Anne Neville

by Michael Hicks

  But what was intended to be temporary, a matter of a few weeks, continued for six months – six months of crucial decisions and policy-making. First one session of parliament, then a second, and a full round of negotiations for a set of treaties with France passed under Warwick’s aegis. John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, apart, there was not the blood-letting against the Yorkists that Lancastrian vengeance demanded and, so far as we know, no new forfeitures. The Lancastrian leadership, whether returned magnates like the royal dukes of Exeter and Somerset or lesser men, recovered their forfeited properties and received some patronage, but they did not secure the rewards or the decisive say in affairs that their loyal sufferings deserved, or so they thought. No doubt they considered that too much had been conceded at Angers to Warwick, their erstwhile foe. It even appears that Clarence was made Henry VI’s heir in reversion after the prince if he died childless rather than the junior Lancastrian lines. Clarence resisted surrendering lands to the Lancastrians which they, in contrast, thought the absolute minimum that they should recover.56 An alliance between former victims and victors inevitably meant that there was too little to share out.

  Had Margaret and Edward arrived, it could have been very different. Whether Fortescue’s plan of government could have materialised is unlikely, since his academic theorising, however cloaked in concrete detail, was ill-suited for critical circumstances that demanded decisions and leadership. However much Fortescue may have deplored the dominance of magnates over functionaries, the Readeption was certainly a time when it was the powerful who counted. The leadership of Margaret and Edward gave that legitimacy to the actions of the regime that it lacked to some Lancastrian eyes. Margaret and Warwick might have smoothed over differences between the unwilling allies: though neither feature amongst history’s great conciliators. Warwick surely did not welcome any reduction in power or any of the transfers of Lancastrian forfeitures from himself to their original owners that could be expected to ensue, although he, at least, could understand the necessity. Certainly the authority of the queen and prince was more acceptable to former Lancastrians than was Warwick’s. One would like to think that a note of caution might have tempered the commitment to an aggressive alliance with Louis XI against Duke Charles of Burgundy, which disastrously caused the duke to resource Edward IV’s return, to which originally he was adamantly opposed. That, however, is unlikely, for Margaret’s obligation to Louis was particularly strong. By the time Edward and Anne arrived in England, sadly, all these opportunities were past.

  Isabel, Duchess of Clarence did cross over ahead of the main party to join her husband the duke.57 She was therefore in England for the heart-searching that the duke underwent, although perhaps neither in his company nor in his confidence. Probably she failed to influence a man, who proved particularly susceptible to the blandishments of other kinswomen. Clarence was urged to resume his allegiance to his own house of York rather than that of Lancaster by his mother Cecily, Duchess of York, his uncles the earl of Essex and Cardinal Bourchier, his sisters the duchesses of Exeter, Suffolk and ‘most specially, my Lady of Burgundy’, and Bishop Stillington,58 who surely played his part when the duke was recruiting from his episcopal palace at Wells. That was en route to join Warwick against Edward IV, who had landed in Yorkshire and marched southwards to Warwickshire. Clarence succumbed. Actually the duke carried his troops into his brother’s camp. Clarence was not much concerned about breaking faith with the Lancastrians, it appears, but he did not wish to part company with his father-in-law Warwick – one or the other must lose the forthcoming battle – and persuaded King Edward to offer forgiveness to the earl. Warwick refused, in honour certainly, since nobody would ever accept his word again if he was to turn his coat once more, but also, one would like to suppose, in faith to his daughter Anne, now the Lancastrian princess of Wales, and his countess, also still with the Lancastrians in France. Their fates did not apparently weigh heavily on Clarence’s mind. At Barnet on Easter Sunday it was Anne’s father who was slain, her sister’s husband Clarence – her brother[-in-law] – who survived. Anne, too, was no party to these changes, but merely found, on arrival in England, that the alignments she had expected were no more.

  Warwick had despatched his Lord Treasurer Sir John Langstrother, Prior of St John, with the veteran John, Lord Wenlock to fetch the queen, countess of Warwick, prince and princess. They had embarked from Harfleur on 24 March. Unfortunately, however, nature intervened: contrary winds prevented their voyage until 13 April, Easter Saturday. Anne’s mother the countess of Warwick landed at Portsmouth; the queen and the others, including Princess Anne, at Weymouth.59 This was the day before Easter and the battle of Barnet, at which Warwick and his brother Montagu were defeated and slain. London and Henry VI were already in Yorkist hands. To aggravate the situation, Clarence was now on the other side. With her husband dead and her elder daughter a Yorkist once more, the Countess Anne was not inclined to repose her trust in Warwick’s new Lancastrian allies. Instead she deserted them and (in the process) her younger daughter Anne Neville. Nearer to the capital and proceeding westwards, it was she at Southampton who first heard of her husband’s demise and chose not to proceed to Weymouth, but instead to take sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey, a Cistercian abbey of royal foundation in the New Forest,60 whence she could not be removed by her enemies. Actually Edward IV would probably have consigned her to a nunnery anyway had she come into his hands. He required the abbot to keep her safe.61 The countess may have feared that, now that Warwick was dead, his foes would wreak revenge on her. Perhaps she also feared that she was personally so deeply implicated in her late husband’s plots that she might suffer attainder just as her mother-in-law Alice, Countess of Salisbury had done in 1459. In consequence her younger daughter Anne, still aged only fourteen, now fatherless, was also deprived of her mother’s company, support and advice for the next two years – two crucial years in her life.

  ‘The Queen Margaret and her son’ and obviously also Princess Anne, although always unmentioned, landed at Weymouth in Dorset and proceeded thence to Cerne Abbey, which they made their base. There they were joined by the rest of their entourage and by a reception party from London made up of the Beaufort brothers, Edmund, Duke of Somerset and John, Marquis of Dorset, and also John Courtenay, the earl of Devon. There on 15 April, only one day after the battle, they heard of the disaster at Barnet. Not surprisingly, Margaret ‘was therefore right heavy and sorry’.62 The reaction of her daughter-in-law Anne to the loss of her father is again unrecorded but easily imagined. How distressed she was depends on the nature of their relationship, which we cannot divine, but certainly shock, sorrow, alarm and anxiety for the future must have been ingredients. Unlike her mother, Anne had no choice what to do. Her future was irrevocably tied to her new-found husband, to her mother-in-law Queen Margaret, and to the Lancastrians, as they embarked on their final cast of the dice, carrying Anne with them. If Anne had heard what the Yorkist Arrival reports was said within the Lancastrian camp, that the Beauforts at least thought their cause not weakened by her father’s death but rather strengthened,63 she was surely yet more distressed. Now that Warwick’s Neville allies were defeated, was the unfortunate girl herself branded an encumbrance by her Lancastrian in-laws? It was fortunate that her marriage was legally watertight.

  In 1470 Warwick had swept through the West Country to Coventry, where his army was reported as 60,000 strong. Whilst doubtless an exaggeration – could any English army of these dimensions supply itself in the field? – it is obvious that the invaders had benefited from popular enthusiasm for Henry VI and that Edward IV in contrast had been left bereft. The support was more than Warwick had enjoyed earlier in the year and doubtless more also than the Lancastrians could have raised without his aid. Now the Lancastrians sought to repeat the exercise. They lacked Warwick’s leadership and probably also his adherents. Never strong in the far west, the Neville connection may have been defused, just possibly transferred to Warwick’s son-in-law Clarence, but sur
ely not to the earl’s other daughter the Princess Anne. Evidently some hoped that potential Lancastrians put off by Warwick, formerly their greatest foe, would now enrol. We cannot tell whether they did. What we can be sure of, nevertheless, is that they did not reproduce the outflow of popular enthusiasm of the previous year or consequently that vast army. They did exploit the talismanic names of Beaufort and Courtenay, ‘old inheritors of that country’, still strong after ten years of exile, but not powerful enough. The noblemen, the queen and the prince strove to mobilise their supporters in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire.64 The army they raised was substantial, but not huge. In March, Clarence, on his march northwards via Wells to the Midlands, had raised 4,000 men in support of Henry VI from their particular pool.65

  From Cerne Abbas the Lancastrians proceeded to Exeter, thence (presumably via Wells) northwards to Bath, which they reached on 29 April.66 After recruiting for a fortnight – the whole duration of some of the campaigns of the Wars of the Roses – the Lancastrian forces were still too few to take on King Edward with confidence. Their preference was to join up with the Lancastrians of Wales, who were being recruited by Henry VI’s half-brother Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, and of Cheshire and Lancaster, which done, so they hoped, they could defeat the Yorkists.

  Edward IV had other ideas. Instead of waiting to be attacked, he took the initiative, proceeded to Cirencester, and sought out the Lancastrians in battle. Although initially evaded, he was able to prevent them from combining their levies, forced them to stand and fight, and decisively defeated them at Tewkesbury (4 May 1471).

  The Yorkist Arrival records the elaborate manoeuvres, feint and counterfeint, and then the desperate chase northwards from Bristol through the Vale of Berkeley to Gloucester and on to Tewkesbury. If the forced march of thirty-six miles on the last day saw the ladies on horseback,67 it was surely exhausting, frightening and dispiriting for a princess who was still short of her fifteenth birthday. Doubtless the ladies preceded their weary army, which reached Tewkesbury only about 4p.m., and were accommodated within the abbey or the manor house. These were familiar surroundings for Anne, who had visited the town and abbey frequently. Her grandmother Isabel was buried there, together with her Despenser and De Clare ancestors. Her mother was foundress of the abbey. Perhaps she and her husband stayed in her family’s residence; perhaps at the abbey itself. Since Prince Edward took his leave of his mother early on the morrow, Queen Margaret and Princess Anne were probably lodging together.68 That Saturday morning the Lancastrian army was drawn up with its back to the abbey and the town, into which it was scattered by the victorious Yorkists. The town, the abbey, and doubtless the foundress’ residence were sacked. Although unrecorded, we may presume – as soldiers habitually behave in such circumstances – that violence, wanton destruction, sacrilege and rape were visited on the non-combatant civilians, priests, women and children. Those Lancastrians who took refuge within the abbey were lured out, on royal promises of immunity, and some of them were then executed: a story that the Yorkist Arrival took pains to conceal. Others were slain in the abbey cemetery. Both the abbey and churchyard were polluted and had to be reconsecrated later by the bishop of Worcester. Most of the Lancastrian commanders who survived the battle were executed afterwards – Somerset, Dorset, Devon, Wenlock and St John among them. This was on Monday.

  Also slain was Anne’s husband of six months. Prince Edward of Lancaster was fighting his first battle. His presence was important for Lancastrian morale, although the direction of the battle appears to have rested in the older but inexperienced hands of the duke of Somerset, disastrously. The prince ‘was taken, fleeing to the town ward, and slain, in the field’, reports the Arrival. A Tewkesbury Abbey chronicle and other early sources take the same line. ‘And there was slain on the field, Prince Edward’, states Warkworth’s Chronicle, ‘which cried for succour to his brother-in-law the Duke of Clarence’. A much later source, Hall’s Chronicle, states instead that he was taken alive, hauled before King Edward to whom he was impertinent: the king struck him and those about him, the king’s brothers Clarence and Gloucester and Lord Hastings, then despatched him.69 Since Gloucester was to be second partner of the prince’s wife Anne Neville, Hall is the source and inspiration for Shakespeare’s belief that Anne remarried to her first husband’s killer and of the celebrated (albeit wholly fictional) scene of the duke’s wooing of the widowed princess. Professor Myers has applied the accepted academic principle that the earliest accounts are closest to the original and hence more reliable to demonstrate the elaboration of the story down to Hall.70 A desire by later writers to blacken the failed tyrant Richard III, formerly duke of Gloucester, also may have played a part. Hall’s tale lacked any contemporary authority and was dismissed as fiction. Recently, however, historians have become aware of an illustrated French version of the Arrival, perhaps dating to this very year, which shows a scene very like that described by Hall. Pinioned, the prince, identified by his coat of arms, faced King Edward wearing his crown, and was struck down.71 Whether Gloucester was one of the killers is not apparent, nor is it material, since it was his role as constable of England to preside over the summary military proceedings that duly despatched those taken in battle and other traitors. In any case it was the king’s responsibility. Like Henry VI, who was killed soon afterwards, Prince Edward was too dangerous to let live. It seems therefore that Hall’s account may be authentic: that we should credit this last picture of the spirited, arrogant, fearless adolescent who was Anne’s first husband.

  Where was Princess Anne during the battle and its aftermath, the sacking and the bloodbath? Not at Tewkesbury, we must hope, but we cannot know for sure. What happened to Anne was of no interest to the author of the Arrival, who did not recognise his future queen, and left her out of his history. Most probably she escaped the terror of the defeat, the sacking and the bloodbath because she was with Queen Margaret, who ‘withdrew herself from the adventure of the battle’ early that Saturday morning ‘for the surety of her person’ to some ‘poor religious place’ across the River Avon on the Worcester road. Probably Evesham Abbey was meant, although it does not match this belittling description. There, reports the Arrival, King Edward found the queen (and most probably the princess) on 7 May on his way to Worcester. Queen Margaret ‘was borne in carriage before the king at his triumph in London’.72 She was never to be at complete liberty again. This refuge of the queen and princess is consistent with the listing by the abbey chronicle of thosehere taken and presented to the king, and pardoned’, who included ‘Lady Margaret, Queen, [and] Lady Anne, Princess’.73 The there, however, surely betokened Tewkesbury. Two other ladies who were also pardoned, the countess of Devon and Lady Katherine Vaux, were probably attendant on the queen. It is possible therefore that Margaret and Anne were brought back to Tewkesbury prior to the king’s departure. If so, they witnessed the aftermath of defeat – the destruction, the bloodshed, the display of quartered bodies of their kin and friends, and so on: traumatic sights. Thereafter their paths diverged, Queen Margaret as the king’s prisoner and Anne as Clarence’s charge: they may never have met again. Nor indeed was Anne to meet her father-in-law Henry VI, probably last encountered in 1460, who was eliminated a few days later in the Tower.

  Neither Margaret nor Anne saw Prince Edward alive after he left their company that Saturday morning. Whether they could have seen him dead or attended his funeral may depend on where the king took them into custody. Presumably no burial service or masses were possible in a church that had been deconsecrated by bloodshed.74 Prince Edward was interred in a prime position ‘in the midst of the convent choir’75 – an appropriate position for a member of the founder’s family, given that the circle of chantry chapels around the high altar was complete and that in 1477 the vault even of Anne’s sister Isabel had to be located in the ambulatory. Perhaps, therefore, Edward’s burial place reveals Anne’s choice, but it may be that the convent selected such a prominent site on its own account. A simple b
rass was erected over his tomb. The cult of Edward II, which financed the remodelling of Gloucester Abbey’s choir, was a nearby reminder of the potential value of political saints. There are two references to a cult for Edward of Lancaster, but it failed to take off.76 As their founders’ chronicle makes plain, the monks of Tewkesbury saw themselves as safeguarding the interests of their patrons. All the other Lancastrian leaders also received honourable burial within the church and a careful record was compiled of who was buried where. The king may also have had some input in the final resting place of his former royal rival. Although there is no indication that any monument ever marked the prince’s tomb or that any special masses were ever held in his honour, yet Princess Anne could certainly have located Edward’s tomb without difficulty had she returned to Tewkesbury. This was to be expected, given Tewkesbury’s status as the greatest of her family’s religious foundations. Actually, however, her future lay elsewhere. There is no proof of her presence at Tewkesbury again. It is just possible that in 1483, when she took a different route from King Richard III from Windsor to Warwick, that Queen Anne dropped in at Tewkesbury Abbey and searched out her first husband’s tomb, but, if so, it is not recorded. It is possible, but not likely.