by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2023

The five eldest surviving daughters of KIng Edward IV, left to right: Elizabeth, Cecily, Anne, Catherine, and Mary. This stained glass window in Canterbury Cathedral, was made by order of King Edward IV; Credit – Wikipedia

Born on August 11, 1467, at Windsor Castle in Windsor, England, Mary was the second of the ten children and the second of the seven daughters of King Edward IV of England, the first King of England from the House of York, and Elizabeth Woodville. Mary’s paternal grandparents were Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York and Cecily Neville, both great-grandchildren of King Edward III of England. Her maternal grandparents were Sir Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers and Jacquetta of Luxembourg.

Mary’s father King Edward IV of England; Credit – Wikipedia

Mary’s father King Edward IV was the eldest surviving son of Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York who had a strong claim to the English throne. The social and financial troubles that followed the Hundred Years’ War, combined with the mental disability and weak rule of the Lancastrian King Henry VI had revived interest in the claim of Richard, 3rd Duke of York, and so the Wars of the Roses were fought between supporters of two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet, the House of Lancaster and the House of York between 1455 and 1487. Richard, 3rd Duke of York was killed on December 30, 1460, at the Battle of Wakefield and his son Edward was then the leader of the House of York. After winning a decisive victory on March 2, 1461, at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, 19-year-old Edward proclaimed himself king. In 1464, King Edward IV married Elizabeth Woodville.

Mary’s mother Elizabeth Woodville; Credit – Wikipedia

Mary had nine siblings:

• Elizabeth of York (1466 – 1503), married King Henry VII of England, had seven children including King Henry VIII of England, Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots, and Mary Tudor, Queen of France
• Cecily of York (1469 – 1507), married (1) Ralph Scrope of Upsall, no children, marriage annulled; (2) John Welles, 1st Viscount Welles, had two daughters who died in childhood (3) Sir Thomas Kyme, had two sons and one daughter
• King Edward V of England (1470 – circa 1483), briefly succeeded his father, as King Edward V of England, was the elder of the Princes in the Tower
• Margaret of York (born and died 1472)
• Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York (1473 – circa 1483), was the younger of the Princes in the Tower
• Anne of York (1475 – 1511), married Thomas Howard (later 3rd Duke of Norfolk and uncle of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, King Henry VIII’s beheaded wives), had no surviving children
• George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Bedford (1477 – 1479), died in childhood probably from the bubonic plague
• Catherine of York (1479 – 1527), married William Courtenay, 1st Earl of Devon, had two sons and one daughter
• Bridget of York (1480 – 1517), became a nun

Mary had two half-brothers from her mother’s first marriage to Sir John Grey of Groby:

• Thomas Grey, 1st Marquess of Dorset (1455 – 1501), married (1) Anne Holland, no children; (2) Cecily Bonville, 7th Baroness Harington and 2nd Baroness Bonville, had 14 children; Thomas and Cecily are the great-grandparents of Lady Jane Grey
• Sir Richard Grey (1457 – 1483), unmarried, executed by Richard, Duke of Gloucester (future King Richard III)

Mary was raised with her elder sister Elizabeth, who was eighteen months older, at Sheen Palace in Surrey, England under the supervision of their governess Lady Margery Berners, wife of John Bourchier, 1st Baron Berners, a great-grandson of King Edward III. It was the tradition that royal children were brought up away from London and the court for their safety and health. Occasionally, Elizabeth and Mary, the two eldest children of King Edward IV, were called to the court, where they were present at the festivities and during state visits.

In October 1470, thanks to Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, known as “The Kingmaker,” switching from the Yorkist faction to the Lancastrian faction, King Henry VI from the House of Lancaster was restored to the throne. King Edward IV and his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester (the future Richard III) fled to Flanders, part of Burgundy, where their sister Margaret of York was married to Charles I the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. Three-year-old Mary went into sanctuary at Westminster Abbey in London with her pregnant mother along with her older sister Elizabeth and her younger sister Cecily. While in sanctuary, Mary’s brother Edward (the future Edward V) was born. By April 1471, Mary’s father was back on the throne, and a month later King Henry VI was murdered in the Tower of London.

On July 30, 1476, Mary attended the grand reburial of her paternal grandfather Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and his second son and Mary’s paternal uncle Edmund, Earl of Rutland at the Church of Saint Mary and All Saints in Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire, England. Her grandfather and uncle had been killed in 1460 at the Battle of Wakefield, during the Wars of the Roses. Their bodies had been displayed and then unceremoniously buried. Mary attended the wedding of her four-year-old brother Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York and the five-year-old wealthy heiress Anne de Mowbray, 8th Countess of Norfolk (1472 – 1481) at St. Stephen’s Chapel in the Palace of Westminster in London, England on January 15, 1478. In May 1480, Mary and her younger sister Cecily were created Ladies of the Order of the Garter. Their older sister Elizabeth had been named Lady of the Garter in February 1480.

In 1481, negotiations began for a marriage between Mary and Frederik, Duke of Holstein and Schleswig (the future King Frederik I of Denmark and Norway), the youngest son of King Christian I of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. However, at the end of 1481, Mary became seriously ill with an unknown illness and died, aged fourteen, on May 23, 1482, at the Palace of Placentia (also known as Greenwich Palace) in Greenwich, London, England. She was interred on the north side of the altar in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle in Windsor, England at the side of her younger brother George, who had died three years earlier at the age of two. Mary’s parents were interred in a tomb nearby – her father in 1483 and her mother in 1492.

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Works Cited

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• Flantzer, S. (2016) King Edward IV of England, Unofficial Royalty. Available at: https://www.unofficialroyalty.com/king-edward-iv-of-england/ (Accessed: January 2, 2023).
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• Mary of York (2022) Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_of_York (Accessed: January 2, 2023).
• Weir, Alison. (1989) Britain’s Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy. London: Vintage Books.
• Williamson, David. (1996) Brewer’s British Royalty: A Phrase and Fable Dictionary. London: Cassell.