| Cecily Neville | |
|---|---|
| Duchess of York | |
 Image of Cecily Neville in the Neville Book of Hours (c. 1445) | |
| Born | 3 May 1415 Raby Castle,Durham, England |
| Died | 31 May 1495 (aged 80) Berkhamsted Castle,Hertfordshire, England |
| Burial | |
| Spouse | Richard, 3rd Duke of York (m. in or before 1429; died 1460) |
| Issue more... | |
| House | Neville |
| Father | Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland |
| Mother | Joan Beaufort |
Cecily Neville (3 May 1415 – 31 May 1495) was an English noblewoman, the wife ofRichard, Duke of York (1411–1460), and the mother of twoKings of England—Edward IV andRichard III. She was born atRaby Castle inDurham, and was known for herpiety. Although she has been long known as "The Rose of Raby", this sobriquet has no historical basis, since its first mention is found in a late 18th century novel by Agnes Musgrave.[1] She herself signed her name "Cecylle".
Cecily's husband, the Duke of York, was the leading contender for thethrone of England from theHouse of York during the period of theWars of the Roses until his death in 1460. Their sonEdward actually assumed the throne as Edward IV in 1461, after the deposition ofKing Henry VI of theHouse of Lancaster. The Duchess of York thus narrowly missed becoming queen consort of England.[2]
Cecily Neville was the youngest of the 22 children ofRalph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, by his second wifeJoan Beaufort. Her paternal grandparents wereJohn Neville, 3rd Baron Neville de Raby, and MaudPercy, daughter ofHenry de Percy, 2nd Baron Percy. Her maternal grandparents wereJohn of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, and his third wifeKatherine Swynford. John of Gaunt was the third surviving son of KingEdward III of England andPhilippa of Hainault.
Cecily was the aunt ofRichard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, one of the leading peers and military commanders of his generation, a great-aunt of queen consortAnne Neville, who married her sonRichard III, and a great-great-great-aunt of queen consortCatherine Parr, sixth wife of her great-grandson, KingHenry VIII.
In 1424, when Cecily was eight years old, she was betrothed by her father to his thirteen-year-old ward,Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York. Ralph Neville died in October 1425, bequeathing the wardship of Richard to his widow, Joan Beaufort. Cecily and Richard were married by October 1429. Their first child,Anne of York, was born in August 1439 in Northamptonshire. When Richard became a king's lieutenant and governor general of France in 1441 and moved toRouen, Cecily moved with him. Their son Henry was born in February but died soon after.
Their next son, the future KingEdward IV, was born in Rouen on 28 April 1442 and immediately baptised privately in a small side chapel. He would later be accused ofillegitimacy by his cousin,Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, and by his own brother,George, Duke of Clarence, a common method of discrediting political enemies. George and Warwick were in dispute with Edward at the time and seeking to overthrow him as king. The claims would later be dismissed. Nonetheless, some modern historians give serious consideration to the question, and use Edward's date of birth as supporting evidence: assuming Edward was not premature (there being no evidence either way), Richard of York would have been several days' march from Cecily at the time ofconception and the baby'sbaptism was a simple and private affair, unlike that of his younger brotherEdmund, Earl of Rutland, which was public and lavish. This is countered by other historians, however, who point out that Cecily's husband could easily, by the military conventions of the time, have returned briefly to Rouen, where Cecily was living at the time, while baptism conventions of the time meant that a low-key baptism would be more likely due to Richard of York's relatively low political standing at the time and fears for the baby's survival. If the difference in baptisms was to be taken as a disavowal of an otherwise acknowledged and cherished heir, it would not only be a humiliation of a wife Richard otherwise valued before and after Edward's birth, but also a personal and political humiliation. In any case, Richard acknowledged the baby as his own, which established legal paternity.
Around 1454, when Richard began to resent the influence ofEdmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset (a first cousin of his wife), Cecily spoke withqueen consortMargaret of Anjou on his behalf. When Henry VI suffered a nervous breakdown later in the year, Richard of York established himself as a Protector.
After the outbreak of theWars of the Roses in 1455, Cecily remained at their home,Ludlow Castle, even after Richard fled to Ireland andContinental Europe. At the same time, she surreptitiously worked for the cause of theHouse of York. When a parliament began to debate the fate of the Duke of York and his supporters in November 1459, Cecily travelled to London to plead for her husband. One contemporary commentator stated that she had reputedly convinced the king to promise a pardon if the duke would appear in the parliament in eight days. This effort failed, and Richard's lands were confiscated, but Cecily managed to gain an annual grant of £600 to support herself and her children.
After the Yorkist victory at theBattle of Northampton in July 1460, Cecily moved to London with her children and lived with the lawyerJohn Paston. She carried theroyal arms before Richard in triumph in London in September. When the Duke of York and his heirs were officially recognised as Henry VI's successors in theAct of Accord, Cecily became a queen-in-waiting and even received a copy of the English chronicle from the chroniclerJohn Hardyng.
But in theBattle of Wakefield on 30 December 1460, the Lancastrians won a decisive victory. The Duke of York, his second sonEdmund, Earl of Rutland, and Cecily's brotherRichard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, were among the casualties. Cecily sent her two youngest sons,George andRichard, to the court ofPhilip III, Duke of Burgundy. This forced Philip to ally with the Yorkists.
Cecily's eldest son Edward successfully continued the fight against the Lancastrians. When Cecily moved toBaynard's Castle in London, it became the Yorkist headquarters, and after Edward defeated the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton and ascended the throne, she was honoured as the mother of the king.
During the beginning of Edward's reign, Cecily appeared beside him and maintained her influence. In 1461, she revised her coat of arms to include theroyal arms of England, hinting that her husband had been a rightful king. When Edward marriedElizabeth Woodville, he built new queen's quarters for her and let his mother remain in the queen's quarters in which she had been living.
In 1469, her nephewRichard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, father-in-law of her sonsGeorge andRichard, rebelled against Edward IV. She visitedSandwich, possibly trying to reconcile the parties. When the rebellion failed the first time, she invited Edward and George to London to reconcile them. Peace did not last long, and in the forthcoming war, she still tried to make peace between her sons.
Edward IV was briefly overthrown by Warwick and Margaret of Anjou, and for about six months (October 1470 – April 1471),Henry VI was restored to the throne. The breach between Edward and his brother George was apparently never really healed; indeed, George was executed for treason in theTower of London on 18 February 1478. Edward IV died suddenly on 9 April 1483, leaving two sons aged 12 and 9, the elder one known to history as KingEdward V. Cecily Neville's youngest son Richard, their uncle, was appointed their protector by Edward's will, but he had them placed in the Tower of London, as it was custom for Kings awaiting their coronation; their fate is still a matter of dispute. A subsequent enquiry found that Edward IV's marriage toElizabeth Woodville had been invalid. The so-calledPrinces in the Tower were thus declared illegitimate by Act of Parliament in 1484 and their uncle Richard crownedRichard III on 6 July 1483.
Duchess Cecily was on good terms with Richard's wife LadyAnne Neville (her grandniece in addition to being her daughter-in-law), with whom she discussed religious works such as the writings ofMechtilde of Hackeborn.[3]
Richard's reign was brief; he was defeated and killed on 22 August 1485 at theBattle of Bosworth by the leader of the Lancastrian party,Henry Tudor, who immediately assumed the throne as King Henry VII. Thus Cecily's husband and four sons had all died by 1485, although two of her daughters,Elizabeth andMargaret, still lived. On 18 January 1486, Cecily's granddaughter,Elizabeth of York, eldest daughter of Edward IV, married Henry VII and became Queen of England. Her great-grandsonArthur was born that same year, whereas her great-granddaughterMargaret was born in 1489 and great-grandsonHenry in 1491, all before she died. Duchess Cecily devoted herself to religious duties and her reputation for piety comes from this period.
The Duchess died on 31 May 1495 and was buried in the tomb with her husband Richard and their son Edmund at theChurch of St Mary and All Saints, Fotheringhay, Northamptonshire, with a papalindulgence. All subsequent English and later British monarchs, beginning withHenry VIII, are descendants of Elizabeth of York, and therefore of Cecily Neville.
"Cecill wife unto the right noble Prince Richard late Duke of Yorke" made her will on 1 April 1495. It was proved at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury on 27 August of the same year.[4]
Her twelve[5] children withRichard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, were as follows:
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Cecily Neville as the Duchess of York is a principal character inShakespeare's playThe Tragedy of King Richard III. She is portrayed as having deep affection for her dead sons George and Edward, but is cold and unloving to Richard, to whom she refers as a "false glass that grieves me when I see my shame in him." Because Richard is depicted as ahunchback, the Duchess seems to hate him for his deformity and for his difficult birth, which several characters in the play gossip about. After Richard has done away with thePrinces in the Tower, his mother turns against him completely, cursing him with the damning words: "Bloody thou art, Bloody will be thy end!" She has been portrayed by many noted actresses, includingElinor Aickin,Eleanor Bron,Violet Carson (forAn Age of Kings in 1960),Annette Crosbie (forBBC Shakespeare in 1983),Helen Haye (inLaurence Olivier's1955 film),Anne Jeffreys, and, in the1995 film starringIan McKellen,Dame Maggie Smith.
In 2013 and 2017, the Duchess is portrayed byCaroline Goodall in the television seriesThe White Queen andThe White Princess, respectively; a series based on three of the novels from theCousins' War series by authorPhilippa Gregory. In episode one, Lady Cecily's first scene is an exchange withJacquetta of Luxembourg and her daughter,Elizabeth Woodville. In this meeting, Jacquetta, as her daughter's mouthpiece, really oversteps the historical mark. The disapproving Duchess, who was known in real life as "proud Cis", is too easily overcome by her social inferiors when they whip out her apparent "secret" affair with a French archer and Elizabeth commands that she bow before her. Lost for words, she is silenced within minutes, almost cowed by them. While contemporary notions of "courtesy" dictated extreme forms of submission to the queen, this is a Lady Cecily straight from the pages of a novel rather than the actual proud aristocrat who asserted her own right to rule.[10]
In 2016, Neville was portrayed byJudi Dench in theBBC television mini-seriesThe Hollow Crown: The War of the Roses, in the third episode, which is based onWilliam Shakespeare's play,Richard III.
Sharon Kay Penman's historical novelThe Sunne in Splendour portrays Neville relatively accurately to the historical record, as the proud matriarch of the York family and a loving but stern mother to all her children. The book heavily focuses on her disdain for Elizabeth Woodville, as well as her attempts to reconcile the various feuds between her sons.
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