Anne Neville by Michael Hicks Read Free Book Online

of distinction, to which Anne’s maternal grandmother the Countess Alice was the last heir.
    Although he was not to inherit until 1460, the kingmaker was acutely conscious of his own lineage, the Nevilles, who, as we have seen, traced themselves back to the Norman Conquest and indeed beyond. Their family genealogy, originating at the abbey of St Mary at York and continued at Coverham, as revised for Earl Ralph and updated c.1443, celebrated their roots in Richmondshire, where Middleham lay, and their military renown. 19 Some versions stressed the direct line and others all the siblings, male, female and prematurely deceased, in each generation. Surviving in multiple copies and perhaps hung up on the wall, the genealogy indicated to members of the family, such as Anne Neville, exactly where they fitted and everything to which they were heirs. The Nevilles were everywhere in the North. As Anne Neville was to find, Neville’s Cross marked a notable victory over the Scots in 1346, in Durham Cathedral there was both a Neville chantry and a Neville screen, and at York her father and uncle were to found St William’s College. Not only was she to feel at home in the North, but northerners regarded Anne Neville – in turn the Lady Anne, the Duchess Anne and Queen Anne – as very much their own. 20
    BIRTH 1456
    A daughter like Anne Neville benefited from her complex pedigree and luxuriant traditions, but she was decidedly not their intended culmination. A daughter who was an heiress, still more a daughter who was a co-heiress, threatened to bring everything to the end – the family name, its titles, its honours, its traditions, its patronage and its connections. The future would be shaped by a husband who knew of none of these, perhaps cared little for them, and had his own counterparts to each to protect.
    Joy at Anne Neville’s birth (and her mother’s survival) was thus accompanied by apprehension for the future. For AnneNeville herself, of course, her birth was her beginning. What that meant – how she was greeted and how her significance evolved – is also deserving of attention.
    Formally married in 1436, Richard Neville junior and Anne Beauchamp needed time to grow up. Even allowing for that, however, their marriage was slow to bear its intended fruits: inheritance, children and heirs. Richard Neville senior (henceforth Salisbury) lived to be sixty: still vigorous and effective, his life ended violently. His countess Alice Montagu, our heroine’s grandmother, survived another two years. Anne Neville’s maternal grandparents died sooner, both in 1439. Her only maternal uncle Duke Henry died in 1446, his spouse Duchess Cecily in 1451, and their only baby daughter in 1449, all before Anne Neville was born. The duke’s infant left five aunts to divide her Beauchamp and Despenser inheritances. Had her father Duke Henry not come of age, they would have done, but because the duke had achieved his majority his only whole sister Anne Beauchamp took precedence over his four half-sisters: there was a common-law rule that favoured the whole blood over the half blood. As we have seen, the unforeseen beneficiaries were Duke Henry’s youngest sister and his daughter’s youngest aunt Anne Beauchamp and her husband Richard Neville, who became earl and countess of Warwick and secured the whole of both inheritances rather than merely the quarter and half shares that were all that could have been predicted. Anne Beauchamp’s half-sisters and nephew objected and resisted, ultimately without avail. 21 For the heir of Richard and Alice, always heir presumptive to the Neville and Montagu lands and the earldom of Salisbury, an even greater future beckoned. Moreover, it began at once. In 1449, at the age of twenty, the younger Richard Neville became earl of Warwick. But for the Wars of the Roses and Salisbury’s violent death in 1460, Richard Neville junior might have remained an heir in waiting, overshadowed by his father, for much