Free Warwick the Kingmaker by Michael Hicks

remarried soon after 3 April 1449 to John Lord Tiptoft,8 who was shortly advanced to the earldom of Worcester. And finally Richard’s wife Anne Beauchamp was elevated from being the youngest daughter of Earl Richard Beauchamp and Countess Isabel to being the sole sister of the whole-blood – whole sister – of Duke Henry and arguably therefore the senior sister: a quite crucial alteration.
    The Beauchamp and Despenser heirs were fortunate that their inheritance was in such good order. An inheritance that had suffered two minorities in the past decade might well be expected to be in disorder: exploited and wasted by the crown and other predators. It has also been argued that the West Midlands hegemony of Earl Richard Beauchamp had been eroded and overthrown by rivals, most notably Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, and that its shattered ruins needed to be reconstituted. This view is mistaken.9
    As usual, it was not the high-ranking executors of Earl Richard Beauchamp who fulfilled his will, but more humble administrators and councillors: John Throckmorton of Coughton Court (Worcs.), Nicholas Rody (d. 1458), Master William Berkeswell (d. 1470) and Thomas Hugford of Emscote (Warw.), the last survivor, who died in 1469. All were local men with twenty years’ service: Throckmorton and Hugford followed in their fathers’ footsteps. Throckmorton was Earl Richard’s undersheriff of Worcestershire in 1416–17 and later Warwick chamberlain of the exchequer. Rody, the son of a Warwick goldsmith, was master of the household of the Countess Isabel in 1431–2 and undersheriff of Worcestershire in 1437–8. By 1423 Berkeswell was already in the service of the earl, who presented him in turn to the chantry at Guyscliff in 1430, to St Michael’s hospital at Warwick in 1435, and to a prebend at Warwick College in 1438. Hugford was the earl’s councillor by 1417, receiver-general from 1432, undersheriff in 1435, and was receiver and steward of Glamorgan at the earl’s death.10 All except Throckmorton, who died in 1445, continued to serve Duke Henry, his duchess and daughter and Earl Richard Neville. These executors and Hugford’s son exercised this trust for almost fifty years.11
    When the earl died in 1439, King Henry felt grateful to his erstwhile tutor and succumbed to the blandishments of the countess on her deathbed. What Beauchamp lands had not been enfeoffed by the earl in his own life were granted on 18 June 1439 to eight custodians chosen by the countess. They were headed by the Duke of York, Earl of Salisbury, Warwick’s extremely distant cousin Sir John (later Lord) Beauchamp of Powicke and Sir William ap Thomas, father of William Herbert and lord of Raglan Castle in the marcher lordship of Usk. There were four trusted retainers and administrators: Throckmorton and Hugford, whom we have already encountered, John Norris and John Vampage.12 Rival claims were fended off. Salisbury quickly rebuffed the designs of his brother Robert Bishop of Durham as overlord on Barnard Castle, which local ministers resisted by force.13 Another of Salisbury’s brothers Edward Lord Bergavenny seized Abergavenny itself. One of the Beauchamp custodians, Richard Duke of York, was commissioned to put the occupiers out: they were ordered to desist on their allegiance on pain of being reputed as rebels. This was by signet letter dated 15 October, probably in 1443 or 1444. York was later pardoned as occupier and Bergavenny later admitted to being forcibly excluded.14 During Duke Henry’s minority the custodians answered for the revenues to the exchequer and then to the king’s uncle Humphrey Duke of Gloucester.
    Before her own death in December 1439, Isabel was allowed to settle most of her own lands ‘at the king’s command’ on her own eight feoffees for the fulfilment of her will. Five were already Beauchamp custodians and four administered the trust until at least 1457. These latter included two rising courtiers – Ralph, the future