Anne Neville (8 page)

The vast estate that the earl and countess had collected could remain united only for their lives. Sadly they could not transmit it intact to the next generation. For that, a son was needed. Their son. There was no divorce as such in the fifteenth century and with two daughters Warwick could hardly plead non-consummation. Even if the Countess Anne had died and the earl had remarried, any son by a second bride could have succeeded only to his Neville and Salisbury lands. The countess did not expire until 1492, when Warwick, had he survived, would have been sixty-four years old: not too ancient to procreate, but old by fifteenth-century standards. The Countess Anne had twenty years to remarry, but her menopause had surely come and reproduction of a son of her own was no longer a possibility. Even a single daughter, had either Isabel or Anne died, could not have kept everything together, because the estates were not all held by the same title. Inherited through different lines, they were subject to different entails. Whereas the Beauchamp, Despenser, Holland and Montagu lands were heritable by children of the earl and countess of whatever sex, the Neville lands were entailed in the male line (tail male). If Warwick had no son, the right of inheritance would devolve first on his brother John (d.1471) and his male descendants, and thereafter on the male lines of Salisbury’s brothers George Lord Latimer (d.1469) and Edward Lord Abergavenny (d.1476) in succession. Warwick’s two daughters, Isabel and Anne, could divide the rest. By 1464, it therefore appears, the earl and countess were reconciled to the division into three of their great accumulation of property. The Neville lands in tail male, comprising a couple of manors in Essex and the three great northern lordships of Middleham, Sheriff Hutton (Yorks.) and Penrith (Cumbria), were destined to pass to Warwick’s brother John and his son George Neville. All the rest, from Barnard Castle in County Durham, the Welsh marcher lordships, the Warwick and Despenser lands in the
West Midlands, to properties in twenty other counties, would be divided between Isabel and Anne as co-heiresses.
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Even in three unequal parts, the divided estate was sufficient to make George, Isabel and Anne amongst the greatest heirs (and matrimonial catches) of their time.

By 1464, if not earlier, it appears that Warwick had resigned himself to never fathering a son. It was in this year, perhaps not for the first time, that he was resettling his estates and most probably writing his will. Thirty-five was not unusually young to be planning for eternity. Actually it was only the year before that he had secured a royal licence to settle £1,000-worth of lands in trust for the payment of his debts and the performance of his will.
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Early in 1465 he had lands settled on him, not in tail male as on previous occasions, but on his heirs, executors and assigns, clear evidence not only that he was thinking of his soul, but also that he was resigned to lacking a son and was providing for the eventuality that it was daughters whom he wished to inherit.
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Moreover, in 1466 he compromised with his Beauchamp sisters-in-law.
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Whilst he was alive, he could continue to frustrate their claims on his estates, but how would his daughters cope should he die? A handful of manors to each sister-in-law and an entail that promised them the succession should his countess die childless were prices worth paying to ensure that his daughters’ tenure of the Beauchamp estates and the earldom of Warwick would not be challenged when he himself was gone. His sisters-in-law did not however give up their claims on their father’s trust: Elizabeth Lady Latimer (d.1480), the youngest sister-in-law, regarded the trust and the Beauchamp Chapel as their family assets.
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Presumably Warwick felt no need to compensate the powerless St Cross Hospital, Winchester, which he had already wronged, and could not persuade the Nevilles of Abergavenny to abandon their claim to a halfshare of the Despenser inheritance. Warwick had recognised
reproductive reality. He was investing in his heirs and ensuring their future security.

If Warwick could not himself become a king or indeed a duke as he more feasibly aspired, his heirs could be ducal or royal and could satisfy those ambitions that he yet had to fulfil. That he possessed such exalted ambitions is shown by his decision to marry Francis Lord Lovell, the heir to a decidedly wealthy barony, not to one of his daughters but to his niece, when he was granted the boy’s wardship and marriage in 1465.
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Anne Neville was the younger, of course. When we think of these two young ladies, Isabel – the eldest – must always have taken precedence and been more important. She would have the pick of their inheritance. Inevitably it was Isabel who embarked first on the marriage market. Nor should we overlook George Neville. Although only a baby, born on 22 February 1465,
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he and his father were the heirs presumptive and future heads of Warwick’s house of Neville. Warwick was as concerned for the future of the main line, the male line, as for his own daughters.

Actually it was as early as 1464 that the Burgundian chronicler Waurin located Warwick’s plan to marry his two daughters to their cousins and royal dukes, the king’s brothers George, Duke of Clarence and Richard, Duke of Gloucester.
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At that point Anne was at most eight years old. Undoubtedly Warwick did plan to wed Isabel to Clarence, whom she did indeed marry in 1469, but any proposal to wed Richard to Anne during the 1460s is unsubstantiated and appears unlikely. Certainly 1464 is too early. What seems more likely is that Warwick intended the young Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham for one of them, since the earl’s ‘secret displeasure’ was recorded by the chronicler pseudo-Worcester at the duke’s marriage to Katherine Wydeville, sister of Edward IV’s new queen, in February 1466.
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It is telling that no such anger is attributed to the marriages of the less well-endowed heirs of the newly
created earls of Essex, Kent and Pembroke, down to whom Warwick was apparently unwilling to stoop for either Isabel or Anne. Certainly Warwick did support the proposal for the marriage of his brother John’s baby son George Neville to Anne, the heiress of the Duke of Exeter. It was a match that should have made young George into a duke and certainly made him royal, for the mother of the infant bride was Edward IV’s eldest sister and the father, though exiled, was also of Lancastrian royal descent. We know of Warwick’s attitude because of his anger – ‘his great secret displeasure’ – when Anne of Exeter was poached instead for 4,000 marks (£2,666 13s 4d) by Edward’s new Wydeville queen for her own son Thomas Grey in October 1466.
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Queen Elizabeth had readier access – pillow talk – to royal favour, and the nobility were anxious to exploit (or guard against) this new avenue of patronage. The young king attached inflated worth to his new in-laws and provided for each of them on an unprecedented scale. Warwick moreover was disadvantaged by his family’s previous success: in each case, Buckingham, Clarence, Exeter and Gloucester were already related to his heirs within the prohibited degrees and a papal dispensation was required, so weddings could not be concluded quickly.

Individually and collectively all these matches would have provided for Warwick’s heirs, advanced them in rank and wealth, strengthened his own position at court and extended his hold yet more firmly in diverse localities. We have seen that the Buckingham and Exeter marriages were frustrated. So, too, was the union of Isabel and Clarence, which King Edward, for reasons unknown, vetoed. Pseudo-Worcester locates this around October 1467.
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Probably Edward wanted to make use in his diplomacy of Clarence’s hand and did indeed proffer it.
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Hence Warwick suddenly found his influence eclipsed in one of his areas of principal concern – the future of his dynasty and his daughters. It has been identified as an important
contributory factor in his quarrel with the king and its subsequent escalation into renewed civil war. What Warwick had in mind next for his daughters when the dukes were taken is unclear, because actually he refused to take no for an answer and married Isabel to Clarence nevertheless.

Certainly the teenaged Isabel Neville was old enough to appreciate that a suitable bridegroom had been found for her and denied to her by the king. Whether the eight-or nine-year-old Anne knew of any of the very preliminary manoeuvres on her behalf appears unlikely. There was no need for haste. That Warwick could secure none of these matches and was opposed at every juncture by the king and queen was a factor – perhaps merely contributory, but significant nevertheless – in the deterioration of their relations that ended in the renewal of civil war in 1469 with the earl and king on opposite sides. If the Countess Anne, Isabel and almost certainly Anne Neville engaged themselves with the matrimonial issues, neither daughter can have been consulted on the bigger political issues and the countess’s input, if any, was not decisive.

ISABEL’S MARRIAGE AND STILLBIRTH

The second phase of the Wars of the Roses, from 1469 to 1471, commenced with the marriage of Anne Neville’s sister Isabel. It was a conflict in which Anne was a major player.

George, Duke of Clarence (1449–78), the middle of the three York brothers, was younger than King Edward IV and older than Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the future Richard III. At his marriage on 12 July 1469 he was still only nineteen. Since Duke George had been in control of his own affairs since his majority was advanced in 1466,
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he may have appeared older, though it was not very mature of him the previous year to point out in public that Lord Mayor Oulegrave had fallen asleep whilst presiding over a treason trial at the London Guildhall!
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That was not strictly what Rows meant when he described the duke as ‘right witty’,
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but rather that he was intelligent. Crowland also praises his abilities.
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Such testimonies, however, need not mean that Clarence had any common sense. Duke George was a prince and a royal duke, possessed of enormous wealth and presiding over a most impressive household, for
which Warwick had helped compile model ordinances only the year before.
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He was thus most eligible of all the available bachelors to reproduce the grandeur to which Isabel Neville had been brought up. Moreover, George was ‘seemly of person and well-visaged’,
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which may have been just as important to his cousin Isabel Neville, now aged eighteen. What mattered to Clarence is suggested by a note entered into his household book that Isabel was ‘one of the daughters and heirs of the said Richard Earl of Warwick’,
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the other being Anne Neville. This reminded him and us that George’s marriage to Isabel promised a share in due course of Warwick’s great estates and titles. The earl had promised Isabel to the duke at least a couple of years before they were married. The two teenagers were of age and were entitled legally to bind themselves to one another if they so wished. Not only the bride’s parents approved, but also, it appears, the groom’s mother Cecily.
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That Edward IV objected to the match and vetoed it could not be decisive – there was no Royal Marriage Act in 1469, although to flout a king regnant was definitely illadvised. In this instance, however, the king had more say. George and Isabel were first cousins once removed, related in the second degree, and were also related in other degrees: Isabel’s great-grandmother was George’s great-aunt and both were descendants of Edward III. Moreover, George’s mother Cecily, Duchess of York had been godmother to Isabel – a spiritual relationship. Although not explicitly forbidden in the book of
Leviticus
, intermarriage between such close relations was prohibited without a dispensation, to be solicited from the Pope, and which under most circumstances those of noble birth could normally expect. Often enough such couples married on the expectation of a dispensation later, but this carried a risk that the union might be nullified, which clearly Warwick was not prepared to take: indeed, he was even more unwilling after he encountered obstacles. King
Edward’s wishes counted for more at Rome than did those of Warwick and Clarence. He used his contacts to obstruct any such application. Warwick’s agent, Master Lacy, could obtain no audience with Pope Paul II.
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But Edward’s opposition proved indecisive, because Warwick refused to give up and used James Goldwell, the king’s own representative at the Curia, to negotiate on his behalf.
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The necessary dispensation was dated 14 March 1469.
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Although King Edward could no longer prevent their marriage in England, Warwick secured a licence from Cardinal Bourchier, another cousin, for George and Isabel to be married at Calais, where he was still captain, by his brother Archbishop Neville.
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The wedding took place on Tuesday 12 July 1469 at Calais. This was the first visit there of Warwick’s daughters, so far as we know, for eight years. No clandestine affair like the king’s, the marriage festivities were a splendid five-day celebration comparable in splendour to Archbishop Neville’s own enthronement. It was a society wedding that left the validity of the marriage in no doubt. The bride’s parents, the earl and countess of Warwick, were present and perhaps also the groom’s mother, Cecily, Duchess of York, who is recorded with them at their embarkation from Sandwich. Despite its peripheral location, there attended ‘five other knights of the garter, and many other lords and ladies, and worshipful knights, well accompanied with wise and discreet esquires, in right great number, to the laud praising of God and to the honour and worship of the world’.
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We do not know who all the guests were, but their presence, especially at such an out-of-the-way venue, indicates that the king’s opposition was regarded as unreasonable and that his malevolence could be risked. Anne Neville, though not separately mentioned, was undoubtedly present. Apart from what it meant to the conjugal couple, it was the moment for Anne when the two girls at home became one, when Isabel moved out, and Anne’s own marriage moved up her parents’
agenda. She was now part of the inner royal family: the Yorkist family tree had now become her own. Anne Neville was now sister-in-law (or, in contemporary terms, sister) of the Duke of Clarence, of King Edward and his queen, of Clarence’s sisters the duchesses of Burgundy, Exeter, and Suffolk, and of their husbands the three dukes. Kinship was a powerful force in fifteenth-century England, yet it – and especially kinship by marriage – could divide as well as unite.