‘His grace spoke such loving words to her, she verily hoped he would have married her, and if it had not been for such kind words she would never have shown such kindness to let him to kindly get her with child.’
Sir Thomas More
Arthur Plantagenet was a descendent of the Angevin kings, born the bastard son of King Edward IV. Edward is believed to have met and seduced Elizabeth Lucy in 1461, when he was nineteen years old. Lucy was reputed to have borne Edward several children including a son Arthur Plantagenet.[1] If this was the case, it suggests Lucy was more than a brief acquaintance. Sir Thomas More, later claimed, ‘his grace spoke such loving words to her, she verily hoped he would have married her, and if it had not been for such kind words she would never have shown such kindness to let him to kindly get her with child.’[2] Arthur remained with his mother and was brought up in Edward’s court until the age of ten. It is then believed he stayed with his mother’s family in Hampshire.
A. D. Curry
[1] Alison Weir, The Wars of the Roses, (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 294.
[2] Richard Marius, Thomas More: A Biography, (London: Harvard University Press, 1999), p.107.