Table Of ContentCecily Neville
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Cecily Neville
Mother of Richard lll
John Ashdown-Hill
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First published in Great Britain in 2018 by
PEN & SWORD HISTORY
An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
Yorkshire - Philadelphia
Copyright © John Ashdown-Hill
ISBN 9781526706324
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asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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There are many ways of regarding, for instance, a historical fact. Take an example:
many books have been written on your Mary Queen of Scots, representing her
as a martyr, as an unprincipled and wanton woman, as a rather simple-minded
saint, as a murderess and an intriguer, or again as a victim of circumstances and
fate! One can take one’s choice.
Agatha Christie, Five Little Pigs, London 1943 (2013), p. 118.
Πάνω στην άμμο την ξανθή
γράψαμε τ’ όνομά της.
Ωραία που φύσηξε ο μπάτης
και σβήστηκε η γραφή.
Γιώργος Σεφέρης· Άρνηση
(On the golden sand
we wrote her name.
The lovely breeze blew
and wiped out the writing.
Giorgos Seferis: Denial – trans. J.A-H)
Dedicated in honour of Our Lady of Walsingham, whose Norfolk shrine was
patronised by Cecily and her husband.
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Contents
Introduction Confronting the problems ix
Chapter 1 Cecily’s Family Background 1
Chapter 2 Cecily’s Childhood and Marriage 15
Chapter 3 Cecily’s List of Children 34
Chapter 4 Wife and Mother in France 42
Chapter 5 Wife and Mother in Ireland 58
Chapter 6 The End of Maternity 72
Chapter 7 Through the Menopause, into Custody 86
Chapter 8 The Blue Velvet Carriage to Bereavement 94
Chapter 9 The First Reign of Edward IV 102
Chapter 10 Cecily’s Sons in Conflict 118
Chapter 11 The Blaybourne Bastardy Myth 130
Chapter 12 The Second Reign of Edward IV 139
Chapter 13 The Accession of Richard III 166
Chapter 14 The Reign of Henry VII 177
Chapter 15 Cecily’s Bequests, and what they Reveal 188
Chapter 16 Cecily’s DNA and her Dental Record 201
Appendix 1 Alphabetical List of the Manors granted
by Edward IV to his mother in 1461 208
Appendix 2 Members of the Entourage of Cecily Neville 213
Appendix 3 The Fifteenth-century Abbots of Colchester 228
Appendix 4 Lucy Fraser, ‘Synopsis of Cicely; or the
Rose of Raby. An Historical Novel (1795)’ 229
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viii Cecily Neville
Appendix 5 The allegiance of Cecily’s siblings in the
1450s and beyond 231
Appendix 6 Where Cecily appears to have been living or
staying on specific dates 233
Acknowledgements 235
Endnotes 236
Bibliography 273
Index 282
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Introduction
Confronting the problems
T
here are a number of problems in presenting the subject of this
book. Two key issues concern her name and her appearance. Those
will be dealt with here, in this introduction, before the story of her
life commences. Other controversial issues include her moral reputation, her
political loyalties, the significance of her Beaufort relationship on her mother’s
side, where she was on specific dates, what she thought, what she did, and who
were the people whom she patronised and what was their political loyalty. Even
the birthdates of herself, her siblings, her husband and many of her children –
though the alleged dates are often glibly published as stated facts – are uncertain.
Each of those much more complex issues will be explored as far as possible in
the subsequent chapters of this study.
The main problem is the lack of surviving documentary evidence relating
directly to the Duchess of York. Intriguingly, a recent book that claims to be
about her bears in its introduction the author’s statement to the effect that she
considered ‘the time was right to recreate Cecily’s story’.[1] As we shall see, the
Patent Rolls of the young cousin of the Duchess, King Henry VI, mention her
name on only two occasions. Although we know that she sent letters, not much
of her correspondence survives. And those letters the text of which does survive
are sometimes not personal in terms of their content, but deal with matters of
business. It is therefore very hard to get at the sender’s feelings.
For the first fifteen or so years of her life she was controlled by her parents –
probably particularly by her mother. Precisely how she fitted into her family is
unclear. So too is the question of how she related to her siblings. But an attempt
will be offered in Chapter 1 to suggest the sequence of her siblings’ births.
From this will emerge the identity of the sisters to whom she was probably most
closely related in terms of her age.
Subsequently, for about thirty years the Duchess of York was a wife
and mother. Where she was – and when – as a wife, and what precisely she
was doing, are facts which often remain unknown, even though previously
published accounts tend to claim that she frequently lived – and gave birth
– at Fotheringhay Castle. In reality her location and her actions presumably
depended upon the whereabouts and actions of her husband. Certainly her
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