#even though his actual contemporaries (sans Commynes who in any case didn't even see him after 1475) certainly didn't seem to think so | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

wonder-worker · 1 year ago

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I heard that Edward IV and Elizabeth Widvile were known to be very beautiful. Were there any reports on their appearance at the time?

anon 😂

But yes, contemporaries and post contemporaries in the 16th century were pretty much unanimous in praising their appearance. I'll list some of the ones I could find:

Elizabeth:

'The most beautiful woman in England' ('la plus belle fille d'Engleterre') - Jean de Waurin

'Her very great beauty' ('sa tres grande beaute') - Jean de Waurin

"Her beauty of person and charm of manner" - Dominic Mancini

"None of such constant womanhood, wisdom and beauty" - Hearne's Fragment; its author was one of Edward IV's servants

"A daughter of prodigious beauty' - 1469 Continuator of Monstrelet's Chronicle

"Both faire, of a good favor, moderate of stature, well made and very wise" - Thomas More

Edward IV:

"The beauty of your personage it hath pleased Almighty God to send you" - James Strangways, Speaker of the Commons in Parliament

"The king is a handsome upstanding man" - Gabriel Tretzel, travels of Leo of Rozmital

"A handsome prince and had style" - Oliver De La Marche

"In the flower of his age, tall of stature, elegant of person" - Croyland Chronicle

"One of the handsomest knights of his kingdom" - 1469 Continuator of Monstrelet's Chronicle

"A handsome and worthy prince" - Pietro Alipranto

‘...Tall and strapping as the king’ - John Paston, Paston Letters

"He was young and more handsome than any man then alive" - Philippe de Commynes

"A man so vigorous and handsome that he might have been made for the pleasures of the flesh" - Philippe de Commynes

"The handsomest prince my eyes ever beheld" and "I don't remember ever having seen a man more handsome than he was" - Philippe de Commynes

"A very handsome prince" - Louis XI, from the Memoirs of Commynes

"He being a person of most elegant appearance, and remarkable beyond all others for the attractions of his person" - the Croyland Chronicle, referencing Edward a few months before he died

"He seized any opportunity that the occasion offered of revealing his fine stature more protractedly and more evidently to onlookers" - Dominic Mancini, writing shortly after his death

"He was a goodly personage and very princely to behold...of visage lovely, of body mighty, strong and cleanly made; howbeit in his latter days, with an over liberal diet, somewhat corpulent, but nevertheless noy uncomely" - Thomas More

Etc.

I'm tagging @edwardslovelyelizabeth because I think you got a similar ask?

I hope this answers your question, anon! I don't generally pay a lot of attention to the physical appearance of historical figures (I find it pretty irrelevant), but in this case, it ultimately does play a role in both Edward IV and Elizabeth's historiographies for better and for worse, and seems to have actually been a personal prop of Edward's kingship, so I don't mind discussing it :)

#either anon is making rounds or someone else saw the ask and asked me something similar 🤷🏻‍♀️#edward iv #elizabeth woodville #ask #also (I wanted to make a separate post about this but fuck it I'll just rant in the tags):#Something I find very interesting (read: fucked-up) is how we have multiple independent accounts praising Edward IV as extremely #attractive at the end of his life #Yet for some reason (aka fatphobia) most historians simply assume that he lost his looks over the years because he put on weight #even though his actual contemporaries (sans Commynes who in any case didn't even see him after 1475) certainly didn't seem to think so #as we can see: Croyland Mancini and More all noted the fact that he had put on weight AND emphasized his attractiveness #because the two are not mutually exclusive in the slightest and assuming that they are is not only incorrect it's also deeply problematic #it's similar to how so many historians assume his health was failing towards the end of his life when we KNOW - we are literally TOLD -#that his illness was both unexpected and baffling to contemporaries #(there is a contemporary reference to his supposedly deteriorating health but as Horrox says this is actually an editorial interpolation)#and the thing that's *always* referenced almost synonymously with this alleged non-existent ill-health is his weight #and the thing is - even if both of these were true they still ultimately wouldn't (and SHOULDN'T) matter. But we KNOW they weren't #and so it's incredibly indicative that historians and general histories STILL automatically assume them - and this assumption #is almost always on conjecture with his weight. (I don't think I've framed this coherently but oh well)#I'm still not over Katherine Lewis's deranged and frankly extremely ignorant epilogue in 'Kingship and Masculinity'#she literally framed her entire perspective on him around his weight with some really ridiculous (read: fatphobic) speculations/assumptions #she's even worse than Thomas Penn who is also revolting (and AJ Pollard isn't much better)#though of course they're not the only ones - almost every historian and general history does this

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