by Licence, Amy
Born into one of the leading aristocratic families of the day, Anne’s chances were probably better than many of her contemporaries but her wealth could not insulate her from the many childhood infections, illnesses and accidents that were a frequent part of medieval life. Parish records in rural Essex villages indicate that mortality rates in the under-fives were between 30 and 50 per cent2 but in such communities, survival could be determined by unpredictable and uncontrollable factors such as the weather, which affected the yield of harvests and the survival of animals. At Warwick, Anne would have benefited from the closed community of castle life, with tradesmen, craftsmen, cooks, storerooms and clean water being accessible within the walls. Built to withstand attacks and sieges, the little enclosed community could survive on its own for months and would have had doctors, nurses and clergymen on the staff. The countess also would have been in charge of a still-room, where the essences of flowers and plants were ‘distilled’ to make medicines, perfumes and treats; there would be potions and lotions, balms and charms available if either mother or child fell ill. The prevalence of certain diseases such as the plague, pox and forms of the dreaded sweat during the fifteenth century made it a particularly dangerous time for fragile members of society, especially the very old and very young. Even royal families were not immune to the sudden deaths of their juvenile heirs: Joan of Navarre, the second wife of Henry IV, had lost her first two babies while, closer to home, Anne’s own cousin had died at the age of five, passing the Warwick title into the Neville family.
At birth, Anne Neville had every conceivable material advantage. By being born wealthy and one of only two infants in the household, she improved her chances a little more, although she may have adversely affected those of Isabel, then turning six. The terrible catalogue of juvenile fatalities listed in contemporary court records show that older siblings were more at risk when a new baby entered the family, perhaps because maternal attention was divided. Yet this was of particular concern in urban environments, where many more immediate dangers lurked on the doorstep and there were fewer attendants for the average middle-class child. Isabel was fortunate that her parents’ wealth meant she was well cared for while their focus shifted to the new arrival. On average, though, girls stood less chance of survival than boys. London statistics of the 1440s reveal that female children were 22 per cent more likely to die young than their brothers, although this may highlight the relative value and greater care placed on male heirs by a late medieval society.3 It has been estimated that a quarter of all medieval children died before their first birthday, an eighth were lost between the ages of one and four, while a further 6 per cent did not reach their tenth birthday.4 To ensure her salvation, even if the worst occurred, Anne was baptised soon after her birth, at the nearby collegiate church, St Mary’s, in Warwick, the resting place of many of her de Beauchamp ancestors.
Anne would scarcely have remembered her early days, yet they would have been typical of fifteenth-century views of childrearing among the aristocracy, consisting of little more than feeding and sleeping. In common with most ladies of rank, Anne’s mother would not have breastfed her child, as it was considered to interfere with her role and duties. To be tied to a routine of constant lactation would have prevented a noblewoman from managing her household and honouring social and administrative commitments, perhaps even appearing at court. If her husband’s role necessitated his absence, she would be required to take over the running of their estates, as is illustrated from the letters of Margaret Paston at this time, who had to repel continual attacks upon the family’s property while her lawyer husband John was in London. She may also need to be available to listen to and resolve the complaints of locals, in an extension of her husband’s good lordship. It also meant her fertility returned more quickly and she was able to conceive another child sooner. The conception patterns of some, taken from Essex parish records, indicate that this did actually happen within a few months, although, for the countess, there were to be no more children.
The Earl of Warwick, though, was a different matter. It is rumoured that he had an illegitimate daughter, born in the North of England, who was named Margaret. She was married in June 1464, placing her birth date around 1450 or slightly earlier, possibly indicating that her conception took place when her father was campaigning in Scotland in 1448–9. On her marriage to Richard Huddleston of Coverdale, Warwick made her an annual settlement of 6 pounds and settled on her the estates of Upmanby and Blennerhassett, in Cumbria, after which she went on to bear three children of her own in the 1470s and 80s. Her husband and a John Huddleston were trusted enough to be called upon by Edward IV to muster troops in Cumbria in 1480, in the event of a Scottish invasion. In July 1483, Richard was granted the ‘lordships, manors and lands’ of Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, who had fled to Brittany after his involvement in a failed rebellion. That December, the office of Master Forester and Keeper of the Forest in Snowdon, North Wales, was added to Huddleston’s titles, for which he received ‘the accustomed fee’ and the castle of Beaumaris.5 Margaret was to serve at her half-sister Anne’s court and outlive her, remarrying when widowed and dying well into the reign of Henry VII. The Thomas Huddleston who entered the Middleham household as a young man in the 1460s may have been a relation of her husband, perhaps a cousin or sibling; one younger brother, William, was to marry Warwick’s niece Isabel. The earl was not alone in producing illegitimate children and it would not have been considered to be a reflection of the success of his marriage. Such liaisons were common. Edward IV and Richard III were both to father extramarital offspring and there was little choice for their wives but to endure the situation.
The baby Anne had her own mini-establishment separate from those of her parents. In all probability, this was an extension of that already created for Isabel, with a few special extra appointees to meet the needs of an infant. Her days were overseen by a mistress, or lady governess, which was a position of privilege and responsibility held by a trusted associate or member of the extended family unit, even, possibly, a figure from the countess’s own childhood. The mistress would be assisted by a dry nurse and other servants to supply the basics of food, clean linen and basic hygiene. The wet nurse to whom Anne would have been handed for feeding may have been a new arrival, unless there was another suitable, recently pregnant woman within the castle walls. Whoever had suckled Isabel Neville following her birth in 1451 may well have been no longer lactating, as parish records and diaries of the period suggest that the term of breastfeeding lasted on average between nine months and a year. However, women did become professional wet nurses, suckling a string of babies and prolonging lactation. It is possible that the Neville’s first wet nurse had sustained her milk supply by working for other families but equally likely that a new woman was appointed. Possibly she came with a recommendation from another family of rank, but at this time, women of lower social ranks were considered most suitable to the task. The criteria for her appointment would have been physical and moral. She must be of good character and not drink too much nor eat garlic and spicy foods but, typically, appearances were taken as a mirror of health. The wet nurse should have clear eyes and skin, good teeth and no visible signs of illness or weakness, as these were thought to be transferable through her milk, as was her character. Anne’s mother and the mistress of the girls’ household probably examined several possible girls from the surrounding town before selecting the most suitable. Where wet nurses were not available, children were fed with animal milk sucked from rags or horns and bread soaked in milk.
Anne’s first year would have been an inactive one, as babies were swaddled tightly in their cots for the majority of the time to prevent inadvertent and self-inflicted injury. The air was also considered damaging to their skin and babies were regularly rubbed with butter or oil to close up their pores. A series of Italian images by Lumberto da Montevarchi depicting the 1479 miracle of Monna Tancia show the sort of tight swaddling Anne would have experienced, with a child wrapped
in bands from the shoulder down to the ankles. Other contemporary church frescoes also portray this method, such as the Santa Liberato in St Peter’s chapel, Vercelli, where two infants are reduced to white cocoons with only their heads protruding. One modern reproduction of a cot dating from around 1465 has been made at the archaeological site of an abandoned medieval fishing village at Walraversijde in Belgium. Woven from straw or reeds, like a basket, it is a deep, kidney-bean shape set on rockers. Some fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manuscripts depict cots as more shallow, rather like large temporary trays, such as in Bologna’s image of the birth of John the Baptist, which sits flat on the floor with low sides. At Pembroke Castle in Wales, a reconstruction of the room where Henry Tudor was born in 1457 includes a solid rectangular wooden crib with minimal detail on its rails and knobs. Hanging and swinging cradles survive from the time, as do those with impressive geometric, natural and animal carvings: impressive eagles would have sat guard over the occupant of one surviving crib, dating from around 1500. As the daughter of one of the richest landowners in the country, Anne’s cot would have been more substantial and highly decorated, probably made from oak. She would have spent a lot of time in it.
At court, the royal baby, Edward of Westminster, had been amply provided for. The arrangements would have been overseen by Margaret of Anjou, probably with minimal involvement from the king. Besides the lady governor, the boy’s first household included a nursery nurse, four rockers for his cradle, yeomen, grooms and officers ‘for the mouth’ whose job it was to ‘see the nurses meate and drinke be assayed [tested]’ so long as she was employed, while later a physician was to keep watch over whatever she fed her young charge. Boys were more likely to be suckled for longer, up to the age of two or three, whereas girls tended to be weaned soon after the age of one.6 Edward’s state cradle, hung with buckles of silver and pommels, lined with ermine, velvet and cloth of gold, was equipped with a mattress, two pillows and numerous coverings of similar rich materials. Anne may have slept in something more like the smaller, practical crib described in 1486 by Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry Tudor. Made ‘of tree’, it was painted ‘with fine gold and devices’, a yard and a quarter in length. Five silver buckles were set on each side to hold the swaddling bands, and therefore the child, in place. The accompanying bed linen was scarlet, grey, blue and gold.7
As the spring of 1457 approached, Anne was released from her swaddling bands and encouraged to take her first steps in the safety of her chambers. An illustration from a 1440 book of hours completed for Catherine of Cleves, showing the Holy family at work, places a toddling Jesus in an early walking frame. Made from twelve pieces of wood, in the form of an open box or cube, it is narrower at the top than the bottom where four large wheels help the child move, while giving some protection in an environment where carpentry and weaving is being done. Anne may have learned to walk inside a similar frame or else been guided by her nurse. Her world would have encompassed little more than the great chamber, the solar and the family’s private living quarters, usually on the first floor above the Great Hall where servants and other castle employees were fed and slept. The medieval manor house of Stokesay Castle in Shropshire has a well-preserved solar of this type, reached by an interior wooden staircase. Warwick Castle had been extended during the late fourteenth century and the domestic buildings date from then, hung with tapestries and warmed by large fireplaces. A bed, recorded among the castle descriptions of 1400, was made of red damask embroidered with ostrich feathers, with a coverlet and dressings, three curtains of red tartarine, eighteen matching tapestries and six red damask cushions. When improvements were made in the 1420s to these rooms, plaster of Paris was used to enhance the whiteness of newly built walls. As the daughters of an earl, who had access to the rich diversity of London’s international trade, the girls would have been surrounded by the best-quality furnishings and fashions of the day.
Anne wouldn’t have remembered her early months at Warwick. In any case, the family were about to relocate and the world she knew would be left behind. Before her first birthday, her father was appointed to the prestigious position of Captain of Calais, an important strategic territory which had been in English possession since shortly after Edward III’s victory against the French at the Battle of Crécy in 1346. The eleven-month siege, described by the chronicler Froissart, had resulted in the famous capitulation of the burghers of Calais and the town’s transference into English hands. Froissart records that one of the first ‘conquerors’ of the town was the then Earl of Warwick, so Anne’s father’s position had historical precedence, although he would not have been wise to emulate the previous earl’s record. In 1347, the first English rulers of Calais were commanded to expel the town’s men: ‘Take here the kayes [keys] of the towne and castell of Calys … putte in prison all the knyhts that be there and all other soudyours [soldiers] that came there symply to wynne their lyveng, cause them to avoyde the towne and all other men, women and children, for I [Edward III] would re-people agayne the towne with pure Englysshemen.’8 Such national cleansing was common in conquered territory but hardly made for an auspicious start, helping to exacerbate the conflicts which followed. Calais was still a much-desired territory, coveted by the French and Burgundians on either side, creating an uneasy tension for the English inhabitants, which Anne and her family now became. Packing up the household, they waited for weather conditions to be favourable before embarking on one of Warwick’s own ships across the Channel. Perhaps the six-year-old Isabel was old enough to be excited at her first glimpse of her new home, the walled medieval city with its imposing churches, towers and castle.
This ‘brightest jewel in England’s crown’ covered an area of about 20 square miles, including the fortified town and surrounding marshland, with the defensive castles of Guines and Hammes. Although Calais lies only 20 miles from England as the crow flies, the Channel crossing could represent considerable difficulties for a fleet of wooden vessels in bad weather. This meant that, although it was technically English territory, the geographical distance represented a real political limbo and sanctuary for its inhabitants, which Warwick would exploit. By 1400, as many as 12,000 people lived within the city walls, while one map of 1477 shows the ‘pale’ extending north to include Ghent and Bruges and south beyond Arras and encompassing those residents too. Placed between the warring King of France Louis XI and Phillip III, Duke of Burgundy, it allowed England to maintain a European gateway for the staple trades of wool, tin, lead and cloth as well as relationships with both countries, neither of whom wished to see the area fall into enemy hands.
Calais itself was an impressive city. The manuscript illustrations from Jean de Waurin’s Chroniques d’Angleterre make a feature of the town’s high, smooth defensive walls and pointed turrets which the Warwicks would have glimpsed as their ship approached. A later map, drawn in the reign of Henry VIII, shows the walled town in some detail with its castle, church and marketplace, while the Cowdray engravings of 1545 give a vivid flavour of the port, forts and buildings. The crenelated town walls with their many towers are passable through an impressive gateway, giving out into the closely packed streets where a significant number of smooth and crow-stepped gable roofs are visible. In the picture, the thirteenth-century Calais Castle is also drawn, outside the walls, a solid, square structure clearly built for defence with a tower in each corner. Its windows are tiny and high, along with a number of the traditional arrow slits. Although the castle no longer stands, replaced by the sixteenth-century citadel, the comparable Castle Olhain north of Arras may give an impression of its appearance, with squat, round towers and drawbridge. Fort Risban, standing at the entrance to the harbour, was a reminder of the Crécy siege that could scarcely have been forgotten; then the fort had been a wooden structure; by Anne’s day it was walled and mounted with cannon. Much of medieval Calais was destroyed in the conflicts of the twentieth century, but a description of the visiting Paul Hentzner in 1598 lists the still extant St Mary’s chur
ch, or Église Notre-Dame, with its early fifteenth-century tower. The twelfth-century Watch Tower is another rare survivor, despite being split into two by an earth tremor in 1580!
Warwick and his countess were resident in the castle soon after his appointment in May 1457. Isabel and Anne were almost certainly with them, although there were other precedents for the care of aristocratic children in their parents’ absence. In 1419, Margaret, Duchess of Clarence, took her sons with her when she went to join her husband in Normandy but left her daughters behind under the care of the prioress at Dartford. The girls, Joan and Margaret, were then thirteen and ten respectively. Others were sent out to board with respectable families, as were Anne and Elizabeth Bassett, aged twelve and eleven, step-daughters of Lord Lisle, who was appointed to the Calais captaincy in 1533.9 Anne’s extreme youth may have been both an argument for her residence with her parents and a reason for her to stay in England. On balance, it seems most likely that she and Isabel did go, crossing the Channel sometime in mid-1457 with her retinue of nurses and rockers. As the family would have been lodged within Calais Castle and Anne’s household and routine were resumed, the difference between her old life and the new may not have been that great; she was simply exchanging one medieval fortified castle for another.