Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick

Born in 1428, the son of the Earl of Salisbury, Richard Neville became the most powerful noble of his time, and was dubbed the ‘Kingmaker’ as he played a large part in deposing Henry VI and assisting Edward IV’s efforts to gain the crown. When Warwick fell out with Edward (over the latter’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville), he then restored Henry VI to the throne, and imprisoned Edward in Warwick Castle for a short time in 1469. He was defeated by Edward at the Battle of Barnet in 1471, and killed.

 

Richard married Anne Beauchamp, daughter of the Earl of Warwick, and when the Earl’s son and granddaughter both died in the 1440’s, Richard succeeded to the title of Earl of Warwick and also gained huge amounts of land, and of course Warwick Castle. His daughters, Isabel and Anne, married Edward IV’s two brothers, George, duke of Clarence, and Richard, duke of Gloucester (later Richard III).

 

Warwick Castle in the English midlands is on one of the largest and most magnificent castles in the country, and it was a symbol of the power and wealth of the Beauchamp family who added greatly to it in the 14th century.

 

After Warwick’s death, his estates passed into the custody of the Crown, and in the 1480’s, Richard III built the Bear and Clarence Towers, but these were left unfinished after his death in 1485.

 

In St Mary’s Church in Warwick is the Beauchamp Chapel, with the tomb of Richard Beauchamp, Warwick’s father-in-law. We had to plead with one of the woman ‘on duty’ in the church to open the chapel, so that we could get a closer look at the tomb, and at Richard Neville, one of the figures on the side of the tomb (the ‘weepers’) - arrowed in the photo below.