Betrothed

Informally pledged in marriage. In the first act Alexis and Aline advance their intent to marry from a moral commitment to a legally binding, irrevocable contract (18). Going as far back as Roman times we find that betrothals were not to be taken lightly (27). The same was true in the fifteenth century. Fry (121) states that Edward V, just two months after succeeding to the throne, was declared illegitimate because his father, Edward IV, had been betrothed to Lady Eleanor Butler when he married the boy’s mother, Elizabeth Woodville. The teen-aged Edward V and his younger brother were shortly taken by their uncle (Richard III) to the Tower of London for “safe keeping,” and shortly thereafter disappeared.