of the realm (Chron. ed. Davies, p. 81). In the flight of the Yorkist chiefs from Ludford on the night of 12 Oct., Salisbury made his way, with Warwick and the Earl of March, into Devonshire, and thence by sea to Guernsey and Calais, where they arrived on 2 Nov. (Gregory, p. 205; Fabyan, p. 634; Wavrin, p. 277; Chron. ed. Davies, p. 80; Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, p. 72). In the parliament which met at Coventry on 20 Nov. Salisbury, his three sons, and his wife, who was accused of compassing the king's death at Middleham on 1 Aug., and urging her husband to ‘rearing of war’ against him, were all attainted, along with York and the other Yorkist leaders at Blore Heath and Ludford (Rot. Parl. v. 349).
On 26 June 1460 Salisbury recrossed the Channel with Warwick and March, landed at Sandwich, and on 2 July entered London with them (Ellis, Letters, 3rd ser., i. 91; Chron. ed. Davies, p. 94). Warwick and March leaving London a few days after to meet the king, who had advanced from Coventry to Northampton, Salisbury was left in charge of the city with Edward Brook, lord Cobham, and laid siege to the royal garrison in the Tower (ib. p. 95; Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, p. 74; Wavrin, p. 295). When the victors of Northampton brought the captive king into London on 16 July, Salisbury rode to meet him ‘withe myche rialte’ (Chron. ed. Davies, p. 98; Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, p. 74). Salisbury does not appear prominently in the proceedings of the next four months. His attainder was removed, and he was made great chamberlain of England. When the Lancastrians concentrated in Yorkshire and ravaged the lands of York and Salisbury, the protector, taking with him his brother-in-law, left London on 9 Dec., reached Sandal Castle, by Wakefield, on the 21st, and spent Christmas there. The night after the fatal battle fought there, on 30 Dec., in which his second son, Thomas, was one of the slain, Salisbury was captured by a servant of Sir Andrew Trollope, and conveyed to Pontefract Castle. According to one account he was murdered in cold blood next day by the bastard of Exeter, his head cut off, and set up with others on one of the gates of York (Worcester, p. 775; cf. Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, p. 156). But in another version, ‘for a grete summe of money that he shuld have payed he had graunt of hys lyfe. But the commone peple of the cuntre, whych loved hym not, tooke hym owte of the castelle by violence and smote of his hed’ (Chron. ed. Davies, p. 107; cf. Monstrelet). Salisbury had made a will on 10 May 1459, ordering, among other legacies, the distribution of forty marks among poor maids at their marriages (Dugdale, i. 303; cf. Swallow, p. 146). He left Sheriff-Hutton and three neighbouring manors to his wife for life. But his nephew John, lord Neville, brother of the second Earl of Westmorland, who had fought against him at Wakefield, was rewarded for his loyalty with the office of constable of Sheriff-Hutton and Middleham Castles, along with other revenues from the Wensleydale estates of Salisbury (Dugdale, i. 299; Fœdera, xi. 437). In his will he also gave instructions that he should be buried in the priory of Bisham, near Great Marlow, in Berkshire, among the ancestors of his wife, the Montacutes, earls of Salisbury. Warwick conveyed the bodies of his father and brother to Bisham early in 1463, and buried them, with stately ceremony, in the presence of the Duke of Clarence and other great peers (Swallow, p. 146).
Salisbury's abilities were not of a high order, but he possessed great territorial and family influence as the head of the younger branch of the Neville house. He never became popular, like his son. A Yorkist ballad-maker in 1460 referred to him coldly as ‘Richard, earl of Salisbury, called Prudence’ (Chron., ed. Davies, p. 93). Wavrin calls him rather conventionally ‘sage et imaginatif’ (iv. 271, ed. Hardy).
By his wife Alice, daughter of Thomas de Montacute or Montagu, fourth earl of Salisbury [q. v.], Salisbury had ten children, four sons and six daughters: (1) Richard, earl of Warwick and Salisbury, ‘the King-maker’ [q. v.] (2) Thomas, married in August 1453 to Maud, widow of Robert, sixth lord Willoughby de Eresby (d. 1452), a niece of Lord Cromwell; Thomas was killed in the battle of Wakefield in 1460, and left no children. (3) John [q. v.], created Baron Montagu (1461), Marquis of Montagu (1470), and Earl of Northumberland (1464–70); killed at Barnet in 1471. (4) George [q. v.], bishop of Exeter, archbishop of York, and lord-chancellor (d. 1476). (5) Joan, married William Fitzalan, earl of Arundel (1417–1487). (6) Cicely, married, first, in 1434, Henry Beauchamp, duke of Warwick [q. v.]; secondly, John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester, whom she predeceased, dying on 28 July 1450 (Leland, Itin. vi. 81). (7) Alice, married Henry, lord Fitz-Hugh of Ravensworth Castle, near Richmond (1429–72), head of a powerful local family between Tees and Swale. (8) Eleanor, married Thomas Stanley, first lord Stanley, and afterwards (1485) first earl of Derby. (9) Catherine, betrothed before 10 May 1459 to the son and heir of
