Anne Neville

by Michael Hicks

  Probably Warwick’s two little girls moved increasingly into society during the 1460s. From historical records, of course, it was only on occasions – and very special occasions – that they did emerge from obscurity and into our vision. Always they were in their best clothes and on their best behaviour. It was only their presence that was reported. Although unrecorded by the heralds, almost certainly both were present with almost all their kindred at Bisham Priory on 14 February 1463, where their grandfather Richard, Earl of Salisbury and their uncle Thomas Neville, both slain at Wakefield in 1460, were ceremonially reburied, and their recently deceased grandmother the Countess Alice was first interred. The king’s own father and brother, both also killed at Wakefield, were not to receive their similar reburial until 1476. The heir of the throne, the king’s brother George, Duke of Clarence, was among Warwick’s distinguished array of guests at Bisham. So splendid was the occasion that the heraldic record became the model for the funeral of an earl. There is no record of the wedding of their youngest aunt Margaret c.1462 to John, Earl of Oxford. Just as remarkable as Bisham in September 1465 at Cawood Palace near York were the celebrations of the enthronement of their uncle George Neville as archbishop of York. Two thousand guests were feasted on the most lavish scale at thirteen tables in the great hall, in the chief, second and great chambers, the lower hall and in the gallery. Almost all their relations were there. Their father Warwick himself was engaged as steward, his countess was seated with other adults in the second chamber, and ‘two of the Lord of Warwick’s daughters’ were placed in the great chamber: testimony, perhaps, that their society manners at twelve (Isabel) and nine (Anne) could be trusted. Also at their table was another child, the earl’s ward, the thirteen-year-old Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester, ‘the king’s brother’, and three adult ladies to keep order. The ladies were Duke Richard’s grown-up sister Elizabeth, Duchess of Suffolk, a cousin of the Neville girls, their distant in-law the countess of Westmorland, and their aunt by marriage (and Warwick’s sister-in-law) Isabel, Countess of Northumberland. It was both a family get-together and the nursery table.40 The heraldic records of the other major ceremonies of the 1460s, which the countess and her daughters may well have attended, such as the marriage of Queen Elizabeth (1464), her coronation (1465) and churching (1466), over which Warwick presided, and the Smithfield tournament of the Bastard of Burgundy with Lord Scales in 1467, prioritised male participants and made no mention of either Isabel or Anne. Presumably they were absent from the marriage of the Princess Margaret in Burgundy in 1468 since the earl himself was elsewhere.

  Neither Isabel Neville at seventeen nor Anne Neville at fourteen were particularly young by contemporary standards when they were married. They were the products of the sort of upbringing that has been described. How successfully they internalised its messages we cannot tell. Anne’s moral code, as we shall see, may have been imperfect. It was at fourteen that she left her parents’ hearth. She may never have returned to Warwick again until she was queen. Hence John Rows knew her less well than her mother or her sister and therefore has little that is personal to tell us. If he could, he would have recorded distinctive details, especially of her piety, but was instead reduced to the most general of platitudes. Her manner was decorous and amiable, he records, her conduct commendable and virtuous, and she was ‘full gracious’. The Great Chronicle also records her reputation as gracious.41 At least, therefore, she had been brought up to her rank.

  MARRIAGE

  The destiny to which all aristocratic ladies were born was marriage and motherhood. That was the fate of both Isabel and Anne. Maidenhood, childhood, and even infancy, was not too early to ask. The earl and countess of Warwick had been children aged seven and eleven when they were married. Warwick’s own father Salisbury had been part of the most remarkable child marriages in medieval England. If the Countess Anne’s parents had been adults when they married, in each case for the second time, both had been under-age on the first occasion, her mother indeed not yet fourteen. Child marriage was a family tradition. Logically the earl and countess ought to have been thinking along these lines. Yet there seems to have been no intention to marry Isabel, the eldest, until the mid 1460s, when she was at least thirteen. At least there is no such record.

  The delay is easy to explain. The Nevilles had contracted brilliant dynastic matches in the first forty years of the fifteenth century with extraordinary ease, principally because of their close kinship to the Lancastrian royal house, but as the generations passed their relationship had ceased to be special. Warwick’s brother John was not married until 1458 and his youngest sister Margaret did not wed John, Earl of Oxford until about 1462. Providing for his siblings took priority in Warwick’s time over his daughters. Secondly, as head of his family, Warwick took a direct interest in advancing all his kindred: nephews, such as George Neville, son of his brother John, Earl of Northumberland; his niece Alice, daughter of his sister Alice Lady FitzHugh; and Margaret Lucy, daughter of his greataunt Anne, Duchess of Exeter, who tried to conceal her sexual and matrimonial adventures from her disapproving cousin. Warwick expected – and was expected – to choose spouses for his daughter. Father did know best. He was very choosy, quite unwilling to match his heirs to any but the noblest in the land. The progeny of mere barons and knights – even the earl of Oxford and Lord Lovell – were insufficiently grand. And, to be fair, with the Wars of the Roses and the repression of the northern Lancastrians, Warwick had plenty on his plate.

  The status of Isabel and Anne was an important third factor. The girls had no concerns about their material future. They were too young for that. Moreover, as daughters of an earl, actually the greatest and best connected of earls, they had obvious attractions on the marriage market. Warwick could easily have found well-breeched husbands for them, the heads of prosperous gentry families and even of the lesser nobility, who were well able to maintain them in genteel comfort, had he so wished. Had he possessed a son to take precedence, or even extra daughters, that perhaps is what he would have arranged. However, Isabel and Anne were heiresses – amongst the greatest heiresses of their era. Precisely when it first occurred to their parents – and then became painfully apparent – that there was to be no son to carry on the huge accumulation of family estates, titles and honours, we cannot tell. Reality seems to have been recognised, however, by 1464, when Isabel was thirteen and Anne was only eight. That they were heiresses made them much more attractive on the marriage market and probably also made their parents far more selective in their choice of bridegrooms.

  The vast estate that the earl and countess had collected could remain united only for their lives. Sadly they could not transmit it intact to the next generation. For that, a son was needed. Their son. There was no divorce as such in the fifteenth century and with two daughters Warwick could hardly plead non-consummation. Even if the Countess Anne had died and the earl had remarried, any son by a second bride could have succeeded only to his Neville and Salisbury lands. The countess did not expire until 1492, when Warwick, had he survived, would have been sixty-four years old: not too ancient to procreate, but old by fifteenth-century standards. The Countess Anne had twenty years to remarry, but her menopause had surely come and reproduction of a son of her own was no longer a possibility. Even a single daughter, had either Isabel or Anne died, could not have kept everything together, because the estates were not all held by the same title. Inherited through different lines, they were subject to different entails. Whereas the Beauchamp, Despenser, Holland and Montagu lands were heritable by children of the earl and countess of whatever sex, the Neville lands were entailed in the male line (tail male). If Warwick had no son, the right of inheritance would devolve first on his brother John (d.1471) and his male descendants, and thereafter on the male lines of Salisbury’s brothers George Lord Latimer (d.1469) and Edward Lord Abergavenny (d.1476) in succession. Warwick’s two daughters, Isabel and Anne, could divide the rest. By 1464, it therefore appears, the earl and countess were rec
onciled to the division into three of their great accumulation of property. The Neville lands in tail male, comprising a couple of manors in Essex and the three great northern lordships of Middleham, Sheriff Hutton (Yorks.) and Penrith (Cumbria), were destined to pass to Warwick’s brother John and his son George Neville. All the rest, from Barnard Castle in County Durham, the Welsh marcher lordships, the Warwick and Despenser lands in the West Midlands, to properties in twenty other counties, would be divided between Isabel and Anne as co-heiresses.42 Even in three unequal parts, the divided estate was sufficient to make George, Isabel and Anne amongst the greatest heirs (and matrimonial catches) of their time.

  By 1464, if not earlier, it appears that Warwick had resigned himself to never fathering a son. It was in this year, perhaps not for the first time, that he was resettling his estates and most probably writing his will. Thirty-five was not unusually young to be planning for eternity. Actually it was only the year before that he had secured a royal licence to settle £1,000-worth of lands in trust for the payment of his debts and the performance of his will.43 Early in 1465 he had lands settled on him, not in tail male as on previous occasions, but on his heirs, executors and assigns, clear evidence not only that he was thinking of his soul, but also that he was resigned to lacking a son and was providing for the eventuality that it was daughters whom he wished to inherit.44 Moreover, in 1466 he compromised with his Beauchamp sisters-in-law.45 Whilst he was alive, he could continue to frustrate their claims on his estates, but how would his daughters cope should he die? A handful of manors to each sister-in-law and an entail that promised them the succession should his countess die childless were prices worth paying to ensure that his daughters’ tenure of the Beauchamp estates and the earldom of Warwick would not be challenged when he himself was gone. His sisters-in-law did not however give up their claims on their father’s trust: Elizabeth Lady Latimer (d.1480), the youngest sister-in-law, regarded the trust and the Beauchamp Chapel as their family assets.46 Presumably Warwick felt no need to compensate the powerless St Cross Hospital, Winchester, which he had already wronged, and could not persuade the Nevilles of Abergavenny to abandon their claim to a halfshare of the Despenser inheritance. Warwick had recognised reproductive reality. He was investing in his heirs and ensuring their future security.

  If Warwick could not himself become a king or indeed a duke as he more feasibly aspired, his heirs could be ducal or royal and could satisfy those ambitions that he yet had to fulfil. That he possessed such exalted ambitions is shown by his decision to marry Francis Lord Lovell, the heir to a decidedly wealthy barony, not to one of his daughters but to his niece, when he was granted the boy’s wardship and marriage in 1465.47 Anne Neville was the younger, of course. When we think of these two young ladies, Isabel – the eldest – must always have taken precedence and been more important. She would have the pick of their inheritance. Inevitably it was Isabel who embarked first on the marriage market. Nor should we overlook George Neville. Although only a baby, born on 22 February 1465,48 he and his father were the heirs presumptive and future heads of Warwick’s house of Neville. Warwick was as concerned for the future of the main line, the male line, as for his own daughters.

  Actually it was as early as 1464 that the Burgundian chronicler Waurin located Warwick’s plan to marry his two daughters to their cousins and royal dukes, the king’s brothers George, Duke of Clarence and Richard, Duke of Gloucester.49 At that point Anne was at most eight years old. Undoubtedly Warwick did plan to wed Isabel to Clarence, whom she did indeed marry in 1469, but any proposal to wed Richard to Anne during the 1460s is unsubstantiated and appears unlikely. Certainly 1464 is too early. What seems more likely is that Warwick intended the young Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham for one of them, since the earl’s ‘secret displeasure’ was recorded by the chronicler pseudo-Worcester at the duke’s marriage to Katherine Wydeville, sister of Edward IV’s new queen, in February 1466.50 It is telling that no such anger is attributed to the marriages of the less well-endowed heirs of the newly created earls of Essex, Kent and Pembroke, down to whom Warwick was apparently unwilling to stoop for either Isabel or Anne. Certainly Warwick did support the proposal for the marriage of his brother John’s baby son George Neville to Anne, the heiress of the Duke of Exeter. It was a match that should have made young George into a duke and certainly made him royal, for the mother of the infant bride was Edward IV’s eldest sister and the father, though exiled, was also of Lancastrian royal descent. We know of Warwick’s attitude because of his anger – ‘his great secret displeasure’ – when Anne of Exeter was poached instead for 4,000 marks (£2,666 13s 4d) by Edward’s new Wydeville queen for her own son Thomas Grey in October 1466.51 Queen Elizabeth had readier access – pillow talk – to royal favour, and the nobility were anxious to exploit (or guard against) this new avenue of patronage. The young king attached inflated worth to his new in-laws and provided for each of them on an unprecedented scale. Warwick moreover was disadvantaged by his family’s previous success: in each case, Buckingham, Clarence, Exeter and Gloucester were already related to his heirs within the prohibited degrees and a papal dispensation was required, so weddings could not be concluded quickly.

  Individually and collectively all these matches would have provided for Warwick’s heirs, advanced them in rank and wealth, strengthened his own position at court and extended his hold yet more firmly in diverse localities. We have seen that the Buckingham and Exeter marriages were frustrated. So, too, was the union of Isabel and Clarence, which King Edward, for reasons unknown, vetoed. Pseudo-Worcester locates this around October 1467.52 Probably Edward wanted to make use in his diplomacy of Clarence’s hand and did indeed proffer it.53 Hence Warwick suddenly found his influence eclipsed in one of his areas of principal concern – the future of his dynasty and his daughters. It has been identified as an important contributory factor in his quarrel with the king and its subsequent escalation into renewed civil war. What Warwick had in mind next for his daughters when the dukes were taken is unclear, because actually he refused to take no for an answer and married Isabel to Clarence nevertheless.

  Certainly the teenaged Isabel Neville was old enough to appreciate that a suitable bridegroom had been found for her and denied to her by the king. Whether the eight-or nine-year-old Anne knew of any of the very preliminary manoeuvres on her behalf appears unlikely. There was no need for haste. That Warwick could secure none of these matches and was opposed at every juncture by the king and queen was a factor – perhaps merely contributory, but significant nevertheless – in the deterioration of their relations that ended in the renewal of civil war in 1469 with the earl and king on opposite sides. If the Countess Anne, Isabel and almost certainly Anne Neville engaged themselves with the matrimonial issues, neither daughter can have been consulted on the bigger political issues and the countess’s input, if any, was not decisive.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Her Father’s

  Daughter

  1469–71

  ISABEL’S MARRIAGE AND STILLBIRTH

  The second phase of the Wars of the Roses, from 1469 to 1471, commenced with the marriage of Anne Neville’s sister Isabel. It was a conflict in which Anne was a major player.

  George, Duke of Clarence (1449–78), the middle of the three York brothers, was younger than King Edward IV and older than Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the future Richard III. At his marriage on 12 July 1469 he was still only nineteen. Since Duke George had been in control of his own affairs since his majority was advanced in 1466,1 he may have appeared older, though it was not very mature of him the previous year to point out in public that Lord Mayor Oulegrave had fallen asleep whilst presiding over a treason trial at the London Guildhall!2 That was not strictly what Rows meant when he described the duke as ‘right witty’,3 but rather that he was intelligent. Crowland also praises his abilities.4 Such testimonies, however, need not mean that Clarence had any common sense. Duke George was a prince and a royal duke, possessed of enormous wealth and pre
siding over a most impressive household, for which Warwick had helped compile model ordinances only the year before.5 He was thus most eligible of all the available bachelors to reproduce the grandeur to which Isabel Neville had been brought up. Moreover, George was ‘seemly of person and well-visaged’,6 which may have been just as important to his cousin Isabel Neville, now aged eighteen. What mattered to Clarence is suggested by a note entered into his household book that Isabel was ‘one of the daughters and heirs of the said Richard Earl of Warwick’,7 the other being Anne Neville. This reminded him and us that George’s marriage to Isabel promised a share in due course of Warwick’s great estates and titles. The earl had promised Isabel to the duke at least a couple of years before they were married. The two teenagers were of age and were entitled legally to bind themselves to one another if they so wished. Not only the bride’s parents approved, but also, it appears, the groom’s mother Cecily.8

  That Edward IV objected to the match and vetoed it could not be decisive – there was no Royal Marriage Act in 1469, although to flout a king regnant was definitely illadvised. In this instance, however, the king had more say. George and Isabel were first cousins once removed, related in the second degree, and were also related in other degrees: Isabel’s great-grandmother was George’s great-aunt and both were descendants of Edward III. Moreover, George’s mother Cecily, Duchess of York had been godmother to Isabel – a spiritual relationship. Although not explicitly forbidden in the book of Leviticus, intermarriage between such close relations was prohibited without a dispensation, to be solicited from the Pope, and which under most circumstances those of noble birth could normally expect. Often enough such couples married on the expectation of a dispensation later, but this carried a risk that the union might be nullified, which clearly Warwick was not prepared to take: indeed, he was even more unwilling after he encountered obstacles. King Edward’s wishes counted for more at Rome than did those of Warwick and Clarence. He used his contacts to obstruct any such application. Warwick’s agent, Master Lacy, could obtain no audience with Pope Paul II.9 But Edward’s opposition proved indecisive, because Warwick refused to give up and used James Goldwell, the king’s own representative at the Curia, to negotiate on his behalf.10 The necessary dispensation was dated 14 March 1469.11 Although King Edward could no longer prevent their marriage in England, Warwick secured a licence from Cardinal Bourchier, another cousin, for George and Isabel to be married at Calais, where he was still captain, by his brother Archbishop Neville.12