William Bonvile, lord Harington, who, if he had outlived his father, would have been Lord Bonvile as well; Lord Harington was killed at Wakefield, and his son either predeceased him or at all events died before 17 Feb. 1461 (Complete Peerage, by G. E. C[okayne]; Historic Peerage, ed. Courthope; Ramsay, ii. 238); Catherine Neville was subsequently married to William, lord Hastings (executed 1483). (10) Margaret, married, after 1459, John de Vere III (1443–1513), thirteenth earl of Oxford, who predeceased her.
A portrait of Salisbury, from the Earl of Warwick's tomb (1453) at Warwick, is reproduced after C. Stothard in Doyle's ‘Official Baronage.’ He is represented without beard or moustache, and wearing a cap and hood.
[For authorities see under Neville, John, Marquis of Montagu; and Neville, Richard, Earl of Warwick.]
NEVILLE, RICHARD, Earl of Salisbury (1428–1471), the ‘Kingmaker,’ the eldest son of Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury [q. v.], by Alice, daughter and heiress of Thomas Montacute, fourth earl of Salisbury [q. v.], was born on 22 Nov. 1428. His brothers, John Neville, marquis of Montagu [q. v.], and George, archbishop of York [q. v.], are separately noticed. At some uncertain date before 1439 Richard was betrothed by his father, who was uniting the Neville and Beauchamp families by a chain of marriages, to Anne Beauchamp, only daughter of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick [q. v.] In 1444 two lives stood between them and the great Beauchamp heritage in the midlands and the Welsh marches, but, by the death of her niece and namesake in June 1449, Richard Neville's wife inherited the bulk of her father's wide lands; and the king on 23 July conferred upon her husband in her right the earldom of Warwick (Dugdale, Baronage, i. 304). As premier earl Richard Neville took precedence of his father, whose lands, too, could not compare in extent with the Beauchamp inheritance, which had absorbed that of the Despensers, and included the castles of Warwick, Elmley, Worcester, Cardiff, Glamorgan, Neath, Abergavenny, and, in the north, Barnard Castle. He was lord of Glamorgan and Morgan, and succeeded in retaining possession of the castle and honour of Bergavenny, which was claimed by his father's youngest brother, who took his title therefrom [see under Edward Neville, Baron of Bergavenny]. But it was not until the sword was bared in the strife of factions in 1455 that Warwick made an independent position for himself, and overshadowed his father. In the meantime he remained with Salisbury, outwardly neutral in the struggle between his uncle Richard, duke of York, and his cousin Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset.
When York took up arms in February 1452, Warwick joined his father in mediating between the parties (Paston Letters, i. cxlviii). But immediately after the old jealousy between the Nevilles and the great rival northern house of the Percies, who sided with the court party, reached an acute stage, and when York, on the king's being seized with madness in July 1453, claimed the regency, Warwick and his father placed themselves on his side (ib.) He was summoned to the privy council (6 Dec.), and associated with his father (20 Dec.) as warden of the west march of Scotland (Ord. Privy Council, vi. 165; Doyle). In January 1454 he rode up to London in York's train with a ‘goodly fellowship,’ and had a thousand men awaiting him in the city (Paston Letters, i. 266). He sat regularly in the privy council while York was protector, and was commissioner with York and his father on 13 April to invest the infant son of Henry VI with the title of Prince of Wales (Doyle; cf. Paston Letters, i. 299; Rot. Parl. v. 240). On the king's recovery, early in 1455, Somerset returned to power, and Salisbury, with other Yorkists, was dismissed from office. Now thoroughly identified with York, Salisbury and Warwick took up arms with him in May (Rot. Parl. v. 280–1). In the first battle of St. Albans, which followed on 22 May, Warwick had the good fortune to decide the day and win somewhat easily a military reputation. York and Salisbury met with a desperate resistance in the side streets, by which they sought to get at the Lancastrians massed in the main street of the town. Warwick, with the Yorkist centre, broke through the intermediate gardens and houses, and, issuing into the main street, blew trumpets and raised his war-cry of ‘A Warwick, a Warwick!’ (Paston Letters, i. 330). The rest was a street fight and massacre. It has been suggested that the great slaughter of nobles, a new feature in mediæval warfare, must be attributed to Warwick (Ramsay, Lancaster and York, ii. 183); but the bitterness of civil strife and the close quarters in which they fought must be taken into account. The policy of slaying the leaders and sparing the commons is certainly attributed to him at Northampton five years later (Chron. ed. Davies, p. 97). Edward IV, however, is represented by Comines (i. 245) as almost claiming this policy as his own. Warwick's energy was undoubtedly the decisive factor in York's success, and the ‘evil day of St. Albans’ was closely associated with his name (Paston Letters, i. 345).
