Anne Neville

BIRTH OF ANNE NEVILLE ~ THE KINGMAKER'S DAUGHTER

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Anne Neville sat at the center of the twisted Wars Of The Roses.

Unbelievably rich and descibed as utterly beautiful, Anne eventually would find herself as the Queen of England, one of the most powerful people in the country.

Then it all suddenly all unraveled.....

Anne Neville was born on 11th June 1456, in a time of chaos.

The Wars of the Roses had just begun, and the end was nowhere in sight.

In fact, Anne would never see peace in her entire life.

Anne’s father was right in the middle of the action.

It’s hard to stay out of the conflict when your father is the infamous Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, also known as The Kingmaker.

Her father might have been one of the most important men in England, but Anne’s mother was no commoner, herself.

Anne de Beauchamp was one of the wealthiest women in the entire kingdom, and that made her inheritance extremely interesting to anyone who wanted power in England.

Thanks to her ruthless father and her extravagant mother, men would be fighting over Anne Neville for her entire life.

Under normal circumstances, Anne Neville and her older sister Isabel would barely have seen a penny of their parents’ vast estates, but one fact changed everything.

The couple never had a son.

As Isabel and Anne grew older, they caught the eye of England’s most powerful men, a dangerous situation for any young lady to be in.

Though England was in turmoil, Anne actually had a charmed childhood, hidden away at the luxurious Middleham Castle.

It was here that she came across two young men.

Men with whom the rest of her life would be inextricably linked. Their names were Richard and George, but it was their last name that mattered.....York.

Richard and George, came to live and train at Middleham Castle. There, the two boys came to know the sisters Anne and Isabel very well.

In just a few years time, each of the brothers would marry one of the sisters, and yet all of their unions would end horribly.

When Richard and George's father The Duke of York, lost his life in battle against the forces of Lancastrian King Henry VI, it seemed like maybe the Duke’s death, might mean the Wars of the Roses were over.

The Yorkists rose up yet again and deposed Henry, making the Duke’s eldest son, and Richard and George's eldest brother Edward, King Edward IV.

While Anne's father the Kingmaker, had been Edward’s greatest ally in his rise to the throne, everything changed once Edward became king.

The Kingmaker found himself being pushed aside, and he wouldn’t stand for it.

Against King Edwards wishes, in 1469, Anne’s sister Isabel married the king’s brother George.

Richard Neville came up with a plan for his daughter Anne, a plan that would end up tearing the family apart.

In a move that completely shocked all of England, Richard Neville had Anne betrothed to the deposed King Henry's son, Edward of Westminster.

Fed up with the king he helped make, Neville completely switched sides and joined the enemy.

The Wars of the Roses started right back up again, and this time, Anne found herself right in the middle of it.

Edward of Westminster had been living in France with his mother, the cunning Margaret of Anjou.

Anne and her father sailed across the English Channel to meet up with them, and in 1470, Anne Neville wed Edward at the majestic Angers Cathedral.

As long as everything went to according to the Kingmaker’s plan, Anne and Edward would be King and Queen of England, before long.

Not long after Anne and Edward’s wedding, they set sail for England to free King Henry from The Tower, and put him back on the throne.

But unfortunately, there’s one thing that the Kingmaker didn’t account for…

Richard Neville thought he had one ace in the hole, his son-in-law George, King Edward IV’s brother.

George resented his brother almost as much as Neville did, and so Neville assumed that George would back him up.

But George wanted the throne for himself.

He wasn’t about to help the Kingmaker put crazy old Henry VI back on the throne again.

George realized Neville would never help him become king, so he abandoned the Kingmaker and rejoined his brother, King Edward.

In October, Neville successfully kicked King Edward out of London, and restored Henry VI to the throne.

By March, Edward IV took it back again.

Anne was forced to flee and hope for better luck ahead.

The English countryside broke out into open conflict once again, and this time, the Kingmaker’s luck had finally run out.

His forces met King Edward’s on the field at the Battle of Barnet, and it was an utter disaster.

Not only did Edward recapture King Henry VI, but Richard Neville himself lost his life in the fray.

Anne had lost her father.

After Barnet came the Battle of Tewkesbury.

This time, Anne lost her husband.

The King’s forces slew Prince Edward in the battle, and suddenly, Anne found herself in terrible danger.

King Edward’s forces took Anne prisoner.

Edward didn’t really know what to do with Anne after he’d captured her.

She was the Lancastrian prince’s widow and daughter of the hated Kingmaker…but there was still all that money to be had.

He ended up giving her to his brother, George.

At first, that seemed ideal, after all, George’s wife was Anne’s sister Isabel.

If George, Duke of Clarence had had his way, Anne never would have seen the light of day again.

With her out of the picture, that meant that his wife Isabel would inherit their mother’s entire fortune.

But Anne Neville was an important woman, countless men across England probably wanted her hand in marriage, and one of those men was none other than George’s own brother, Richard.

Richard of Gloucester was King Edward IV’s youngest brother. That left him well out of the running to become king, but Richard was probably one of the most ruthless men in the history of England.

When he wanted something, he got it.

So when he set his eyes on Anne Neville, nothing in the world could stop him from getting her.

George and Isabel planned to hide Anne away in a nunnery for the rest of her life.

Richard managed to track Anne down, and escort her to sanctuary at the Church of St. Martin’s le Grand.

We don’t know when exactly they married, but we know that by the spring of 1472, Anne and Richard were officially husband and wife.

Anne’s twisted love life was even more messed up than it seemed.

Not only were Anne and Richard not-so-distantly related, but since Edward and Richard were cousins by blood, many in the Church believed that it was immoral for Anne and Richard to marry.

Their intertwined family tree meant that Richard needed to get special permission from the Pope to marry Anne.

Everyone knew that Richard needed the Pope’s blessing to marry Anne, but what we don’t know is whether or not he actually got it.

Though some accounts claim they received permission, there’s no actual record of it.

Down the line, there was every possibility that Richard’s enemies could use this fact against him, but their marriage would implode long before anyone got the chance.

Once married, Anne and Richard settled into their childhood home at Middleham Castle, where they’d first met so many years before.

King Edward made Richard Governor of the North and Anne’s life finally saw some level of peace.

So it was for about ten years....

About a year after their marriage, Richard and Anne welcomed a son, they named him Edward.

He was a sickly boy from the very beginning.

The couple must have hoped their boy would grow stronger as he got older, but instead, he only got worse.

Anne's sister Isabel passed away in 1476, from complications in childbirth.

Anne’s brother-in-law George of Clarence, spent his entire life scheming and plotting, and accused Queen Elizabeth Woodville of poisoning Isabel.

George had rebelled against his brother, King Edward, countless times over the years, but in 1478, George ran out of luck.

Edward’s merciful streak ended, and he had George executed in a vat of wine.

After both Isabel and George passed, Anne took in their children.

By 1483, the Wars of the Rose had been over for over a decade. King Edward IV held the throne securely, and he had two healthy sons to inherit it.

When Edward suddenly passed, it may have shocked England, but no one panicked.

But you’re not accounting for Anne’s husband Richard.

The man who always got what he wanted.

By the time Richard was finished, Anne would be queen, but it would come at a terrible price.

In what turned out to be a horrible mistake, King Edward made his brother Richard Lord Protector when he passed.

Basically, Richard was supposed to look after the country while his 12-year-old nephew—the new King Edward V—came of age.

We all know how that turned out!

Poor Edward V never even got the chance to be king.

Richard brought Edward and his younger brother to the Tower of London for “protection”~ then promptly threw away the key. Edward IV wasn’t even cold yet, and Richard dealt him a chilling betrayal.

He had his brother’s marriage invalidated, declared that his nephews were illegitimate, and made himself King Richard III of England, and Anne Queen.

Was Anne in on the plan?

Regardless, against all odds, the Kingmaker’s daughter had become the Queen of England.

Now, maybe she could finally sit back and enjoy life?

Nope.

Not even close.

As for Richard’s nephews, no one ever saw them again.

The world remembers them as the tragic Princes in the Tower, and historians widely agree that Richard eventually had both of them secretly executed.

Anne and Richard officially became the Queen and King of England on July 6, 1483.

Anne’s son Edward of Middleham, the new heir to the throne of England, was nowhere to be seen at his parents’ coronation. Edward had been a sickly baby, and by now he’d grown into a sickly boy.

On the big day, he was too ill to make it out and face the crowds. England was denied the chance to see their new heir on display.

Edward of Middleham wouldn’t survive long enough, to ever see a crown on his head.

In April 1484, the day Anne had been fearing for a decade, finally came.

Her feeble son Edward suddenly passed.

No one knows exactly what happened to him, but no one was surprised when it happened.

The loss of young Edward understandably left Anne and Richard absolutely devastated.

One contemporary historian wrote that the couple was “almost bordering on madness by reason of their sudden grief.”

And as if it couldn’t get any worse, everywhere they went, dark whispers started following them.

Rather than join the king and queen in grieving for the lost Edward, many in England believed they had it coming.

Payback for the never-forgotten Princes in the Tower.

Within months of the boy’s loss, Anne started fading away.

Perhaps she had simply lost the will to live, but from the moment that she lost her boy, Anne’s days were numbered.

Just months after Edward of Middleham passed, Anne Neville joined her son in the afterlife.

Based on contemporary accounts, modern historians believe it was tuberculosis—but it was clearly more than that.

She was only 28 years old, in the prime of her life, but in the blink of an eye, she was gone.

Illness may have claimed her, but it seemed clear that Anne had simply lost the will to live.

A chilling omen marked the day of Anne’s passing: A solar eclipse.

All across England, superstitious folk whispered that the blackened sun was a sign from God.

The twisted King Richard III had fallen from grace, and his end was near.

One of the reasons that Anne Neville is nearly forgotten today, is that her final resting place lays unmarked.

We know that Richard had her buried in Westminster Abbey, but he left no monument to commemorate her.

Perhaps he hoped one day he would end up next to her—but that wasn’t meant to be either.

Richard would end up dying in the mud, miles from London, just a few short months later.......

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