Anne Neville: Richard III's Queen and the Kingmaker's Daughter

It's one of the hottest ships in Medieval fandom right now. 

Largely due to Philippa Gregory's six novel series, and the BBC's adaptation of the same, Richard III and Anne Neville are the cutest couple since Edward and Bella.

As portrayed in The White Queen, Anne is a feisty, young heiress, who knows her own mind and will use all the tools at her disposal to save herself. Not that there are a great many of those for a Medieval woman.  Yet she does appear to be genuinely quite fond of Richard.

As for her beau, he is absolutely head over heels in love with her. Richard followed her around with puppy dog eyes, since they were both children together in Middleham Castle. He risked his own position to help her, when the odds were stacked against her.

Eventually, he got the girl and a whole legion of fans cheered from the rooftops.

None of this is hurt by the fact that Richard III's reputation has undergone a kind of 180 degree flip over the course of 2013.  Archaeologists found his remains under a council car-park in Leicester, and suddenly he's no longer the pinnacle of Shakespearean villainy.

Ahead of Richard's belated funeral, in spring 2014, media commentators and historians have been pouring over the actual facts. As his reputation is given a spit and shine, it has arisen from the Tudor murk looking better than ever.  He may have been innocent of all the charges leveled against him by centuries of Shakespearean actors. At least he may have been justified in context.

With his rehabilitation comes that of his wife and regal consort, Queen Anne of Warwick. But who was she really?

Our first impressions are always based on what somebody looks like. Unfortunately there are very few contemporary pictures of Anne Neville.

The Salisbury Roll, which displayed the heraldic arms of the time, does depict Anne as Queen Consort, alongside Richard III. This is pretty much the best we can do in working out what she looked like. It's reproduced to the left.

However, please do note that it's highly stylized. It's the Medieval equivalent of a celebrity being airbrushed for the front cover of Vogue.

Lady Anne Neville was born on June 11th 1456 at Warwick Castle.  She instantly became one of the most eligible marriage prospects for every young nobleman in Britain.

Her father was Richard Neville, the 16th Earl of Warwick, who would be known to history as The Kingmaker.  At times, his power and wealth eclipsed that of the ruling monarch. He certainly played a huge part in deposing Henry VI and placing Edward IV on the throne.

Yet much of his property and riches came from his wife, Lady Anne de Beauchamp. Even the title Earl of Warwick was conferred on Richard Neville due to this marriage. Anne de Beauchamp was the daughter of the 13th Earl of Warwick, Richard de Beauchamp.

With a politically powerful father and a tremendously wealthy mother, Anne Neville never wanted for anything as a child.

She spent much of that childhood in Middleham Castle, one of the few properties which Richard Neville had brought into the marriage.  Along with her sister Isabel, Anne was raised into the God fearing docility expected of a Medieval noblewoman.

But they weren't the only youngsters there. As was the custom during the 15th century, aristocratic boys generally became wards of other families. They were raised alongside their peers, gaining loyalties with the friendships.

When Richard, Duke of York, was killed at the Battle of Wakefield, his two youngest sons were sent to live with the Neville family at Middleham Castle. Thus the eight year old Duke of Gloucester, the future Richard III, met his eventual wife, four year old Anne Neville.  They were raised together for the next five years.

Marriage between them was not on the cards. Before that could happen, the second phase of the Wars of the Roses had to severely intervene.

The Cousins War - as the Wars of the Roses was originally known - pitted kin against kin. Apparently strong alliances turned on a sixpence in the vagaries of ambition.

Lady Anne Neville may have wanted for nothing throughout her childhood at Middleham Castle, but by 1470 she was a refugee.

Her father, the Earl of Warwick, had learned that Edward IV was to be no puppet king in his sway.  So Warwick attempted to place the monarch's younger brother on the throne instead. When that failed, Warwick had to flee for his life to France. He naturally took his wife and two daughters with him.

Anne was just fourteen years old, when she was brought into the presence of the exiled Lancastrian royal family. She must have had some very mixed emotions about it.

She had been raised to think of them as the enemy. As her father now aligned himself with the red rose, he brought his youngest daughter into opposition with the York princes. Those same boys whom she'd grown up alongside.

Moreover, to prove his loyalty, her father betrothed Anne to the young Edward of Westminster - the Lancastrian heir to the throne.

She was still only fourteen, when she entered Angers Cathedral, on December 13th 1470, and recited her vows to become Prince Edward's wife.

This instantly rendered her the Princess of Wales in exile. If the Lancastrian army could beat the York army, then it would make Anne Neville Queen of England one day. But only if her friends were killed.

Such an outcome actually looked quite good.  Due to a push by her father, at the head of Lancastrian forces, Henry VI was reinstated on the throne in October 1470. Anne had married his heir, while he was still England's de facto ruler.  The York King Edward IV was now the one fleeing the country!

However, there was an even worse case scenario, which actually did come true.

If Anne Neville had mixed emotions during the autumn and winter of 1470, then that's nothing compared to what happened in the spring of 1471.

In the 21st century, we view our fourteen year olds as children. Our instinct is to protect them and to keep them from danger.  Not so in the 15th century.

The adolescent Anne was expected to consummate her wedding to Edward of Westminster. He was only sixteen, so probably as inexperienced as his wife. But even so, that was a marriage bed and her 'job' was to become pregnant as soon and as often as possible.

Anne's one saving grace was that she did not.

She was also under the control of Margaret of Anjou, her mother in law, whom Anne had previously considered only in terms of a demonic she-wolf. All around her, people were preparing for war.

In March 1470, three months after Anne's wedding, Edward IV arrived back in London and seized back his throne. Henry VI was thrown in the Tower of London. The political fortunes teetered back in favor of the white rose.

Anne's father was killed at the Battle of Barnet, in the same month, while trying to reinstate the Lancastrian king. Her mother immediately fled into sanctuary, effectively leaving her daughters without any parental support at all.

Within days, Henry VI died in the Tower of London. The official cause of death was 'deep melancholy'. It's possibly true. But the 'deep melancholy' would have been felt over the knife being bludgeoned into his body.

That technically made Anne the Red Queen, but first they would have to oust Edward IV long enough for a coronation.

News didn't travel very fast in the 15th century. It was April before Anne found out any of this. She was in the company of Margaret of Anjou, arriving at the head of an invasion force on an English beach. 

Anne was alone amongst her traditional enemies, while her traditional allies held the throne. She marched with Margaret of Anjou, Edward of Westminster and a large Lancastrian army towards Wales. The idea was to gather a Welsh army to defeat the York army. Word had been sent ahead to Jasper Tudor to this effect, but he couldn't get the Welsh to them in time.

The York army caught up with them at Tewkesbury, just across the river from the relative safety of Wales. Anne was there on the battlefield, an eye-witness to the sheer brutality of Medieval warfare.

Edward IV's York army won.  Anne and her husband, along with Margaret of Anjou and several leading Lancastrian knights fled to a nearby abbey. They were supposed to be awarded sanctuary there, canon law dictated it. But Edward IV wasn't in the mood to care for his immortal soul.

Anne watched as her sixteen year old husband was dragged from sanctuary, along with all of his knights. They were summarily beheaded without a trial.

Anne and Margaret of Anjou survived only because they were women. Chivalry, it seems, still held fast, even if religious laws were shaken to the core. However, they were both deemed dangerous traitors, and they were in the hands of the York king.

There was a precedent. Henry Tudor had been allowed to live, albeit fostered by a York family. But he'd been taken back by the Lancastrians and fled into exile. Besides his claim to the throne was tenuous at best. Anne's baby would be viewed by many as the actual monarch.

It would either grow up behind bars in the Tower of London, or an 'accident' would occur.

Still only fourteen, and imprisoned in Coventry, all of these things must have been going through Anne Neville's head. Fortunately for all involved, she was not pregnant.

Even more pertinent was her own self. The king could marry her to whomever he wanted, but she was still an heiress of Warwick. Her lucky husband could quickly become dangerously rich through her. As her father had demonstrated, that would be rich enough to threaten Edward's crown.

A solution was found in the form of the king's brother, George of Clarence, who had married Anne's sister Isabel. The brothers were now reconciled, despite George's rebellion and the Battle of Edgecote. He took custody of Anne and took her home to London. At least she was now reunited with her sister.

Unfortunately, she was also under house arrest. If she was never to marry, then George - through Isabel - could claim the entire Warwick fortune. He made sure that Anne was kept under lock and key. He intended for her to spend the rest of her life like that.

Anne passed her fifteenth birthday that way, but was determined not to still be there for her sixteenth.

It's very rare that you get to learn much about Medieval women. Their stories tend to get told through the lenses of the men in their lives. They are merely players to get swept along on the tide of events.

This is the moment when we almost see Anne Neville. As she kicked against her captivity and grasped control of her own future, we glimpse the girl herself.

We know which option she took. It could be expected, after all Anne had been through, that the prospect of a life in a quiet house away from it all might be attractive. It did not seem so to the teenager.

Despite severe pressure to shut up and accept her Fate, Anne wrote to the king. She sought permission to travel to court and plead her case. Edward IV refused it.

So Anne wrote to his wife, Elizabeth Woodville, and his daugher, Elizabeth of York, asking them both to persuade him to see her. They didn't respond. A flurry of letters were passed between Anne and various ladies of court, all of them asking for help. It was not forthcoming.

One more thing to add about this. George, Duke of Clarence, did not want Anne Neville corresponding with anyone. We can deduce that she was very resourceful in even getting these letters out of the house. Or she was likeable enough to have friends amongst the servants.

Finally understanding that no-one was coming to her aid, Anne slipped out of the house and fled the vicinity.

The legend goes that she dressed in the clothes of a servant and disappeared into the teeming trade streets of London. She was a high born girl, who was now hiding amongst the working classes, right under the noses of the Plantagenets.

Any of the merchants could have given her up. They could have expected a great reward for doing so too. They didn't. So either she was such an amazing actress that she appeared to be one of them; or she was charming enough to get everyone on side.

Her final tactic was to get a message to the third York son, Richard, Duke of Gloucester. She had been raised with him. He was like a brother. But he was famously loyal to Edward IV and George, Duke of Clarence. He was their brother. Yet he'd previously petitioned the king to marry Anne Neville, and he'd been refused by George.

It was this latter which provided Anne with her only hope. A York son to counteract a York son on her behalf.

Richard could just as easily turned her in. He didn't. He met her in a cook's shop and escorted her into the sanctuary of the Church of St Martin le Grand.

From the moment that Edward IV was crowned, there was talk of a marriage between Richard and a Neville girl. However, the bride in question was to have been Isabel. George thwarted that by marrying her himself.

As prisoner of war, it could arguably have been beneficial for the York Plantagenet branch for Anne to have remained a widow.

However, an argument could equally be made that Edward IV would rather his brother not inherit the whole of the Warwick fortune. George had, after all, rebelled against him in the past.

With that in mind, why did Richard travel all the way from York to petition for Anne's hand in marriage, just nine months after her captivity began? There's no evidence that she wrote to him, even if she appears to have written to everyone else.

Anne Neville remained, even in such dire straits, as the most eligible bride in Britain at the time. Financially, for Richard, it made sense.

But he could just as easily married a foreign princess. That would have afforded him great wealth, been good for Britain and forestalled any further divisions amongst his already famously divided family.

He came for Anne. He argued her case with his eldest brother, the king, and succeeded. But he didn't exactly storm the gates at George's house to claim his bride.

This is, of course, as long as you're not running with the Tudor version of the story. As beautifully dramatized by Shakespeare, that one states that Anne never fled George's house. Instead, she sat there weeping for her first husband, the Lancastrian Edward of Westminster.

Richard came for her and George tried to save her. The older brother hid innocent Anne in his own kitchens, dressed as a servant. But evil Richard stalked through the house until he found her, then spirited her - kicking and screaming - away.

In reality, Anne appears to have been quite content to hide out in sanctuary, until Richard received the appropriate permissions to marry her. He even secured George's grudging blessing - after using Edward to put pressure onto their sibling - as long as Richard and Anne promised not to pursue her inheritance.

The Tudor legend says that Anne was forced into a shotgun wedding at St Martin le Grand. In stark contrast, the couple were married quite openly and with great ceremony at Westminster Abbey, on July 12th 1472.

Richard was nineteen years old. Anne had just turned sixteen.

Clues to the nature of their relationship abound throughout their marriage. For example, when Richard ordered some furs and silk, he asked for them to be delivered to 'my dear beloved consort'. That wasn't even in the honeymoon period. They'd been married years by then.

There is no evidence that it wasn't a marriage of convenience (and desperation) on the part of Anne. It was her only viable option. But neither is there evidence that it wasn't a love match.

She certainly appeared happy with her marriage for the rest of her life.

By Medieval law, this was a very serious allegation. The scandal was enough for two separate investigations to be opened. Both crown and papal emissaries came to the same conclusion. Anne had very much consented and she was still consenting.

Nevertheless, Edward IV still wrote up a clause in his settlement of lands upon the couple. It protected both Richard or Anne, should they be forced to divorce and remarry by Papal complaint. The circumstances never arose in which the clause would be enacted.

Anne, Duchess of Gloucester, was very active in the running of her estates. Letters exist which she wrote, in her own name, to local persons of note. No-one doubted her ability to order anything without Richard's direct approval. She ran their affairs, even when he was off fighting on behalf of his brother in France.

Both as Duchess and eventually Queen, she was able to influence her husband's charitable donations and beneficiaries. They joined the Corpus Christi Guild of York on her say-so. They endowed Queen's College, Cambridge, at her will.

Again this is all a far cry from the shrinking, tragic Shakespearian queen, and much more in line with how Anne is portrayed in Philippa Gregory's 'The White Queen'. Even if artistic licence is taken in both.

However, some have read between the lines and seen Anne as a much bigger schemer than that.

It's been noted that Richard acted quite out of character in seizing the throne, however pragmatic it was in the circumstances. Was Anne so determined to become queen that she pushed him into it?

Anne was, after all, the daughter of the Kingmaker. Her father had attempted various strategies to get a Neville on the throne.  He'd married his eldest daughter to Clarence, then tried to crown him. Then had negotiated the marriage between his youngest daughter and Edward of Westminster.

Was Anne merely continuing her father's ambitious quest?

She could even be a suspect in the presumed murder of the Princes in the Tower.  She was in London at the right time, and dallied before following her husband on his progress.  She could have had access to the princes during that time, though it's unlikely she did anything herself. There were people loyal to her, who remove such inconveniences.

With the princes gone and the princesses all declared illegitimate, then Richard's crown could be seen as more secure.  But even more certain was that a grandson of the Kingmaker was in line to the throne. Be that Edward of Middleham or Edward of Warwick.

Anne was influential in Richard's declaring the latter his heir, when he could have chosen so many others. 

This is all historical speculation though. Nothing can be proved after all this time.

Little is heard of her outside the north of England, until her husband took the throne as Richard III. That was fine. Until then, he had been Edward's custodian in the north, so that's precisely where the couple should have been.

On June 5th 1483, Anne arrived in London. She'd nominally travelled down for the coronation of Edward V. She was in the capital, when Richard of Shrewsbury joined his brother in the Tower of London. She was certainly around when her husband disinherited Edward V and his siblings.

Richard III and Anne Neville were crowned on July 6th 1483. It was a very grand affair, but Anne couldn't attract half as many knights as Elizabeth Woodville had two decades before. It was a very subtle way in which the aristocracy could mark their disapproval.

The couple retired to Windsor for a short while, before beginning their tour of the country. Richard went ahead. Anne followed a week or two later with the Spanish ambassador in tow. Richard evidently trusted her to meet foreign dignitaries on his behalf.

It's little details like this, which give us an insight into the kind of relationship that the couple shared.

Family values weren't forgotten either. By the winter of 1483, they were reconciled enough with Edward IV's widow to coax her out of sanctuary. Her daughters spent Christmas at Middleham Castle. The slightly disapproving author of the Crowland Papers was there too. He wrote about how the emphasis was strongly on music, dancing and laughter.

Anne and her niece, Elizabeth of York, kept swopping their clothes. They frequently left the party to either switch outfits (thus revealing a point of physiology, in that Anne must have been the same dress size as Elizabeth), or emerging in matching twin costumes. It was a laugh, a joke. Everyone was having fun.

Anne's sister Isabel had died of tuberculosis. Her husband, and Richard's brother, George had been executed for treason by Edward IV. Their children, Edward and Margaret, were placed in the care of the Marquis of Dorset.

As soon as Richard became monarch, he fetched his niece and nephew to live with himself and Anne. If not for the attainder, issued by Edward IV, which knocked these two children out of the succession, Edward of Warwick would have been king. Instead he and his sister were raised alongside Richard and Anne's own boy.

The king and queen had just one child. Their son, Edward of Middleham, was created Earl of Salisbury, then Prince of Wales. He tended to be left behind in York, while his royal parents went on progress around the country. But when they were in the north, he did join them.

In 1484, while his parents were far from home on royal business, Edward of Middleham mysteriously and quite suddenly died. An eye-witness talked about how Anne and Richard were driven half insane with grief.

Anne never quite recovered.  By January 1485, a hollow eyed Richard was forced to announce to Parliament that he and the queen were no longer sharing a bed. While many have read into this some sinister callousness, there was a context.

Their doctor had informed Richard that Anne's health couldn't withstand his conjugal rights. He took the advice on board, because he didn't want to kill her. This was Parliament's business, as Richard was their monarch with only an heir presumptive (he'd named George's son Edward of Warwick as his successor). He was telling the realm that Anne was dying and that he would have no more children with her.

On March 16th 1485, Anne died in Middleham Castle. Richard had her buried to the right of the high altar in Westminster Abbey. By all accounts, he broke down and wept openly at her funeral.

Yet this didn't stop whispers at the time stating that he'd poisoned her, in order to marry Elizabeth of York.  A furious and distraught Richard summoned his Parliament specifically to answer these charges. He had absolutely no interest in wedding his niece. In fact, he was trying to arrange her marriage to a Portuguese prince; and possibly his own to a Portuguese princess, solely because he needed that heir.

As for Anne, he could not and had not poisoned her. Her death had hit him as hard as it would 'any man'.

History has vindicated him on that score. It turns out that Anne died of consumption, just like her sister.