Aargau; later Vienna, Graz and Madrid | | Height of power | Charles V (1500 to 1558), ruler of Spain, the Netherlands, Austria, Naples and Spanish America | | Spanish line | Philip II to Charles II, 1556 to 1700 | | Austrian line | Ferdinand I to Charles VI, 1521 to 1740 | | Habsburg-Lorraine | From Maria Theresa and Francis I Stephen, 1736 onward | | Last reigning monarch | Charles I of Austria, who left government in 1918 | | Principal titles | Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of Austria, King of Spain, Hungary and Bohemia |

40 people

Bachchan Family Tree - Bollywood's First Family

The Bachchan family is an Indian family of poets, film actors and industrialists, descended from the Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan of Allahabad and known above all for his elder son, the actor Amitabh Bachchan, whose own marriage and children have kept the family at the centre of Hindi cinema for more than half a century. ## Origins in Allahabad The family's documented line begins with Pratap Narayan Shrivastava, a Srivastava Kayastha from Babupatti in the Raniganj area of Pratapgarh district, in what is now Uttar Pradesh, who settled in Allahabad and worked in the city's paper trade. He and his wife Saraswati Devi had a son, Harivansh Rai, born in 1907. The boy was called "Bachchan" at home, a Hindi word meaning child, and he later took the nickname as his pen name. It has been the family surname ever since, which is why the Bachchans carry a name that began as a term of endearment rather than a caste or clan title. ## Poet, star and the generations after Harivansh Rai Bachchan became one of the most widely read Hindi poets of the twentieth century. His 1935 collection Madhushala is still recited across north India, and he combined writing with teaching English at Allahabad University, a Cambridge doctorate on W. B. Yeats, and service in the Ministry of External Affairs. His first wife, Shyama, died in 1936; his second, Teji Suri, was a Punjabi social activist who became a well-known figure in Delhi's cultural life. Their sons were Amitabh, born in 1942, and the businessman Ajitabh, born in 1947. Amitabh Bachchan's career, from Saat Hindustani in 1969 through Zanjeer, Deewaar and Sholay to Kaun Banega Crorepati, made him the single most recognisable figure in Indian popular culture. He married the actress Jaya Bhaduri in 1973, joining the family to the Bhaduris of Bhopal, whose head was the journalist and author Taroon Kumar Bhaduri. Their daughter Shweta became an author and columnist, and their son Abhishek an actor. ## The Nanda and Rai branches Two marriages widened the family considerably. In 1997 Shweta married Nikhil Nanda of Delhi, chairman of the Escorts Kubota engineering group, the son of the industrialist Rajan Nanda and of Ritu Nanda, herself a daughter of the film-maker Raj Kapoor. Their children are the entrepreneur Navya Naveli Nanda and the actor Agastya Nanda. In 2007 Abhishek married Aishwarya Rai, Miss World 1994 and one of Indian cinema's most internationally recognised stars, bringing in the Rai family of coastal Karnataka: her father Krishnaraj Rai, a biologist with the Indian Army, her mother Brindya, and her brother Aditya. ## Significance Few Indian families span so many fields in four generations: Hindi literature, mainstream cinema, heavy engineering and parliamentary politics, with Jaya Bachchan serving several terms in the Rajya Sabha. The Bachchan house in Mumbai has been a fixed point of Indian public life for decades, and the family's marriages have tied it to the Bhaduris, the Nandas and, through Ritu Nanda, to the Kapoor film dynasty. | Fact | Details | | --- | --- | | Founding figure | Harivansh Rai Bachchan (1907-2003), Hindi poet | | Surname origin | "Bachchan", a childhood nickname meaning "child", adopted as a pen name | | Native place | Babupatti, Pratapgarh district, and Allahabad (Prayagraj), Uttar Pradesh | | Best known member | Amitabh Bachchan (born 1942), actor | | Generations covered | Four, from Pratap Narayan Shrivastava to Navya Naveli and Agastya Nanda | | Families married in | Bhaduri of Bhopal, Nanda of Delhi, Rai of Mangalore | | Fields | Hindi poetry, cinema, business, politics |

24 people

The Jackson Family Tree - Michael Jackson

106 people

Bonaparte Family Tree - The House of Bonaparte from Napoleon I to Today

The House of Bonaparte is the French imperial dynasty founded by Napoleon I, a family of minor Corsican nobles from Ajaccio who within one generation ruled France and placed brothers and sisters on the thrones of Spain, Holland, Naples and Westphalia, and whose senior line survives today in Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoleon. The family descends from Carlo Buonaparte, an Ajaccio lawyer, and Letizia Ramolino, whose eight surviving children were born between 1768 and 1784 on an island that had only just passed from Genoese to French rule. The second son, Napoleon, became First Consul in 1799 and Emperor of the French in 1804, and the whole family rose with him. ## Origins in Corsica The Buonaparte were a patrician family of Ajaccio with roots traced to Tuscany, holding local office and a modest estate rather than great wealth. Carlo Buonaparte studied law at Pisa, served in the Corsican assembly and secured French recognition of the family's noble status, which opened the military academies of Brienne and Paris to his sons. After his death in 1785 Letizia Ramolino held the household together, later presiding over the imperial court as Madame Mere and outliving the Empire itself. ## Notable members Napoleon I is the figure the family is remembered for: general of the Italian and Egyptian campaigns, author of the Civil Code, and Emperor until his abdication in 1815 and exile on Saint Helena. His siblings became sovereigns in their own right, Joseph in Naples and Spain, Louis in Holland, Elisa in Tuscany, Caroline in Naples with her husband Joachim Murat, and Jerome in Westphalia. Napoleon's only legitimate son, Napoleon II, was titled King of Rome. The dynasty returned to power through Louis and Hortense de Beauharnais's son, who ruled as Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870 alongside Empress Eugenie. Later generations produced the ornithologist Charles Lucien Bonaparte and the celebrated Paris salon hostess Princess Mathilde. ## Significance No other modern European family moved so far so quickly, and few left as deep a mark. The Napoleonic Code still underpins the civil law of much of continental Europe and Latin America, while the Second Empire rebuilt Paris into the city of boulevards visitors see today. Two empires, two exiles and a princely line that continues in the present make the Bonapartes the most consequential of the newer European houses. | Fact | Details | | --- | --- | | Family name | Bonaparte, originally Buonaparte | | Place of origin | Ajaccio, Corsica, with earlier roots in Tuscany | | Founding couple | Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino | | Best known member | Napoleon I, Emperor of the French | | Thrones held | France, Italy, Spain, Holland, Naples, Westphalia | | Imperial periods | First Empire 1804 to 1815, Second Empire 1852 to 1870 | | Current head of the house | Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoleon, born 1986 | | Generations in this tree | Five, from Carlo Buonaparte to Jean-Christophe |

39 people

Frequently Asked Questions

Who were Elizabeth Woodville's children?+

Elizabeth Woodville has 1 recorded child: Elizabeth of York.

Who did Elizabeth Woodville marry?+

Elizabeth Woodville married Edward IV Plantagenet.

What did Elizabeth Woodville do?+

Elizabeth Woodville is recorded as Queen consort of England in the Tudor family tree.

Where was Elizabeth Woodville from?+

Elizabeth Woodville's recorded native place is Grafton Regis, Northamptonshire, England.

How many relatives of Elizabeth Woodville are recorded?+

0 ancestors and 20 descendants of Elizabeth Woodville are recorded so far, within a tree of 51 people.

How is Elizabeth Woodville related to Henry VIII Tudor?+

Elizabeth Woodville is recorded as Henry VIII Tudor's Paternal Grandmother.

What family tree does Elizabeth Woodville belong to?+

Elizabeth Woodville is recorded in the Tudor family tree on My rOoOts, alongside 50 other people.

Every family has a story. Start telling yours.

Trace Elizabeth Woodville's connections across the Tudortree, or begin preserving your own family's history today.

Free. Private by default. GEDCOM export any time.