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| Anne Neville |
If, like me, you are an
avid reader of historical novels you may be forgiven for thinking that we know
a great deal about Anne Neville, the youngest daughter of Richard Neville, The Duke
of Warwick, known historically as The Kingmaker.
I’m trusting
the picture on the left does not do her justice but it seems to be the best we
have of her. In truth, the details we have about Anne are very few and her
movements can only be traced via the records of the men who lived their lives
around her. Her thoughts and feelings can only be guessed at although, what
information we do have of her, suggests her life was one of tremendous upheaval
and suffering.
She was little
more than a pawn, married off at around the age of fourteen to the Lancastrian
heir, Edward, son of Henry VI, to seal Warwick’s alliance with Margaret of
Anjou when he turned against his king, Edward IV. At around the same time, and
to the same end, her sister, Isabel, was married to George, the Duke of
Clarence, disloyal younger brother of the king.
What Anne herself made of her
first marriage we shall never know, her feelings were not important enough to
warrant recording or even speculating upon but she would have been raised to loath
and distrust the Lancastrian faction and, to find herself suddenly part of it,
must have been greatly disturbing.
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