Anne Neville

by Michael Hicks

  We know of Richard’s bastards because he acknowledged them when he became king – more than that, he treated them with distinction, finding Katherine an earl for a husband and raising John to princely office. Whilst enticed by grants worth 1,000 marks a year (£666 13s 4d),26 Huntingdon clearly did not feel disparaged by the bend sinister, but saw instead advantages, influence and favour at court in consequence. Richard also was not ashamed of his bastards. We cannot tell whether he was as blatant before his accession – could he have been so damnatory about his brother’s peccadilloes had his own been known? – but if he was, one might expect it to be uncomfortable or even painful for his spouse. Here, however, our twenty-first-century reactions may mislead. Anne had of course to accept any by-blows who antedated their own relationship. We cannot know when she first learnt of their existence – at the latest when her husband the king brought John and Katherine into public view. Anne’s age observed a double standard, which permitted, condoned and perhaps even expected husbands to take sexual solace outside marriage, which wives were denied. Richard’s brother Edward IV was a notorious practitioner.

  If many magnates had bastards,27 most of them were ungenerously treated. They were, after all, illegitimate. Anne’s father Warwick had been exceptional in marrying his bastard daughter to the heir of a substantial gentry family, and in providing an attractive endowment.28 That, surely, was the most that Katherine and John could have expected, had their father not become king. His accession was a boon that they did not live long enough to enjoy.

  MARRIED LIFE

  John Rows states that Richard and Anne were ‘unhappily married’, but these two words cannot be accepted as a definitive verdict on their married life. Not only is his comment over-brief, but he was ill placed to witness almost all of it and was writing in the later Latin version,29 after Anne’s final months that did deserve the title unhappy, her death, and possibly Richard’s own fall. As consort of Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Anne should have accompanied him to public functions – ceremonial state occasions – and presided over his household. In reality she cannot be shown to have done any of these things. She was not mentioned in the heraldic accounts of the receptions of the Burgundian Lord Gruthuyse at Windsor and Westminster in 1472, at the creation of the queen’s son as marquis of Dorset at Westminster in 1475, at the reburial of the king’s father at Fotheringhay in 1476, at the marriage of the king’s second son at Westminster in 1478, or at the funeral of Princess Mary at Windsor in 1482, all but the last attended by her husband. Heralds were not much interested in ladies, but surely she should have been there? Actually it is impossible to write a satisfactory account of Anne’s married life.

  Scarcely any relevant records survive between 1472 – or whenever matrimony commenced – and 1483. In some respects, this can be no great surprise. This was after all an era in which a married lady’s property was regarded as her husband’s and in which actions recorded as his may actually have been hers. That ‘married women were often regarded as infants before the law’ means ‘that wives are often invisible in written records’.30 By remarrying, Anne had surrendered the momentary autonomy that she had so briefly enjoyed as femme sole. We have already seen how little is known of the thirty-five-year marriage of her mother the Countess Anne. Moreover, a wife’s sphere, even a wife who was a duchess, was domestic and not the stuff of public records, which do reveal some political actions of the duke. Not that even Richard occurs in such sources as frequently as many other magnates and princes did. Scarcely any private records survive of their affairs: a mere handful of accounts of receivers of estates in eastern England, one year’s worth of accounts of one of their northern lordships, a cartulary of title deeds, a dozen or so miscellaneous deeds preserved by the recipients, and the impression of the ducal couple on other record-keeping bodies, such as the town council and Corpus Christi Guild at York, Durham cathedral priory, and bishops’ registers. In total, it is not an impressive archive. Moreover, it relates almost entirely to Richard, scarcely at all to Anne.

  Yet Anne’s absence is hard to explain in purely archival terms. Amongst fifty references to the duke in the house books of the city of York, not a single one refers to her. Her intercession was not sought – perhaps it was not worth seeking? If so, that suggests that she did not count – that Anne lacked even the normal influence that fifteenth-century ladies had with their husbands. That is a big supposition to base on the absence of evidence. But Richard was an egotist and no respecter of women: if Anne exercised no political influence on her husband it may not have been because she was especially ineffective.

  Besides, Anne possessed no property of her own. Gloucester settled no jointure on her. Anne should have had some lands, of course. She was rightly heiress to half her father’s Montagu/Salisbury lands. Actually, half her parents’ whole estate had been secured in her right. It is evident, however, that Richard treated her lands as his own. He features at Middleham as ‘lord’ (dominus).31 The Neville lands were the foundation of the duke’s power in the North, which he extended in a highly personal way, exchanging properties that Anne had inherited when appropriate for others that complemented his other holdings better. Such transactions were in his name alone.32 The chantries and colleges which they founded for both their souls were titled typically as the duke of Gloucester’s, never the duchess’s.33 It was the duke’s instructions that were obeyed both at Middleham and on the estates in eastern England, some of which – like Kirtling in Cambridgeshire – were properly Anne’s.34

  That does not mean either that Anne was ungenerously treated or unhappy. Richard need not have stinted on the house-keeping and indeed Anne seems to have attired herself in the most luxurious materials. Duke and duchess appear to have been together in London on 3–6 December 1476, when Gloucester issued a number of signet warrants for payment to the receiver of his East Anglian lands. Totalling £296, including some acquisitions from 1475, his purchases included tapestry (arras-work), velvet and other cloth, silks and furs, most of them purchased for his own use, but some for ‘the most dear consort of the lord duke’. A tailor, John Lee, supplied her with cloth costing £10 18s 4d; a skinner, Thomas Cole, certain furs costing £19 7s 11d; and a mercer, John Knott, silk cloth and other things costing £20 12s 11d. The sum total, £50 9s 1d, was a considerable sum and indicates both bulk purchases and luxuries.35 Although the duke and duchess used the same tradesmen and were paid from the same source, it is interesting that their orders were separate – evidence perhaps that she (or her purveyor) operated independently to meet her specific needs and an indication that her allowance was not expected to cover everything. That, of course, is to read a lot into very little, regrettably almost all the direct evidence that we possess. Although unrecorded, Anne probably accompanied Richard on most of his visits to London, for parliamentary sessions and on other occasions, at least once a year, but probably more often. If often enough at court, Richard (and hence Anne) was normally absent. Neither were courtiers.

  For convenience, Anne’s household surely was supported, as others were, by estate revenues on which her officers could draw. It is just that we do not know their identity or value. Similarly, she must have had her own upper household of chamberlain, chaplains and damsels in attendance on her, and similarly all the other service departments found in any other noble household. Anne certainly was not always in her husband’s household, for instance when he was campaigning on the borders, invading France in 1475 and in Scotland in 1481–3, and doubtless at other times. She therefore required her own establishment to cater for her needs when separated from the duke. That in 1475–6 the duke’s councillors conveyed to the city of York a message from the duchess suggests, as one would expect, that she deputised for him in his absence,36 in this instance probably when Gloucester was on campaign in France.

  Actually, we scarcely ever know for sure where the Duchess Anne was. Often she must have been with her husband, and his fragmentary itinerary is therefore a guide to her own. In 1483 the hist
orian Mancini said that he lived mainly on the Gloucester estates – for which, read his northern estates – and certainly Richard is often reported in Yorkshire or in the West March. He had major governmental and military responsibilities in the region and crops up regularly in the minutes of the city council of York and in the correspondence of the Plumpton family of Knaresborough. Most commonly Gloucester was at Middleham, where their son was born. Never is the duke recorded at Barnard Castle, although he certainly visited it and commissioned works at the castle, and infrequently at Sheriff Hutton or Penrith. Every year he spent some time in London. There is no direct evidence after 1472 that the ducal couple visited Warwick, Tewkesbury or Cardiff, all properties that had earlier been regarded as Anne’s home, although such visits are implied by Gloucester’s presence at Swansea in 1479.37

  That Anne had her own staff, that she wanted to promote them, and that she solicited and otherwise related to institutions and other potential patrons independently of her husband, as one would expect, is indicated by only one fragment of evidence. Anne did seek for one of her clerks the vicarage of Bossall, in the gift of Durham cathedral priory. Vicarages, which vicars had to serve themselves, were not the most attractive or prestigious of livings. We do not possess Anne’s letter, but the reply of Prior Richard Bell dated 19 March 1477, which hints at an earlier supplication, perhaps one more general rather than specific to Bossall, which may not then have been vacant. The letter Bell was answering was borne to him by Anne’s servant Nicholas Hedlam. Again, it is not quite clear whether Hedlam was the intended beneficiary, or whether Anne sought the right to present whoever she chose. If the former, we may presume that Hedlam himself told her of the vacancy, aspired to be vicar, and solicited her intercession, in which case she took the initiative. However, she was too late – the living had been filled.‘For the which matter’, begged the prior, ‘I will beseech your good grace to take no displeasure, for I have a little overseen myself in my simpleness for my lack of remembrance’, presumably of an earlier letter. This was more than an elegantly phrased excuse, for he promised amends. There were problems yet to be resolved relating to his choice.‘Nevertheless your good ladyship shall be pleased either with it or with another as good’, he writes, ‘when it shall fall in our gift’. The duchess might have to wait, but the patronage of ‘my full singular and gracious good lady’ – and, by extension her husband – was something that Prior Bell was anxious not to lose.38 Almost certainly it was on their recommendation that Bell was promoted bishop of Carlisle in 1478.39

  ANNE’S PIETY

  One final area offering some glimmerings of light is Anne’s religion. Rows did not know Anne well enough to report on the quality of her religious faith and we know little more about it. Life in aristocratic households was constructed around Christian observance, with services timetabled every day and diet conditioned by the Christian calendar, its feasts, fasts and saints’days. The impressive college of priests, chaplains and choristers that was established in the chapel of Barnard Castle may indicate just how elaborate and just how choral were services in their household chapel.40 Anne, like every other lady, gave offerings as appropriate. In 1477, moreover, the duchess and her husband joined the guild of Corpus Christi at York, albeit regrettably as ‘the Duke of Gloucester and Lady Elizabeth his wife’. This was a fraternity or sisterhood that brought together all of northern high society and which moreover required its members, even peers, to process.41 In 1476 it was Anne alone, this time without her husband, who was admitted to the sisterhood of Durham cathedral priory, whose monks thereby bound themselves to intercede for her good estate in life and her soul after death.42 Dedicated to St Cuthbert, the premier northern saint, and indeed his shrine, Durham cathedral housed the tombs of several of her Neville ancestors – there remains a splendid Neville screen – and was the mother church for the Warwick lordship of Barnard Castle. We do not possess the book of hours that she employed or any of her other books, except for Mechhild of Hackborn’s Book of Ghostly Grace; even then the signature Anne Warwick, although associated with Richard’s, may relate to her mother the Countess Anne. Much more can be inferred from his books about her husband Duke Richard, although even in his case a study of his religious life is not really feasible.43

  The ducal couple were also notable benefactors of the Church, founders of religious establishments, and surely Anne played a role in this. She was certainly coupled with the duke; perhaps sometimes she was the first mover. The first in time was a chantry at the college of St Margaret and St Bernard at Cambridge, commonly called Queens’ College, Cambridge, in 1477. Some of Richard’s senior clerics were Cambridge graduates, but the duke of course was not. He had no earlier association with the college. Anne and Richard granted the college his advowson (right of presentation) of Fulmer in Cambridgeshire, forfeited by the De Vere earls of Oxford, in return for prayers for the souls of the earl and countess of Oxford and for the good estate of the king and queen, the duke and duchess of Gloucester, and their son Edward. Prayers were also reserved for those who fell at the duke’s side at the battle of Barnet.44 Thus far it sounds like an initiative of the duke and duchess in their own interests. That the patron was a queen – and that Anne herself patronised it also when she was queen – suggests that Anne’s role may have been important. On the other hand, Anne was mentioned only once – as beneficiary – and there was clearly a political dimension to the benefaction. That the Gloucesters patronised the queen’s foundation needs to be coupled with his donation in 1482 of two further advowsons of Olney (Bucks.) and Simonburn (Co. Durham) to Edward IV’s pet project at St George’s Chapel, Windsor.45 Moreover, such livings, which the colleges could appropriate, were worth much more to them than the duke and duchess, for whom the only cost was a loss of future appointments for their clerics. It is a complex episode, but it is one in which Anne may also have played a part.

  That the duke and duchess, still in their early twenties, were thinking of their souls is shown by the two colleges that they were planning in February 1478. The first and largest within their castle at Barnard Castle was for a dean, twelve chaplains, ten clerks, six choristers and a clerk. The second, in Middleham parish church, was half that size: for a dean, six chaplains, four clerks, 6 choristers and the parish priest. Barnard Castle was endowed with lands to the value of 400 marks (£266 13s 4d) and Middleham to the tune of 200 marks (£133 6s 8d), which like Fulmer rectory was property late of the De Vere earls of Oxford.46 Perhaps the services began at once, for the churches were already there, but the collegiate buildings had not proceeded very far by Richard’s death. The endowments were retrieved by John, Earl of Oxford after 1485, rendering the foundations ultimately abortive. Apart from advancing the Gloucesters’ souls and enhancing their household liturgy, these colleges may also have been intended as mausolea to replace those at Warwick and Tewkesbury allotted to Clarence although, it seems, Edward of Middleham may have been interred at Sheriff Hutton. Finally they augmented most prestigiously Anne’s family seats and her Neville connection: it was her traditions that were celebrated here, surely with her approval if not primarily at her initiative. As always, however, we cannot really tell.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Her King’s Consort

  1483–5

  BECOMING QUEEN

  Anne, Duchess of Gloucester played no direct role in Duke Richard’s usurpation of the crown. After a false alarm reported at York, Edward IV had died on 9 April 1483, and the coronation of his son and successor, the boy king Edward V, was scheduled for 4 May. The coronation was notified to King’s Lynn (via Ludlow) on 16 April1 and to Richard, Duke of Gloucester directly by the royal council, but surely somewhat earlier. The duke, perhaps accompanied by his duchess, may have held a memorial service for the old king and taken oaths of allegiance to the new one in York Minster before he proceeded southwards. On 30 April/1 May he met up with the king and his entourage, seized the young king (his first coup d’état), and on 4 May escorted the king into London, where
he himself was appointed Lord Protector by the council. The coronation was postponed. The Duchess Anne had not accompanied him. Presumably she remained in the North: a surprising decision, since she surely wished to attend – and as the king’s aunt was surely wanted at – the coronation on 4 May. Unless, of course, she foresaw – or, more probably, Richard knew – that the coronation would not happen and that events might materialise in which her participation was not desirable and her safety could not be guaranteed. Now Lord Protector, Gloucester was in complete control – and Queen Elizabeth, in sanctuary, completely sidelined – before the Duchess Anne arrived in London on 5 June,2 in plenty of time for the new date set for King Edward V’s coronation. Probably she and Richard resided at the Duchess Cecily’s London house at Baynards Castle. Their son Edward, Earl of Salisbury was left in the North. The Duchess Anne was in London on 13 June, but not personally present at the council in the Tower, where Lord Hastings was arrested and executed (Richard’s second coup), and also on 16 June, when Edward IV’s younger son Richard, Duke of York was removed from sanctuary to join his brother Edward V in the Tower. Probably Anne did not attend Dr Ralph Shaa’s notorious sermon at St Paul’s Cross on 20 June, in which he argued that Edward IV’s children were illegitimate because their parents had not been properly married and that Edward V should not therefore reign. Perhaps she was present at Baynards Castle on 25 June when her husband was offered and accepted the crown and Edward V ceased to be king. Whether she knew what was happening, shared in the planning and approved the result, actively or tacitly, we cannot know. The alarm and shock that Shakespeare portrays is fiction. Anne can never have been in company with Queen Elizabeth and Princess Elizabeth, who were immured in sanctuary. Yet it was Anne’s northerners who overawed London at the crucial time, who were to crush those who rebelled against Richard, and to whom Richard turned to rule the recalcitrant South. When the duke became King Richard III on 26 June, Anne Neville did become his queen. They were crowned together on 6 July and Anne shared most of his reign. She did not live to witness the collapse of their regime.