The year is 1464.
The War of the Roses rages on; a great showdown between Lancaster and York.
Yet, asleep in her bed, fiery-haired Melissa Woodville dreams of splintered shields, broken swords, and the resounding screams of wounded men in the Battle...
fifty-four.— eleanor butler (died in the church and was buried along with her name)!
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OF ELEANOR'S CHILDHOOD, little is known. Born as the second to last child of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, there were none who saw the need to record her early development or affairs. She was neither the heir, nor even the eldest daughter. Although in later years she would come to be known as the most beautiful of her father's issue, there is no evidence of this having provided her any favors. In fact, she was married off at thirteen and relegated by her lonesome in a dower manor until her husband Sir Thomas Butler died, at which point records of her also disappear.
The next time her name is mentioned is in a 1462 pre-contract to Edward IV of England, which was witnessed by none other than Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells. Surviving communiqué from the king's mother - unearthed in 1789 in her former London residence of Baynards Castle - speak of quiet investigations made to find Eleanor in 1471. It is not clear how the Dowager Duchess found out about Eleanor's connection to her son, but tone and language make it clear that she had no intention of letting Edward's true wife elude her.
It is fact, after all, that while Elizabeth Woodville was loathed by the entirety of the English court, there were none who despised her more than Cecily Neville. The formidable Dowager blamed the common-born daughter of Jacquetta of Luxembourg for all the misfortunes that had heaped upon her sons since Elizabeth had entered their lives, and her reasoning was not entirely wrong. The so-called queen had turned brother against brother, nephew against aunt, and that was a crime unforgivable.
Eleanor, therefore, provided the angry mother with a solution to all of her problems. "She is to be our salvation," Cecily wrote in a letter to her niece, Joan Neville. "Needs must that you be very careful with this. Find out where Shrewsbury's regent has squirreled her away, and we might have a chance yet at wresting Edward from that woman's poison."
