Katherine Neville, Duchess of Norfolk and her toy boy.

Joan BeaufortKatherine Neville, daughter of Ralph Neville  earl of Westmorland and his second wife Joan Beaufort, was married first to John Mowbray, 2nd Duke of Norfolk.  The pair had only one child – a boy named John.  He’s the chap who turned up late to Towton in Easter 1461 and helped the Yorkists to win.  He died in 1461and was succeeded by his son also named John – this particular Duke of Norfolk as well as being Katherine Neville’s grandson was also the one who had the on-going feud with the Paston family about Caistor Castle.

Meanwhile Katherine had been married off to Thomas Strangeways with whom she had two children; Joan and Katherine.  I posted about Katherine earlier in the week. After Strangeways died Katherine Neville married for a third time to John, Viscount Beaumont.   He was a member of the Lincolnshire gentry and a trusted Lancastrian advisor.  He was Constable of England between 1445 and 1450. It was in this capacity helped make the arrest of Good Duke Humphrey back in 1447 and he had been around for Jack Cade’s Rebellion which came about partially as a result of the disastrous French campaign. By 1460 he was part of Henry VI’s bodyguard – this position was to cost him his life  on the 10 July when the Lancastrians lost the Battle of Northampton.

The Earl of Warwick returned from Calais where he had gone after fleeing the scene of Ludford Bridge the previous year and demanded to  see the king.  This was denied him.  His army marched north from Kent whilst Henry VI’s army came south.  The Lancastrians camped at Delapre Abbey with their backs to the River Nene.  Lord Grey of Ruthin ordered his men to lay down their weapons.  It turns out that one of the reasons he changed sides was over a property dispute.  The Earl of Warwick’s men were able to get to the very heart of Henry VI’s camp where John Beaumont was killed. His death is recorded in John Stone’s Chronicle.  History also has his will which was made four years previously in 1456 – a sensible precaution given the unsettled nature of the times.

In 1465 – Katherine then aged sixty-five was provided with a new spouse by Edward IV.  Her groom was one of Elizabeth Woodville’s brothers – John, aged just nineteen.  The marriage was scandalous at the time and there are various tales told after the fall of the Woodvilles which suggest that she was not so keen on the idea. One chronicler described the whole affair as “diabolical-” though admittedly the writer William of Worcester did think that Katherine was closer to eighty than sixty. It has been suggested that this marriage was one of the straws which broke the Earl of Warwick’s loyalty to his cousin.

It all seems a bit odd when all is said and done. Katherine was aunt to both the earl of Warwick and Edward IV.  When Edward was crowned Katherine was present with Edward’s mother, Duchess Cecily of Raby, who was after all her sister. It can’t have helped that Katherine’s fourth husband was the same age as her grandson from her first marriage who doesn’t seem to have regarded the marriage favourably either – it should be remembered that his grandmother held a considerable portion of the Norfolk estates as part of her dower – which John Woodville now benefitted from.  Most historians are of the view that it all came down to providing wealth and status to the Woodville clan.  Certainly John benefitted financially from his marriage to Katherine and even gained land from William Beaumont, her step-son from her third marriage, who was as Lancastrian as his father.

John Woodville was executed in 1469 by the Earl of Warwick  and George Duke of Clarence who had joined in rebellion against Edward.  John was with his father who was also executed. History does not record Katherine Neville’s view on her bereavement.

Katherine survived until 1483 – possibly with the help of various medications prescribed by the king’s apothecary John Clark which she did not pay for – a case was presented to the Court of Common Pleas on the matter.  Robes were issued so that she could play her role in Richard III’s coronation. There is no further record of Katherine nor do we know where she is buried.

The image that I have used for the last few posts depicting Joan Beaufort with her daughters comes from the Neville Book of Hours

Kleineke, Hannes (2015) “The Medicines of Katherine, Duchess of Norfolk, 1463–71” in Medical History 2015: Oct; 59(4): 511-524  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595958/

Joan Beaufort’s descendants – Katherine Strangeways

Joan BeaufortJoan’s daughter Katherine married John Mowbray, 2nd Duke of Norfolk when she was about twelve.  He died in 1432.  Katherine then remarried to Thomas Strangeways of Castle in Yorkshire.  It can be supposed that Katherine’s second marriage which seems a bit of an odd one for a duchess to make says more about the Nevilles’ political aspirations in the north than anything else.  The Strangeways family was an important one within the Yorkshire and Durham gentry.  The name features as justice of the peace during the period- clearly the Neville family sought to create a powerful political affinity through a series of marital alliances.

Katherine (the dowager duchess of Norfolk) and Thomas had two daughters: Joan and Katherine.  I am pleased to report that there is not a great deal I wish to write about Joan. She married Sir William Willoughby of Lincolnshire – which if nothing else identifies the way in which the network of gentry and aristocratic families spread beyond county boundaries forming affiliations.

Katherine, Joan Beaufort’s grand-daughter, on the other hand was married off to Henry Grey, Baron Grey of Codnor in 1454 just before the Wars of the Roses escalated from a political feud into an actual war.  His location in Codnor,  a powerful member of Derbyshire’s gentry, reflects links between the Neville family and the wider Lancaster affinity first created by John of Gaunt – though it must have been complicated even then by the fact that Grey’s mother was a member of the Percy family- the Nevilles’ and the Percies’ feud with one another had led to the so-called Battle of Heworth Moor on 24 August 1453 when the Percy family headed by Lord Egremont attacked a Neville wedding party to celebrate the marriage of Sir Thomas Neville to Maud Stanhope. Thomas Neville, the groom, was  our Katherine Strangeways’ cousin.

Henry Grey, conflict between his own extended family and his family through marriage aside, tends to turn up in most popular accounts about the Wars of the Roses as an example of local feuding impacting on national politics.  I know that I’ve posted about him before but in all honesty I’ve never given much thought to his wife or the fact that she was the great grand-daughter of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. Essentially Grey started off as a Lancastrian – hence the marriage.  He was on the Lancastrian side at the Second Battle of St. Albans in 1461.  However, after the Battle of Towton in 1461 he swiftly made his peace with Yorkist Edward IV and thereafter entered the lists as a loyal Yorkist.

Henry Grey  was less interested in the national picture than in what was happening in his own backyard. He had his own local feud with the Vernons of Haddon Hall to keep him out of mischief and in 1467 a member of the Vernon family, Roger (he was Henry Vernon’s uncle for those of you who know these things), managed to get himself killed after a series of unfortunate events in Belper where he was a squire.  Locally it is said that there was a battle fought at Codnor between the Greys and the Vernons as a result of Roger’s death.

George, Duke of Clarence who had acquired large portions of the land in the area as part of his inheritance (remember he is descended from John of Gaunt- the Cousins War is well named) favoured the Vernon family despite the fact that they had fought against the Yorkists.  Edward IV was said to have favoured the Grey family.  In any event the Earl of Shrewsbury  eventually fined both parties and told them to stop killing one another but this was only after the Duke of Clarence had failed to get them to keep the peace and both sides had attempted to nobble the jury.

In 1471, partly as a result of the rumbling aftereffects of the death of Roger Vernon, Grey managed to get himself in even more hot water by inciting a riot in Nottingham.  Grey was summoned to London where Edward IV asked some very difficult questions.  By this stage an act had been passed trying to prevent local magnates from keeping their own bands of armed retainers – not that it seemed to have much effect.

By then it would have to be said that Henry Grey had got the hang of killing people as he turned up  for the concluding battles of the Wars of the Roses – at Barnet, Tewkesbury, Bosworth and Stoke. It was only at Stoke in 1487 that he fought for the Lancastrian cause. Edward IV had even appointed him to office in Ireland (not that it went particularly well) so it is interesting that Henry VII not only granted him land but gave him a licence to work with metals.

After Katherine died Henry Grey remarried twice more. His third wife, also and rather inconveniently named Katherine married Edward IV’s nephew William de la Pole -meaning that she was married to a man marked as a potential Yorkist contender to the throne,  taking us in one of those ever decreasing historical circles that I like so much. Though the good news for readers of this post is that Katherine Strangeways and Henry Grey didn’t have any children.

Katherine Strangeways’ mother the dowager duchess of Norfolk from her first marriage to John Mowbray would marry twice more. Both her third and fourth husbands have their part to play in the Wars of the Roses – her last marriage being described as “diabolical” by her contemporaries – guess what I’m posting about tomorrow? There are no rewards for anyone who has worked out who Katherine Neville ended up marrying or what the scandal was – but I can guarantee that some of you will exhale and think – ‘well, why didn’t she say at the start of this whole unravelling of Katherine Neville’s family?’

Weir, Alison. (2008) Britain’s Royal Families. London: Vintage Books