Home
Library
Exhibit
Article Index
Leicester Tour
•15th-century map
• Modern map
Photos:
2007 AGM
• Bosworth Reenactment
• Middleham
• Sheriff Hutton
Richard
III Society
|
|
Richard
III and the Nevilles
By Sandra Worth
(Printed in Ricardian Register Summer 1999--Copyright © Sandra
Worth,: used with permission)
Ne Vile Velis, ‘Wish Nothing Base.’ the
motto of the Nevilles, circumscribes a code of conduct that embraces
not only deeds, but also words and thoughts, reflecting the high
idealism to which this powerful fifteenth century family aspired.
Whether every member of the clan attempted to live up to these lofty
standards is debatable, yet there is evidence that at least one did
try. Who were these Nevilles who shaped the history of fifteenth
century Europe? What were they like? What did they want from the world
or expect to leave behind, this extraordinary family who helped mold
the most controversial--and from the Ricardian view, the noblest--of
English kings? For that answer, we must examine their actions,
interpret their motivation, and thus hopefully, glimpse their hearts.
In Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey writes:
“To be a Neville. . . was to be of some importance
since
they were great landowners. To be a Neville was almost certainly to be
handsome, since they were a good-looking family. To be a Neville was to
have personality, since they excelled in displays of both character and
temperament. To unite all three Neville gifts, in their finest quality,
in one person was the good fortune of Cicely Neville, who was the sole
Rose of the north long before the north was forced to choose between
the White Rose and the Red.”
Known both as “The Rose of Raby” and
“Proud Cis,” Richard's mother, Cecily Neville,
Duchess of
York, was by all accounts a woman of rare beauty, imperious
haughtiness, and a faith in God that misfortune only strengthened,
never shattered. Cicely was also a woman of unusual good health. In an
age where half the world's population died by the age of eight, she
bore twelve children and lived to be eighty. By the end of her life she
had buried them all except for her youngest daughter, Margaret, Duchess
of Burgundy. After Clarence's execution she took the lay vows of the
Benedictine order and lived in seclusion at her castle of Berkhamptsted
until her death. Unquestionably, it was Cicely's spiritual faith and
emotional discipline that enabled her to survive the horrific tragedies
that marked her life.
Such was the woman to whom Richard was borne. All
his life, Richard was to show a marked affection and regard for women,
even after witnessing Marguerite d'Anjou's atrocities at Ludlow at the
age of six, and losing his father, brother, Neville uncle and cousin to
violent death at her hands the following year. Elizabeth Woodville's
vengeful scheming plunged the land into civil war and cost Richard the
life of a brother and many others whom he loved, yet as king, he
pardoned her and provided her a large pension. Even Margaret Beaufort
and Jane Shore were treated with a consideration that raised eyebrows
in light of their treason, while wives of attainted traitors were given
wardship over their young children and generous pensions. With women,
Richard was always the gentle knight.
When Richard turned nine, however, his mother
retreated into the background and other Neville figures stepped forward
to shape his character and his life. In 1461 he returned from exile in
Burgundy with his brother, George, and was sent to learn knightly
conduct at the household of Cecily's famed nephew, Richard Neville,
Earl of Warwick. Since George did not accompany him, we can assume this
came at Richard's own request.
The Earl of Warwick, known as
‘Kingmaker,’ stands out in history as the
mightiest, and
the last, of the great English barons. He was the stuff of legends in
his own time and songs paid tribute to his courage and exploits both on
land and sea. His charm, as well as his courage, is well documented,
but, by all accounts, Warwick's greatest strength lay more in the arena
of diplomacy than in military matters, where he knew some failures. He
was also a man who appreciated merit and had a democratic tendency to
reward ability over birth.
Genuinely amiable, prodigiously energetic, richer
and more generous than the king himself, Warwick exuded a magnificence
and glamour previously the preserve of royalty. Edward IV resented that
the French King Louis XI treated Warwick not only as an equal but
cultivated him as a friend, and Warwick went out of his way to fan
Edward's jealousy. When Edward moved the remains of his father and
brother from Pontefract and reburied them in a splendid ceremony at
Fotheringhay Castle in 1463, Warwick bore his father and brother to
Bisham Abbey two weeks later in an even more splendid
ceremony.
When, in the early spring of 1464, King Edward impressed a visiting
entourage of Bohemian knights by a fifty-course dinner, Warwick
immediately after dazzled them with one of sixty courses. Warwick's
rivalry with Edward extended to the hearts of the people. Paul Murray
Kendall writes:
“At his London establishment six oxen might be roasted for a
breakfast; any acquaintance of his servants was free to bear away from
the kitchens as much meat as he could thrust upon a long dagger.. When
the Earl rode through the streets of London or passed through villages
on errands of diplomacy or war, crowds of people cried, "Warwick!
Warwick!" as if he were a diety dropped from the skies. No one was so
splendidly arrayed as he, and none bowed so low in courageous
salutation to the meanest bystander who would shout a greeting. He
perpetually wooed the world, and for a time, he won
it.”
All Warwick's impressive attributes, however,
failed to save him from what was to prove his fatal flaw and his
undoing. He suffered from an arrogance that impelled him into a
dangerous rivalry with the King and a fatal struggle to live up to the
title Conduiseur du royaume given him by the Scots Bishop of St.
Andrews. That arrogance is suggested by his personal motto
‘Seulement Un.’ One can wonder, the only one to
have what?
Saved a ship at sea by his courage? Altered history by turning the tide
of a critical battle? Made a king? Unmade a king?
Into this glittering household came Richard to
spend the most formative years and, in all likelihood, the happiest of
his childhood, the years from the age of nine until his early teens.
Under the tutelage of this imposing and magnificent
baron and his brothers, Richard grew into manhood himself. Here he
learned the art of wielding weapons and the value of discipline and
hard work. He could not have remained unimpressed by the splendor and
charm of a man who had won the admiration of the world, and for the
rest of his life, we find him dispensing generously from his purse,
even when he could ill afford it. Later, Richard would also exhibit
Warwick's strong democratic tendencies toward his fellow man. His
compassion and concern led him as king to strengthen the jury system
with protections against bribery and tainted verdicts and to lay down
qualifications for jury selection so that juries could no longer be
bought. He gave us bail, the concept that all men are equal in the eyes
of the law, the statute of limitations, and most notable of all, the
presumption of innocence. He also enacted economic protections against
unscrupulous sellers of land who sold the property to more than one
buyer, which we know today as ‘clear title.’ Within
a week
of ascending the throne, Richard conferred knighthood on Edward
Brampton, a servant loyal to the crown who had provided long and hard
service to his royal brother Edward. Perhaps the fact that Brampton had
been born a Jew deterred Edward from bestowing that honor. If so, that
clearly made no difference to Richard.
Warwick wasn't the only Neville who helped mold
Richard's character in those early years. One other must have loomed
large. Warwick's brother, John, Lord Montagu, later Earl of
Northumberland, and later still, Marquess of Montagu.
John, the soldier in the family, was a brilliant
military strategist, courageous like his brother, but unblemished by
the blunders that marred Warwick's military record. He remained loyal
to King Edward and put down the Redesdale uprising after Warwick raised
his rebellion, yet Edward confiscated John's earldom because he was a
Neville. This bitter blow impelled John to defect from the King, and
when he did, his entire army joined him. Obviously, he was a beloved
commander. He was also a compassionate man. In 1460 Edward won the city
of York back from the Lancastrians and freed John from the dungeons
where he'd been imprisoned. Edward ordered the city plundered and
burned in punishment for allowing the Lancastrians to nail the bloody
heads of his father and brother to the gates of York. John interceded
for the town, though the heads of John's own father and brother, the
Earl of Salisbury and Thomas Neville, were also nailed to those same
gates.
John's handwriting reveals a personality that had a
strong sense of responsibility; that was analytical, practical and
cautious. He used his excellent mind to analyze and prioritize
information and he looked for his own answers, often doing what he
thought was correct and proper in disregard of custom and
convention. That independence is confirmed by his action when
his
brother Warwick broke with King Edward. In what must have been a
tormenting and excruciating decision, John took Edward's side against
his two brothers, choosing duty to his king over his bonds of blood.
His handwriting also tells us that he was tenacious and scrupulously
honest, and though he was genial and friendly, that he was a private
person. All this sounds remarkably familiar. Like attracts like and it
could have been no accident that Richard named his first-born son
‘John’ a month after Barnet.
The relationship between the two probably developed as the soldier,
John, taught his little cousin the art of war and over the years came
to be sealed by a mutual affection and respect. This is suggested by
the events of March, 1471. Upon their return from France, Richard and
Edward were swept ashore off-course at Ravenspur, within three miles of
the enemy lines at Pontefract. John at Pontefract let Richard and
Edward pass unmolested, though he heavily outnumbered them by at least
three to one. His refusal to act on this occasion has led historians to
put forward a variety of theories, but only Kendall has provided one at
once simple and plausible. Affection had stayed John's hand.
In
all likelihood, John could not bring himself to execute—for
that
is what it would have been given his superior numbers—the boy
he
had trained and loved like a son, and for that he incurred Warwick's
wrath and was whispered to be a traitor by Lancastrians. A month later,
John died at Barnet, wearing the colors of the King beneath his armor.
This is the Neville who struggled, under impossible circumstances, to
live and die with honor
In stripping John of his earldom Edward made a terrible miscalculation;
one which years later was to cost Richard his life, his throne and his
reputation in history. Paul Murray Kendall expresses it best:
“He (Edward) discovered that Warwick's brother had crushed
the
Yorkshire uprising. . . Yet on March 25, the day after he
formally proclaimed Warwick and Clarence traitors, King Edward took the
earldom of Northumberland from John Neville and restored it to Percy.
Edward's object was to bring peace to the north parts which had so
often clamored for Percy's return; the trusty John he hoped to content
by elevating him to the marquisat of Montagu, but to the man who had
rejected his brothers to support his King the new title and an annuity
of forty pounds seemed small recompense for the loss of a princely
earldom. Though Edward's decision would soon cost him dear, its full
consequences would be inherited by Richard, Duke of Gloucester . .
. ”
On that day at Bosworth Field, when Percy sent back
his refusal to support the royal army, Richard must have had the
thought that were it John who sat in Percy's place, the answer would
have been quite different. We can be sure that the outcome would also
have been different. It seems that John never lost a battle he
directed, except the one he had no heart to win.
Richard was half-Neville, raised by Nevilles, and married a
Neville. When the Nevilles broke with his brother King Edward, the
choice he faced had to be as agonizing for him as it had been for John
Neville. After Tewkesbury, he saw to it that pardons were offered to
all willing to swear fealty to King Edward. He obtained one for
Archbishop Neville and the Bastard of Fauconberg. He secured
the
release of Anne's impoverished mother, the Countess of Warwick, from
sanctuary and brought her to live at Middleham. He persuaded King
Edward to give the wardship of John Neville's little son, George, to
his mother, Lady Montagu, and on Lady Montagu's death, he and Anne
brought the young orphan to Middleham to be raised like their own. For
the rest of his life, Richard was the refuge and protector not only of
the Nevilles and their kin, but of all those who had shown Warwick and
John loyalty during the break with Edward: among them the lords Scrope
of Bolton and Masham, Ferrers, Chartley, Fitz-Hugh and Greystoke; the
knights Conyers, Ratcliffe, Brackenbury, and Tyrell. The list goes on.
They, in turn, reciprocated with loyalty to the death.
Richard inherited Warwick's position in the North
and John's mantle on the Scots border. He ruled the region so fairly
and discharged himself as a soldier so well that he won the hearts of
the North solidly over from Lancaster to York. In 1476 when Edward
decided to invade France, Richard committed himself to providing one
hundred and twenty men-at-arms and a thousand archers, a number so
large he feared it would be impossible to raise. So many men answered
his call, he found himself with three hundred more than he had
promised. The expression “a good Dick” is a
northern one
and dates from Richard's time. He was beloved for his Council of the
North, his empathy and concern for the common man, his generosity and
fair-dealing, and he was respected for his integrity and capacity for
hard work. In many of these qualities, he had proved himself very
different from his pleasure-loving brother Edward and his greedy,
grasping, selfish brother George.
No doubt the extraordinary Nevilles had something to do with that.
i.
Daughter of Time, Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing, 1988, p.47
ii.
Paul Murray
Kendall, Richard the Third, W.W. Norton, 1955, p.65. Kendal notes that
Warwick seems to have been badly rattled at the beginning of the battle
of Towton, and though he won the first battle of St. Alban's by leading
a flank attack against the enemy, he lost the second battle of St.
Albans by failing to expect a flank attack against his own side. This
attack, launched at night, rendered the stakes he'd driven into the
ground, the traps he'd prepared and his guns, useless, resulting in a
rout.
iii.John,
Lord Wenlock, was a man of great abilities but of humble birth who owed
his rise to lord solely to Warwick's favor.
iv.Kendall,
Ibid,
p.53. Peter Hammond gives a much later date. I have chosen Kendall's
1463, instead of Hammond's 1476, a thirteen year delay difficult to
explain.
v.
Kendall, Ibid, p. 64
vi.
Cora Scofield, The Life And Reign of Edward IV, Longmans, Green and
Company, 1923, Volume 1, p. 310
vii.That
analysis
has very kindly been provided to me by Master Certified Graphoanalyst,
Florence Graving, a member of the U.S. Ricardian Society.
viii.
Scofield
writes, “the Marquis of Montagu was again at Pontefract but
he
“made no move—whether “with good will or
no men may
judge at their pleasure,” says the officially inspired story,
though the writer gives it as his own opinion that the marquis was
afraid to offer battle, partly because many Yorkshire men loved Edward
for his father's sake and partly because the Earl of Northumberland,
without whose order much of the north would not stir, “sat
still.”’ Scofield, Ibid, p.570-571. Compare Sir
James
Ramsey: “In fact, the failure of Warwick's measures for
resisting
Edward in the North was largely due to the jealousies of the rival
earls, Percy, the actual, and Montagu, the ex-Earl of Northumberland
... Unable to carry his followers into the Yorkist camp,
(Percy)
kept them at a disadvantage, leaving the timid Montagu afraid to act in
a district where Warwick and Henry together should have been
all-powerful.” Lancaster And York, the Clarendon Press,
Oxford,
1820, p. 366. An examination of what is known of Montagu's life
suggests he never displayed timidity or fear, before or after battle,
giving Paul Murray Kendal's interpretation more credibility,
“Yet
John Neville could not have been ignorant of the invaders' movements
nor afraid to attack them. At the supreme touch, his old loyalty to
Edward and Richard proved deeper than his allegiance to his brother or
fears for his own safety. Unable to bring himself to assault the
gallant little band led by two brothers he had loved, the Marquess,
sick at heart, slowly trailed southward after them.” Kendall,
Ibid, p. 103. Also see Polydore Vergil, Anglica Historia, Third
Edition, London 1555, p. 140 and The Arrivall. It is left for the
reader to decide.
ix.Kendall, Ibid, p.95
x.
After securing a
pardon for Warwick's cousin, Fauconberg, Richard took him north to
Scotland. However, he was forced to execute Fauconberg when Fauconberg
deserted his new-found allegiance and attempted to steal a royal ship
in order to join the Earl of Oxford in France.
|
|
