This Queen Mother Was A Widow at Twenty Then Had 14 Children!

Jacquetta of Luxembourg

Born around 1415 into the imperial House of Luxembourg, she was a high-ranking noblewoman whose lineage traced back to French and European royalty. In 1433, she made a prestigious dynastic alliance by marrying John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, the uncle of King Henry VI and Regent of English-occupied France. When Bedford died just two years later, Jacquetta of Luxembourg became one of the wealthiest dowagers in England at only twenty years old.

Rather than accepting another arranged marriage to a high-ranking nobleman, Jacquetta took a major political and personal risk. In 1437, she secretly married Sir Richard Woodville, a modest knight from her late husband's retinue. Marrying without the King's permission violated royal protocol and outraged the Privy Council. After paying a substantial fine of £1,000 to Henry VI, the couple was pardoned, and they went on to have fourteen children together.

The Woodvilles remained loyal Lancastrians until the Wars of the Roses shifted the balance of power. In 1464, Jacquetta's eldest daughter, Elizabeth Woodville, secretly married the newly crowned Yorkist King, Edward IV. This union elevated the Woodville family into the highest echelons of English governance, securing royal titles and advantageous marriages for Jacquetta's children.

This rapid ascent bred fierce hostility among established magnates, particularly Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. In 1469, during an armed rebellion against Edward IV, Warwick captured and executed Jacquetta's husband and son. To permanently undermine the Queen's legitimacy, Warwick arrested Jacquetta on charges of witchcraft, alleging she had used lead poppets to bewitch the King into the royal marriage.

Jacquetta skillfully defended herself by appealing to the Mayor of London and allies on the King's Council. When Edward IV regained control of the government, the council cleared her of all charges in January 1470, formally dismissing the allegations as politically motivated slander. Jacquetta died in 1472, having established a lineage that soon united the warring factions through her granddaughter, Elizabeth of York, the first Tudor queen.