Cecily Neville: Mother of Kings

by Amy Licence

  Then, the arrival of troops led by the Duke of Norfolk swung the day in favour of the Yorkists, who pursued their fleeing enemies down through the valley to the river, where many were drowned. Croyland related that it was a ‘most severe conflict [with] fighting hand to hand, with sword and spear, there was no small slaughter on either side’. The Yorkists pursued their enemies, ‘cutting down the fugitives with their swords, just like so many sheep for the slaughter’.8 Among them were the Earl of Northumberland, Lord Clifford, who had killed Edmund, and Anthony Trollope, who had deserted York at Ludford Bridge. Contemporary chroniclers estimated that as many as 35,000 men were killed on that day, or in its aftermath. Gregory claims that forty-two Lancastrian knights were captured and put to death when the fighting had finished. Henry VI, Margaret and Prince Edward fled to Scotland, leaving the way clear, at last, for the first Yorkist king. Croyland includes the details of the aftermath, with the burial of bodies ‘piled up in pits and in trenches’. It must have been a long and gruelling task.

  A celebratory poem, ‘The Battle of Towton’, written that year, named Edward as the ‘Rose of Rone’, or Rouen, now the rightful King of England. There was no mention of the circumstances of his birth, no rumours about his conception, though these would surface again soon; he was not the illegitimate son of an archer but England’s saviour, the Rose of Rouen.

  Now is the Rose of Rone growen to a gret honoure

  Therefore syng we everychone ‘I-blessid be that floure!’

  I warne you everychone, for you shuld understonde

  There sprange a rose in rone and sprade in englonde.9

  Equally, the poem ‘A Political Retrospect’, written in 1462, made mention of Edward’s birthplace in gratitude:

  Wherfore all trewe englyssh people, pray yn fere

  ffor kyng Edward of Rouen, oure comfortoure,

  That he kepe Iustice and make wedis clere

  Avoydyng the black cloudys of langoure …

  he it is that schal wynne castell, toune and toure;

  Alle Rebellyous undyr he shal hem brynge.10

  Cecily and Margaret were still at Baynard’s Castle. They learned of the victory five days later. A letter from William Paston to his brother John captures the moment, on the evening of 4 April 1461, when Cecily received news of her son’s great victory:

  Please you yo knowe and wete of suche tydyngs as my Lady of York hath by a lettre of credends, under the signe manuel of oure Soverayn Lord King Edward, which letter cam un to oure sayd Lady this same day, Esterne Evyn, at xi clok, and was sene and red by me William Paston … Fyrst, oure Soverayn Lord hath wonne the feld and upon the Munday next after Palmesunday, he was resseved in to York with gret solempnyte and processyons … Item, Kyng Harry, the Qwen, the Prince, Duke of Somerset, Duke of Exeter … be fledde in to Scotteland.11

  Cecily’s first response would have been to offer prayers of thanks for the victory and survival of her eldest son. The Bishop of Elphin was with her at the moment she received the news, and related, in a letter to the papal legate, how they returned to the chapel with two chaplains and had Te Deums sung.12 Then, as Elphin went to write his letter, Cecily’s mind would have turned to more practical matters. A new regime was about to begin and she had a coronation to attend. The news broke through London on the following day, 5 April, ‘Easter-Eve’, and ‘great joy was made’, as related by Hearne’s Fragment.13 Edward, though, did not hurry back. According to Gregory, he ‘tarried in the North a great while and made enquiries of the rebellions against his father’.14 He also visited York and removed from Micklegate Bar the heads of those killed at Wakefield. He went to Durham and Newcastle, and was at Middleham on 6 May. In his absence, he appointed Cecily as his representative in the city, before the burghers of London. Although York had never ruled, she was now as good as queen dowager, the king’s mother, with the reins of the country in her hands. The victory came too late to be shared with her husband, but it was the culmination of everything they had hoped for.

  The date of the coronation was set. Pageants were prepared and robes sewn, verses penned, meat baked and subtleties carved out of marzipan. Cecily recalled George and Richard from their exile in Utrecht and they sailed at once for England. However, there was concern over the ongoing siege of Carlisle, as related in a letter by Thomas Playter to John Paston that May, so Edward ‘changed his day of Coronacion to be upon the Sunday nexst after Seynte John Baptyste, so the’ntent to spede hym northward in all hast’. Then good news arrived. Warwick’s brother, Lord Montagu, ‘hath broken the sege and slayn of Scotts 6000’. After ‘setting all things in good order’ in the North, Edward rode to his manor at Sheen, and remained there until June. It is likely that Cecily travelled there too, to be at her son’s side during the important preparations. Sheen, or Shene, had yet to develop into the magical palace that Henry VII would rename Richmond. Built by Edward III, it contained glazed windows, chambers with large fireplaces and a roasting house in which to cook meat, as well as tiled courtyards, fish ponds and gardens. Its lands extended over the present-day Kew and Richmond, forming an important royal hunting park. The first few weeks of Edward’s reign, between his return to London and the coronation, were spent here. Cecily was now the first lady of the land, and, according to the papal legate, Coppini, could ‘rule the king as she pleases’. That April, Coppini was urged by his doctor to write and congratulate Edward and others, ‘not forgetting on any account, to write to the Duchess of York’. For Cecily, these summer days must have been euphoric.

  Edward made a triumphal entry to London on 26 June. According to Hearne’s Fragment, he travelled along the south bank from Sheen and was met by the mayor and aldermen in scarlet and 400 commoners dressed in green. They accompanied him over London Bridge, the traditional site of pageantry, and to his lodgings in the Tower. He created thirty-two Knights of the Garter, including the eleven-year-old George, now Duke of Clarence, and eight-year-old Richard, soon to be Duke of Gloucester. Dressed in their gowns, with white silk on the shoulder, they accompanied him the following afternoon from the Tower to Westminster. He was crowned in the abbey on Sunday 28 June, St Peter’s Day. Unusually, the processions and pageantry took place the following day.15 A surviving account in the Cottonian Manuscript Vitellius A xvi relates that ‘upon the morn, Sunday, which was St Peter’s Even … [Edward] was crowned at Westminster with great solemnity of bishops and other temporal lords. And upon the morn after, the King went crowned again in Westminster Abbey, in the worship of God and St Peter.’ The following day, he was crowned again in St Paul’s, ‘and there the angel came down and censed him. At which time there was as great a multitude of people in Paul’s as ever was seen afore in any days.’16

  Without doubt, there would have been at least one magnificent feast held at Westminster. John Russell’s Boke of Nurture, written around 1460, provides a good reminder that such occasions were highly formal and ceremonial, with strict rules regarding the behaviour and activities of those serving the tables, as well as the codes of conduct for seating and dining. As Russell outlines, the sovereign was always given new bread, while others received one-day-old bread, while trencher bread, used as plates and for mopping up, was four days old. The important salt, a sign of status, had to be ‘sutille, whyte, fayre and drye’ and the lid of the salt cellar, or ceremonial nef, must not touch the salt itself.17 John Fastolf’s inventory listed a silver-gilt salt cellar shaped like a little tower decorated with roses, which weighed 77 ounces. The guests would have had their wine topped up from gilt ewers like Fastolf’s silver one, engraved with flowers and branches and perhaps would have added spices from silver dishes.18 Also very important was the napery, or table linen, taken from the Old French word nappe, or cloth. Russell recommended that it was sweet and clean, with brightly polished knives, ‘seemly in sight to sene’.19 Fastolf’s ‘bottre’ or buttery contained two carving knives and three knives whose handles were decorated with gilt nails.20 Russell advised his readers regarding the best fruit to be
served, with plums, damsons, grapes and cherries offered as an ‘amuse bouche’ and pears, nuts, strawberries and hard cheeses to follow meat. After the meal, baked apples, pears and ‘blaunche powder’, a mixture of ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg were offered, to aid digestion.21 The main dishes would have been symbols of opulence and elegance, with roasted meats, tarts and stews flavoured with exotic spices and coloured brightly. Each course would be prefaced with verses and a subtlety carved in the shape of a mythological creature or historical or biblical figure. It is not recorded for certain that Cecily attended the feasting; although it might seem an obvious celebration for the family, sometimes social rules excluded the presence of close family members such as spouses or parents. Edward would not attend the coronation feast of his own queen in 1465. George and Richard had arrived in England in time to attend the coronation, and Cecily would later prepare to attend that of her grandson, so, given the circumstances, she may have been present in some capacity even if she declined a ceremonial role.

  Once the feasting was concluded, there was business to attend to. High on the list of Edward’s priorities was provision for his family. In June 1461 he granted Cecily property worth 5,000 marks per annum from manors all over the country in York’s possession, effective from 30 December 1460, ‘on which day the said duke died’,22 and in October 1461 ‘arrears and rents from the tenants and Lordship of Stoke [were] to be collected for the use of Cecily’.23 As Edward’s ‘most beloved mother’, during his absence she was formally given Baynard’s Castle, with an allowance of £1,700, along with the family home at Fotheringhay. In January 1462, the Sheriff of York was ordered to pay Cecily an annuity of £100 annually,24 and on 23 February she was granted ‘all sums of money, issues and rents pertaining to the king from all castles, lordships, manors … specified in the letters patent of her jointure and dower’.25 Now her substantial lands had been restored, Cecily required assistance to help run them smoothly. She had observed York doing so for decades and participated in this process to an extent, but her circumstances were now very different. As a widow, she had greater power, but as the king’s mother, she could anticipate that she would have less time to spend in administration. She needed to put it in the hands of men she could trust.

  In 1461, Cecily appointed the loyal York family servant Thomas Aleyn as her auditor, after he had been a clerk in her service for at least a decade. On 26 June, she turned to Richard Quartermains, who had been the Yorks’ lawyer and councillor since the late 1440s, and made him supervisor of all her lands.26 Two of the obvious choices, Edmund Mulso and Sir William Oldhall, had died in 1458 and 1460 respectively. Other loyal servants were rewarded early in the new regime. On 12 February 1464, Cecily was at Baynard’s Castle for the ‘confirmation of letters patent of the king’s mother’, being a ‘grant for life to Alexander Holt, esquire, sergeant of her pantry and Katharine Holt, his wife’ of a tenement in Worcester.27 The same year, on 8 July, a grant was made for life to a Katherine FitzWilliam ‘for her good services to the king’s mother the duchess of York’. She was to receive a ‘deer called a stagge or an herte’ from the king’s chase at Hatfield and a tun of red wine a year.28 Others who had been loyal to York were rewarded with grants of land and properties, like the one dating from early in 1462 from Fotheringhay, allocating a yearly income to John and Margaret Langley for their service.29 She was also awarded the wardship of James Tyrell, a man who was to become closely associated with the history of her youngest son; in 1462, he was around seven years old and Cecily sold his wardship back to his mother, Margaret Darcy.30

  Richard and George were not forgotten either. In February 1462, George was appointed as Lieutenant of Ireland, with Roland FitzEustace as his deputy from May, followed the next year by the Earl of Desmond.31 A grant was also made to Thomas Baryngton of Trim, in recognition of his ‘good service to the king’s father, the Duke of York’.32 In September, Richard became Admiral of the Sea, and took possession of a large number of estates in the Midlands; the following month, he was Admiral of England, Ireland and Aquitaine ‘with all accustomed profits and powers’. He received the confiscated lands of Henry, Duke of Somerset, in 1463.33 George also received the lordship of Richmond, as well as a number of possessions that had previously been held by Richard Wydeville and Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland.34 In January 1463, he was granted a swathe of new properties in Northumberland, Dorset, Devon, Nottingham, Derby, Surrey, Lincoln, Suffolk, Northamptonshire, York and Norfolk. More estates were handed to him in September 1464 in Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Wiltshire and again that November and the following January, February and July. In 1466, George was pardoned of all debts, accounts, arrears, issues and fines and both brothers were to have their charters, letters and writs in chancery and all courts of the king dropped without charge. Anne Holland was granted the impressive Coldharbour House, on the Thames, which placed her near her mother at Baynard’s Castle. She was also awarded her husband Exeter’s forfeited lands by a grant of July 1462, allowing her to make use of them and pass them on intact to her daughter and any other future children she might bear from other marriages.35 The fifteen-year-old Margaret was awarded an annual £40 from the Exchequer in early 1462, as was Elizabeth’s husband, John de la Pole.36

  Edward’s surviving enemies knew he would not let the events of Wakefield pass. In a series of extraordinary appointments that year, it appears that Edward was considering placing Henry VI on trial for York’s murder. His key instrument in this would be the Earl of Warwick. On 12 March, even before Towton had been won, Edward gave Warwick the commission to receive the submission of Henry’s followers or seize the property of those who refused.37 In November 1461, Edward’s first parliament passed an Act of Attainder against thirty-six Lancastrians for their guilt in the murders at Wakefield. This suggests that interpretations of the battle veered more towards the broken Christmas truce, or ambush of the foraging party, rather than a fair fight. That December, in an incredible appointment, Warwick was ‘to execute the office of steward of England at the trial of Henry VI and other rebels who murdered the king’s father, Richard, Duke of York, at Wakefield’.38

  The Duke of York and Edmund were also remembered in prayers. This was an essential part of the medieval grieving process; it was believed that the souls of departed loved ones could be eased out of purgatory more quickly by the actions of the living. A number of grants were made for Masses to be said for the royal family, including Cecily and Richard, at the Carthusian convent at Sheen in July 1461; St Stephen’s, Westminster, in July; St Mary’s, Trim, in September; Syon Abbey, St Michael’s Mount, Cornwall, Felstead in Essex, St Nicholas in Spalding and Cosham, Wiltshire, in November; and All Souls, Oxford, and Wilmington, Sussex, in December, among other places. They were also remembered at the church of Westbury, Gloucester, in March 1464, St Gregory and St Martin, Wye, in May 1465 and St Mary Redcliff, Bristol, in May 1466.39 This sent out a decisive message but there was still a significant amount of Lancastrian support in the North. London and the South were largely loyal to Edward now but, for all Henry VI’s inabilities, he had been an anointed king for three decades and his plight elicited some sympathy and support.

  Through 1463, the threat of an invasion from Scotland rumbled on. With Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou gathering troops with the backing of James III and the rebellious Percy family, the situation became critical. Early that summer, their army crossed the border and besieged Norham Castle. Edward hurried north to deal with it, but by the time he reached Northampton news came that the Earl of Montagu, Cecily’s nephew John Neville, had broken the siege. Defeated for the moment, Percy and Somerset mounted attacks the following spring at Hedgeley Moor and Hexham, where both Lancastrians were killed. In 1465, Henry VI was captured and brought south to imprisonment in the Tower, while Margaret fled abroad with her son. A poem in the Bodleian Library, ‘God Amend Wicked Counsel’, which was written in 1464, harked back at this time to the role the Duke of York occupied in the 1450s and his betrayal. The metaph
or used here is of the narrator clambering up a rotten tree, with all its connotations of family trees, descent and lineage. It may have been composed to help provoke memories of injustice and support his son’s current cause:

  Rychard of Yorke, that lord ryal

  He was exiled for yeres three

  Than was I leke to have a falle

  I clamer upon a rotyn tre.

  The victories marked the end of a series of losses for Cecily’s sister Eleanor. Her story also illustrates how fortunate Cecily was – the intermarriage and large families of the nobility meant that the Wars of the Roses truly were fought between cousins. Born around 1397, Eleanor was old enough to have been the mother of her youngest sister. She was already married and widowed by the time Cecily arrived and, after remarrying, gave birth to her first son when her sister was three. She went on to bear nine more children and, with the onset of civil war, was widowed again when her husband, Henry Percy, was killed fighting for the Lancastrians at St Albans in 1455. After that, her sons, Cecily’s nephews, died in a succession of battles against York or his supporters. Thomas died at Northampton, while Henry, Richard and Ralph lost their lives at Towton, all taking a stand against their cousin Edward. For Cecily, it meant that extended family ties were lost or strained by the warfare, as she had experienced already with her sister Anne, Countess of Buckingham. Anne would lose her second son Henry, husband of Margaret Beaufort, after he sustained terrible injuries in 1471. It is difficult to know just how far the sisters were able to maintain any sort of personal relationship given these experiences. The losses of their husbands and children could equally have united or divided them. Once they became wives and mothers, their loyalties may well have lain primarily with their direct line rather than with their siblings. Soon enough, one of Cecily’s own children would make a rash decision that would open a powerful Yorkist rift.