Anne of York (2 November 1475 – 23 November 1511) was the fifth daughter of King Edward IV of England and his queen consort Elizabeth Woodville.
Soon after the death of her father and the usurpation of the throne by her uncle Richard III, Anne, who was about eight years old, was declared illegitimate among the other children of Edward IV by Elizabeth Woodville. The princess's mother, fearing for the children's lives, moved them to Westminster Abbey, where the late king's family received asylum and spent about a year. After the king promised not to harm his brother's family, Anne and her older sisters went to the court.
When Richard III was killed, and Henry Tudor took the throne under the name of Henry VII, the act recognising the children of Edward IV as bastards was cancelled. Henry VII married the eldest of Edward IV's daughters, Elizabeth, and Anne became a valuable diplomatic asset. Her marriage to a Scottish prince was planned, but in 1488 the prince's father, King James III, was killed, and marriage negotiations were interrupted and never resumed. In 1495, Anne was married to Thomas Howard, who had claimed marriage to her since the time of Richard III. The union with Howard was not happy and overshadowed by the death of all their children. Anne herself, who had poor health, died at the age of about 36.
Anne was born on 2 November 1475 at the Palace of Westminster as the fifth daughter and seventh of ten children of King Edward IV of England and Elizabeth Woodville. Anne had six sisters, of whom only four reached adulthood—two eldest (Elizabeth and Cecily) and two younger (Catherine and Bridget); Mary, who was eight years older than Anne, died at the age of 14 from some illness, and Margaret, who was about three years older than Anne, died in infancy. Anne also had five brothers: three full-blooded (the future Edward V, Richard and George) and two half-brothers from her mother's first marriage to John Grey of Groby: Thomas and Richard Grey. Neither of Anne's three full-brothers survive adulthood: George died at about two years of age, while the other two brothers, Edward V and Richard, disappeared from the Tower in 1483 during the reign of their uncle King Richard III.
Anne's paternal grandparents were Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York (who claimed the rights of the House of York to the English throne) and Cecily Neville, and her maternal grandparents were Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers, and Jacquetta of Luxembourg, Dowager Duchess of Bedford. She was baptised at Westminster Abbey shortly after birth, being named both after her paternal aunt Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter and her paternal great-grandmother Anne de Mortimer; the very name "Anne" was relatively new to the English royal family, and Anne became the first daughter of a king with that name. In addition, the choice of the king was probably influenced by the superstitious reverence with which Edward IV was rumored to have held Saint Anne; the king turned to the patronage of the saint at critical moments in his life in the early stages of coming to power, and therefore felt indebted to her.
In 1479, when Anne was not yet four years old, Edward IV began negotiations on the marriage of his daughter with Philip, son of the archduke Maximilian of Austria. The Austrian Prince at that time was second in line to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire. The initiative of the union came from the Archduke and was enthusiastically received in England, since the marriage was supposed to bring political benefits. Philip's mother, Mary of Burgundy, was the heiress of vast lands and had influence on European affairs; besides, her stepmother was Edward IV's sister Margaret of York, widow of Duke Charles the Bold. The following year, the agreement took on a more formal form: as a financial security for the princess, she was allocated an amount of 100,000 crowns; Archduke Maximilian agreed to pay Anne 6,000 crowns per year from the moment she reaches the age of 12 years—the age of marriage consent, and from the moment she arrived at the court of the future father-in-law and the engagement was ratified, Anne was to receive land in Artois worth 8,000 livres for her use. In the event that Anne refused the marriage, Edward IV or his successor had to pay 60,000 livres. In return, the archduke undertook to provide the English king with military and political support against France. On 5 August 1480, negotiations were completed.
The court records of 1479 report that at the time when negotiations were underway for the marriage of Anne and Philip of Austria, the princess's nurse, "Agnes, wife of Thomas Butler", was dismissed with the appointment of a pension. The records show that Anne, who had not even reached the age of four, was considered old enough to be separated from her nurse. Earlier, at the same time as Anne, Agnes Butler was engaged in raising the princess's younger brother George, who died in March 1479 at the age of about two years.
The project of Anne's marriage to Philip of Austria remained in force until the death of the princess's father in 1483. The death of Edward IV was followed by a political crisis that dramatically changed the position of the former queen and her children. Anne's older brother, Edward V, who succeeded to the throne, was captured by his uncle Lord Protector Richard, Duke of Gloucester on his way from Wales to the capital; at the same time, Anthony Woodville and Richard Grey, Anne's maternal uncle and half-brother, who accompanied the young king, were arrested. Edward V was moved to the Tower of London to await his coronation, where he was later joined by his only brother, Richard; along with the rest of the children, including Anne, the dowager queen took refuge in Westminster Abbey.
On 22 June 1483 the marriage of Edward IV with Elizabeth Woodville was declared illegal; all the children of the late king were declared illegitimate by the Act of Titulus Regius and were deprived of their rights to the throne and all titles. A few days later, Anthony Woodville and Richard Grey were beheaded. On 6 July, Richard of Gloucester was proclaimed king under the name of Richard III; shortly thereafter Anne's brothers, who remained locked up in the Tower, disappeared. After Richard III took the throne and following his orders, his squire John Nesfield sent guards to Westminster, who, day and night, inspected everyone who entered and left the dowager queen's sanctuary, since there were fears that one of Anne's older sisters would be able to escape abroad and find an ally there for overthrow of Richard III. On Christmas Day 1483, Henry Tudor, whose mother was in a plot with Elizabeth Woodville against Richard III, swore in Rennes Cathedral that he would marry Anne's older sister Elizabeth or the next one Cecily (if the marriage to Elizabeth for any reason will be impossible) after taking the English throne. But the uprising of the Tudor party, led by the Duke of Buckingham, failed even before Henry's oath in Rennes.
After the failure of Buckingham's rebellion, Richard III began negotiations with his brother's widow. On 1 March 1484, the king publicly swore that the daughters of Edward IV would not be harmed or molested; in addition, Richard III promised that they would not be imprisoned in the Tower or any other prison, that they would be placed "in respectable places of good name and reputation", and later be married to "men of noble birth" and given dowry lands with an annual income of 200 marks each. On the same day, the memorandum was delivered to the dowager queen, along with provisions. The princesses with great joy agreed to leave their gloomy abode and go under the care of their "gracious uncle", who allocated them chambers in his palace. Tudor historian Edward Hall wrote that Richard III "made all the daughters of his brother solemnly arrive at his palace; as if with new familiar and loving entertainment they were supposed to forget...the trauma inflicted on them and the tyranny that preceded this".