Cecily of York (20 March 1469 – 24 August 1507), also known as Cecelia,Lives of the Princesses of England by Mary Anne Everett Green: Page 418 was the third daughter of King Edward IV of England and his queen consort Elizabeth Woodville.
Shortly after the death of her father and before the assumption of the throne by her uncle King Richard III, Cecily and her siblings were declared illegitimate. Queen Elizabeth, fearing for the children's lives, moved them to Westminster Abbey, where the late king's family received asylum and spent about a year. After Richard III promised not to harm the children, Cecily and her sisters went to court. Soon there may have been rumors that the king was going to marry one of his nieces – Elizabeth or Cecily. However, shortly before his death, Richard III arranged the marriage of Cecily to one of his supporters – Ralph Scrope, the younger brother of the 6th Baron Scrope of Masham, who was much lower in status by birth than the princess.
When Richard III died at the Battle of Bosworth and the throne was taken by Henry Tudor, the act recognising the children of Edward IV as bastards was repealed, and Cecily's marriage was annulled as not being in the interests of the dynasty. In 1488, Cecily married John Welles, 1st Viscount Welles, a half-brother of the king's mother Lady Margaret Beaufort; in this second marriage, Cecily gave birth to two daughters.
In 1499, she became a widow. After several years of mourning, and without the permission of the king, Cecily married a Lincolnshire squire, Sir Thomas Kyme, with whom she gave birth to two more children. Cecily's marriage to Kyme and their children were not recognised by the Crown, and she herself was banished from court and deprived of the possessions inherited from her second husband's will. Nevertheless, the princess maintained a good relationship with the king's mother: it was Lady Margaret Beaufort who paid part of the expenses of Cecily's funeral in 1507.
Birth and family
Cecily was born on 20 March 1469 at Westminster Palace as the third daughter of ten children of King Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville; being the third child from her parents' ten children, the princess also had two half-brothers from her mother's first marriage to John Grey of Groby: Thomas and Richard Grey. From her six full-sisters, only four reached adulthood –one eldest (Elizabeth) and three younger (Anne, Catherine and Bridget). Mary, who was about two years older than Cecily, died at the age of 14 from an unknown illness, and Margaret, who was about three years younger than Cecily, died in infancy. None of Cecily's three full-brothers survived to adulthood: George died at about two years of age, and the other two, Edward V and Richard, disappeared from the Tower in 1483 during the reign of their uncle King Richard III.
Her paternal grandparents were Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York (who claimed the rights of the House of York to the English throne) and Cecily Neville, and her maternal grandparents were Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers, and Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Dowager Duchess of Bedford. Presumably Cecily was named after her paternal grandmother.
Reign of Edward IV
Crisis of 1469–1471
The birth of Cecily, the third daughter in a row, was a great disappointment for Edward IV. For the first time he suggested that he would not have sons and that the crown could pass to his eldest daughter, Elizabeth. In the first months of Cecily's life, an acute political crisis arose in the country: Edward IV's most powerful supporter, the Earl of Warwick, dissatisfied with the king for a number of reasons, entered into an alliance with Edward's younger brother George, Duke of Clarence. They moved their troops from Calais to England and announced George's claim to the English throne. During this time, Cecily's mother, along with at least two daughters, one of whom was Elizabeth, visited Norwich, where they were received with magnificent celebrations and theatrical performances; it is not known for certain which of the two younger princesses at that time accompanied her mother, however, it was probably Mary rather than Cecily, who was very young. Soon Warwick captured the king, and executed without trial Cecily's maternal grandfather and uncle – Earl Rivers and John Woodville. At the same time, Cecily's maternal grandmother, Jacquetta of Luxembourg, was arrested after being accused of witchcraft and the use of love spells on the king. Although Jacquetta was acquitted, this unpleasant episode, as well as the unmotivated execution of Rivers, showed how far the enemies of Edward IV were ready to go to destroy his wife and her family. Despite all this, the queen herself and her daughters were not harmed during Warwick's brief rise, except that Cecily's mother was assigned a reduced staff of servants.
By the autumn of 1469, Edward IV managed to regain his freedom. Warwick and Clarence fled to France and formed an alliance with the House of Lancaster. In September 1470, as the king prepared for an invasion by the combined forces of his enemies, Cecily, her sisters, and her mother were moved to the Tower of London for their safety. Already in early October, it became known that Edward IV, together with his brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, had fled the country, having only a small hope of returning; upon receiving this news, Queen Elizabeth, along with her mother and three sisters hurriedly left the Tower on a barge and arrived in search of refuge at Westminster Abbey. It was then almost empty. The fugitives were taken under their protection by the abbot of Westminster, Thomas Milling, a kind, hospitable man who did not want to place the queen and children with the criminals who had also sought sanctuary there, and instead gave them his house at the western entrance to the abbey. There were three rooms and everything necessary for the comfort of the royal family. It is known that ordinary Londoners provided assistance to the royal family: the butcher John Gould donated half a cow and two sheep a week to the family, and a fishmonger provided them with provisions on Fridays and fasting days.
While in hiding, the princesses spent most of their time with nannies; in early November 1470 their brother Prince Edward was born and Queen Elizabeth was busy caring for him. Cecily and her family spent another five months in sanctuary. In April 1471, Edward IV returned to England and the first thing he did, after attending a thanksgiving service at Westminster Abbey, was to bring his family out of hiding. On the same night, Cecily, along with other family members, was transported to Baynard's Castle, which served as the residence of her paternal grandmother, Cecily Neville. On 11 April Cecily, accompanied by the King's mother, the queen's brother Anthony Woodville and the Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Bourchier went to the royal chambers of the Tower of London, while Cecily's father went north to reclaim the crown. On 14 April, Warwick was killed at the Battle of Barnet, and on 4 May, Edward IV finally defeated the Lancastrian troops at the Battle of Tewkesbury, in which the Lancaster heir Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales was killed and Margaret of Anjou was captured. However, on 12 May, while Edward IV was still on his way to London, the last supporters of the Lancasters organised an attack on the Tower, intending to restore Henry VI to the throne; two towers, one of which Cecily and her family were sheltering in, were fired on from the river. The attack was repulsed, but after this the king decided to put his predecessor to death, and on 21 May 1471, King Henry VI was murdered in his dungeon. The death of Henry VI returned Cecily to the position of the daughter of a legitimate and recognised monarch.
Princess of Scotland
In 1474, the first marriage plans for Cecily began to appear: Edward IV negotiated the marriage of his daughter to the heir to the Scottish throne, James, Duke of Rothesay. The formal betrothal took place on 26 October or 26 December 1474 in Edinburgh between the proxies of the bride and groom: the Earl of Crawford and Baron Scrope, respectively. As a widow's share in the event of the death of James during the life of his father, Cecily received all the possessions that the prince himself used, including the Duchy of Rothesay, the County of Carrick and lands that were part of the personal possessions of the House of Stewart. In the event that the prince became King of Scotland or if his mother died during her husband's lifetime, Cecily would receive a third of all lands, possessions and taxes assigned to the queen, or their equivalent. In the event of the premature death of Cecily or James, the hypothetical second son of King James III (at the time of the betrothal, Rothesay was the only child of the king) had to marry any other daughter of Edward IV, if she was not older or younger than the prince by more than three or four years. As a dowry, Cecily received 20,000 marks from her father. These funds were to be paid in instalments: 2,000 marks within three months after the conclusion of the contract, 2,000 more within two years after that, and the rest of the amount was to be paid at a 1,000 marks per year until full payment. Edward IV and James III were to meet at Berwick in the summer of 1475 to hand over the first part of Cecily's dowry. Apparently, the meeting took place, since on 20 June 1475 Edward IV signed a will, according to which his successor would have to pay Scotland the remaining amount of 18,000 marks from the dowry of the princess. Since the conclusion of the engagement, Cecily has been called the "Princess of Scotland".
In 1481, when Cecily reached marriageable age, James III began to insist on her marriage to his son. An embassy was sent to England, which was supposed to deliver the princess to Scotland. But Edward IV felt that the Scottish king was only motivated by the desire to obtain the remainder of Cecily's dowry, and the princess's departure was delayed. A year later, the engagement between Cecily's older sister Elizabeth and the Dauphin Charles of France was broken off, and James III decided to follow the example of his French patron. The formal reason was that James III's brother Alexander, Duke of Albany, who was accused of treason, was hiding at the English court. Demanding the extradition of the rebellious duke, the Scots made several raids on the border territories of England, which caused Edward IV in June 1482 to break off his daughter's engagement and consider instead the betrothal of Cecily to the Duke of Albany, whom the English king intended to help put on the Scottish throne. On 11 June the Treaty of Fotheringhay between Albany and Edward IV was signed. Its terms included agreement to the marriage of Cecily and the Scottish pretender, on condition that the duke succeeded in ending his marriage to his French wife Anne de la Tour d'Auvergne in accordance with all Christian norms within a year. By 1482, Edward IV had helped the Duke of Albany to seize the regency: Alexander renounced his claims to the crown, was forgiven by his brother and received his possessions back.
The Scots were unhappy with the presence of English troops in the country and therefore put pressure on James III to resume the betrothal between his son and Cecily. Edward IV agreed to resume negotiations on the condition that he would be returned that part of his daughter's dowry that had already been paid. However, the negotiations were never resumed, because the Duke of Albany again turned to the English king for help, and his marriage with Cecily was again under consideration. However, negotiations for a marriage with Albany ceased, as Edward IV died in April 1483.
Court life and father's death