The Nevills of Middleham: England's Most Powerful Family in the Wars of the Roses
416
The Nevills of Middleham: England's Most Powerful Family in the Wars of the Roses
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Overview
In 1465, the Nevills must have thought they'd reached the pinnacle of power and influence in England. Richard Nevill was the king's right-hand man and married to the richest woman in the kingdom; John Nevill was an accomplished soldier who'd done much to stabilise the new dynasty; and George Nevill was not only chancellor but newly enthroned as Archbishop of York. The Nevill women were as active as their male counterparts. As sisters and wives, daughters and daughters-in-laws, they had the ears of the elite in England and were not afraid of wielding their influence. And they were not always on the same side. Cracks in the stability of the most powerful family in England began to show. Rivalries led to serious conflict that worsened when King Edward IV impulsively married Elizabeth Wydeville, a choice of bride that did not please everyone. The Nevills had already lost a great deal for the Yorkist cause. Within six years, as the Wars of the Roses turned into one of the bloodiest periods of English history, they'd lose even more for the Lancastrians.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780750969550 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The History Press |
| Publication date: | 09/07/2016 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 416 |
| File size: | 5 MB |
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Read an Excerpt
The Nevills of Middleham
England's Most Powerful Family in the Wars of the Roses
By K.L. Clark
The History Press
Copyright © 2016 K.L. ClarkAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7509-6955-0
CHAPTER 1
The Beginnings of Greatness
In February 1396, a wedding was celebrated in Lincoln Cathedral that changed the course of English history and helped set the scene for thirty years of sporadic civil war. The wedding was quiet, private, possibly even secret. Certainly there is no evidence the groom sought blessing and permission from his nephew, Richard II. For the bride, now in her forties, the wedding was something of a vindication. After more than twenty years of constancy to her married lover, her reputation in ruins, she was finally to be his wife. More than that, she was to be his duchess.
The groom was John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, fourth son of Edward III, and his bride was his long-time mistress and mother of four of his children, Katherine Swynford. Neither bride nor groom was in the first flush of youth, he being somewhere in his fifties. Their relationship, which scandalised England's court, had begun decades earlier while both were married to others. With the death of his second wife Constance of Castile two years earlier, duke John was finally free to formalise his relationship with Katherine, but rather than this being simply the romantic culmination to a long attachment, the couple married, quite literally, for the sake of their children.
Despite its magnificent setting, the wedding was no glittering royal occasion. There are no records of who was in attendance, what the bride wore, who officiated or where they might have feasted afterwards. Quite apart from the personal feelings of the couple, there was some urgency about the wedding. John of Gaunt was suffering from increasing ill health and both he and Katherine were keen to see their children legitimated and their futures secure. Marriage was an essential step towards achieving this.
For decades, since the death of his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, Katherine had been an almost constant presence in John's life. When their relationship began, she was the governess of his children and continued to maintain a close and loving relationship with them throughout her life. Her reputation had suffered greatly, though duke John's public acknowledgement of her and their children, his gifts and his ongoing need of her must have gone some way towards ameliorating her feelings. As it was, as her now-husband's health rapidly failed, she had only four years of married life to look forward to.
In September 1396, a papal bull was issued legitimating John and Katherine's children. In February 1397, Parliament approved a royal patent to the same effect. Later this was to be amended with a proviso that they had no place in the succession. All four were given the surname Beaufort, though it is not at all clear where this comes from. Though there have been suggestions it relates to Chateau de Beaufort in Anjou, it is also possible the name was chosen in honour of Roger Beaufort, brother of Pope Gregory XI, who was an 'honourable captive' of John of Gaunt's during the 1370s.
John and Katherine's children were born over a roughly six-year period in the 1370s, in the early years of John's marriage to Constance of Castile. All four were to rise to some prominence in English society. The oldest, John, was granted the title earl of Somerset and founded a dynasty that was to play a crucial role in the upcoming political and military conflicts. He died in 1410 and his title passed to his son. Henry Beaufort was installed as Bishop of Lincoln in 1399 and elevated to the see of Winchester in 1404. In 1417, the newly elected Pope Martin V named Henry a cardinal as a reward for his support. Thomas Beaufort was granted the title duke of Exeter for life; he died in 1447.
Shortly after her parents' marriage and the issuing of the papal bull, John and Katherine's youngest child, 18-year-old Joan, married the widowed Ralph Nevill. This was another marriage that was to have far-reaching consequences for the future of England.
The connections between the Nevills and John of Gaunt were not insignificant. Ralph Nevill's father was a retainer of duke John's for much of his life. The Nevills had wealth and prominence in the north of England and this was a good match for Joan. For Ralph, it brought a connection to the royal family and the possibility of patronage to come.
Ralph Nevill was born around 1364, probably at Raby Castle in the Durham Dales. His father was John Nevill, 3rd lord Raby and his mother Maud Percy, daughter of the earl of Northumberland. The Nevills, originally Lincolnshire gentlefolk, had amassed a small fortune in land, as well as growing power in the north of England through astute marriages and sometimes inconsistent service to the crown. The earliest Nevill of note was Alan de Neville, appointed Henry II's chief justice of the forest in 1166, who did himself no favours with his harsh implementation of the forest laws.
Now this Alan, as long as he lived, enriched the king, though he ceased not from vexing both the clergy and the laity. Thus to please an earthly monarch, he was not afraid to offend the King of Heaven. But how much gratitude he obtained from the king whom he was thus careful to ingratiate, the sequel proved. When he was brought near his end, the brethren of a certain monastery, desiring, as it seems, a portion of his substance for their house, went to the king, beseeching him to allow them to take his body and bury it with them. The king evinced his regard for him in these terms: 'I,' quoth he, 'will have his wealth but you may have his carcass and the demons of hell his soul!' Behold the wretched recompense; see the miserable disposal of him and his substance! This may well be a lesson to officials of every degree of power – to mark how this man, who studied to please the king by his wicked deeds, got neither thanks nor respect thereby, while he incurred the displeasure of the King of Heaven.
Over the centuries, Alan de Neville's successors variously served their royal masters and joined in rebellions against them. A series of advantageous marriages brought them further and further north, Raby Castle coming to the family through the FitzMaldreds. The name 'Nevill' had come to mean something, however, and when Isabel Nevill married Robert FitzMaldred around 1190, her son took his mother's name, passing it on to his three sons. By the time of Ralph's birth, the Nevills were well entrenched in the north of England, owning extensive property in Durham and Yorkshire, including Middleham Castle, and had a prominent role in upholding marcher law along the border with Scotland.
Along with his eight siblings, Ralph Nevill grew up in some comfort. Raby Castle was by far the finest property the family owned. With a population rivalling that of some small towns, and with an estate of some 2 acres, Raby was the most significant building in its landscape. It was surrounded by a park of more than 900 acres, in which the family hunted and from which firewood was collected. The nearest town, situated hard on the estate's southern edge, is Staindrop, which became a market town in 1378 when Ralph's father was granted a charter. Many of Ralph's ancestors, both FitzMaldred and Nevill, are buried in Staindrop church. Raby Castle was the most visible sign of how far the Nevills had come since Lincolnshire landowner Alan de Neville first came to public notice.
Ralph's day began with matins in the chapel in the company of his parents and siblings. The rest of the household heard mass in the great hall, except for those whose duties required them to keep working, such as cooks, sewers, botlers and those responsible for making beds and setting up the great chamber and hall for the morning meal. The family dined in relative privacy in the great chamber, with younger children in the nursery. Privacy did not mean then what it means now. This was no informal family meal, and the ceremonies involved in serving and eating were not just performed in the presence of the family, they also took place behind closed doors.
Also half an hour before the lord go to meat or supper the marshall shall take the Rod in his hand and command the panter and ewer to cover and make ready for the lord and the household; and as soon as it is made ready the marshall shall command the sewer to await when the cooks be ready; and then shall the sewer go to the ewry and take a towel upon his shoulder and the marshall and he to go together and show before the lord so that he may know thereby when his meat is ready.
This went on for every meal of every day and required such precision and training that books, known as courtesy books or household ordinances, were written to 'teach every man that is willing to learn to serve a lord or master in every thing in his pleasure'. There were ceremonies for rising, attending mass, eating in private and eating in public. There were ceremonies for receiving guests, for leaving home and returning, and even for going to bed at night. All this was designed to make visible and clear the status of the master of the household. Mistakes and omissions might call attention to his newly ennobled state, and the more newly made men joined the ranks of the aristocracy, the more elaborate the rituals needed to be for those families of long-standing pedigree. Upward mobility was not uncommon and could be achieved through a number of means. The Nevills represented both those who rose through the ranks through service to their king and those who did so through marriage. Ralph Nevill knew how this worked and, later in life, would do all he could to improve the lives of his children. By the time his grandson Richard, 16th earl of Warwick came to prominence, it was as if the family had been in the ranks of the aristocracy for countless generations.
In his childhood, Ralph and his younger brothers took formal lessons with a tutor, joined by his father's wards and young pages sent to live at Raby so that they might acquire something of an education before moving into more formal service. As the oldest son of a warrior, Ralph's training began early, his father's knights and men-at-arms a constant presence throughout his childhood. The life of a soldier in the late middle ages, even the son of a baron, was neither easy nor comfortable. Ralph needed to learn not only to fight, but to command, to ensure his army was supplied, well-trained and in good health and good spirits.
Ralph's father, John, 3rd lord Raby, was a military man. He was Admiral of the North and in 1370 gathered ships to transport troops for an expedition to France; in 1372, he led a small army to Brittany; and in 1378, as King's Lieutenant, he was crucial to the defence of English territory in Gascony.
Like many Nevills before him, John also served as warden of the marches towards Scotland. A good part of Ralph's training would have been designed to ready him to take over from his father in this capacity. The role of the warden was initially judicial, overseeing marcher law. In England, this set of laws was designed to deal with Scots who committed crime south of the border and, in Scotland, to deal with Englishmen who committed crime north of it. Over time, the role became more military and diplomatic, the legal aspects dealt with by ordinary courts. In the thirteenth century, one Robert Nevill travelled to Scotland several times and was instructed to 'visit the king's daughter, the queen of Scotland, as often as possible, to give her comfort and assistance, and to supply her with funds'. Another, later, Robert was taken prisoner at Bannockburn and was shortly afterwards killed in Berwick in retribution for a murder he and his brothers were accused of committing. Over several centuries, Nevills were included in, and sometimes led, embassies to Scotland. It was important for the king, far away in London, to know he had people he could trust policing his northern border.
The administrative centre of the west march was Carlisle Castle and Ralph, along with his father and his father's trusted retainers, travelled frequently between Carlisle and Raby, a distance of some 60 miles. As one of the major responsibilities of the warden was to keep the garrison supplied and armed, Ralph learned to assess need, order what was required, oversee deliveries north and keep accounts of expenditure. Apart from his formal schooling, all this he would have learned from watching his father both at home and in Carlisle.
In 1380, when he was just 16, Ralph took part in his first military campaign, to Brittany, under the command of Thomas Woodstock, earl of Buckingham. By this time, his father had been impeached, in part for an earlier military failure in Brittany and in part for a discrepancy between the size of the retinue he took to Brittany and the terms of his engagement. He was accused of profiteering, though the charges were later withdrawn. Restored to favour, though minus his former court appointments, John Nevill concentrated for the next few years on making improvements to Raby Castle, including crenellations, a new gate and a new tower. He continued to serve in France until 1381, but from that time on concentrated his energies and attention in the north of England, particularly in the marches, a responsibility he shared with the Percy earls of Northumberland. Dividing the marches towards Scotland between the two most powerful northern families served three purposes: it helped protect the integrity of the border; it prevented either family from developing overwhelming military might; and, in theory at least, it kept those families, and their considerable armies, occupied.
Young Ralph Nevill had a good deal to live up to, for not only did his father serve in France and the marches but had fought, alongside his own father, at the battle of Neville's Cross in 1346 against an invading Scots army. Apart from his single foray into Brittany, however, Ralph's own military career was confined almost entirely to the north. Just 24 when his father died in 1388, he had already served as warden of the west march for two years, a role he was to hold until 1414. In 1403, after the battle of Shrewsbury, he was granted wardenship of the east march as well, which he also relinquished in 1414.
Ralph Nevill and his first wife, Margaret Stafford, had either eight or nine children – two sons and six or seven daughters. Their second son, also Ralph, married his stepsister Mary Ferrers. He died, childless, in 1458. Ralph and Margaret's oldest son John died in 1420, making his son Ralph his grandfather's principal heir.
Ralph senior's second marriage, to Joan Beaufort, and their subsequent fourteen children, put great pressure on the Nevill inheritance, leading to open and ongoing hostility between the two branches of the family. This feud, as with others, was to have dire consequences for the Nevills of Middleham in time to come.
Joan was just 18, and a young widow with two daughters, when she married the 33-year-old Ralph Nevill. Ralph had been a widower for a little over six months and Joan had been a widow for about a year. The three events at the end of 1396 and the beginning of 1397 – the marriage of John of Gaunt and his long-time mistress Katherine Swynford; the legitimating of their children by papal bull and parliamentary decree; and the marriage of Joan Beaufort and Ralph Nevill – each came so fast on the heels of the last that it is difficult not to speculate the third event depended on the second as much as the second depended on the first.
Married at 13 to Sir Robert Ferrers, the mother of two daughters by the time she was 16 and widowed at 17, Joan had already seen much of life when she married for the second time. The sixteen years between her and Ralph did not prevent a strong bond of affection, perhaps love, certainly shared purpose, developing between them. Joan's father did not hide his children away and it is likely that she and Ralph had been acquainted for some time.
The Nevills had long been in the service of John of Gaunt and the offer of marriage to his daughter may have been a reward for this service. Certainly, Joan was young and her connection to the royal family stood to bring great benefit to her new husband. Less than a year after the wedding, Ralph was further elevated by Richard II, created earl of Westmorland in September 1397. Thus, in the space of twelve months, Joan Beaufort went from being the widowed illegitimate daughter of a prince and a governess, to the legitimated daughter of a duke and duchess, and the wife of an earl.
Joan and her Beaufort brothers, John, earl of Somerset, Henry, Cardinal Beaufort and Thomas, duke of Exeter, had always been acknowledged by their father and brought up, at least partially, in his household. Joan benefited from the same education as her legitimate half-sisters, and the two sides of duke John's family remained close, if not always in complete harmony, for the rest of their lives.
Joan was well read and had quite a library, which she cared for so much that she petitioned for the return of two books she had lent to her nephew Henry V, which were still in his keeping at the time of his death. Her literary connections were not insignificant, her mother's sister Philippa Roet was married to Geoffrey Chaucer. Philippa provided her husband a connection to John of Gaunt's circle and, through that, to wider court and aristocratic circles.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Nevills of Middleham by K.L. Clark. Copyright © 2016 K.L. Clark. Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgements,Nevill Family Tree,
Introduction,
Part 1: The Nevills and the Lancastrian Kings,
1 The Beginnings of Greatness,
2 Richard II, Bolingbroke and Hotspur,
3 Joan Beaufort's Daughters and the Young Duke of York,
4 Joan Beaufort's Sons and the Family Feud,
Part 2: The Nevills and the Duke of York,
5 The Road to Dartford,
6 The Edge of Rebellion,
7 The Nevills of Middleham and the Percies of Alnwick,
8 The Beauchamp Earls of Warwick,
9 Death of a Grandchild and the Making of an Earl,
10 A Crisis of Government,
11 A Time for Women,
12 A Reckoning in the North,
13 'Loyal Liegemen',
14 Lady Willoughby's Troubles,
15 A Murder in the West Country,
16 Calais and Love Day,
17 Breaking the King's Peace,
18 The Gathering Storm,
19 Ludford,
Part 3: The Nevills in Exile,
20 Somnium Vigilantis and the Parliament of Devils,
21 Wives and Sisters Left Behind,
22 Lord of the Channel,
Part 4: The Nevills in Power,
23 Invasion and Triumph,
24 Sir Thomas Nevill and the Duke of York,
25 Three Battles that Made a King,
26 Resistance and Conspiracy,
27 John Nevill's War,
28 More Troubles for Lady Willoughby,
29 Secrets and Celebrations,
Part 5: The Nevills in Rebellion,
30 Rumblings of Discontent,
31 Robin of Redesdale and the Capture of the King,
32 The Lincolnshire Rebellion,
33 Strange Bedfellows,
34 Endgame,
35 Embers of Resistance,
Part 6: The Last of the Nevills,
36 The Earl and the Archbishop,
37 Bitter Harvest,
Notes,
Picture Credits,
Bibliography,
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