4. Elizabeth Woodville (c. 1437-June 8, 1492)
Elizabeth Woodville was probably the most famous for being Queen of England (depending on whose side you were on) during the Wars of the Roses, but how she got there is the stuff of legend. Unlike the other women on this list, she withheld sex to get what she wanted: a crown.
Elizabeth was the oldest daughter of an unimpressive genteel family that had connections to the British and French royal families on her mother’s side. She was married and widowed young to a Lancastrian noble who died in battle, leaving her with two young sons. The story goes that after petitioning the new Yorkist king Edward IV for her dead husband’s lands, he fell instantly in love with her and wanted her to become his mistress. Elizabeth refused to fall into that trap, knowing the young king’s lusty reputation, and she insisted that he marry her first.
Edward IV wouldn’t take no for an answer, but Elizabeth held out. He realized he didn’t have any other choice but to marry her. He was so in love with her by this point that it didn’t matter and they married in secret at her home in 1464. When word got out that Edward IV had married a Lancastrian widow with two young sons instead of making a diplomatic marriage like he should have done, the whole kingdom was in an uproar. Indeed, this was only the second time since 1066 that a king of England had made a love match with one of his subjects, and the first time that that subject had become Queen of England. Elizabeth knew that her position wasn’t strong, so she married off her many family members into the British aristocracy.
When Edward IV died of fever in 1483, she was left powerless. Edward IV’s brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, became the Lord Protector and took control over her sons, the heirs to the throne, placing them in the Tower of London to await her eldest son’s coronation. Elizabeth’s sons, the famed Princes in the Tower, disappeared soon afterward, some say murdered by Richard III himself, leaving the way for Richard to ascend the throne. To protect herself and her family, she allied herself with Lady Margaret Stanley (nee Beaufort), whose son Henry Tudor, was the last Lancastrian claimant to the throne. His victory against Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field and further marriage to Elizabeth’s eldest daughter (also named Elizabeth) established the Tudor line.