Michael Hicks - Anne Neville: Queen to Richard III

Englands Forgotten Queens

edited by ALISON WEIR

Series Editor

Alison. Weir has published ten books: Britains Royal Families, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, The Princes in the Tower, Children of England, Elizabeth the Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Henry VIII: King & Court, Mary Queen of Scots & the Murder of Lord Darnley and Lancaster & York: The War of the Roses and Isabella, She-Wolf of France, Queen of England. She is at present researching for a book on Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt. Alison Weirs chief areas of specialism are the Tudor and medieval monarchies. She has researched every English queen from Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conqueror, to Elizabeth I, and is committed to promoting the studies of these important women, many of whom have been unjustly sidelined by historians.

Published

Arlene Okerlund, Elizabeth Wydeville: The Slandered Queen
Michael Hicks, Anne Neville: Queen to Richard III

Commissioned

Patricia Dark, Matilda: Englands Warrior Queen

MICHAEL HICKS

In memory of my parents G.E.H. and W.M.H.

First published in 2007

The History Press
The Mill, Brimscombe Port
Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL 5 2 QG
www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2011

All rights reserved
Michael Hicks, 2007, 2011

The right of Michael Hicks, to be identified as the Author of this work
has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 6887 7
MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 6888 4

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

Foreword

M ichael Hicks excellent reputation as a leading expert on late medieval England has long been established. Now he returns to the fifteenth century, with a fascinating and authoritative study of Anne Neville, daughter of Warwick the Kingmaker and queen consort of Richard III, the first full-length biography of this much-neglected woman, which has been years in preparation and will undoubtedly be the standard life for a long time to come.

Unlike other queens of the period, Annes existence is poorly documented, but from the few fragments of information that have come down to us, Professor Hicks has crafted an intriguing, lively and often poignant story, rich in detail and based on wide-ranging research and an unparalleled and extensive knowledge of the period. This is no romantic tale unlike the only previous account of Anne Neville, which was written by Agnes Strickland in the 1850s in her Lives of the Queens of England but a realistic and convincing portrayal that offers new insights into the controversies that overshadowed Annes existence, and accords her her proper place in the world in which she lived. For Anne Neville was a very important personage in her own time, and her life was closely entwined with the history of England itself.

Most compelling of all is Professor Hicks depiction of Annes marriage to the controversial and enigmatic Richard, Duke of Gloucester, later Richard III, a union fraught with difficulties, and which was to end in tragedy. Discarding all the popular theories that have gained currency in recent years, he presents a masterful and tantalising assessment of the relations between the two, and reveals startling new evidence that touches the very essence of their marriage.

When writing a medieval biography, it is often difficult to gain an impression of what ones subject was actually like, yet despite Professor Hicks entirely justified protestations that there is much that we can never know about Anne Neville, this absorbing biography has nevertheless left me with a strong impression of a real flesh-and-blood woman, and I have no doubt that it will appeal not only to scholars of the period, but also to the legions of people who are interested in Richard III and his times. I am privileged to be associated with such a book.

Alison Weir

Preface

A nne Neville is the most obscure of Englands postconquest queens and, many would argue, deservedly so. I did not select her as one of the four out of twelve late medieval queens for a biography in my Whos Who in Late Medieval England in 1991. Even amongst Joanna Laynesmiths prize-winning Last Medieval Queens, much less was said of her than about Margaret of Anjou, Elizabeth Wydeville or Elizabeth of York. My previous books on Annes father, Warwick the Kingmaker, her husband, Richard III, her brothers-in-law, False Fleeting Perjurd Clarence and Edward IV, and her nephew, Edward V, who interacted with Anne at many points, demonstrated conclusively the absence of any unexploited caches of records and the sparseness of information available today. So did my brief life of her for the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. As Richard III is much the most popular of late medieval English kings, however, there is much more demand for a biography of Anne than the other queens. When Jonathan Reeve, once again, proposed a book on Anne Neville, I said, with regret, that it was impossible. That (I paraphrase) is what you said last time over Edward V was his response. And so I agreed to write this book. Preparing a synopsis revealed some possibilities in the topic. Writing it has revealed much more. Revisiting such topics as the contractfor Annes first marriage, Richards proposal to marry his niece and the Warwick inheritance dispute from another angle has enabled more to be extracted from the sources, more implications to be recognised and explored, and our understanding of the era, the principal characters, and their interactions to be enriched. That is one advantage of biography and, for me, the main point of the genre. Although not necessarily capturing the essence of these topics, this biography does bring together everything that is known about Anne, casts light both on her successive predicaments and on her times, and does significantly advance historical understanding of some of the key individuals, issues, and events. Thank you very much, Jonathan, once again.

Anne received a girls education, grew up into a lady, married twice, was widowed, became a princess, duchess and queen, and spent her whole life in the grip of the Wars of the Roses, so this book draws repeatedly on historians of each of these separate fields. Her study is a by-product of those of her father Warwick the Kingmaker, brother-in-law Clarence, and husband Richard III. The life of Richard III (and hence his consort)is not merely an area of controversy but a co-operative enterprise, in which extra bits of information and perceptions are being constantly added by many interested parties. Hence the prominence of references to