by Amy Licence
Thou shalt, where thou livest, year by year
The most part of thy time spend
In making of a glorious legend
Of good women, maidens and wives
That were true in loving all their lives.
Chaucer, The Legend of Good Women
For Tom, Rufus and Robin
First published 2014
Amberley Publishing
The Hill, Stroud
Gloucestershire, GL5 4EP
www.amberley-books.com
Copyright © Amy Licence 2014
The right of Amy Licence to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781445621234 (HARDBACK)
ISBN 9781445621326 (eBOOK)
Typeset in 10pt on 12pt Sabon.
Typesetting and Origination by Amberley Publishing.
Printed in the UK.
Contents
Genealogical Tables
Introduction
Prologue, 1495
1 - A Significant Year, 1415
2 - ‘Rose of Raby’, 1415–1429
3 - Duke of York, 1411–1429
4 - His Young Duchess, 1429–1437
5 - Becoming a Mother, 1438–1442
6 - The Question of Edward, 1442–1445
7 - Loss of Focus, 1446–1452
8 - The Lord Protector’s Wife, 1453–1455
9 - Fortunes of War, 1455–1459
10 - Fickle Fortune, 1459–1460
11 - In the Name of the Father, 1461–1464
12 - A Family at Love and War, 1465–1471
13 - The King’s Mother, 1472–1483
14 - Slanders, 1483–1485
15 - Old Age, 1485–1495
Picture Section
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Cecily Neville’s immediate family.
Descendants of Cecily Neville and Richard, Duke of York.
The descent of Cecily Neville and Richard, Duke of York, from Edward III.
Introduction
But the mother of Richard III was no common character. Although her actions are not absolutely interwoven with the public records of the land as were those of her husband, she was nevertheless fully as remarkable for the varied fortunes that marked her troubled life, and for the vicissitudes to which she was exposed in consequence of her political connection. She is therefore entitled to a distinct and especial notice, not merely as one of the most eminent women in the age in which she flourished, but because Cecily, Duchess of York, will be found a most important personage, and to have occupied a very prominent position in the eventful life of her youngest son Richard III … She … evinced a greatness of mind during periods of unexampled trial, and displayed a zeal and rectitude of purpose in the active performance of conjugal and maternal duties of no ordinary description, that render her even more an object of admiration, than of sympathy for the poignant sorrows which marked her sad and eventful career.1
Writing a biography of Cecily Neville has been rather like striking a series of matches in the dark. There are moments when she steps forward and claims the historical limelight, when rumours question the paternity of her son Edward, or the moment she learns of his victory following the Battle of Towton. But her voice is muted. A couple of her letters survive and her household ordinances outline her routine in old age; more faintly still, she can be glimpsed inside the Great Hall at Raby Castle, or among the ruins at Fotheringhay or Berkhamsted. Most often, though, she is omitted altogether from the records, even at times when she must have been suffering or celebrating the most. A large proportion of her life lies amid the darkness of lost records and burned letters, the rubble of the houses in which she feasted and bore her children, and the formality of official documentation that marks what she was doing but not how she was feeling.
Between the words of Caroline Halstead in 1844, in italics above, and the publication of Sarah Gristwood’s Blood Sisters in 2012, there has been little critical attention devoted to Cecily Neville, Duchess of York. Scholarly essays have focused on her patterns of reading or the religious bequests she made at the end of her life. Whole swathes of her existence, including the early years of her marriage, have remained something of a historical black hole. This is down to the paucity of material that survives. It is not a reflection of Cecily’s long and fascinating life, which has captured the attention of novelists and dramatists, happily unrestricted by the rules that govern non-fiction and therefore able to create a vivid and memorable portrayal of ‘Proud Cis’ or the ‘Rose of Raby’, as Cecily is known to legend.
Some may question the wisdom of attempting to write a biography which, of necessity, must impose a degree of conjecture over the bare scaffold of facts. Yet, the further and wider the researcher digs, the more can be discovered regarding the circumstances of Cecily’s life, her family, her homes and experiences. In attempting to write the first full-length non-fiction study of the duchess, I have searched through the primary sources of the day – the Parliamentary Records, Patent Rolls, Fine Rolls, surviving letters, chroniclers and accounts – for any snippet that adds to the wider picture of her life. Sometimes a single reference has allowed me to place her in a particular location, which has considerably altered the fabric of the story. By the same means, I have been able to determine the locations of friends and family members, to weave their stories in with hers. For, above all, Cecily’s life is a blend of the political and personal, perhaps to a greater extent than many of her contemporaries, given that she bore at least thirteen children, some of whom would play leading roles in the history of England, France and Burgundy. There are also a surprising number of satirical verses surviving from the fifteenth century that deal, overtly or covertly, with the themes and events of the day. A few refer specifically to Cecily’s family, while others relate their activities or comment upon events in which they were involved. Many of these have been overlooked in traditional accounts of the Yorkist dynasty, although they are just as valuable as the more popularly cited prose sources and chronicles in their reflection of contemporary feeling.
When I planned this book, in the summer of 2013, the time was right to recreate Cecily’s story. Her image had become distorted by popular culture to the extent that her portrayal was somewhat one-dimensional, simply because this was the only dimension known or required. She struck me as a sufficiently interesting figure to stand alone, instead of being a foil in another woman’s story. With imagination and a thorough collation of all the scattered jigsaw pieces, no matter how small, it was possible to compose a narrative of her life that made sense and allowed her to breathe a little. In some cases it has been necessary to imagine how she felt, to extend empathy across the divide of centuries, which has been achieved by comparing the lives of her contemporaries or understanding the expectations of her era. The medieval mind, though, remains something of a closed world, determined by belief systems that appear alien to the modern world, and subtleties that have been entirely lost. In many cases, therefore, it has been more sensible to suggest possible responses and interpretations rather than to impose them.
Cec
ily was clearly a strong, determined and proud woman, the centre of an extensive family network that reached far across the dynasties of York and Lancaster. It was the closed nature of this small genetic pool that provoked the conflicts of the mid-fifteenth century and set her children, nephews and grandchildren against each other. The implications of their infighting would continue for generations after Cecily’s own death, well into the reigns of her Tudor descendants. Remarkably, she reached her eightieth year shortly before she died and outlived the majority of those with whom she shared the most important years of her life. In many ways she was typical of a medieval noblewoman, with her arranged marriage, large family and piety, but she was also extraordinary because of the position she occupied in the shadow of the throne. Descended from Edward III through her mother, she became the wife of a man whose ancestral line should have made him England’s king. Shortly before his birth, that right was derailed and, with his wife at his side, he spent decades attempting to restore his position. Then, just as this dream was becoming a reality, fate dealt Cecily a terrible blow. She would go on to become the mother of kings but perhaps Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, was the best queen England never had. This is her story.
Prologue
1495
A man joyeth sumtyme in gold and sylver, and in gret substaunce of erdly goods, in bewte of women, but this joy is not perfyght, but this joy is not stabill, but it is mutabill as a shadow; for he that this joyth in the bewte of his wyffe, it may fortune to morwyn he shall folwyn her to chirch upon a bere.1
On 31 May 1495, an old lady was putting the finishing touches to her will. It had been a long and difficult process. In fact, a full two months had passed since the first words were inscribed on the page, and, since then, several different hands had added a line here or there, giving the document a hurried air. Over that time, the many rooms of Berkhamsted Castle had disgorged a lifetime’s possessions, the cupboards and coffers opened, the gold boxes bestowed. Outside the windows, spring had slowly turned to summer, bursting out greenly in the Hertfordshire countryside. She had watched the days lengthen as she lay propped up alone on a feather bed hung with embroidered panels.
Cecily, Duchess of York, had once been a famous beauty of her age. She was a beloved wife, a proud, ‘noble princesse’,2 a matriarch dressed in jewels, at the centre of political events in England, France and Ireland. For a few weeks, she had even come breathlessly close to becoming queen. At the age of eighty, she had outlived many of her thirteen children, her twenty-two legitimate grandchildren and thirty-one great-grandchildren. Two of her sons had sat on the English throne and three of them had met with violent deaths. Her family had been irrevocably shaken by personal and political scandals over which she had little control. The will she dictated in 1495 made proud mention of the fact that she was the mother of the late King Edward IV, but there was no reference to her younger son, who became Richard III. This was probably an example of the pragmatism she had learned through life; after all, the man who killed Richard now sat on England’s throne and had taken Cecily’s granddaughter as his wife. To him, she left some money and two gold cups.3
But gold cups meant little to her now, they were easily given away. In recent years, she had lived as a vowess or lay sister, running her household like a religious establishment, with prayers and devotional readings, business and contemplation.4 The largest portion of her bequests was made up of religious items, such as altar candles, cloths and crosses. In the past, she had revelled in possessions such as the cloth of estate, the gold spoons set with diamonds and cushions made from purple cloth of gold. Hanging in her wardrobe were blue satin gowns furred with ermine; a short gown of crimson velvet lined with black; a gold girdle with a diamond-studded flower, a sapphire, an amethyst and eight pearls; a double string of white amber beads, set between large golden ones; a kirtle of purple silk decorated with silver gilt; and a gold enamelled pomander.5 It was a wardrobe fit for a queen. To her grandson, Prince Arthur, she bequeathed the most poignant bequest of all: a set of bed hangings decorated with the image of the Wheel of Fortune. It was an image that could be taken as an apt comment on her own life.
In her chamber at Berkhamsted Castle, on 31 May, she dictated her final wishes to her secretary. In the deepening silence, his pen scratched out her words across the paper. Her confessor, Sir William Grant, was close by, waiting to hear her final words and administer the Catholic rite of extreme unction. Her witnesses were Master Richard Lessy, the dean of her chapel, the clerk of her kitchen, Richard Brocas, and Gervays Cressy. She was well enough to reach her crabbed hand forward and write her name, her ‘signemanuell’,6 before pressing her oval-shaped personal seal in to the hot wax and making the document official.
Cecily committed her soul to God and her body to lie beside ‘my moost entirely best beloved Lord and housbond’ Richard, ‘in his tumbe within the collegiate church at Fotheringhay’.7 Thirty-five years had passed since his death and she had had plenty of time to anticipate their reunion in the afterlife; there were many other loved ones also waiting to receive her there. She died soon after adding her signature to the document. It may have been later that same day or, as the Chronicle of London suggests, early in June. In accordance with her wishes, she was buried in the church of St Mary and All Saints, beside the Northamptonshire home she had shared with her husband and children, miles from the scene of her death.
That August, Cecily’s will was proved at Lamberhithe, the London palace of the archbishops of Canterbury. The commission was granted to Richard Lessy to execute her many bequests, and the business of clearing Berkhamsted began. By then, her body had been transported 70 miles north and placed beside that of her husband, Richard, Duke of York, in the chancel of the choir at Fotheringhay church. As a widow in 1476, she had witnessed the creation of the magnificent tomb their sons had chosen in his honour, when they removed York’s mortal remains from a post-battle grave and reinterred him close to home. Now she lay beside him, having outlived them all.
However, the duke and duchess were not to remain in peace for long. According to an account of 1634, the chancel was destroyed during the Reformation, ‘that fury of knocking churches and sacred monuments in the head’8 instigated by their great-grandson, Henry VIII. Their bodies were then moved outside, in to the graveyard, until Elizabeth I visited the site. Dismayed at the state of the memorial to her ancestors, she ordered their tomb to be rebuilt. In 1566, the grave was opened and the bodies of the duke and duchess ‘appeared very plainly to be discerned’. Around her neck, Duchess Cecily was wearing a silk ribbon, from which hung a papal indulgence, a remission for earthly sins, ‘penned in a very fine Romane hand … as faire and fresh to be read, as it had been written but yesterday’.9 The bodies were encased in lead and reinterred seven years later, under the monument that remains in the church to this day. But for an accident of birth, they might be lying in Westminster Abbey.
1
A Significant Year
1415
I liken a kingdom in good estate
To stalwart man, mighty in hele [health]
While none of his limbs the other hate
He is mighty, with another to deal1
Cecily Neville was born on 3 May 1415. It was a year that would go down in the annals of English history and literature as a byword for patriotism, valour and national glory. As she lay in her cradle at Raby Castle that summer, alternately rocked and suckled by her nursemaids, a fleet of wooden ships filled with soldiers crossed the Channel and landed on the coast of Normandy. They were not prepared to leave without a fight.
The Lancastrian dynasty was still in its infancy. In 1399, the grandchildren of Edward III had clashed over the throne, rupturing the line of inheritance and replacing the senior branch of the family with a junior line. Richard II had succeeded his grandfather and ruled since he was a child of ten but, after his behaviour had grown increasingly despotic, he had been deposed by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, who then became Henry IV. With the countr
y still embroiled in the Hundred Years’ War with France, the new Lancastrian king had to defend his own title in England as well as abroad. On his death in 1413, the crown passed to his son Henry V, an energetic and ambitious military man, determined to enforce his Plantagenet claims in France. War was in the air again.
In fact, it had already been decided upon before Cecily was born. Negotiations with the French king, Charles VI, had broken down, and the Great Council had approved Henry’s request to invade France on 19 April. It was going to prove costly, though – too costly, even for a King of England. Henry had to ask for help but he had the Royal Treasury to fall back on, with its beautiful and historical pieces of jewellery, plate and symbolic items. In June, the City of London loaned him 10,000 marks to fund the campaign and in return, in security, he gave them a gold collar, decorated with his heraldic symbol of the antelope in white enamel, green garnets, diamonds and pearls, weighing 56 ounces. It was clearly a precious item, ‘made of workmanship in crowns and beasts’,2 personal to Henry and symbolic of his family and kingship. Bound to redeem it by New Year’s Day, he was anticipating returning home.
When Cecily was three months old, Henry led a crushing defeat of Charles’s forces around 40 miles south of Calais. This encounter has gone down in history as the Battle of Agincourt, still a meme of national culture thanks to Shakespeare’s version of events. The stirring St Crispin’s Day speech is frequently cited as the epitome of patriotism, an inspirational rallying cry memorably delivered by Sir Laurence Olivier or Kenneth Branagh. According to Henry V, those who fought would be recalled in ‘flowing cups’, raised in their memory as ‘the happy few, we band of brothers’. Their king tells them their exploits will be taught by good men to their sons; they will show their wounds with pride and become household names across the realm. Conversely, those who would not fight, whose fear led them now to desert their king, should ‘hold their manhoods cheap’, and Henry would not deign to fight in the company of those who ‘feared his fellowship to die with us’.3 Such were the sentiments of kingship and masculinity, loyalty and bravery by which Cecily and her family would live and die.
