Anne Neville

by Michael Hicks

  Yet without a second dispensation, the marriage was never valid. Duke Richard protected himself. The 1474 act provided that if they ‘be hereafter divorced’– if the marriage was declared null as though it had never happened – he could nevertheless hang on to Anne’s share of the Warwick inheritance for life. Whether he would have provided for and protected Anne, once she was no longer his consort, we cannot know. For Anne, it was a matter of trust. She would have been the principal loser, since it was her inheritance – not Richard’s – that the duke was to retain for life. Anne knew Richard better than we do and whether he was worthy of such confidence. Richard had committed himself very little to her to leave the validity of their marriage – its permanence and her security – in doubt. Anne was fully aware of the impediments when she embarked on this contract: how could she be otherwise? The 1474 act indicates that any dispensation sought must have been for the couple already married to be allowed to remain in matrimony. Not to wait for a sufficient dispensation, like not to wait for a partner’s divorce today, to jump the gun and to anticipate the legal formalities, is a type of decision with which we are familiar nowadays. Contemporary examples are not uncommon. The famous match that unified modern Spain in 1469 between Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile involved second cousins: originally justified by a forged dispensation, it was not validated by a proper one until 1471. Isabella’s rival Juana La Betraneja was married to her cousin King Alfonso of Portugal ahead of a dispensation that never arrived.61 Anticipating dispensations was not unusual amongst royalty: not to seek a valid one at all, however, was wholly exceptional.

  There are four alternative explanations of what happened next. The first option, that an adequate dispensation was indeed secured, can be discounted by evidence from 1485.62 Moreover, Clarke failed to find a second dispensation for Anne and Richard in the penitentiary registers. The second option, that Anne and Richard were indeed divorced, obviously did not happen: Anne died as Richard’s queen. To continue married after a further dispensation was refused, which was the third possibility, was forbidden as sinful by the Church, which was expected to take action to separate such couples after the verdict. Since Anne and Richard were not forcibly separated, it seems unlikely that their dispensation was declined. Yet surely a sufficient dispensation was never obtained, for in 1485, Crowland unwittingly reported, Richard thought a divorce easily attainable – thought the marriage easily declared invalid.62 Not to seek an adequate dispensation at all, the fourth possibility and the one argued here, was surely very different.

  Originally, no doubt, Anne and Richard meant to have their union ratified. Hence the initial petition that resulted in the 1472 dispensation. The couple had not then consulted their lawyers. Yet, afterwards, Anne and Richard perhaps, but far more probably Richard by himself, decided not to remedy the defects to a valid marriage and to continue living together as husband and wife without proceeding with the legal niceties. There is no evidence of the pangs of conscience that affected others who sought absolution from the Pope. Just possibly, a dispensation was sought but not pursued. If an application to the papacy had ever been made, a verdict – presumably unfavourable – must have been declared well before 1485 when Richard apparently considered setting Anne aside. Rather than risk divorce, Richard decided not to seek a dispensation that would probably have been denied. Their invalid union denied Anne the security to which she was surely entitled. Surely she was the victim here? If she was not Richard’s spouse, Anne had no right to dower. Apparently she received no jointure. Normally she could have kept her own inheritance, but the 1474 act had assured it to Richard for life. Probably Anne did not know of that. The arrangement also denied legitimacy to their children. Surely Richard must have been concerned as he brazened it out, had Anne crowned as queen and their son invested as prince of Wales? Later, in Anne’s last months, the illicit nature of their relationship and her dubious status caused her great anxiety. By then, at least, she knew her whole married life to be a lie. Yet it is hard to see how it could ever have turned out all right. Without a valid marriage, their offspring were bound to be illegitimate and unable to inherit, as any rival claimants – such as her sister’s children – were certain to stress when the appropriate opportunity arose. Providing, that is, they knew: dispensations are seldom invoked in inheritance cases. As time passed and their marriage was accepted at face value, Anne and Richard may have hoped to get away with it. It was on this basis that Richard forged his political future.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Her Husband’s Wife

  1475–83

  WHAT ARE DUCHESSES FOR?

  The Apostle Paul wrote that marriage was a means of carnal satisfaction without sin. Sex was certainly expected of their marriage by the duke and duchess and was duly delivered. Children were desired and indeed required. Wives were expected to have children, preferably sons. Though hardly essential to run the ducal household, for she had a host of officers and humbler servants to undertake such domestic tasks, and though often apart, the Duchess Anne was also her duke’s companion, probably more equal in practice than in the formal record, and the source of his landed wealth and political power.

  THE GLOUCESTERS’ CHILDREN

  The duke and duchess wanted children, above all a male heir. Together they achieved it. Young though she was, Anne cannot have been a virgin when she remarried. Her first union had to be consummated.1 Whether she was sexually mature in 1470 we cannot tell. Her new husband, at twenty somewhat the older, was probably already sexually active.

  In terms of offspring, it was not a very productive marriage. Anne and Richard had to wait to have children. Presumably they started sleeping together when they married, perhaps in 1472, maybe in 1473, certainly by 1474. By that time, Richard was twenty-two years of age and Anne was eighteen. Only one child is known to have been born to the marriage, a son, Edward. How joyful they must have been when he was born! No doubt he was named after his uncle Edward IV, who may have been his godfather, though inevitably absent from the christening. John Rows tells us that he was born at Middleham ‘in the north country’,2 far away from Warwick, where Rows lived, or Tewkesbury. Hence neither Rows himself nor the Tewkesbury chronicler could reveal precisely when Edward of Middleham was born. It seems improbable that it was as early as 1473, as is usually supposed, since Rows, admittedly no expert where children were concerned, said the boy was about seven years old in 1483;Vergil, who did not see him, thought him nine.3 If seven, he was born about 1476–7;if nine, perhaps as early as 1474. Surviving accounts for the lordship of Middleham do not even hint at any celebrations there in the financial year 1473–4.4 The Tewkesbury chronicler says that Edward was born at Middleham in 1476 – an old-style year that continued until 25 March 1477, only shortly before the first explicit mention of him on 10 April 1477, when he was included with his parents in those to be prayed for in a chantry. Edward was the Gloucesters’‘first begotten son’on 1 July 1477.5 No other child was mentioned in the licence, so at that point Edward was not merely their eldest son, but almost certainly their only child. As early as 1 July 1477 he was described as the Gloucesters’‘first begotten son the Earl of Salisbury’– properly Clarence’s title – seven months before this firstborn (primogenitus) son was formally created earl of Salisbury by Edward IV.6 ‘First begotten’ is not necessarily indicative that there was also a last born or indeed any another offspring. Anne’s father Warwick had also been earl of Salisbury and so too had been Clarence in Isabel’s right. It demonstrates the boy’s significance to his parents, of which he was heir: his elevation to the peerage was especially gratifying to them. Although one sixteenth-century version of the Tewkesbury chronicle filled the blank left for the boy with the name George – a name perhaps pointing to Archbishop Neville, who died in 1476, or Clarence, who died in 1478, as godfather – it is much more likely that this was a simple error.7 If born before Edward of Middleham, any such son had died by 1477; if afterwards, by 1483. Neither Rows nor the Tewkesbury chronicl
er mention any other child, but, living so far from the parents, they were unlikely to know of any miscarriages, stillbirths or children who had died in infancy.

  Since there is no accurate record of Edward’s birth, we know nothing of the rejoicing, the baptism, or the churching that followed – surely the highest points of his mother’s short married life? That he was called Edward suggests forcibly that his godfather was the king, but that cannot be confirmed either. Presumably Anne was responsible for Edward’s upbringing just as the Countess Anne had been for her own. As was customary at this time, the duchess did not suckle her son herself, but deputed that chore instead to a woman who had recently had her own baby. His wet-nurse was Isabel Burgh, the wife of Henry Burgh, who was rewarded with annuities by the duke.8 Perhaps in succession, by 1480 Edward was in the care of Anne Idley, ‘mistress of our [ducal] nursery’.9 Mistress Idley was the widow of Peter Idley, an Oxfordshire squire and the educationalist who wrote Instructions to his Son. She may therefore have been known to have an interest in education.10

  Our only evidence suggests that Anne was pregnant only once – or had only one live birth – during approximately twelve years of marriage. Probably she had to wait five years, until 1477, to produce a son. That was all. One son was enough, provided Edward of Middleham survived. Anne had performed the minimum to be expected of a wife, a duchess or a queen. But she never had another baby. Perhaps it was already likely by 1483, when she was only twenty-seven, that there would be no more children. History repeated itself: her mother’s history. Yet Anne and Richard continued to try. Under 1485, Crowland reports that Richard then spurned his consort’s bed.11 The implication is that hitherto he had continued resorting to it and was known to have done so. Crowland was in a position to know. Lords and ladies, let alone kings and queens, did not normally share the same bed, nor the same chamber, nor even same household. Sharing the same bed was therefore a conscious decision made solely for the purposes of procreation – for sexual intercourse. It was also a public decision, obvious to the chamber staff of both households. The king could be observed commuting. Highly visible movement of the king from his apartments to those of the queen was required for intercourse to take place. Christmas 1484, like Christmas 1483, was celebrated at Westminster, where Crowland worked. Crowland knew the location of the apartments of both the king and the queen:12 he or his colleagues were well-placed to monitor the king’s sleeping (and therefore) marital sexual arrangements. We can therefore be confident that King Richard and Queen Anne continued trying to reproduce until 1485.

  Edward of Middleham was an asset whether he was earl of Salisbury or prince of Wales. Had he survived, he was destined first to be duke of Gloucester and latterly King Edward VI, to continue the family line, and immeasurably to strengthen his parents’ hold on and management of their estates. Whether he was seven years old in 1483 or older, it was not too early for his parents to be thinking of his marriage. Sir Thomas More reports agreement in principle for his marriage to a daughter of Henry, Duke of Buckingham (d.1483), the wealthiest other magnate of the blood royal:13 although within the prohibited degrees and no heiress, she was certainly eligible. As More tells it, moreover, it was a cement to the alliance that made Richard king. His account is unsubstantiated and the match anyway was soon outdated by Buckingham’s rebellion. The boy’s marriage became instead a factor in his father’s diplomacy.

  RICHARD’S BASTARDS

  The relationship of Anne and Richard was certainly a sexual one. However, it was not exclusive, for Edward was not Richard’s only child. He had at least two bastards and perhaps three. Whilst this is well known, Richard’s modern supporters have argued that they were oats sown in the bachelor years before his marriage and are not evidence of infidelity to Anne.14 That is a rather anachronistic line to take, applying modern morality (but not any longer, perhaps, contemporary morality) to a past period that had different standards. Women, married or unmarried, were expected to be chaste. For men, that was not so. There was a double standard. Numerous aristocrats had bastards, who were often publicly acknowledged: John of Gaunt’s Beaufort by-blows, the bastards of Clarence and Fauconberg, are well known. There was not the stigma attached to it of later ages. Whilst one of Richard’s bastards may predate his marriage, another probably did not. Anne, doubtless often separated from her husband, was not his sole source of sexual satisfaction.

  Peter Hammond carefully examined the attribution of one Richard of Eastwell in Kent and concluded, almost certainly correctly, that Duke Richard was not his father.15 Once king, however, Richard did acknowledge two bastards, a daughter Katherine Plantagenet and a son – ‘the lord bastard’ of his signet letter book – John of Pontefract, whom Richard knighted at York in 1483.16

  On 28 February 1484 Richard negotiated Katherine’s betrothal as second wife to the thirty-year-old widower William Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon. She had died by 1487. Katherine must indeed have been ‘in her young age’ as one pedigree puts it, since her father King Richard was only thirty. There were clauses in the contract requiring the bridegroom to settle jointure on her and her father to settle lands on them jointly. The wedding was to be concluded by Michaelmas (29 September), before which the earl was to make a settlement on them both jointly and Richard was to do likewise.17 They were married before May, but not apparently by 3 April 1484, when Richard had indeed granted them revenues worth £152 a year.18 Presumably lands could only be conveyed to Katherine after she had reached the female age of majority – fourteen. If that deduction is correct and Katherine was already fourteen in 1484, she was the product of a bachelor liaison dating from before Richard’s wooing, betrothal or marriage to Anne. Most probably Katherine was born before Richard went into exile in 1470 – perhaps even some years earlier when Richard was in his mid-teens. Katherine is tangible evidence that Richard commenced his sex life early, though not unduly precociously. Tantalisingly, there is another Katherine, to whom the duke was paying an annuity of £5 from his East Anglian estates in 1476, but granted at least one financial year earlier.19 She was Katherine Haute, presumably the Katherine wife of Jacques Haute, a kinsman of the queen, whose relationship with Richard could antedate her marriage. Such an annuity indicates services separate from any husband which, with the coincidence of forename, prompted Rosemary Horrox in 1989 and the present author, for lack of alternatives, to suggest that Katherine Haute may be the mistress by whom Richard had Katherine Plantagenet.20 The name intrigues, since it implies a particularly close connection between Richard and the family of Edward’s Wydeville queen during Edward IV’s first reign. The marriage indicates simultaneously Richard’s awareness of his daughter, that he cared enough for her to provide for her, and her political utility to him as king.

  The other known bastard, John of Pontefract, was presumably born at Pontefract, perhaps to a local girl. John’s birth could also antedate Richard’s exile in 1470. Assuming that he was born where he was conceived, he could have resulted from a liaison in 1465–8 when Richard was in the household of Warwick, who as chief steward of the duchy of Lancaster in the North and constable of Pontefract had the use of the great castle. Apart from Richard’s youth, this appears unlikely, both because Warwick can never be shown to have been at Pontefract and because so early a birth would have made John a teenager mature enough in Richard’s reign to have been used much more extensively than he was. Only after Prince Edward’s demise does John crop up in records: as ‘the Lord Bastard’ escorted to and from Calais by Robert Brackenbury late in 1484. In March 1485, just a few days before Queen Anne’s death, a payment was made for his clothing and he was appointed titular captain of Calais.21 Perhaps Anne would have objected to such elevation earlier? From 1471 Duke Richard had also been chief steward of the northern duchy and constable of Pontefract and certainly visited it. He was there on 27 April 1473, moved there from Middleham in October, and was there between 1 March and 7 May 1474.22 Possibly significantly, he was at Pontefract on 1 March 1474 when he granted his beloved gen
tlewoman Alice Burgh (dilecte nobis Alesie Burgh generose sibi) ‘for certain special causes and considerations’ an annuity for life from Middleham: a highly unusual event, especially as the sum, £20, was also substantial.23 Alice was a lady most probably attendant on the Duchess Anne – a common source of mistresses for princes! Most likely she was a cadet of the Burghs of Knaresborough, a modest family of Yorkshire gentry. Was Alice Burgh, perhaps, Richard’s mistress and the mother of John of Pontefract? The annuity was still due from Middleham in January 1485, when she was also drawing another 20 marks from Warwickshire,24 evidence of further services that Richard evidently valued highly. Henry Burgh and his wife Isabel, surely kinswomen, were also feed (20 marks) from Middleham during Richard’s reign. Isabel had been nurse to Prince Edward.25 Was she the sister-in-law of Alice, perhaps selected because of Alice? There are too many occurrences of both forenames in grants and payments for Isabel and Alice to be identical. This is regrettable: how sad that the titillating possibility that Richard’s mistress was wet-nurse to his legitimate son cannot apply. That John of Pontefract first appears in July 1483 at York is evidence perhaps that he was brought up in Yorkshire. However that may be, it appears much more likely that John was the product of a sexual liaison after Richard’s marriage: evidence not necessarily that Richard was dissatisfied with his wife, sexually or otherwise, but that their relationship was not exclusive.