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Richard Neville was born in 1400 at Raby Castle in County Durham. Although he was the 3rd son (and tenth child) of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, Richard Neville was the first child to be born to Ralph's second wife, Joan Beaufort, Countess of Westmoreland. The Neville lands were primarily in Durham and Yorkshire, but both Richard II and Henry IV found the family useful to counterbalance the strength of the Percies on the Scottish Borders - hence Earl Ralph's title, granted in 1397, and his appointment as Warden of the West March in 1403. Ralph's marriage to Joan Beaufort, at a time when the distinction between royality and nobility was becoming more important can be seen as another reward, for as a grand-daughter of Edward III she was a member of the royal family.
The children of Earl Ralph's first wife had made good marriages to local nobility, but his Beaufort children married into much greater families. Three of Richard's sisters married dukes (the youngest Cecily, marrying Richard, Duke of York), and Richard himself married Alice Montague, heiress of the Earl of Salisbury. Alice had royal blood in her veins, being descended on her mother's side from Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent, grand-daughter of Edward I. Alice's father Thomas had been one of the leading English commanders in France during the latter stages of the Hundred Years War after the death of Henry V. Thomas' death at the Siege of Orleans in 1428 was a calamity for the English cause.
The date of Richard and Alice's marriage is not known , but it must have been before February 1421, when as a married couple they appeared at the coronation of Queen Katherine of France. At the time of the marriage the Salisbury inheritance was not guaranteed, as not only was Earl Thomas still alive, but in 1424 he re-married (to Alice Chaucer, grand-daughter of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer). However, this second marriage was without issue, and when Earl Thomas' uncle Richard died in 1429, Richard Neville and Alice were confirmed as Earl and Countess of Salisbury. From now on Richard Neville will be referred to as Salisbury.
Salisbury came into possession of greater estates than, as a younger son, he could reasonably have expected. Strangely, his elder half-brother John apparently agreed to many of the rights to the Neville inheritance being transferred to Joan Beaufort - Salisbury would inherit these on her death in 1440. He also gained possession of the lands and grants made jointly to Ralph and Joan. Ralph's heir (his grandson, also called Ralph) disputed the loss of his inheritance, and although Ralph junior agreed to a settlement in 1443, it was on unequal terms - Salisbury kept the great Neville possessions of Middleham and Sheriff Hutton, as well as the more recent grant of Penrith. Only Raby returned to the snior branch. The Neville-Neville dispute was later to become absorbed into the destructive Percy-Neville feud. Salisbury's marriage gained him his wife's quarter share of the Holland inheritance - ironically, his Salisbury title came with comparitively little in terms of wealth.
After his marriage (around 1420) Salisbury was given high posts in the north of England, including Warden of the Western March of Scotland 1420 - 1435. He was also Constable at the coronation of his cousin Henry VI.
However Salisbury turned to the cause of Richard, Duke of York, who made him Lord Chancellor in 1455. When King Henry tried to assert his independence and dismiss Richard as Protector, Salisbury joined him in fighting at the First Battle of St Albans, claiming that he was acting in self-defence. After the Battle of Blore Heath, in which he was notably successful, Salisbury escaped to Calais, having been specifically excluded from a royal pardon. He was beheaded the day after the Battle of Wakefield.
His alabaster effigy is in Burghfield Church in Berkshire. He was buried first at Pontefract, but his son transferred his body to the family mausoleum at Bisham Abbey and erected this effigy. It was brought to Burghfield after the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The effigy of a lady alongside him wears a headdress which is not thought to be of the right date to be his wife, but she may be one of the earlier Countesses of Salisbury buried at Bisham.
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