- 𝐹𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑟𝑒𝑖𝑔𝑛 -
It's the year 1464 and Eleanor Woodville lives at Grafton Manor as one of the younger daughters of Jacquetta and Sir Richard Woodville. At 11 years old, her worries are little and her joys great but her o...
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~Queens and Marriage~
June, 1484, Dover....
She had cried. She had pleaded. She had begged. She had yelled. She had stormed. She had raged.
But nothing was to be done. Her eldest daughter was to be taken from her.
"She's only twelve!" Eleanor had screamed when Richard had tried to console her the night Cecily had told them "she's a child! She's my baby!" "She is the Queen of France now" her Mother in law had replied in her usual calm tone but that had only made Eleanor cry more, heavy tears soaking her cheeks and gown. The Queen of France. None of the power settled on her, none of the riches or influence.
All she knew was that her baby, her little one was to be taken from her and be trapped in marriage so that she could not be returned. Eleanor had thought that Bess would be married off at fifteen at the very least! That way she would be raised with her siblings and her Mother could keep her close and their family would not be fragmented.
But it was not to be, Duchess Anne of Bourbon (the French Regent alongside her husband Duke Peter II) had decided that Bess had to be raised in French court under her rule.
They want to twist her into their creature' Eleanor thought bitterly one night as she cried herself to sleep 'to turn her against me and England!' This may be an alliance meant to create peace but that would not stop them from turning her little white rose into a golden fleur de lis.
She had demanded that the betrothal be broken and that it was all forgotten but that was not to be either, to break this alliance now (especially as the French court already knew about it) would start a war and England could not take another.
And so each and every day Eleanor tried to look for a new way out for her daughter and felt her heart shatter a little more each time she failed.
And then she and Richard told Bess.
She had cried. She had pleaded. She had begged. She had yelled. She had stormed. She had raged.
But nothing was to be done. She was to be shipped away from her home.
At first she had burst into tears, wailing and weeping as she ran to her Mother and clung to her skirts, sobbing endlessly into them.
"Don't make me go!" She had cried "don't send me away! I don't want to be a Queen of a foreign land! I want to stay here, with you!" But when her Father had tried to explain to her in the gentlest and kindest way possible that that couldn't be so, her tears of sadness had turned to tears of rage.
