Free Anne Neville by Michael Hicks Page B

Gloucester. 49 At that point Anne was at most eight years old. Undoubtedly Warwick did plan to wed Isabel to Clarence, whom she did indeed marry in 1469, but any proposal to wed Richard to Anne during the 1460s is unsubstantiated and appears unlikely. Certainly 1464 is too early. What seems more likely is that Warwick intended the young Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham for one of them, since the earl’s ‘secret displeasure’ was recorded by the chronicler pseudo-Worcester at the duke’s marriage to Katherine Wydeville, sister of Edward IV’s new queen, in February 1466. 50 It is telling that no such anger is attributed to the marriages of the less well-endowed heirs of the newlycreated earls of Essex, Kent and Pembroke, down to whom Warwick was apparently unwilling to stoop for either Isabel or Anne. Certainly Warwick did support the proposal for the marriage of his brother John’s baby son George Neville to Anne, the heiress of the Duke of Exeter. It was a match that should have made young George into a duke and certainly made him royal, for the mother of the infant bride was Edward IV’s eldest sister and the father, though exiled, was also of Lancastrian royal descent. We know of Warwick’s attitude because of his anger – ‘his great secret displeasure’ – when Anne of Exeter was poached instead for 4,000 marks (£2,666 13s 4d) by Edward’s new Wydeville queen for her own son Thomas Grey in October 1466. 51 Queen Elizabeth had readier access – pillow talk – to royal favour, and the nobility were anxious to exploit (or guard against) this new avenue of patronage. The young king attached inflated worth to his new in-laws and provided for each of them on an unprecedented scale. Warwick moreover was disadvantaged by his family’s previous success: in each case, Buckingham, Clarence, Exeter and Gloucester were already related to his heirs within the prohibited degrees and a papal dispensation was required, so weddings could not be concluded quickly.
    Individually and collectively all these matches would have provided for Warwick’s heirs, advanced them in rank and wealth, strengthened his own position at court and extended his hold yet more firmly in diverse localities. We have seen that the Buckingham and Exeter marriages were frustrated. So, too, was the union of Isabel and Clarence, which King Edward, for reasons unknown, vetoed. Pseudo-Worcester locates this around October 1467. 52 Probably Edward wanted to make use in his diplomacy of Clarence’s hand and did indeed proffer it. 53 Hence Warwick suddenly found his influence eclipsed in one of his areas of principal concern – the future of his dynasty and his daughters. It has been identified as an importantcontributory factor in his quarrel with the king and its subsequent escalation into renewed civil war. What Warwick had in mind next for his daughters when the dukes were taken is unclear, because actually he refused to take no for an answer and married Isabel to Clarence nevertheless.
    Certainly the teenaged Isabel Neville was old enough to appreciate that a suitable bridegroom had been found for her and denied to her by the king. Whether the eight-or nine-year-old Anne knew of any of the very preliminary manoeuvres on her behalf appears unlikely. There was no need for haste. That Warwick could secure none of these matches and was opposed at every juncture by the king and queen was a factor – perhaps merely contributory, but significant nevertheless – in the deterioration of their relations that ended in the renewal of civil war in 1469 with the earl and king on opposite sides. If the Countess Anne, Isabel and almost certainly Anne Neville engaged themselves with the matrimonial issues, neither daughter can have been consulted on the bigger political issues and the countess’s input, if any, was not decisive.

CHAPTER THREE
Her Father’s
Daughter
1469–71
    ISABEL’S MARRIAGE AND STILLBIRTH
    The second phase of the Wars of the Roses, from