Edward IV & Elizabeth Woodville - What Did they Really Look Like? With Facial Re-Creations.
So, what did King Edward IV of England and his wife, Elizabeth Woodville, really look like?
Edward and Elizabeth unfortunately come from a time of pretty cartoon-y portraiture. We are still one generation away from the wonderful Tudor portraits by Hans Holbein, and most of the portraiture made during the War of the Roses lacks a bit of skill.
Currently, there are no known contemporary portraits of either Edward or Elizabeth, so what we are left with are copies made from originals. We do have some pretty good descriptions of them both, which I’ll be using to inform my re-creations alongside the portraits.
Let’s start with Edward - we know he was a very tall man. Edward’s remains were exhumed in 1789, and they measured almost 6’4”, which was gigantic for the time. This examination also revealed some long brown hair, which matches his portraits.
Sir Thomas More, writing about 30 years after Edward’s death, says:
“He was…very princely to behold; of heart courageous, politic in counsel…in peace just and merciful, in war sharp and fierce.” Although, keep in mind Thomas More is a pretty biased source.
Edward was considered extremely handsome in his youth, although it sounds like his looks faded with time (and a hard-partying lifestyle!)
Thomas More also wrote that Edward was “Of body mighty, but in his latter days, with over-liberal diet, somewhat corpulent and burly but nevertheless not uncomely.”
Regardless of his looks, Edward was always considered likeable and charismatic. As we know from the history of the War, this really worked to his political advantage because his original opponent Henry VI was seen as weak and shy. These are kings that actually fought and won the crown in battle, so his height and strength were huge advantages.
For Edward’s re-creation, I’m going to use this portrait, which is generally agreed upon to be the most accurate, and shows him in his early 30s.
Now let’s move on to Elizabeth Woodville. As I said, no contemporary portraits of Elizabeth exist, outside of some stained glass images and some manuscript illustrations. In this famous portrait (left), of which there are several versions with slightly different features, we see her blonde hair peeking out from the headdress, and beautiful light brown eyes. Some historians believe she may have had light gray or even light green eyes, which have darkened with the varnish on this image.
Now, Elizabeth’s story has been quite romanticized - obviously she must have been stunningly beautiful to convince the King to marry her as a woman far below his rank. But based on descriptions from her life, she probably was very beautiful according to the beauty standards of the period.
Jean de Wavrin, the Burgundian chronicler, called Elizabeth “la plus belle fille d’Engleterre” - or the most Beautiful Woman in England, saying the king had chosen her because of this Very Great Beauty (“sa très grande beauté”). There is also a quote that she had "heavy-lidded eyes like those of a dragon." which is an amazing description, but may have not been written at the time she was alive.
It’s also said that even her enemies all agreed she was really beautiful, a huge feat considering all the tension between the factions.
What’s really cool about this main portrait of Elizabeth is that it shows collision of fashion trends from all over Europe.
She’s wearing a style of gown similar to those of the Burgundian court, which was her sister-in-laws residence and one of the most famously influential courts of the time in terms of politics as well as fashion.
The style of her gown is referred to as a ‘transitional’ dress, meaning it bridges the gap between the V neck Burgundian gowns and the square-necked gowns we see later on the Tudors.
Elizabeth is wearing a variation of the Hennin headdress - Hennins were this pretty crazy style of headdress popular during this time, they would use wire to shape a giant veil over the head and they could take many shapes.
We also see a trend all the way from Florence, Italy, now booming in the Italian Renaissance - her hairline in this portrait has probably been plucked or shaved back.
So, let’s take a look at the faces of King Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville, Now:
Version with veil (hennin).
Version with long hair (not historically accurate but I think everyone is curious to see her without her hair plucked back!)
A faithful re-creation of Edward in his early 30s.
An artistic rendering of what he might have looked like younger, since everyone remarks on how handsome he was.