CECILY NEVILLE Duchess of York | The woman who survived the Wars of the Roses | The mother of Kings

hi history lovers and welcome or welcome back to the channel where i bring you new videos every week on all aspects of the past today on history calling we're looking at the first half of the life of cecily neville duchess of york the woman who survived the wars of the roses from beginning to end and who is most often remembered as the mother of kings edward iv and richard iii this is a teal of an exceptionally well-connected lady who is part of one of the most dysfunctional royal families england has ever seen the plantagenets i'll take you through her child marriage her life in england france and ireland and the many ups and downs she experienced as she found herself sometimes at the center of par and almost queen of england and had others captured and possibly assaulted after her husband and eldest sons were forced to abandon her to fend for herself the video will take you up to the dramatic events of december 1460 when cecily's whole life was pulled apart by a tragic and dangerous loss which left her in perhaps the most vulnerable position of her life as the duchess's experiences were so heavily shaped by the dynastic politics of the day and the lead up to and beginning of the wars of the roses this video will be too and as we go along i'll do my best to explain in a similar manner as it's reasonable the major players and events in this long-running conflict [Music] [Music] this video is the first in a series looking at the lives of the women of the wars of the roses make sure you're subscribed with notifications switched on so that you don't miss the rest of the videos and indeed all my other uploads you can also follow me on instagram where my username is history calling there's a link for that in the description box below along with links to some books documentaries and tv shows about cecily's life cecily neville was born on the 3rd of may 1415 possibly at ruby castle we knew little about her childhood but she was part of a very large and blended family her mother joan beaufort had first been married to robert ferrers by whom she had two surviving daughters she then married cecily's father ralph neville earl of westmoreland who already had either nine children by his first wife margaret stafford together ralph and joan had 14 additional children of whom cecily was one of the youngest records are a little fuzzy given how long ago this all happened so that's why i'm not able to give you exact numbers of children all the time or be certain about their birth order but cecily had at least 23 siblings some of whom died young and are therefore omitted from this family tree she also had some illustrious ancestors and other relations and to better understand the conflict known as the wars of the roses we need to grasp this larger and complicated family tree by necessity this is a simplified version which shows mostly lines of descent without a lot of the marriages which facilitated them and omits the ways in which some people were related multiple times over but it's enough to get us started cecily's mother joan was the daughter of john of gaunt duke of lancaster and catherine swinford john himself was the third son of edward iii john and catherine had not been married at the time of june's birth however and it was only after the death of john's second wife constance that he and catherine were finally wed their children were then retroactively legitimized in 1396 though they and their descendants were barred from inheriting the throne one of john of god's other legitimate children was henry bolingbrook leader henry iv and father of cecily's half-cousin henry v who was on the throne at the time of her birth in late 1423 cecily's parents became the wards of a wealthy and orphaned 12 year old boy named richard duke of york like cecily richard was descended from edward iii his father the earl of cambridge was jung buford's first cousin but his dissent was in many respects much stronger if we come back to the family tree for a minute and make some further additions to it you can see that he was descended from edward twice over being the old king's great-great-great-grandson through lionel duke of clarence but also his grandson via edmond duke of york his line also wasn't barred from the throne in the way that the offspring of the lancaster swinford marriage were her parents acquisition of young richard's worship was a pivotal moment in cecily's life because within a year they had married her off to him at just nine years old cecily who was born in lancaster and remember was nigh the duchess of york cecily's father died in 1425 but her mother joan continued as her young son-in-law's guardian as he was still a minor in 1430 the teenage duchess of york likely accompanied her husband to france to attend the french coronation of young henry vi whose father henry v had conquered france and in 1432 richard emerged from his warship to take his place as one of the wealthiest landowners in england the couple were now able to set up an independent household and their many residences included the imposing ludlow castle in shropshire and fathering hay castle in northamptonshire where their descendant mary queen of scots would be executed in 1587. see my video on her death for more details the yorks remained childless for many years which is strange if we assume they were cohabiting by 1432 when cecily was 16 or 17 and we knew that they went on to have a large family there are a few things which might help to explain this first cecily may have had miscarriages we don't know about and second the couple seem to have been separated for long periods of time in 1435 richard was appointed as henry vi lieutenant and governor general in france and cecily's biographer jl liam smith whose book i'll leave linked below argues that he went to france in mid-1536 without his wife noting that the story that she had a daughter named joan who was conceived in that country in 1437 is in fact untrue he didn't return to england until november 1437 and liam smith posits that even when they were both in that country richard may have been in london while cecily remained on their estates it was the 11th of august 1439 when their first known child finally arrived a daughter named anne she was followed by a brother henry in february 1441 but he died as a baby in june 1441 the duke and duchess embarked for france where they would spend the next five years as richard had once again been appointed the king's lieutenant and governor general the future edward iv was born at ryan in april 1442 followed by edmund barely a year later there have long been rumors that edward was the result of a liaison between cecily and a lowly archer i'm not going to get into this story here but if it interests you check out my video looking at the evidence for this accusation in detail it's linked on screen and below their daughter elizabeth was born in 1444 followed by margaret in 1446 william in 1447 john in 1448 though both these boys died as infants george later duke of clarence in 1449 thomas in around 1450 again he died young the future of richard iii in 1452 and ursula in 1455 who again died early not all of these children were born in france for richard and cecily's lives took them to several different countries they entertained the new queen of england margaret van gaal on her way from france to her new homeland in 1445 and returned to england themselves later that year where lane smith has noted they appear to have been on good terms with the king and queen despite questions over york's expenditure whilst he was away their sons edward and edmund were honored with the titles of earl of march and rutland respectively for instance despite being only young children and cecily and margaret exchanged letters and gifts during the 1440s in 1447 york was appointed lord lieutenant of ireland some have seen this as a form of political exile and certainly for other lords lieutenant in later centuries it was viewed as such but for york it was a title that earlier generations of his family had held and as he was allowed to appoint a deputy to do the actual work much of the time he and cecily didn't always have to be resident in dublin castle where the english administration of the island operated from nevertheless they did travel there in 1449 arriving on the 6th of july and staying for a little over a year and their son george was born in dublin this might be a good place to pause for a moment and consider what kind of marriage these two had obviously it had been arranged when they were children and so it wasn't a love match but as far as we can tell it did develop into a strong relationship they obviously spent plenty of time together to produce so many children and though events sometimes conspire to separate them they seem to have tried to stay together as much as possible with cecily usually traveling to foreign lands with richard there's no real evidence that they were unfaithful to each other either and this seems to be an example of the kind of successful medieval marriage that so many other couples paired up by their families could only dream of while they were in ireland henry vi government was facing major problems in just a few years almost all of england's french territories were lost sea of calais this was partly because of an agreement made during the marriage negotiations for the union with margaret of one zhu by the king's right hand man the duke of suffolk who had agreed to surrender large areas of land including ma it was also caused by the defeat of cecily's maternal cousin edmund duke of somerset by the french king at rouen in october 1449. the navy was weak french ships were able to attack the english coast and the economy which was already experiencing a decades-long downturn known as the great slump took a further pounding as much of the country's trade with france collapsed on top of this many soldiers hadn't been paid for their service but when the bishop of chichester went to pay them he was murdered in portsmouth on the 9th of january 1450. although the difficulties in france were caused in large part by the ongoing economic downturn and the fact that the french were simply a superior military force parliament blamed suffolk for the problems the king though not without his good points was weak indecisive and ineffectual and the duke was the one who was largely managing the country by this point now he find himself accused of colluding with the french and of financial and governmental mismanagement at home henry agreed to punish him but suffolk was seized by sailors on his way out of england and murdered on the 2nd of may that see a month a rebellion under the direction of a man named john keard who went under the alias john mortimer and pretended to be a cousin of york's was picking up steam the rebels demanded that those amongst the king's advisers who they perceived to be corrupt be brought to justice and named four lords including york who they said should be the king's principal councillors thanks to henry's bungled handling of the situation keith and his followers managed to storm london and kill several leading officials before they were eventually put down and or pardoned at the start of july their leader was killed in the process of being taken prisoner it was chaos and the rebels naming of york as one of their preferred royal advisors combined with kids use of the name mortimer which was york's mother surname raised suspicions that cecily's husband had had something to do with the revolt it was in this atmosphere that the pair arrived home in the autumn of 1450. and it was during the ensuing decade that york's claim to the crown became of increasing importance to understand this claim let's turn to yet another family tree edward iii had died in 1377 and as his eldest son edward prince of wales known as the black prince was already dead the throne went to the prince's son who became richard ii richard had no children and according to the rules of primogenitor his heir was the descendant of edward iii's second surviving son lionel you may never have heard of this heir whose name was edmund earl of march because he never inherited the throne instead in 1399 richard ii was deposed by his first cousin henry bowlingbrook who was the son of edward iii's third son john of gaunt bolingbrook became henry iv and richard ii died soon afterwards in rather fishy circumstances henry the fourth son became henry v then his son became henry vi in 1422 at the age of just nine months henry as we've seen married margaret of von zhu but as of 1450 they were still childless this is where richard and cecily come in edmund earl of march died without issue passing his claim to the throne to his sister and mortimer and she had married her distant cousin richard earl of cambridge another descendant of edward iii this time through his fourth son edmund duke of york together they were the parents of richard duke of york and his mortimer descent meant he had a very good claim to the throne better in fact than henry vi if we only consider their bloodlines as we know york would then go on to marry his own distant cousin cecily neville at the start of the 1450s richard attempted generally unsuccessfully to acquire greater power in the henrikhan regime he clashed with the duke of somerset who despite the disaster at ruon had become the new favorite now that suffolk was dead and who had the support of queen margaret in may 1451 one of richard's servants thomas young demanded that york be recognized as heir to the throne but this attempt field and young and some other york servants were imprisoned as historian john watts has pointed out it's not really clear what the duke's exact grievances or future plans were at this point did he resent somerset's par especially after the defeat at ruon was he angry over the huge amounts of money he was owed by the government even though other magnets had fared badly during the rein as well or was he just acting on impulse we simply aren't sure while all of this was going on cecily was it appears staying on their various estates most of the time we know that she was also at warwick castle in september 1451 in order to stand as godmother to her brother's granddaughter isabel neville who would one day also be her daughter-in-law and that she and richard spent christmas at ludlow the following month richard went to london again to protest at the treatment of william oldhall this was the speaker of the house of commons and richard's former chamberlain and he had been forcibly removed from sanctuary york also demanded the arrest of somerset who had masterminded the seizing of old home instead after going to meet the king at blackheath richard found himself taken prisoner and made to swear allegiance to henry at saint paul's cathedral in march 1452. and promised not to rebel again when he was released he returned to his family at ludlow by september the yorks were back at fathering hay where the boy who would become richard iii was born on the 2nd of october the duke of york was now in the king's bad graces and lost the lordly tendency of ireland in may 1453. margaret of anjou was also pregnant at last and her child would displace him as heir to the throne cecily tried to use her relationship with the queen to improve her husband's lot writing to margaret and asking her quote to be a tender and gracious mean unto the highness of our sovereign lord for the favor and benevolence of his hand to be showed unto my lord and husband though queen and duchess did meet up during the summer of 1453 we don't know what they discussed and in any case henry was soon beyond granting any favors in august of that year he suffered a complete mental collapse possibly brought on by the news of massive english losses at castillon in france he was left in a catatonic state unable to govern and oblivious to the arrival of his son prince edward on the 13th of october there were further problems in the north of england as fighting broke out between powerful branches of the neville and percy families who were both major landholders there these disasters for henry proved highly advantageous for the yorks however with the king now completely unable to lead or even give his ascent to the policies of others alternative arrangements had to be put in place and the duke of york found himself called back to the capitol to attend a great council meeting in westminster no longer the heir to the throne but still one of the most powerful experienced and well-connected magnates in the land it was thought he could quell the problems in the north cecily was very much in the royal fold as well attending the churching of margaret of anjou on the 18th of november to mark the queen's re-emergence into society after childbirth somerset was locked up in the tower of london and though queen margaret wanted to be regent for her son it was ultimately decided that richard should be made protector and defender of the realm he officially took on the rule on the 27th of march 1454 with cecily's brother richard earl of salisbury as his chancellor he held the post for almost a year and chronicler john bennett said of him that during that time he governed the whole realm of england most nobly and in the best way his time at the top wasn't to last however henry vi recovered his senses at the end of the year the protectorate was terminated on the 9th of february 1455. somerset was released and salisbury was removed from office within months the tensions between york and somerset came to a final messy head with the assistance of salisbury and his son richard earl of warwick known to history as the king maker york clashed with henry and somerset's forces at saint albans on the 22nd of may 1455 where somerset was killed along with lord clifford and henry percy earl of northumberland this is traditionally seen as the start of the wars of the ruses it wasn't actually called the wars of the ruses at the time however this name was bestowed on it later in honor of the fact that one of the badges used by the house of lancaster roughly speaking that's the descendants of john of gond duke of lancaster was a red rose while just one of the badges used by the house of york was a white rose of course the whole situation both in 1455 and later was complicated by the fact that not everyone who was technically a lancaster actually fought for the lancastrian king henry vi and not everyone who was technically a york was always on the side of the yorks cecily remember was actually born into one house and married to the other while her son george and nephew warwick the king maker would later flip-flop from one side to the other as it suited them that's for a later video however for now let's head back to 1455 when york was once more in the ascendant henry may have had another mental collapse near the end of the year for the duke was again named protector in november but this lasted only until the 25th of february 1456 after which richard and cecily left london relations between the yorks and the king and his supporters remained tense but there were attempts to at least make a show of reconciliation one of the more notable of these was an event in london in march 1458 known as the love day at saint paul's this involved the leading members of the lancastrian and yorkist regimes walking hand in hand through the streets to demonstrate their supposed unity and put the events at saint albans behind them by now queen margaret was a major political force and represented much of the power behind the throne and so she walked with the duke of york whatever the participants intentions may have been within months hostilities had resumed and in june 1459 york and his supporters were indicted for treason the situation in england now deteriorated quickly and would lead to one of the greatest personal disasters of cecily's life at first things went in the yorkists favor at the battle of bloorheath on the 23rd of september 1459 cecily's brother the earl of salisbury defeated the lancastrian forces less than three weeks later though the tables were turned and cecily found herself in a very dangerous situation on the 12th of october as york salisbury and warwick were preparing to engage the king's forces on ludford bridge near ludlow castle one of their military allies sir andrew trollope defected to the king's side with his men york had his two eldest sons edward and edmund with him while cecily sheltered in the castle with their daughter margaret and sons george and richard her older daughters weren't present as they were already married knowing they had been betrayed and couldn't win the battle york told edward to flee to calais with his neville relations right away while he took edmond to ireland cecily and her other children were left to fend for themselves though this course of action had perhaps been agreed with her husband beforehand should events turn against him the following day henry vi and his troops seized the castle and took cecily and her young children prisoner what exactly happened to cecily at this point is unclear some have argued that she was physically assaulted by henry's troops others that the castle was plundered but that she was not harmed she was soon placed in the custody of her sister and duchess of buckingham most likely at max stoke castle according to j.l linsmith her husband was attended by parliament the following month and in december she came before king henry himself and pleaded for mercy for richard herself and her children most of the york's homes were forfeited and granted to henry supporters but the sum of 1 000 marks per year and a number of houses were set aside to provide for cecily and her youngest offspring they remained with her sister until the summer of 1460 when events contrived to improve the york's position once again by early july 1460 warwick salisbury and cecily's son edward earl of march had returned to england joined forces and marched to northampton to meet henry's army in yet another battle this took place on the 10th of july and the yorkists were victorious cecily's brother-in-law the duke of buckingham in whose household she was being kept was killed king henry was taken prisoner queen margaret fled north and cecily's freedom was made official within weeks she and her younger children were reunited with her son edward who had them lodged in southwark she left the children there in september in order to finally rejoin her husband who was back in england too at hereford and who had decided to claim the throne for himself cecily it seemed was about to become queen of england the yorks traveled to london in great pomp as though they were already the royal couple richard took custody of henry but couldn't persuade parliament to depose the king and recognize him as the new sovereign instead on the 31st of october a compromise known as the act of accord was reached henry would retain his throne but york and his descendants would be recognized as the heirs cutting the little prince of wheels out of his inheritance completely with henry under his control richard now turned his attention towards dealing with queen margaret and her son taking his son edmund and his brother-in-law the earl of salisbury with him he traveled to the city of york on the 9th of december what happened next was a catastrophe for them for cecily and for the house of york the duke had set up base in sandal castle yet for some reason he took his troops and left the safety of its walls on the 30th of december we still don't know why he did this but he may have underestimated the size of the opposing lancastrian force he was promptly overwhelmed by the enemy and killed at the battle of wakefield by troops under the command of the second duke of somerset who had never been reconciled to his father's death at saint albans the 17 year old edmund was killed too though the exact sequence of events which led to his death is unclear one story is that as he fled the battle site he was pursued by lord clifford another man whose father had died at albans and killed on wakefield bridge in retribution for the death of clifford senior salisbury was executed shortly afterwards too the heads of all three and a number of others were severed from their bodies and placed on the walls of the city of york the dukes had a paper crown put upon it mocking his pretensions to the throne cecily was now in a nightmare position her husband one of her children and her brother were all dead and their bodies desecrated margaret of anjou was on her way to london backed by scottish troops the duchess's 18 year old son edward was in shrewsbury with his own army preparing to pick up the fight where his father had left it and he was being pursued by another army led by henry vi stepfather and half brother owen and jasper tudor cecily was still in london with her younger children and her nephew the earl of warwick and she could have fled across the channel instead she opted to send the two boys she had with her george and richard to mainland europe for their own safety while she remained in the english capital at considerable risk to her own life to see what would become of her eldest son the situation looked bleak indeed and it's on this historical cliffhanger that i'm going to leave you for today if you want to know what happened next make sure to come back for next week's video and in the meantime give this one a like subscribe to the channel and let me know in the comments below if you think richard and cecily should have been king and queen of england if you can't wait for some more plantagenet history why not try one of these videos to keep you going whatever you choose please enjoy and until next time keep learning

Channel: History Calling

Views: 111,768

Keywords: CECILY NEVILLE Duchess of York, CECILY NEVILLE, The woman who survived the Wars of the Roses, what were the wars of the roses, the women of the wars of the roses, what was the cousins' war, understanding the wars of the roses, The mother of Kings, how to take a throne, how to win a throne, a king under threat, the wife of henry vi, How to build a royal dynasty, how to lose a throne, how to win a crown, who won the wars of the roses, how to lose a crown, Richard Duke of York

Id: 2yRxDJKronM

Length: 27min 24sec (1644 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 04 2022