Sir John Conyers KG (died 1490), one of twenty-five children of Christopher Conyers (died 1460), [1] was a pre-eminent member of the gentry of Yorkshire, northern England, during the fifteenth century Wars of the Roses.
Sir John Conyers KG (died 1490), one of twenty-five children of Christopher Conyers (died 1460), [1] was a pre-eminent member of the gentry of Yorkshire, northern England, during the fifteenth century Wars of the Roses.
Based in Hornby Castle, [1] he was originally retained by his patron, the regional magnate Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury at a fee of £8 6s. 8d. [1] By 1465, he was steward of the Honour of Richmond and was being retained, along with his brothers William and Richard, by Salisbury's son and successor as regional magnate, the earl of Warwick, [2] for which he received £13 6s. 8d. He accompanied Salisbury on his journey from Middleham to Ludlow in September 1459, and took part in the Battle of Blore Heath on the 23rd of that month. [3] He later took part in Warwick's rebellion against Edward IV in 1469 and the Battle of Edgcote, raising his 'Wensleydale connection, [4] and possibly even being the ringleader, 'Robin of Redesdale.' [5] He submitted to the King in March 1470. After Edward's successful return to power in 1471 he was a Justice of the Peace for Yorkshire's North Riding. [6] A loyal retainer and probable ducal councillor of Edward's brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, later King Richard III, (who retained him for £20 annually) [1] he was made a Knight of the Body, at 200 marks per annum annuity, and substantial estates in Yorkshire, "where he was very active on local commissions." He was also elected to the Order of the Garter. [7] In August 1485 he appears to have fought in and survived the Battle of Bosworth Field in the army of Richard III, and was later granted offices in Richmondshire by the new king, Henry VII in February 1486, as a result of 'good and faithful service.' [8] He supported Henry during the first rebellion of his reign, in spring 1486, a position that has been called 'particularly significant' and, according to Michael Hicks, it 'was a momentous decision'. [9]
Richard III was King of England from 26 June 1483 until his death in 1485. He was the last king of the Plantagenet dynasty and its cadet branch the House of York. His defeat and death at the Battle of Bosworth Field marked the end of the Middle Ages in England.
Edward IV was King of England from 4 March 1461 to 3 October 1470, then again from 11 April 1471 until his death in 1483. He was a central figure in the Wars of the Roses, a series of civil wars in England fought between the Yorkist and Lancastrian factions between 1455 and 1487.
George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, was the sixth child and third surviving son of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and Cecily Neville, and the brother of English kings Edward IV and Richard III. He played an important role in the dynastic struggle between rival factions of the Plantagenets now known as the Wars of the Roses.
Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, 6th Earl of Salisbury, known as Warwick the Kingmaker, was an English nobleman, administrator, landowner of the House of Neville fortune and military commander. The eldest son of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, he became Earl of Warwick through marriage, and was the wealthiest and most powerful English peer of his age, with political connections that went beyond the country's borders. One of the leaders in the Wars of the Roses, originally on the Yorkist side but later switching to the Lancastrian side, he was instrumental in the deposition of two kings, which led to his epithet of "Kingmaker".
Anne Neville was Queen of England from 26 June 1483 until her death in 1485 as the wife of King Richard III. She was the younger of the two daughters and co-heiresses of Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, and Anne de Beauchamp. Before her marriage to Richard, she had been Princess of Wales as the wife of Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales, the only son and heir apparent of King Henry VI.
Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby, KG was an English nobleman. He was the stepfather of King Henry VII of England. He was the eldest son of Thomas Stanley, 1st Baron Stanley and Joan Goushill.
Edmund Beaufort, styled 4th Duke of Somerset, 6th Earl of Somerset, 3rd Marquess of Dorset, 3rd Earl of Dorset, was an English nobleman, and a military commander during the Wars of the Roses, in which he supported the Lancastrian king Henry VI.
John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu was a major magnate of fifteenth-century England. He was a younger son of Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, and the younger brother of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the "Kingmaker".
John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford, the second son of John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford, and Elizabeth Howard, a first cousin of John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk, was one of the principal Lancastrian commanders during the English Wars of the Roses.
Henry Percy, 4th Earl of NorthumberlandKG was an English aristocrat during the Wars of the Roses. After losing his title when his father was killed fighting the Yorkists, he later regained his position. He led the rearguard of Richard III's army at the Battle of Bosworth, but failed to commit his troops. He was briefly imprisoned by Henry VII, but later restored to his position. A few years later he was murdered by citizens of York during a revolt against Henry VII's taxation.
John Clifford, 9th Baron Clifford, 9th Lord of Skipton was a Lancastrian military leader during the Wars of the Roses in England. The Clifford family was one of the most prominent families among the northern English nobility of the fifteenth century, and by the marriages of his sisters, John Clifford had links to some very important families of the time, including the earls of Devon. He was orphaned at twenty years of age when his father was slain by partisans of the House of York at the first battle of the Wars of the Roses, the Battle of St Albans in 1455. It was probably as a result of his father's death there that Clifford became one of the strongest supporters of Margaret of Anjou, wife of King Henry VI, who ended up as effective leader of the Lancastrian faction.
Sir John Courtenay was the third son of Thomas Courtenay, 13th Earl of Devon, and Margaret Beaufort, and was styled Earl of Devon by Lancastrians in exile, following the execution of his brother the 14th earl in 1461.
Events from the 1470s in England.
Events from the 1480s in England. This decade marks the beginning of the Tudor period.
The Historie of the Arrivall of Edward IV. in England and the Finall Recouerye of His Kingdomes from Henry VI. A.D. M.CCCC.LXXI is a chronicle from the period of the Wars of the Roses. As the title implies, the main focus of the work is Edward IV's arrival in England in 1471 to reclaim his crown. On 2 October 1470, King Edward had fled to Flanders in the face of a rebellion by Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. Warwick set up – as a puppet king – Henry VI, whom he had himself previously helped depose. On the continent Edward received support from Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and on 14 March 1471 he landed at Ravenspurn in Yorkshire, and started making his way south. On 14 April Edward defeated Warwick at the Battle of Barnet. Warwick was killed and Edward's reign was secured.
The House of Neville or Nevill family is a noble house of early medieval origin, which was a leading force in English politics in the Late Middle Ages. The family became one of the two major powers in northern England and played a central role in the Wars of the Roses along with their rival, the House of Percy.
The Readeption was the restoration of Henry VI of England to the throne of England in 1470. Edward, Duke of York, had taken the throne as Edward IV in 1461. Henry had fled with some Lancastrian supporters and spent much of the next few years in hiding in Northern England or in Scotland, where there was still some Lancastrian support. Henry was captured in 1465 and was held as a prisoner in the Tower of London. Following dissent with his former key supporter, Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, Edward was forced to flee in 1470. Henry was then restored to the throne, although he was deposed again the following year.
The Wars of the Roses, known at the time and in following centuries as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne from 1455 to 1487. The wars were fought between supporters of the House of Lancaster and House of York, two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet. The conflict resulted in the end of Lancaster's male line in 1471, leaving the Tudor family to inherit their claim to the throne through the female line. Conflict was largely brought to an end upon the union of the two houses through marriage, creating the Tudor dynasty that would subsequently rule England.
Sir James Harrington of Hornby was an English politician and soldier who was a prominent Yorkist supporter in Northern England during the Wars of the Roses, having been retained by Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, who was brother-in-law to the head of the House of York, Richard of York. He was the second son of Sir Thomas Harrington, who had died with the king's father at the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460. James himself had fought with Salisbury at the Battle of Blore Heath in 1459, where he had been captured and imprisoned by the Lancastrians until the next year. He was a significant regional figure during the reign of King Edward IV, although the early years of the new king's reign were marred by a bitter feud between him and the Stanley family over a castle in Lancashire. On the accession of King Richard III in 1483, he was appointed to the new king's Household, and as such was almost certainly with him at the Battle of Bosworth Field two years later. It is likely that he fell in battle there, although precise details of his death are now unknown.
Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury was a fifteenth-century English northern magnate. He was the eldest son by the second wife of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, from whom he inherited vast estates in Yorkshire and the North West of England. He was a loyal Lancastrian for most of his life, serving the king, Henry VI, in France, on the border with Scotland, and in many of the periodic crises of the reign. He finally joined York in his last rebellion in the late 1450s and became a Yorkist leader during the early parts of the Wars of the Roses. This led directly to his death following the Battle of Wakefield in December 1460, when he was captured and subsequently put to death in Pontefract Castle.