Anne Neville

by Michael Hicks

  The wedding took place on Tuesday 12 July 1469 at Calais. This was the first visit there of Warwick’s daughters, so far as we know, for eight years. No clandestine affair like the king’s, the marriage festivities were a splendid five-day celebration comparable in splendour to Archbishop Neville’s own enthronement. It was a society wedding that left the validity of the marriage in no doubt. The bride’s parents, the earl and countess of Warwick, were present and perhaps also the groom’s mother, Cecily, Duchess of York, who is recorded with them at their embarkation from Sandwich. Despite its peripheral location, there attended ‘five other knights of the garter, and many other lords and ladies, and worshipful knights, well accompanied with wise and discreet esquires, in right great number, to the laud praising of God and to the honour and worship of the world’.13 We do not know who all the guests were, but their presence, especially at such an out-of-the-way venue, indicates that the king’s opposition was regarded as unreasonable and that his malevolence could be risked. Anne Neville, though not separately mentioned, was undoubtedly present. Apart from what it meant to the conjugal couple, it was the moment for Anne when the two girls at home became one, when Isabel moved out, and Anne’s own marriage moved up her parents’ agenda. She was now part of the inner royal family: the Yorkist family tree had now become her own. Anne Neville was now sister-in-law (or, in contemporary terms, sister) of the Duke of Clarence, of King Edward and his queen, of Clarence’s sisters the duchesses of Burgundy, Exeter, and Suffolk, and of their husbands the three dukes. Kinship was a powerful force in fifteenth-century England, yet it – and especially kinship by marriage – could divide as well as unite.

  Important though the marriage was in itself, it also sealed an alliance of great political moment, of which, most probably, Warwick’s two daughters were in ignorance. The Duchess Isabel and probably also the Countess Anne and Anne Neville herself remained in Calais,14 whilst the earl, duke and archbishop launched their political takeover of the realm of England. A rebellion that Warwick had fomented in Yorkshire was accompanied by his own invasion from Calais, which resulted in victory over the king’s allies at Edgecote in Oxfordshire, the elimination of the king’s principal favourites and the seizure of the person of King Edward himself. Edward IV was imprisoned first at Warwick Castle and then at Middleham Castle, whilst his government was conducted at Westminster at Warwick’s direction by the archbishop. Initially this was designed to restore to Warwick the control of affairs that he had formerly enjoyed, not to depose the monarch. That, however, may also have been intended. Charges of sorcery against the queen’s mother were most probably meant to invalidate the king’s marriage and hence the legitimacy of his offspring. The slur of bastardy against Edward that also circulated15 could also have invalidated the king’s own legitimacy and right to rule. If Edward’s children were discounted, Clarence was once again his heir. If the king himself was a bastard, it was Clarence who was heir to their father Richard, Duke of York and to the Yorkist line. Taken together, therefore, these aspersions were grounds for Edward to be replaced at the next parliament by his brother Clarence, which would have made Anne’s sister Isabel into a queen. None of these allegations can be attributed directly to Warwick, but they emanated from his circle and surely had his consent. The parliament that he ordered to be summoned (but which never met) might have given all this effect or, at the least, legalised Warwick’s control over the government. At some point after Warwick’s invasion, the Countess Anne and Anne Neville crossed to England and proceeded, most probably, via London to Warwick.16

  But it all went badly wrong. Warwick had to release King Edward, who resumed control of affairs and held a great council at which he replaced his deceased favourites with new ones. This involved also the betrothal of George Neville, son of Warwick’s brother John, to the king’s eldest daughter and heiress presumptive Elizabeth of York. Both bride and groom were three years old. George was created Duke of Bedford and John into Marquis Montagu. Young George Neville was thus offered the promise of a throne as alternative to that to which Clarence and his duchess had aspired. It was food for thought for Warwick, so it was reasoned, that not his co-heiress, but his heir male could yet attain the throne. Whatever Edward may have wished, however much he may have hoped to avenge himself on the earl, duke and archbishop, as the royal household men predicted, yet the council induced him to receive them and to reconcile himself to them. The culprits submitted and resumed their allegiance. The king in turn accepted their submissions and loyalty.17 Apart from the marriage of George and Isabel, which made Anne Neville Clarence’s sister[-in-law], Warwick and Clarence had gained nothing but forgiveness for their misdeeds. They were as far from power as ever, for King Edward had found new magnates to replace the old, one of whom threatened the earl’s lands and dominance in the North, and had besides removed Warwick and the archbishop from the offices in which they had inserted themselves.18

  As earnest of the reconciliation, the duke and earl stayed in the capital for the Christmas and New Year celebrations that they shared with the king. Although not separately recorded, the Countess Anne, the Duchess Isabel, and Anne Neville herself were most probably also present. Since Isabel was advanced in pregnancy, she may have been grateful for the attendance of her mother, who was something of an expert in such circumstances. Thereafter they apparently went into the country, to Warwick’s western estates as the ignorant Burgundian Waurin uninformatively expressed it,19 probably with Clarence, who returned to London on 4 March 1470, and put up – with his brother the king – at the house of their mother the Duchess Cecily, Baynards Castle.20 Following Edward’s departure to quell a rebellion in Lincolnshire, Clarence and his father-in-law set off from London on 7 March for Warwick.21 Probably Anne Neville and her mother were also there.

  Although Edward IV had received Warwick and Clarence into his grace and allowed them to keep their property, other acts of the Westminster great council in December 1469 were designed permanently to deny them the power they had sought in the summer. It was not Warwick who succeeded the Herberts as power-brokers in Wales: that was the king’s youngest brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester as front man for the Herberts. In the East March and the North the natural rivals of the Nevilles, the Percys, earls of Northumberland, were restored. Warwick’s brother John, now promoted to be Marquis Montagu, was reassigned abruptly from the North-East to the West Country. His other brother Archbishop Neville ceased to be Lord Chancellor. Montagu’s new title, which gave him precedence over Warwick himself, the elevation of his son George to be duke of Bedford, and the latter’s betrothal to King Edward’s heiress (and Warwick’s goddaughter) Elizabeth of York – potentially to be queen, but unlikely ever to succeed – did not compensate for their real exclusion from real power.22 Warwick and Clarence, we may deduce, were unhappy with these arrangements. We may presume, moreover, that they were unpersuaded of Edward’s good faith. In due course, when the time was propitious, would he not wreak vengeance on those who had so humiliated him? Still set on the power that they had sought in the summer, they planned a repeat performance, this time however intending Edward’s deposition and his replacement by his male heir, Clarence himself. The core was the Lincolnshire Rebellion of March 1470, nominally a popular insurrection, but actually orchestrated by Sir Robert Welles at the instigation of Warwick and Clarence. When the king marched northwards from London to suppress it, the duke and earl promised help and proceeded in force eastwards from Warwick, where they probably left their ladies. They promised to support the king, but hoped instead to ambush him, a project that was revealed by captured rebels and correspondence after Edward had scattered the insurgents at Losecote Field. He turned his attention next to Warwick and Clarence, who were not strong enough to resist him in battle, and fled instead to France.

  Their flight was not altogether precipitate. Warwick’s artillery train accompanied them and was left in safe-keeping at Bristol, where the earl was able to recover it the following year.23 En route, moreover, mo
st probably at Warwick, the fugitives were joined by their ladies, Warwick’s countess and her daughters, Clarence’s duchess and the still unmarried Anne Neville. Anne was ‘the child’ who accompanied her parents and the Clarences when they embarked from Dartmouth on 7 April,24 may have been repelled with them at Southampton where Warwick’s newest ship the Trinity was lost, and then sailed with them to Calais where, much to their surprise, they were excluded by Warwick’s deputy John Lord Wenlock. That was on Monday 16 April.25 At anchor and confined to the ships, exposed to unfamiliar motions and decidedly alarmed, Anne’s sister Isabel, Duchess of Clarence went into labour. As the duke and duchess had celebrated and had presumably first consummated their marriage on 12 July 1469 and forty weeks fell on Tuesday 17 April 1470, the baby could have been almost exactly full-term. More probably it was premature – a few days, a few weeks, or a few months – and was stillborn: the result surely of the stress to which the mother had been exposed. George and Isabel lost their son and heir.26 The earl and countess were deprived of their first grandson and Anne herself of her nephew. Isabel’s mother, well accustomed to childbirth, and most probably Anne, were in attendance. This familiar tragedy certainly brought a private reality to Warwick’s miscalculations.

  THE MAKING OF A PRINCESS

  The stillbirth of his eldest grandchild did not deter Warwick from political activity. A campaign of piracy, with his ladies in train, enraged the Burgundians, and was followed by a safe landfall in the Seine estuary in Normandy about 1 May. Much though he wished to help, King Louis XI of France was bound by treaty not to assist Burgundy’s enemies, so he was obliged to make his support for Warwick surreptitious. So he explained by letter of 12 May. The exiles’ ladies were different, however, non-combatants deserving of chivalry, so Louis proffered hospitality to the countess of Warwick, duchess of Clarence, and by implication their entourage, who certainly included Anne Neville27 It is unlikely that they took his offer up, since Warwick chose to keep them near him. We know that on 8 July the three ladies were with Warwick at Valognes in the Cotentin peninsular conveniently near to Barfleur, where Warwick’s expeditionary force to reconquer England was being prepared.28

  Now defeated traitors, Warwick and Clarence feared execution if they returned home. Moreover, they had both forfeited all their possessions. If not yet destitute, they and their ladies faced a future of relative privation in exile much like that endured for the past few years by the Lancastrian Queen Margaret of Anjou and her adherents at Bar and elsewhere. Anne’s privileged life and comfortable future as daughter of an earl, great heiress and titled lady, consort and mother, was abruptly terminated and gave way to something far less certain and unattractive. The three Beaufort brothers, also exiled, had been unable to marry and Frideswide Hungerford, though still resident in England, had abandoned any plans of marriage for a nunnery. Anne’s future therefore was bleak. Her fate depended entirely on whatever her father could conjure from the current catastrophe. There was no mileage in reconciliation with the Yorkists. Since Edward IV was in an unforgiving mood, there was no immediate prospect that the exiles could negotiate their way back. If insufficiently powerful to defeat Edward with all the advantages of surprise, the exiles could hardly expect to launch a successful invasion by themselves. They needed help. Warwick wasted no time over scruples: he realised almost at once (by 12 May)29 that he must ally with the Lancastrians, who could offer him not only extra manpower, but the moral authority of King Henry VI, which proved still to have great popular appeal. Clarence and Isabel’s hopes of a crown were necessary casualties and had to be abandoned. From Warwick’s angle, the losses of one daughter were balanced by the gains of the second, for the marriage of his younger daughter Anne Neville to Edward of Lancaster, son of King Henry and Queen Margaret, was the seal to any deal. Although first mentioned on 2 June,30 the topic had probably been broached by 12 May, and was duly agreed.

  ‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend’ was a maxim that had occurred as early as 1467 to Queen Margaret’s brother John, Duke of Calabria, and subsequently in 1470 to Queen Margaret’s chancellor Sir John Fortescue as they heard of the widening breach between the Nevilles and Edward IV.31 In 1468 Warwick had seen more future within England in persuading Edward or restraining him than in transferring his allegiance to the Lancastrians, which had no appeal for Clarence at all. Then they had other fish to fry. Margaret of Anjou was therefore open to a deal with Warwick in 1470 – indeed, eager and enthusiastic for one – although the marriage alliance was something she had to think about. Prince Edward’s hand in marriage, potentially that of a future king, was too important to be lightly conceded. The alliance was agreed by 29 June, but ‘on no account whatever’, the Milanese ambassador reported, ‘will she agree to send her son with Warwick, as she mistrusts him’.32 What if Warwick betrayed him to the Yorkists? Was not the capture of Prince Edward – the whole future of the house of Lancaster – a benefit so great that Edward IV could even be persuaded to pardon Warwick and Clarence in return? Mistrust ran both ways of course. If Henry did resume his reign, how could Warwick (his former enemy and traitor) be assured of his own safety and the restoration of his estates? Prince Edward had been Margaret’s principal diplomatic card: as early as 1461 she had agreed a marriage for him with Princess Mary of Scotland that had not taken effect.33 If Margaret were now to marry Edward off to Anne, this was a card which henceforth she could no longer play. A grandchild, of course, would strengthen her hand. The same argument, albeit weaker, applied to Anne, Warwick’s unmarried heiress. Her marriage (and inheritance) was too valuable to concede lightly. Such potential alternatives had to be balanced against current realities. In the juncture where they found themselves in 1470, the solution for both queen and earl was the espousal of Prince Edward to Anne Neville. The union of Warwick’s daughter to the Lancastrian heir and future king assured the earl of his future and moreover fulfilled his highest ambitions – a crown for his daughter, albeit the youngest rather than the elder. The match moreover bound the earl to the Lancastrians. Once the prince was his son-in-law, Warwick was obliged to favour his cause and could no longer treat him as a bargaining counter. Nor, indeed, could he refuse to concede formal authority to his new son-in-law should the invasion be successful, however much he might hope to bend the new regime to his will.

  Alliance between the old adversaries by itself was not enough. Both Warwick and Margaret recognised the participation of King Louis to be essential. Against his personal preferences, Louis XI was obliged to engage in mediation, to receive both parties publicly at court, and to endure the increasingly critical and justified diplomatic notes of Charles, Duke of Burgundy, whose subjects Warwick had robbed. The earl overrode the qualms of the king, ignored his urgings to depart prematurely and forced him to take on the financing, supply and equipment of the expeditionary force to invade England on a scale, quality of preparation, cost and timescale much beyond what Louis had wished. Louis’ agents backed Warwick rather than their master. Urged to depart on 23 June, his unwanted guests sailed only on 9 September.34 Meanwhile, Warwick had been preparing his retainers in England – diversionary uprisings were launched in Yorkshire and Kent – and the Lancastrians also communicated with their adherents. The result was a complete success. Now, on behalf of Henry VI, the progress of Warwick and the Lancastrians from the West Country to Coventry received unprecedented popular support, whilst the incumbent King Edward IV was isolated, bereft of support, only narrowly evaded capture, and fled abroad. Henry VI reigned once more, amazingly. ‘You might also have come across innumerable folk’, wrote the Crowland chronicler, ‘to whom the restoration of the pious King Henry was a miracle and the transformation the work of the right hand of the All Highest’.35

  Anne Neville’s marriage was essential to this remarkable bouleversement. Mutual advantage alone sufficed to achieve the rapid and complete agreement of Warwick and Margaret in principle, although the details as always took time and the right appearances also had to be preserved. Since
Warwick had been the greatest foe of the Lancastrians, Queen Margaret had to appease her devoted, resentful and understandably vengeful followers by maintaining her moral ascendancy. Instead of applauding the discomfiture of their persecutor, they had to be convinced of the desirability and wisdom of alliance with him. Warwick must be perceived as a subject, not treated as an equal. He had to be presented as contrite for past faults, properly submissive, soliciting the queen’s forgiveness in formal ceremonial and on bended knee, whilst she graciously condescended to receive him back into her allegiance. As for the marriage alliance,