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Lancaster and York
The Quarrel of York and Neville; Part 1

The Quarrel of York and Neville; Part 1

Thus the next period of the war, from 1464 to 1471, covers the alienation of the house of Neville from the house of York, sees the alienation turn into open enmity, and ends with the death of the Kingmaker and the second triumph of Edward IV - this time over a Neville-Lancaster coalition.

As soon as Edward IV found the Nevilles were no longer useful, he perceived how dangerous they were. He set himself to break free from their control, and began by delivering a snub to Warwick. He allowed him to busy himself over negotiating a marriage for him with a French princess (Bona of Savoy, sister to Louis XI's queen). Edward must have smiled at the diligence Warwick displayed, since he was, as a matter of fact, already secretly married to a lady of no high rank, Elizabeth Woodville, widow of a Lancastrian knight, Sir John Grey. When the news was at last revealed by the king, Warwick was left to swallow the snub as best he could. This was not all. Edward followed it up by promoting all his wife's relations. The Woodvilles were to rise as a counterpoise to the Nevilles, and by the same means - royal favours and politic marriages. In 1467 the breach became open. George Neville, the Archbishop of York, was dismissed from the Chancellorship, and Lord Rivers, tin: quern's lather, put in his place; then the king persuaded the Duchess of Exeter to break off her intended match with Warwick's nephew, and marry instead John Grey, the queen's eldest son. To complete Warwick's disgrace, the king sent him oversea to prepare a match for his sister, Margaret of York, with a French prince, and, directly he was out of the way, betrothed her to the son of the chief enemy of France, the Duke Burgundy.

Once more we observe how completely the politics of the time are marriage politics. Each side strives by success in marriage to win wealth and estates, because estates and wealth mean retainers and military power; and in days when men of noble family so often died in battle or on the scaffold there were plenty of marriageable and wealthy widows. No match is too sordid, so long as it be profitable; witness John Woodville, aged twenty-two, marrying the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, old enough to he his grandmother; witness, again, Warwick's counterstroke to Edward's exalting of the Woodvilles. He tempted George of Clarence, the king's brother, into prospective treason by offering the hand of his own daughter, heiress of his estates, Isabel Neville; and Clarence accepted the bribe.

Chronology

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