Anne Neville: Richard III's Tragic Queen

by Licence, Amy

  Initially, Margaret could see ‘neither honour nor profit in it’ but was persuaded into the union on the advice of her father René, King of Naples.7 It was, in fact, an extremely profitable match for Anne, but for Edward, as potential Prince of Wales with the possibility of a future foreign alliance with a princess of royal blood, it was a mark of his mother’s fall from grace and desire to recapture her position. The speech Shakespeare gives Margaret in Henry VI, Part 3, albeit at an earlier stage of her history, summarizes her necessity of making the most of her misfortune.

  I was, I must confess,

  Great Albion’s queen in former golden days:

  But now mischance hath trod my title down,

  And with dishonour laid me on the ground;

  Where I must take like seat unto my fortune,

  And to my humble seat conform myself.

  Fortune and her ‘humble seat’ were responsible for the alliance the ex-queen now made with Warwick. Chronicler John Warkworth, Master of Peterhouse College, Cambridge, claims that an omen was responsible for what happened next, which he describes in almost Biblical terms:

  Whenne the seide Duke of Clarence and the Erle of Warwyke were in Fraunce here apperede a blasynge sterre in the weste, and the flame therof lyke a spere hede, the whiche dyverse of the Kynges howse saw it, whereof thei were fulle sore adrede. And thanne in Fraunce whenne the seide lordes where, thei toke there counselle qwhat was beste for to do; and thei coude fynde no remedy but to sende to Quene Margaret, and to make a maryage betwex Prynce Edwarde, Kynge Herry sonne, and an other of the seid Erle of Warwykys doughters.

  The inclusion of this blazing star appears to lend a divine purpose to the match, to which the superstitious and ambitious Warwick and Clarence could find ‘no remedy’, yet whether they even saw this phenomenon, let alone allowed it to influence their decision-making, is unknown. Perhaps it was a physical manifestation of that ‘fortune’ alluded to by Shakespeare, or perhaps simply poetic licence.

  Presumably this ‘other’ daughter, the fourteen-year-old Anne, now knew about their discussions, although she was excluded from them. Having witnessed her sister’s recent experiences, she understood the role to which she was born and that any personal feelings must be set aside. Additionally, any affection that may have existed between her and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was now complicated by his loyalty to his brother, making him theoretically her enemy. Two weeks later, on 25 July 1470, Edward of Westminster and Anne Neville were formally betrothed in the cathedral at Angers, making their oaths upon a ‘piece of the true cross’. The subsequent marriage and consummation were to be conditional upon the earl proving himself in battle against Edward, so a few days after the match, he set sail again for England with 2,000 troops financed by Louis XI.

  On 31 July, Margaret, Edward and fiancée left for Amboise, the favourite residence of the French royal family, situated on a spur overlooking the River Loire. Among its magnificent surroundings, Anne was now in the company of those strangers she had long been accustomed to consider her foes; her own mother was also present, and possibly Isabel, whose whereabouts at this time are unclear. She knew little of her betrothed but could not have escaped hearing much of the queen and her warlike nature. Now this formidable woman was her guardian, soon to be her mother-in-law, as well as her companion over the coming months. At the age of forty, the ex-queen had been a driving force through the recent decades of conflict and was considered to be aggressive and volatile. Her deep-seated hatred of the Duke of York had transferred to his offspring and, in her company, Anne would find no sympathy for her childhood friend, Richard. There is nothing to suggest, though, that Margaret felt any hostility towards her son’s young wife. It is quite likely that the necessity of civil conflict had bred a sense of expediency in the resourceful queen, who now welcomed the young girl as the future mother of her grandchildren, whom she hoped would in turn inherit the English throne. Margaret had herself been a bride at only fifteen and understood much of what Anne must have been feeling, as well as being aware of the benefits the union brought to the Lancastrian cause. From this point forward, Anne’s welfare would be her mother-in-law’s concern. Rumours that Margaret wished Anne ill, or even that she attempted to have her poisoned, are unsubstantiated and would have achieved nothing. She had nothing to gain by alienating the young woman and only delayed the actual marriage ceremony until the necessary paperwork had arrived and Warwick had proved his loyalty in England by restoring Henry VI.

  Little is known about Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales. Born amid his father’s main bout of instability, he had not been recognised by Henry VI until he was almost a year old. Three years Anne’s elder, much of his life had been spent on the road, in flight from the scenes of battle, a witness to the barbarities and harsh justice of medieval warfare. As a small child, he had been invested as Prince of Wales, then disinherited in favour of the Duke of York, suffering the change in his fortunes before he was old enough to understand them. In October 1458, around the time of his fifth birthday, Italian Rafaello de Negra described the prince in a letter to the Duchess of Milan, as ‘a most handsome boy’ who, in common with the rest of the court, ‘always go on their knees’ when addressing the queen.8 After the accession of Edward IV forced them into exile, Margaret had used him as a figurehead to rally support, handing out little silver badges of his personal device, the swan, which she had taken from his grandfather Edward III, to their supporters and using his presence to soften the hearts of outlaws and thieves.9 The most commonly quoted anecdote of Edward’s early life is that of a child issuing the death sentence on his enemies following the Second Battle of St Albans in 1461. It represents little more than a seven-year-old trying to please his mother and punish those who had failed to protect his father and cannot be taken as symptomatic. He was a more complex individual than this suggests but he had learned the realities of his situation early. Experiences of conflict and fluctuating fortunes had shaped him to the degree that the Milanese Ambassador named him the ‘God of battle’ but the chances are that, as a fifteenth-century prince, he was also pious, courageous and chivalrous. The rumours of his illegitimacy in the 1450s, such as those recorded in letters by Coppini, which had ascribed his paternity to the unpopular Duke of Somerset, remain only rumours.

  What Anne made of her betrothed on a personal level is not recorded. She and Isabel were young women of their time and, while marriage itself raised their status significantly, they were probably more pragmatic about it than some historians and romantic novelists have given them credit for. The introduction to the Rous Roll claims it was Anne’s ‘unhappy destiny to be made the pivot on which turned more than one state intrigue’, yet there is no evidence that Anne was unhappy, or anything but complicit in these ‘intrigues’. Rather than being the exploited pawns of an ambitious, ruthless father, the girls were more likely to have been willing participants in his schemes. The earl’s motives overlapped their own, imbued as they were with the sense of family and loyalty, which Richard of Gloucester was to demonstrate in his personal motto, ‘loyaulte me lie’ or loyalty binds me. Teenage noblewomen did repudiate the matches their parents attempted to arrange for them and find their own husbands, the most famous contemporary example being Margaret Paston in 1469. The future Henry VIII also rejected his father’s arrangement for him to wed Catherine of Aragon in 1505, although he did actually marry her four years later. The significant age was fourteen. At that point, a young person was considered to be capable of knowing their own mind and rejecting an undesired spouse. Anne had reached that age and chose to marry Edward. Whether the young pair maintained a formal distance or attempted to forge a more companionate connection during these years of waiting is unknown. Anne was not blessed with hindsight but she did have an imagination: now a future unfolded before her in which she and Edward were partners for life, as King and Queen of England. It must have been an attractive prospect.

  Marriages were often conducted among the nobility when the spou
ses were in their teens and pregnancy could follow soon after consummation, as in Isabel’s case. Both Edward and Anne were past the age of consent and the act of betrothal itself, rather than the marriage vows, frequently marked a transition to physical intimacy, even full sexual relations. It was customary for one party to reside in the household of another from an early age and now, at sixteen and fourteen, the young couple were almost man and wife. However, Margaret had made it clear that the finality of their match was dependent upon events in England; closely watching Warwick’s next move, it is unlikely she would have allowed her son to sleep with Anne yet and it is doubtful that the teenagers would have had the will or opportunity to initiate relations behind her back. It seems unlikely, therefore, that this final step was taken during 1470. The period of waiting allowed Anne to spend time with the young man who was to become her husband and possibly her king. Edward certainly had qualities which suggested he could be a successful ruler: some accounts paint him as driven and ruthless: of course, he was still only in his teens, but his namesake, Edward IV, had led victorious armies into battle at a similar age. The pair, along with their mothers, passed the summer months in the beautiful castle at Amboise, with its gardens overlooking the Loire, waiting to hear what the future might bring. The news from England seemed promising.

  In fact, the kingdom had fallen all too easily. Warwick’s brother-in-law, Lord Fitzhugh, had reignited rebellion in Yorkshire, drawing Edward north and allowing the rebels to march unimpeded into London. On arriving, according to Vergil, Warwick had issued a proclamation calling all men to arm themselves against Edward IV who had, ‘contrary to right and law usurpyd the kingdom’, upon which thousands of armed men flocked to his side and marched to the capital, where, the Milanese Ambassador reported, he was actually received ‘in most friendly fashion’. Warwick proceeded to the Tower and released the bemused Henry VI, whom he then paraded through the streets in a ‘shabby blue gown’, ‘crowned and proclaimed through all the town of London with the greatest festivities and pomp as the true king and lord of England’. Yet he was ruler in name only and Warwick, the ‘Kingmaker’, had not finished yet. Word soon reached Edward of plans for his own arrest, leaving him in little doubt that his old ally would show him no mercy. With the Lancastrian regime restored and the capital occupied, he decided the only option was flight and headed for the East Coast, along with Richard of Gloucester, only reaching the safety of the Netherlands after terrible weather conditions and offering the coat off his back in payment to the captain of the merchant ship that agreed to carry him. Commines relates that, along with 700–800 followers, the brothers escaped ‘without a penny between them’ in three small boats. As Bettini reported in October, Warwick had ‘practically the whole island in his power’ and Edward IV was a fugitive in exile.10

  It is at this point that the Burgundian chronicler, Commines, was himself sent on a diplomatic mission to France and visited Calais, giving a portrait of the town Anne knew so well at the point of a change in allegiance. In the spring of 1470, it was in turmoil due to the unsubstantiated and conflicting reports of what had just happened across the Channel: Lord Wenlock had been rewarded handsomely by Edward for repelling his former master but his sympathies had always lain with Warwick, later switching sides with him to the Lancastrian cause. Wearing the Duke of Burgundy’s signet ring for protection, Commines received Wenlock’s grant of safe conduct, proceeding without event to the castle, which had been Anne’s home. Everyone in the town was wearing Warwick’s livery of red jackets embroidered with ragged staffs and on the door of the ambassador’s lodgings were pinned ‘more than a hundred’ white crosses and rhymes asserting the unity between King Louis XI and Warwick. Invited to dinner with Lord Wenlock, Commines found him wearing the earl’s emblem as a badge on his hat. His host confided that when the messenger had brought news of their master’s latest success, the entire place had switched liveries, from York back to Warwick, ‘so hasty and sudden was the change’. Commines was then shocked to find how those previously supportive of Edward ‘were those who threatened him most violently’. This episode reveals just how ‘unstable’ the situation was and how swiftly circumstances and loyalties could change. The ‘treachery’ of which many key figures had been accused during the war, including Margaret, Clarence, Warwick, Stafford, Wenlock, Montagu and Northumberland, was, in fact, little more than necessity. Allegiances determined the survival of an individual and their family; backing the right side was important. At that moment, the Kingmaker was the man to back.

  For Margaret, Prince Edward and Anne, it seemed that Warwick had fulfilled all his promises and they could return to England and claim their rightful positions. Yet they did not leave at once. Bettini recorded that ‘the Queen of England and the Countess of Warwick, with their children, are still here, as although his Majesty took leave of them some days ago for them to return to England, yet he has changed his mind, and it is thought that he will detain them until a reply has come from his ambassadors who have gone to England, who left about twelve days ago. It is thought that they will leave immediately the reply arrives.’11 It was November when Margaret and her party arrived in Paris with a guard of honour, where she was received as a queen, with tapestries hung out, flags and banners and lodged in splendour at the palace.12 Bettini recorded their departure: ‘the queen of England and the Countess of Warwick, with the prince and princess their children, have left and returned to England, to the unspeakable satisfaction and content of his said Majesty [Louis]’.13 Yet the ambassador’s comments were premature as, the following March, he wrote that Margaret ‘has delayed crossing up to the present, but now she is going over in God’s name, and it is reckoned that at this moment she has either crossed, or is on the sea in the act of doing so. She would have gone earlier still if the escort to take her had come sooner, for she took leave of the king at Amboise more than three months ago.’ The reasons for the delay are unclear. Warwick’s success had already peaked by the time the royals-in-waiting left France and, as a result, they missed their chance. In their absence, Clarence was made heir to the Lancastrian line in the event of Prince Edward dying childless and Henry VI was very clearly only a puppet, allowed to make few decisions. To all intents and purposes, the country was being ruled by Warwick, which was not the outcome either side had desired. The presence of Margaret and her son would have added a legitimacy and authority to the new regime in which people could believe. More Lancastrians would then have rallied to their cause, instead of being deterred by the power of Warwick, against whom many had recently fought. It was to prove a fatal delay.

  One reason that Margaret may have remained in France was her uncertainty over her son’s marriage. Edward and Anne shared a common ancestor in John of Gaunt, which required a formal dispensation before the union was allowed to proceed. Louis made it his business to facilitate the paperwork, dispatching his own man to Lyons in July and even urging the couple to go ahead and wed without permission. He considered Anne to be the wife of the prince, receiving her as such at his court from August onwards, after the Pope had issued the first of three dispensations. However, the final one did not arrive until 28 November, after which preparations began in earnest. The ceremony took place at Amboise on 13 December, attended by Margaret and the Countess of Warwick, a small-scale affair in comparison to Isabel’s in 1469. By this time, Anne’s husband was no longer a stranger. If the match had not been consummated until then, it would have been that night or soon after, just as her sister’s had been. Only this act would make the marriage legitimate and without it, Anne could be vulnerable to being discarded, should her father’s cause not go her way. Conversely, it also removed her own escape clause, if Warwick and the Lancastrians should ever part company again.

  Commines was not alone in thinking ‘this was a strange marriage’, given that Warwick had ‘defeated and ruined’ the Prince’s father. The Croyland Chronicler claimed that the match was made so that Warwick and Margaret’s ‘reconcilement and good faith t
owards each other might appear in the eyes of future ages the more undoubted’. Yet Warwick had never lacked ambition and was clearly driven by dynastic desire for the throne, having placed both daughters in marriages with two prospective heirs to the throne. By December 1470, when the wedding of Anne and Edward was finally conducted, the situation had changed again. The birth of a son to Edward IV displaced Clarence in the line of succession and Warwick was finding it increasingly hard to trust his son-in-law. Therefore, the Lancastrian marriage gave him the best option of having a grandchild to sit on the English throne. Isabel had lost her first child and would not conceive again in her father’s lifetime. If Anne could fall pregnant now, her baby would pose a powerful threat to the Yorkist heir, now that regime appeared to have fallen. The teenage couple passed their wedding night at Amboise and, forty-eight hours later, had departed, heading north.