This weekend comes Valentine’s Day, and being a historic venue, we have decided to mark the holiday by documenting some of the couples connected to the Bodleian Libraries. Whilst the Bodleian Libraries is full of love and celebration (with over 50 couples a year choosing to get married here!), you wouldn’t necessarily assume that we’re a building filled with stories of couples and romance. But, as we all know you should never judge a book by its cover.
Just below we have collected several stories featuring royal scandal, witchcraft, and of course books – to truly celebrate the hidden historical couples of the Bodleian Libraries.
Duke Humphrey & Eleanor Cobham
Our history lesson starts upstairs in the Duke Humfrey’s Library, as we’ll be talking about its namesake, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester. Before you ask, the Library was founded before the standardised spelling of names. This is why the space is called the Duke Humfrey’s Library, it was later historians that standardised the Duke’s name to Humphrey.
But regardless, Duke Humphrey was a very powerful man, he was the fourth son of King Henry IV. Very rich, but as one of the “spares” he had a lot of free time on his hands. Humphrey decided to dedicate his life to learning and education, he actively collected rare manuscripts (this was before books were manufactured in Europe) and was a huge fan of what were the new ideas of the Renaissance in Italy.
In fact, Humphrey was so passionate about education, he donated his collection of just over 300 manuscripts to the University of Oxford – an extremely generous gift, because the University only owned around 28 manuscripts at the time! The University needed somewhere to store the manuscripts and thus Duke Humfrey’s Library was built to care for them. We’ve talked enough about Duke Humphrey, so who was Eleanor Cobham?
Eleanor was born to Sir Reynold Cobham and his wife also called Eleanor. Young Eleanor first appears as a lady-in-waiting to Jacqueline d’Hainault, who was Duke Humphrey’s wife at the time. Like many cases in history, Eleanor soon became mistress to Humphrey. Indeed, like the future Anne Boleyn, Eleanor also married Humphrey in 1428 once he was able to divorce Jacqueline.
It seems that Humphrey and Eleanor both bonded over intellectual pursuits, their palace in Greenwich was known to be frequented by poets and musicians, as well as educated people like doctors and scholars. But this could be a double-sided coin. In the 1400s, new Renaissance ideas were looked on with suspicion by more traditionally minded people.
Eleanor had consulted with astrologers to divine her future. Her astrologers told Eleanor that the King was to suffer a life-threatening illness, when gossip of this prediction made its way to the Royal Household, Eleanor was in trouble. Such predictions amounted to treason, and Eleanor was placed on trial. Poor Eleanor was found guilty of witchcraft and was placed under house arrest for the rest of her life. For another blow, the couple was also forced to divorce.
Although their story ends in tragedy, it is heartwarming that this couple was brought together by a quest for knowledge and education, and eventually many of our couples that marry at the Bodleian, met when they were at university here together.
King Edward IV & Elizabeth Woodville
We now go downstairs into the Divinity School, which although its construction began before the founding Duke Humfrey’s Library, it took 50 years to be completed! Arguably, one of the most impressive features of the Divinity School is the ceiling. If you look up, you will see an absolute treasure trove of intricate carvings. There are 455 of these carvings, the formal word for them is “bosses”. Each of these bosses has a meaning behind them, but we’re going to focus on two. The first, is the largest boss in the middle of the ceiling, you cannot miss this one because it has a crown on top of it. This is a big clue to who the boss represents, this is King Edward IV. He was king when the Divinity School was finally completed.
Towards the Convocation House there’s another boss, this one has a book on top of it, as well as a big capital L inside. This boss represents Lionel Woodville, who was Chancellor of the University during this time. But what you might not know at first glance is that King Edward and Lionel Woodville were brothers-in-law. Edward had married Lionel’s elder sister Elizabeth, and their story began with scandal!
This was the time of the War of the Roses, when the House of Lancaster and the House of York were battling it out to become King. Young Edward of York (he was only 19 at the time) had deposed the King and crowned himself instead. Newly crowned King Edward was a tall, energetic, and handsome bachelor, so his powerful nobles began looking across Europe for the perfect princess for him to marry and secure a political alliance. There was just one problem – Edward had already gotten married in secret.
His bride was Elizabeth Woodville, a widow with two sons. But the source of the scandal was that she was only a minor noble. The privy council even remarked to Edward that;
“she was no wife for a prince such as himself, for she was not the daughter of a duke or earl.”
The marriage was so secret that there’s no evidence of it and was believed to have taken place at Elizabeth’s family home on 1st May 1464, with only her mother and two maids as witnesses.
The marriage was a fantastic gamble for Elizabeth, as the King could have very easily cast her aside under pressure from his powerful nobles. But Edward stood firmly by her, she was crowned queen, and their marriage produced a huge brood of ten children! The Divinity School is the location of the Wedding Breakfast for Wedding Receptions at the Bodleian Libraries, where family and friends come together to celebrate the marriage of a newlywed couple. How appropriate that we have two relatives bound by marriage on the ceiling.
Sir Thomas Bodley & Ann Ball
How could we discuss couples at the Bodleian and not mention Sir Thomas Bodley and his own wife, Ann Ball? By the time of Thomas Bodley, Duke Humfrey’s Library lay in ruin. All the manuscripts had been removed, and the space was used for teaching instead. So, graduate and former Oxford academic Sir Thomas Bodley decided that for his big personal legacy project he wanted to restart the Duke Humfrey’s Library.
But this would be no small task. Having been an ambassador and diplomat for Queen Elizabeth I, Sir Thomas was certainly not poor but still required a huge amount of money. Like many men of his time, Sir Thomas instead used the wealth brought to him by his wife, Ann Ball. Ann had been married before to a very wealthy fishing merchant based in Devon. Not only did her marriage to Sir Thomas bring him fish monopoly wealth, but it also brought him seven stepchildren too!
Without Ann Ball, the beautiful Duke Humfrey’s Library would have never been restored, and the whole of the Old Bodleian site would have never been built. Without Ann (and her fish empire wealth!) there might have never been a central Library for the University of Oxford. But whilst Sir Thomas Bodley would have never been able to finance his dream project without his wife, he wasn’t too keen on the idea of marriage for his Head Librarian.
Sir Thomas Bodley was of course too important (and far too noble) to actually work in his library, so he sought to employ a Librarian to run the Bodleian for him. In fact, Thomas Bodley even wrote in a letter that he wanted a gentleman who was;
“free from the conjugal tie…and wedlock is mostly so rife with domestic engagements as to be unable to afford leisure for a man’s free disposal of himself day by day”.
Maybe it was Bodley’s own seven stepchildren (and therefore busy homelife!) that left him with this impression? Bodley had found his perfect Librarian in an Oxford scholar called Thomas James (yet another Thomas!). Everything seemed fine and dandy until Thomas James announced that he wanted to get married to a woman called Ann Underhill (yet another Ann!).
As you can imagine, this caused a bit of discord between the two Thomases, heightened by the fact that Thomas James threatened to resign his role over his marriage! But the two did make up, with Thomas James keeping both his role as Librarian and keep his marriage to Ann Underhill. It speaks volumes that Thomas James was willing to stand by Ann Underhill, and they wouldn’t allow anything to fracture their bond. Thomas James would have spent his working days sat in the Duke Humfrey’s Library, now often used by our newlyweds for their couple’s photography. How perfect that we’re keeping the romantic mind of Thomas James alive in the present day!
King Charles I & Queen Henrietta Maria
Our final couple also have a personal connection to the Duke Humfrey’s Library. Let us introduce King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria. Like many royal couples, their match was made for diplomacy rather than any predicted compatibility. In fact, Charles had met Henrietta at the French Royal Court before they were married, as he was travelling through France enroute to Spain to discuss a marriage with a Spanish princess. But that match fell through, so he decided to marry Henrietta Maria instead.
After being considered the second choice, the couple initially had a difficult early couple of years. Henrietta did not speak English very well, and this was not helped by Charles ejecting her French-speaking staff. But eventually the couple did become devoted to each other. Henrietta Maria was known to play practical jokes on Charles, and Charles in turn addressed letters to her with “Dear Heart”. Below is an extract of a letter dating from 1645 from Charles to Henrietta:
“And dear Heart, thou canst not but be confident that there is no danger which I will not hazzard, or pains that I will not undergo, to enjoy the happiness of thy company.“
But you’re probably thinking, what do Charles & Henrietta have to do with the Bodleian Libraries? Charles I reign was marked by the English Civil War, which saw the royalists (those on the side of the King) relocate to Oxford as their capital instead of London, which had been taken over by the opposition (the Parliamentarians). King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria lived in Oxford from 1642 – 1646.
During this time, Charles used the Convocation House to meet with his government. The King himself sat in what is the Chancellors Seat to conduct his meetings. When you marry in the Convocation House, you would never know you’re marrying in a room with royal heritage! But the King’s connections to the Bodleian Libraries do not stop there. Whilst Charles was living in Oxford he wrote to the Bodleian Libraries, asking the Librarian to send him some books for him to read. Shockingly, the Librarian (not Thomas James by this time) told him no!
The reason for this is that books are forbidden from leaving the Bodleian Libraries, this is to prevent damage or them being stolen (the rule is still in place today). John Rouse, the Librarian, told the King that if he wanted to read the books, he would need to visit the Library himself. Charles took this in good humour and thought this was a pretty fair rule, so he did come to the Library to read.
Of course, the sight of the King in the Library would cause plenty of commotion, so the Bodleian Libraries built two private reading rooms in the Duke Humfrey’s Library for Charles and Henrietta. This was so the King and Queen could come into the library and read without disruption, as well as also provide a bit of extra security too. When newlyweds are having their couples photography, they are often unknowingly stood next to the reading rooms. Unaware of their proximity to another loving couple from several hundred years ago.
The Bodleian Weddings Team hope you have learnt a few little interesting facts today, and wish you a very happy Valentine’s Day this weekend. If you choose to get married at the Bodleian, just know that your own story will be celebrated along with our historical couples from yesteryear.
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