Stillington's Revelation Continued

Srillington confessed he had been the celebrant who performed the marriage between Edward, then Earl of March and the widow, Lady Eleanor Butler in 1461. 

Who was Lady Eleanor Butler?

Lady Eleanor Butler was born in 1436, the daughter of  John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury and his second wife, Margaret Beauchamp, the daughter of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. John Talbot had had a formiddable military career in Ftance, earning him the name "The Great Talbot", while Margaret Beauchamp was sister to Anne Beauchamp, the wife of Warwick The Kingmaker, and thus cousin to Isabel and Anne Neville, the Protector's own wife.  She was certainly no unknown strumpet without influence and family connections. 

She was married to Sir Thomas Butler sometime before  1450. Thomas was dead by early 1460.  Likked in the Laancastrian cause. She was said to be beautiful and pious , and just ripe for the picking when Edward noticed her in March 1461 ( according to  John Ashdown-Hill)). Abandoned by Edward she joined a convent and died in 1468.

Her story is only too familiar, persued by Edward to the point of being held against her will with a knife at her throat, she refused to be his mistress, only marriage would get her into Edward's bed. Edward, consented to her terms and Stillington obliged by marrying them in a secret chamber. The nuptials immediately followed. This is what Stillington attested to.

Edward, it seems, had a penchant for Lancastrian widows, older than himself and was  not averse to threatening violence in order to get his own way. Or perhaps the story was adapted to suit the  whims of Elizabeth Woodville?  More likely the story  got confused in the telling.

The Council Chamber must have erupted with shock (either from surprise or because they knew what was to come). Emotions were high.  The question was hotly debated for over four hours and finally  referred to the Bishops Court, church law having the priority  in questions of  legitimacy and clandestine marriages.