Haus Neville

Vorlage:Royal house The House of Neville (also the House of Nevill) is a noble house of early medieval origin, which was a leading force in English politics in the later middle ages. The family became one of the two major powers in northern England along with the House of Percy and played a central role in the Wars of the Roses.

Origins

The Neville family is first attested after the Norman conquest of England, during which most of the existing aristocracy of England were dispossessed and replaced by a new Norman ruling elite. However, the Nevilles' male line was of native origin, and they had probably been part of the pre-conquest aristocracy of Northumbria. The survival of such native landowning families was considerably more common in the more northerly parts of England than further south.

The family can be traced back to one Uhtred, whose son Dolfin is first attested in 1129, holding the estate of Staindrop in County Durham. This locality remained the principal seat of the family, and it was there that they built their chief residence, Raby Castle, from which they came to be commonly known as the Nevilles of Raby. Dolfin was succeeded by his son Meldred and he in turn by his son Robert, who married the Norman heiress Isabel de Neville. Their son Geoffrey inherited the estates of his mother's family as well as his father's, and adopted their surname, which was borne by his descendants thereafter. In Norman-ruled England a French surname was more prestigious and socially advantageous than an English one. Already before the Neville marriage the family was a major power in the area: "In the extent of their landed possessions this family, holding on obdurately to native names for a full hundred years after 1066, was pre-eminent among the lay proprietors within the bishopric of Durham during the twelfth century".

Raby Castle located in County Durham, England.

In the 16th century the Nevilles claimed that their ancestor Uhtred was descended from Crinan of Dunkeld, ancestor of the Scottish royal House of Dunkeld. As well as prestigious ancient connections with the royal families of both England and Scotland, this claim entailed a line of descent from the Bamburgh dynasty of Earls of Northumbria, attaching the Nevilles' later power in the north to a pedigree of pre-eminence in the region stretching back at least as far as the early 10th century. Modern genealogists have put forward a variety of different speculative theories to connect Uhtred with his purported forebears, but none of these is supported by any direct evidence. They depend on improbable chronology and on the supposition that otherwise unconnected individuals with the same personal name must be the same person, despite the fact that the names in question were common in 11th-century Northumbria.

Rise to power

The family's wealth and power continued to increase over the following centuries. Their local power benefited greatly from frequent appointment to royal offices such as sheriff, castellan, justice of the forest and justice of the peace. This prominent office-holding began with Geoffrey de Neville's son Robert, in the reign of Henry III, whom Robert supported against the barons under Simon de Montfort. The family also held administrative office under the prince-bishops of Durham. Robert's grandson Ralph was one of the founding members of the Peerage of England, being summoned to sit in the House of Lords at its establishment in 1295 and thus initiating the line of Barons Neville de Raby. Service in the wars of the late 13th and 14th centuries against Scotland and later in the Hundred Years War in France was of key importance in further magnifying the family's standing. In 1334 Ralph was appointed one of the wardens of the marches, the chief officers for frontier defence, and the family habitually occupied these posts thereafter. In the mid-14th century they became involved in naval defence, holding the post of Admiral of the North. This period also saw them begin to hold high office at court: Ralph's son Ralph and grandson John, successive holders of the Barony of Raby, both served as Steward of the Royal Household, while John's brother Alexander became Archbishop of York and one of the closest advisors of Richard II.

Earls of Westmorland

The Nevilles' emergence into the highest echelon of the aristocracy received formal recognition in 1397 when John's son Ralph was created Earl of Westmorland by Richard II. By this time the Nevilles' power in the north was matched only by the Percy Earls of Northumberland, with whom they developed an acrimonious rivalry. These competing northern magnates enjoyed an exceptional degree of autonomy from royal authority, owing to the remoteness and insecurity of the region where they were established. The king, whose court was based in the south, had to rely on powerful lords from both houses to protect the border from Scottish invasion, counterbalance each other's influence, and help with general governance.

By the late 14th century the family had acquired an extensive array of estates across northern England. Besides their original powerbase in County Durham, they possessed another very large, coherent block of land in the North Riding of Yorkshire and major holdings in Cumberland and Northumberland. They also held scattered estates in Lancashire and further south in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Essex. In addition to Raby, they owned important castles at Sheriff Hutton, Middleham and Snape in northern Yorkshire and Brancepeth near Durham. The potential of these lands as a source of political power was increased by the unusually dense concentration of the family's northern estates, creating a large expanse of country in which the Nevilles enjoyed overwhelming, uncontested dominance.

While his father and uncles had been close to Richard II, and suffered at the hands of the Lords Appellant as a result, Earl Ralph was quick to join Henry Bolingbroke when he landed in England to overthrow Richard in 1399. Shortly after Bolingbroke's successful seizure of power and accession to the throne as Henry IV, Ralph was rewarded with a royal bride, the new king's sister Joan Beaufort. Henry continued and strengthened Richard II's line of policy in building up the landholding and strength of the Nevilles as a counter-balance to the ambitious and troublesome Percies. With Percy power weakened after the failure of the revolt of Henry "Hotspur" Percy in 1403, the ascendancy of the Nevilles in the north reached its zenith.

The Wars of the Roses

While increasing the political standing of the Nevilles, the royal marriage also led to a serious split in the family. Earl Ralph had previously been married to Margaret de Stafford, and the earldom of Westmorland descended through his son by this marriage. However, he favoured his sons by his second marriage, who received the bulk of the family lands on his death, leading to bitter disputes over the inheritance and lasting estrangement between the Nevilles of Raby descended from Margaret Stafford and the Nevilles of Middleham descended from Joan Beaufort. In addition to this inheritance, Ralph's eldest son by Joan, Richard Neville, acquired the earldom of Salisbury by marriage to its heiress, while the latter's son Richard became Earl of Warwick by the same means.

Salisbury and Warwick became the most important supporters of the Yorkist pretender to the throne Richard of York during the early stages of the Wars of the Roses. Salisbury's sister Cecily had married York and became the mother of kings Edward IV and Richard III. Salisbury was killed along with York at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, but Warwick helped York's son Edward, Earl of March, to oust Henry VI and gain the throne as Edward IV a few months later. Known as "Warwick the Kingmaker" he became the power behind the throne in Edward's regime, but the two men fell out, and after unsuccessful attempts to reduce Edward to a puppet, Warwick defected to the side of the exiled Lancastrians. This alliance between old Lancastrians and disaffected Yorkists briefly restored Henry VI to the throne in 1470, but Edward IV soon counter-attacked successfully and Warwick was killed at the Battle of Barnet in 1471, together with his brother John Neville, Marquess of Montagu. Their estates were confiscated and formed the core of the colossal agglomeration of northern lands acquired by Edward's brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, the future Richard III.

Reflecting the estrangement between the two branches of the family, the Raby Nevilles led by Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland had sided with the Lancastrians from the outset. Westmorland's brother John, Baron Neville was killed in the Lancastrian defeat at the Battle of Towton in 1461. The earl himself emerged from the wars unscathed, but the loss of most of the ancestral estates through their inheritance by the Middleham Nevilles and the subsequent downfall of that branch of the family left the Nevilles a much diminished force.

Later history

The regional power of the northern magnates, already severely weakened by the losses suffered in the Wars of the Roses, was sharply curtailed by the increasing strength of central government in the late 15th and 16th centuries. In 1569 the Nevilles and Percies buried their traditional rivalry to undertake the Revolt of the Northern Earls, an attempt to overthrow Elizabeth I and replace her with the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots. The rebellion was a fiasco, and the Earl of Westmorland, Charles Neville, fled into exile abroad. He was attainted in his absence, losing his title, and left no male descendants, thus extinguishing the senior Neville line.

However, a junior branch of the family survived, descended from one of the first Earl's sons by Joan Beaufort and holding the title Baron Bergavenny. They would later be raised to the status of Earls and then Marquesses of Abergavenny. This line still continues; the present head of the family is Christopher Nevill, 6th Marquess of Abergavenny.

Titles

Title	Held	Designation and details
Baron Neville de Raby	1295–1571	created in the Peerage of England, during the reign of Edward I for Ralph Neville. Merged with the title Earl of Westmorland. Attainted in 1571.
Earl of Westmorland	1397–1571	created in the Peerage of England by Richard II for Ralph Neville, 4th Baron Neville de Raby. Attainted in 1571.
Earl of Salisbury	1428–1471	Richard Neville the son of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, married Alice Montacute the heiress of Thomas Montacute, 4th Earl of Salisbury and inherited the title.
Baron Latymer	1432–1577	created in the Peerage of England, by writ in 1432 when George Nevill, the son of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland was summoned to Parliament.
Baron Bergavenny	1447–1938	created in the Peerage of England, by writ in 1447 when Edward Nevill, the son of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland was summoned to Parliament. For a time held by the Earl and then Marquess of Abergavenny.
Earl of Warwick	1449–1471	Richard Neville, the son of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, married Anne Beauchamp, the heriess of Richard de Beauchamp, 13th Earl of Warwick and became earl of Warwick jure uxoris.
Earl of Kent	1461–1463	William Neville the son of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, created Earl of Kent in the Peerage of England by Edward IV.

Sources

References

• Offler, Hilary S., Durham Episcopal Charters 1071-1152 (Gateshead 1968)
• Offler, Hilary S., 'FitzMeldred, Neville and Hansard', North of the Tees - studies in medieval British history (Aldershot 1996), XIII
• Round, John H., Feudal England - historical studies on the eleventh and twelfth centuries (London 1895, 3rd ed. London 1964)
• Wagner, Anthony, Pedigree and Progress - essays in the genealogical interpretation of history (London and Chichester 1975)
• Wagner, Anthony: [http://books.google.com/books?id=xv0cAAAAYAAJ&q=crinan+neville&dq=crinan+neville&pgis=1 English Ancestry]. Oxford University Press, 1961. 
• Wagner, Anthony: [http://books.google.com/books?id=ubXnWRMt6uoC&dq=neville+percy+%22northern+england%22&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Roses]. ABC CLIO, 2001, ISBN 1-85109-358-3. 
• Collins, Arthur: [http://books.google.com/books?id=x1I5AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA151&dq=crinan+neville Peerage of England, Volume 5]. F. C. and J. Rivington, 1982. 
• Young, Charles R., The Making of the Neville Family in England 1166-1400 (Woodbridge 1996)

External links

• http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/NEVILLE1.htm