Warwick The Kingmaker

THE HOUSE OF NEVILLE

CHAPTER TWO

The Nevilles of Raby were the most complex and productive of all the significant households of medieval England. There was just one instance in the fourteen generations that lived and died between 1210 and 1600 when the succession passed from uncle to nephew rather than from father to son or grandson. Between the reigns of John and Elizabeth, this took place. The Neville clan was strong enough to support them through several unions with those daughters and heiresses who are only, whose weddings so frequently portend the demise of an ancient family. Between 1250 and 1350, there were four successive heads of the family, all of whom married women who were the last of the old baronial houses. However, the Nevilles only increased in size and multiplied their branches, spreading their lands farther and farther from their unique seat on the Durham moors until all northern counties were filled with their manors.

The family's lineage dates back to a certain Robert Fitz-Maldred, Lord of Raby, who wed Isabella de Neville, a descendant of Geoffrey de Neville of Brancepeth, his neighbour, during the reign of John. The name Fitz-Maldred was never again used in the family until Robert's son Geoffrey joined the Teesdale holdings of his father with the lineage of his mother close to Durham. Geoffrey assumed the name, Neville. Initially, the lords of Raby needed to set themselves apart from the other barons of the North Country in any manner. As a result, they occasionally appear in the King's Scotch or French wars, fighting alongside their feudal overlord, the Bishop of Durham, fighting with Simon de Montfort's rebel army, and more, killing an occasional sheriff, starting an occasional chantry, and otherwise acting in a way that is typical for people of their sort. One of the family members was responsible for leading the English van against the Scots in the significant victory of 1346 and building the elegant memorial that gave the battleground Neville's Cross. These Nevilles lived in the 13th and 14th centuries were distinguished only by two things: the size of their families (three successive lords of Raby bragged of 10, eleven, and nine offspring, respectively) and their never-ending victory in laying field by field and manor after manor. Robert Neville, who wed Ida Mitford during the reign of Henry the Third, joined his wife's sizable Northumbrian barony in the Wansbeck valley to his Durham estates. When he married Mary of Middleham and took over as her legal ruler of Middleham Castle and all the dependent manors, his son of the same name gave Neville, one of Yorkshire's most famous people extending twelve kilometres along the Ure, up to the uttermost reaches of the Coverdale forest. Ralph, Robert the younger's successor, followed in his ancestor's footsteps by marrying Euphemia, heiress of Clavering, who earned him more than just the hundred Clavering in Essex, fame and money. However, the more lucrative and less isolated estates of Warkworth on the Northumbrian coast. Although Ralph's son John wed a younger daughter of the Percy family as his first spouse, he obtained Elizabeth Latimer, an heiress of an old baronial house whose holdings were dispersed over Bucks and Bedfordshire, as his second spouse.

Four generations of wealthy marriages had led the Neville family to become the most powerful lords in the entire North Country. Even the nearby Percies from Northumberland lacked their might. The two Neville emblems, the dun bull with the "saltire argent on the field gules.", were worn by many retainers. The Lord of Raby was accompanied by 300 men-at-arms, including 300 archers and 14 knights, even when he travelled as far as Brittany. He could gather three times as many for domestic duty against the Scots. He controlled more than 70 manors, some dispersed over Essex.

Norfolk, Bedfordshire, and Buckinghamshire were among them. Still, the majority were concentrated in North Yorkshire and South Durham, particularly in the vicinity of Raby and Middleham, two formidable fortresses that served as the hubs of his power. Therefore, it was no surprise that King Richard the Second picked the Nevilles' brains for negotiation and preferment when he heaped titles and honours indiscriminately on the aristocracy following his unexpected coup d'état in 1397. Ralph Neville, who was then 34 years old, was thus accorded the status of an earl. Strangely enough, none of the counties where most of his extensive estates could be awarded to him. As in the past, Durham's bishop, who had served as the county's platinum since William the Conqueror's reign, held the earldom. Members of the royal family held the titles of York and Richmondshire, where the other significant portion of Neville's property was located. The third county where the Nevilles possessed significant property, Northumberland, had been given to the Percies twenty years earlier. As a result, Ralph of Raby had to be disqualified from the title of Westmoreland even though he appeared to have no manors in that county. The more concrete gift of the royal honour of Penrith was given together with the award of the earldom.

However, Ralph Neville's devotion could not be bought with all these favours. He was wed to a daughter of John of Gaunt through Katherine Swinford and, at his core, was a fervent supporter of the family of Lancaster. Westmoreland was among the first to accompany Henry of Bolingbroke when he arrived at Ravenspur in July 1399; he rode with him to Flint, saw King Richard's capitulation, and carried the imperial sceptre at the usurper's coronation at Westminster. Instead of the banished Duke of Norfolk, Henry appointed him Earl Marshal as a reward for his efforts.

Following a successful career, Earl Ralph assisted King Henry in suppressing the Percies' uprising in 1403 and putting down the rebellion led by Scrope, Mowbray, and the elderly Northumberland in 1405; he strengthened his commitment to the Lancaster family's cause. He twice represented King Henry in diplomatic dealings with the Scots, and both times he was entrusted with guarding the border. Earl Ralph remained steadfast and obedient even after Henry of Monmouth succeeded Bolingbroke after his death. One of the few people who could resist Archbishop Chicheley and other speakers in the renowned Parliament of Leicester in 1414, when the tremendous but deadly War with France was decided, the Duke of Exeter's petitions and raised their objections to the voyage. He requested of the King that, if necessary, wage war, he should attack Scotland rather than France because the English claim to that throne was as strong, the endeavour more promising, and the outcome was more likely to result in long-term financial gain. He quoted an old children's rhyme: "He who would win France must with Scotland first begin."

However, everyone shouted, "War! War! France! France!" The ambitious young King had his way and was the first of those numerous brave English armies that would win so many pointless battles to their nation's ultimate defeat and leave their bones behind to rot On the fields of Beaugé and Patay, in the trenches of Harfleur and Orleans, in French soil, sailed from Southampton the following spring.

Everyone who has read a play by William Shakespeare has encountered the eve of the Battle of Agincourt; Earl Ralph is seen in the English camp, can recall his melancholy wish for a few thousand can speak of the "gentlemen of England now abed" recite by heart the young King's stirring response to his uncle's ominous prophecies. Earl Ralph didn't actually travel across the sea or to Agincourt. He was far away in Carlisle when Henry's little group of Englishmen were waiting for dawn on that dramatic St. Crispin's Day because he had been left next to Lord Scrope and the Baron of Greystock to protect the Scottish March. If legend is to be believed, Walter of Hungerford was the one who delivered the remarks that provoked his master's reprimand.

Ralph was getting older as old age was defined by the men of the fifteenth century. He stayed at home during Henry the Fifth's excellent wars, preoccupied with politics rather than battle. But one by one, his sons, who belonged to a large clan, were dispatched to their royal cousin's side. John, the Westmoreland heir, served during the battles of 1417– 18. After holding the trenches opposite the Porte de Normandie during the protracted siege of Rouen and providing assistance at the battle of Caen, he was appointed governor of Verneuil and other locations nearby. Following in their older brother's footsteps, Ralph, Richard, William, and George are discovered When they reach adulthood, they are all knighted for their contributions to France.

Earl Ralph passed away on October 21st, 1425, at sixty-two. He was buried in the lovely collegiate Church that he had founded at Staindrop, close to the gates of his family's ancestral castle of Raby, after having survived his royal nephew for about three years and having served for a few months as a member of the Privy Council that ruled in the young Henry the Sixth's name. His monument is still standing there, fortunately, spared from the Protestant vandals of the Edwardian and Cromwellian eras. He is buried in full armour and is sporting the peaked bassinet that was once fashionable but was out of style at the time of his passing. The sculptor may need to be more familiar with the individual he is portraying because his typical features have little resemblance to an accurate depiction and do not indicate that he is ageing. Since all the males in the younger age were close shaved by 1425, like King Henry the Fifth, the only facial hair that has any originality is the small, twisted moustache that curls over the camail of the Earl. Joan of Beaufort, his second wife, is positioned on Earl Ralph's right hand as befits a princess of the blood royal, while Margaret Stafford, His heir's mother, his first wife's heir, is positioned on his left.