Nevilles of the North

We headed to the far north of England for a beautiful September weekend with autumn sunshine and colours which might just rival our trip to New England next week! This was an added bonus as weather in the south west was wet and windy. Our group had an excellent itinerary, visiting Durham Cathedral and the Beamish Museum but it was our visits to Raby and Middleham Castles which were the highlight for me, with my interest in the Plantagenets and particularly Richard III. The connection between the two castles is Cecily Neville, known as The Rose of Raby, she is commemorated in the chapel at Raby Castle where she was born.

The Neville family was a leading force in English politics in the late Middle Ages. The family became one of the two major powers in northern England, along with the House of Percy, and played a central role in the Wars of the Roses. (Wikipedia accessed 26.9.18)

The story starts, however, with the House of Beaufort, descended from the illicit union of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and his mistress (later third wife) Katherine Swynford. Anya Seton's book Katherine, first published in 1954 is acknowledged as the finest telling of Katherine's story ever written. It is one of the few books I have read more than once and I highly recommend it. John of Gaunt and Katherine's fourth child was Joan Beaufort who married Ralph Neville, the 1st Earl of Westmorland. Cecily Neville was their 14th child.

Cecily married Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and became the mother of two Kings - Edward IV and Richard III. However, there have been some doubts about the parentage of Edward. Some believe that as Richard was away from Rouen at the time of conception, that the baby cannot have been his. Others dispute this view, and argue that Cecily may have travelled with her husband or that Edward may have been born prematurely. At any rate, Edward was accepted by his father Richard. Read more at: http://www.philippagregory.com/family-tree/cecily-neville Source: Philippa Gregory.

Philippa Gregory is well known for her historical novels and her research is excellent. She uses this doubt about Edward's parentage in her novel The White Queen:

'More shame to you then,’ my mother says roundly. ‘The rumours about his fathering reached England. Indeed. I was among the few who swore that a lady of your house would never stoop so low. But I heard, we all heard, gossip of an archer named – what was it –’ She pretends to forget and taps her forehead. ‘Ah, I have it: Blaybourne. An archer named Blaybourne, who was supposed to be your amour. But I said, and even Queen Margaret d’Anjou said, that a great lady like you would not so demean herself as to lie with a common archer and slip his bastard into a nobleman’s cradle.’ The name Blaybourne drops into the room with a thud like a cannonball. You can almost hear it roll to a standstill. My mother is afraid of nothing. ‘And anyway, if you can make the lords throw down King Edward, who is going to support your new King George? Could you trust his brother Richard not to have his own try at the throne in his turn? Would your kinsman Lord Warwick, your great friend, not want the throne on his own account?

There is a huge amount of information about Cecily which I am only just discovering. For a really good source I have enjoyed https://rebeccastarrbrown.com/2017/05/03/the-matriarch-cecily-neville-duchess-of-york/ - "her reputation has been built up in fiction. She is usually depicted as cold, pious and proper – sometimes domineering and scheming, sometimes honorable and stoic. Usually though, how she is presented has more to do with what we think about the men in her life because we assume she acted as the consummate “mother,” the anchor that kept her dramatic, warring sons at bay."

And so to Richard III, a younger son born when Cecily was 37, quite an age in medieval times. Richard grew up sickly and household accounts show that much of Cecily’s time and resources were focused on seeing him through his infancy. We know now – thanks to the identification of his skeleton in 2012 – that he also suffered from severe scoliosis, which makes his later military career all the more remarkable. I have been fascinated by him, as are many others, since I was at school and have read a number of biographies as well as novels. I can't possibly name them all but here are my top recommendations:

Richard the Third by Paul Murray Kendall

First published in 1955 this sympathetic biography was thought by many to be definitive and certainly for 25 years I thought that Richard was much maligned. Shakespeare's play, written in Elizabethan times, has a lot to answer for.

Richard III and the Princes in the Tower by Alison Weir

Originally published in 1992, the 2014 edition refers to recent research and, of course, to the discovery of Richard's remains in a Leicester car park. The fact that Richard was, after all, found to have a curved spine, makes one wonder whether other hostile sources of the time should be given more credence. (Weir 2014)

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

Written in 1951 this novel was hugely influential into the 1970s. It is an excellent detective novel and a great read.

The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Penman

Another excellent novel by Penman, this huge history tells Richard's story from 1459 until his death at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485.

Richard spent much of his childhood at Middleham Castle, under the wardship of his cousin Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, later known as 'The Kingmaker'. He married Anne, Warwick's daughter and Middleham was their home in the North. It was probably a love match given that he had to agree to forfeit much of Anne's inheritance in favour of his brother George, Duke of Clarence, married to Anne's elder sister. I have always wanted to visit Middleham so it was not to be missed on our trip to the North. It did not disappoint. A beautiful modern sculpture of Richard plays cleverly on his deformity and adds to the already brooding atmosphere of this once powerful place.