Anne Neville: Richard III's Tragic Queen

by Licence, Amy

  The readeption of Henry VI was also good news for the thirteen-year-old Henry Tudor and his mother Margaret Beaufort, now Stafford. After the death of Lord Herbert and the family’s flight to Herefordshire, Margaret had tried unsuccessfully to regain custody of her son, whom she wished to have live with her at Woking, but the rapidly unfolding events soon brought them together again. With Edward in exile, the way was clear for a reunion and, when Jasper Tudor returned to England, he took his nephew to London. The Tudors received significant financial rewards from Henry and Warwick but the boy was unable to inherit the title of Earl of Richmond, which had been given to Clarence. However, mother and son were reunited at the new Lancastrian court for about six weeks in October and early November, where they dined frequently with the king. After Henry VI’s own Prince of Wales and his half-brother Jasper, Henry Tudor was next in line to the throne and was treated as such. The magnificent feasts at Westminster that autumn must have seemed to usher in a new era of optimism for Margaret and her son.

  7

  Lancastrian Princess

  1471

  In granting your love you shall purchase renown,

  Your head shall be crowned with Englands crown

  thy garments most gallant of gold shall be wrought

  if true love with treasure with the may be bought.1

  In March 1471, Edward IV landed in Yorkshire. The initial response from his subjects was not warm but he managed to gain access to the City of York by claiming he was only interested in the restoration of his dukedom. Richard of Gloucester had been by his side during his exile and now, Clarence, the prodigal brother, returned to the fold again. Marching south and gathering troops intended for Warwick, he had succumbed to the influence of his mother, uncles and sisters and was reconciled with the king. However, he did then seek to act as an intermediary, urging Edward to pardon his father-in-law. Isabel, who was also in England and perhaps in communication with her father, must have found her loyalties seriously compromised, as were those of many wives and mothers at the time, especially her mother-in-law Cecily. According to the Historie of the Arrivall of Edward IV in England and the finall recouerye of his Kingdomes from Henry VI, Clarence knew himself to be held ‘in great suspicion, despite, disdeigne and hatered’ by those who were ‘adherents and full partakers’ of the Lancastrian cause. Through the arbitration of family members, the brothers were brought to a ‘parfecte accord’, whereby Clarence was ‘full honourably and trwly acquitted’ of his treachery.2 For Warwick, this desertion must have represented a significant blow. However, Edward extended a gesture of forgiveness as a result of Clarence’s influence, presenting him with a kind of Hobson’s choice, as he was forced to reject one of his daughters in favour of the other. If Warwick had accepted and united again with the Yorkists, Clarence and Isabel, it would have left Anne and the countess ostracised and friendless with their enemies in exile. On the other hand, to refuse the king’s beneficence would protect Anne, but estrange him from Isabel and lead to the inevitable conflict that must result in the defeat and probable death of either the earl or the king.

  Warwick refused Edward’s pardon. The Arrivall suggests he may have ‘dispaired of any … continuance of good accord betwixt the Kynge and hym, for tyme to come, consyderinge so great attemptes by hym comytted against the Kynge’, or else he could not break the vows he had made in Angers Cathedral, on the ‘fragment of the true cross’, without terrible consequences. He sent Lord Wenlock to accompany the countess, Queen Margaret, Prince Edward and Anne back to England, planning for them to embark from Honfleur on 24 March. Treacherous conditions in the Channel delayed them though, with ‘great stormes, wyndes and tempests’3 preventing the fleet from sailing until mid-April. While Margaret’s party waited in France for the storms to abate, King Edward entered and retook London, welcomed back by the city whose trade had been threatened by Warwick’s anti-Burgundian agenda. The city merchants were also keen to receive the loans the Yorkist still owed them and, according to Commines, were persuaded by their wives, who still held the attractive man in great affection. Edward was reunited with his queen and introduced to the young son she had borne in sanctuary the previous November, the future Edward V, elder of the Princes in the Tower. Timing had played a crucial role in the king’s return: the popular Warwick was only a day behind him and had expected the city to remain loyal to him.4

  The Lancastrian party finally arrived at Weymouth, ‘aftar longe abydyng passage’, while Anne’s mother, in a separate ship, landed at Portsmouth. As the shores of England had come into view, each must have been exhilarated at the prospect of returning to a land newly conquered in their name, a land over which they could expect to rule and be received as royalty. No doubt they anticipated a triumphant procession to Westminster, lauded as they rode through the streets of London, before their reunion with Henry VI and instalment in the rich apartments of the Palace of Westminster. The following day was Easter. It dawned mistily and, while they prepared their celebrations, news arrived of a terrible battle being fought at Barnet, a small town north of London. Vergil described the slaughter: ‘Many wer slane every wher, whose rowmes fresh men dyd ever of new supply.’ Anne’s father was among them. According to his account, Warwick was impressive to the last, having ‘great confydence and hope of victory’ and ‘vehemently encoragyd and hartyly desyryd his soldiers, thowghe very weary, yet now to abyde this last brunt with valyant corage’, until he was ‘thrust thoughe and slane … manfully fighting … having almost the victory in his hand’. Although some accounts cite that Edward had asked for Warwick to be taken alive, Commines places the blame for his death at the king’s feet, as part of a wider policy of slaughter because ‘he had conceived a deep hatred against the people of England for the great favour which he saw the people bore towards the Earl of Warwick’. While it seems unlikely that the ‘great hatred’ was directed against his subjects, Edward may well have understood the necessity of removing such a popular alternative leader. One or other of them had to die.

  For Anne the dream was quickly shattered; amid the thick fog, confusion had led to chaos. The Great Chronicle of London estimated that 15,000 had been killed although Hall and Holinshed put the figure closer to 10,000: either way, the majority of losses had been sustained on the Lancastrian side. The encounter also marked the eighteen-year-old Richard of Gloucester’s first engagement in battle, fighting against a man under whose roof he had lived as a youth, whom he had considered a friend and mentor. Regret must have mingled with relief when he heard the day had been won. Perhaps he spared a thought for Anne, her father and the days they spent at Middleham, which must have seemed very distant then, although they were in reality only a couple of years past. One romantic story, dating from a Victorian biography, claims that Warwick encountered the young Richard on the battlefield and spared his life out of affection for him.5 What is more usually recounted is the earl’s break from his habit of remaining on horseback, in order to support his brother Montagu on foot, rendering him incapable of escape when the fighting turned against him. On Easter Saturday, 14 April 1471, the Yorkists’ smaller force had emerged victorious and, in spite of Edward’s supposed instructions, Anne heard that Warwick had indeed been slain.

  The triumphant Yorkists now returned to London, where the bodies of Warwick and Montagu were ‘layid nakid’ on public display at St Paul’s Cathedral, to ‘prevent newe murmors, insurrections and rebellyons among indisposed people’,6 before being handed over to George Neville, Archbishop of York, and laid in the family vault at Bisham Priory in Berkshire. The tomb no longer exists, having been destroyed during the Reformation, but the earl’s reputation was not so easily forgotten. Not even the public display of Warwick’s naked torso could completely dispel the belief that such a legendary figure and competent military leader could have met his mortal end. Rumours flew around Europe and even Louis XI himself was the recipient of incorrect reports of the aftermath of Barnet. Christofforo de Bollate, Milanese Ambassador to France, reco
rded that ‘yesterday evening, his Majesty had a letter from the Queen of England, saying that the Earl of Warwick was not dead, as reported, but he had been wounded in the fight with King Edward and had withdrawn to a secret and solitary place to get well of his wounds and sickness’. If such a letter existed, it suggests that Margaret, and by association Anne, still held out vain hopes for Warwick’s return. The second part of the letter, though, ‘contains not truth, as the women would well have known’. It stated that the Prince of Wales, King Henry’s son, was ‘in London with a very large following of men and with the favour and assistance of the greater part of the common people and citizens’,7 when he was actually still with his mother and wife in the west. It is more likely, then, that Margaret and Anne had to swiftly accept the news that the earl had been lost. Perhaps Anne was not alone in her personal grief; the Arrivall describes Margaret as being ‘right heavy and sorry’ at the news.

  On hearing the news, the Countess of Warwick, who had by then reached Southampton, fled into sanctuary at Beaulieu Abbey, which the Arrivall claims was done ‘secretly’ as an act of defection, because ‘she would no farther goo towards the Qwene’. If this is the case, she was also turning her back on her daughter Anne, which may explain their later cool relationship. Vergil claims that Margaret actually ‘swownyed for feare … distrawght, dismayed and tormentyd with sorrow’, lamenting the ‘calamyty of the time, the adversity of fortune, hir owne toyle and mysery’. She may have allowed herself to indulge her grief initially but Margaret quickly recovered her resolve and led her son and daughter-in-law to Cerne Abbey, a tenth-century Benedictine monastery in Dorset, where they could reassess their plans. Little remains now of the extensive abbey, which dominated the area in the fifteenth century, yet the South Gate House and Guesthouse would be recognised today by Anne. Here, amid such tranquil surroundings, she watched as the stalwarts of the Lancastrian cause began to arrive, including Edmund Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset, second son of Margaret’s former favourite, whom Warwick had killed at the First Battle of St Albans. His elder brother had been executed after a minor battle in 1464. Beaufort had been Warwick’s cousin but it is unlikely he had any sympathy now for the dead man’s daughter. Also present were key Lancastrians Dorset, Devon, Exeter and the Bishop of Ely, John Morton, who had been educated at Cerne Abbey and may have suggested the location. It was Morton who had led the Parliament of Devils which passed the act of attainder against Anne’s family.

  For the fourteen-year-old girl, no matter how brave and strong she felt, with her loyalty transferred through marriage, such company must have inspired mixed emotions and no small amount of fear. It is understandable that those who had been loyal to Henry VI for years despised the marriage his wife had forged for their son and did not wish to see Anne Neville sharing the throne with Prince Edward. Ironically, it may well have been her status as Princess of Wales which secured her position and her safety. Perhaps they made the young wife swear oaths of allegiance, perhaps they simply dismissed her as a child or considered her only as the bodily vessel by which the dynasty could continue. Later historians and dramatists have made much of Anne’s supposed ‘defection’ to the Yorkist side when she remarried, but, as she waited at Cerne Abbey with her former enemies, she may well have longed to welcome her childhood friends with open arms.

  Margaret now listened to Somerset’s advice: they could proceed without the earl and reclaim London, under the leadership of the determined young Edward of Westminster. Commines claimed they had 40,000 troops at this point, and, although this figure is exaggerated, more supporters kept arriving. A letter from Zannotus Spinula to his father, now in the Milan archives, related that many Lancastrians did not consider the earl’s death to be detrimental to their cause, as they had never really trusted him in the first instance: ‘there are many who consider the queen’s prospects favourable, chiefly because of the death of Warwick, because it is reckoned she ought to have many lords in her favour, who intended to resist her because they were enemies of Warwick; Northumberland among others’.8 Warkworth notes that the loss of Clarence was also ‘distruccion’ to them although, perhaps, his absence was less mourned than railed over by those who had put their trust in him. As news of Margaret’s arrival spread, more lords began to rally to the Lancastrian banner, as the party headed for Exeter, and on via Glastonbury, to Bath. Among her father’s former enemies, Anne may well have feared for her own safety.

  The Lancastrian force arrived in Bath at the end of April. From there, they hoped to unite with Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, who had been recruiting in the family stronghold of Wales, in order to give them the advantage over the king’s army. Meanwhile, Edward IV had heard of the scale of desertion. Knowing this could only prove disadvantageous to his cause, he decided to seize the moment and engage the forces of the queen and prince before Tudor could come to their assistance. Now it became a race against time. Both sides were determined to find Tudor first. With the king in pursuit, Margaret ordered her party to flee north, gathering up what they could and taking to the roads as soon as possible. Did Anne look over her shoulder as they rode at breakneck speed through the English countryside? Their ride took them through Gloucester, which remained loyal to Anne’s childhood friend, now its duke. More Yorkists prevented the party from crossing the River Severn, forcing them to divert their route up to Tewkesbury, arriving on the afternoon of 3 May. There, Anne was at least on familiar territory, as her mother was a patroness of the abbey and it was the final resting place of her grandmother. Perhaps it was even she who suggested her family’s nearby manor house as a suitable place to stay.

  Standing to the south-east of the modern town of Tewkesbury, Gupshill Manor had been built in 1438 and originally stood in a small hamlet of twenty houses. At the time, it was known as Gobes Hall. Now a restaurant, the black-and-white timbered building comprises three sections which retain many of the original features that Margaret and Anne would have seen when they stayed there for the night before the fighting took place. Other Lancastrian wives, including the Countess of Devon, who were captured with them after the battle, may also have kept them company there. It was here that Anne took leave of her young husband, wondering under what circumstances they would meet again. Perhaps they prayed together with Margaret, led by Bishop Morton, mindful of the possible outcomes of the impending clash. Either the Lancastrian family would be restored, and Anne would accompany her victorious husband on a triumphant march to Westminster as a princess and eventually inherit the throne or, alternatively, all would be lost. Probably none of them slept well, if at all. As the dark hours of the night began to lighten, Edward rose and said his final goodbyes to his wife. This was the closest Anne had ever come to conflict but, with her father’s recent fate in mind, she must have feared for the safety of the tall, determined seventeen-year-old as he disappeared from sight.

  That morning, Somerset led out his Lancastrian force of 6,000 men from the direction of the abbey, south of the town. Waiting for them were 5,000 Yorkists, headed by Edward, flanked by Clarence, Gloucester and Hastings. Vergil claims that the duke was overhasty, ‘drawing his men’ forth ‘against th’advice of th’other captaines’, because he knew that Edward IV was approaching. It meant that the armies engaged before the arrival of Tudor’s reinforcements, which may have proved decisive. The fighting took place on uneven ground, among the surrounding ‘evil lanes’ and fields, with the legendary ‘bloody meadow’ visible from the manor house window although, by then, there was no one there. Anne and Margaret had fled the scene and did not witness the battle. When the first reports came back of defeat, they were being sheltered by a family living at Payne’s Place in Bushley, before going on to Birtsmorton Court, where Margaret’s chamber still stands.9 From there, they proceeded to Malvern Priory in Worcestershire, where they were safer. Thus, Anne did not see that King Edward had entrusted his eighteen-year-old brother Richard to lead a division of the army, in the only battle where Anne’s two husbands faced each other on the fi
eld. Richard’s section of the army came into direct conflict with that of Somerset, who was hampered by a stream running through his position, and beat him back towards the River Severn. Writing in 1904, American historian Jacob Abbot has Margaret witnessing the battle from a distance and attempting to rush onto the field to rescue her son, ‘frantic with excitement and terror’ from which her companions found it ‘almost impossible to restrain her’ until she swooned and was ‘borne away senseless’ in a carriage to a convent. It is not difficult to imagine such a scene, with Anne attempting to restrain her mother-in-law, but no evidence exists for it. The women probably retreated early and did not see the escaping Lancastrians being shot down by the archers Edward had placed in nearby woodland. Nor did they witness the moment when the fortunes of battle turned in favour of the Yorkists and Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, lost his life.

  Exactly how Anne’s husband met his death is unclear. Literary and dramatic sources have presented a range of possibilities, implicating various Yorkists in differing degrees. Of the contemporary chroniclers recording the scene without being present, Commines agrees with the Croyland and Benet chronicles, which clearly state that he fell on the field of battle, while the Arrivall observes, ‘And there was slain in the field Prince Edward, which cried for succour to his brother-in-law, the Duke of Clarence.’ Even having sworn allegiance to him less than a year before, Clarence clearly did not feel sufficiently moved to show the prince pity, stating in a letter to Henry Vernon that the prince was ‘slain in playn bataill’, differentiating his death from the ‘execution’ of Somerset also described in the correspondence. Warkworth agrees that the prince ‘was taken fleeing … townwards, and slain in the field’, perhaps heading back for the safety of the abbey, or ‘poor religious place’, where his wife and mother waited. Tudor historian Andre Bernard, writing in 1501, also stated that the prince was slain in combat, even though, at that time, it would have been in his interests to slur the reputations of the Yorkist brothers.