Richard Wydeville (also written contemporaneously as Wydville and Woodville) (died 1441) was an English landowner, soldier, diplomat, administrator and politician. His son married an aunt of King Henry VI and they were the parents of the wife of the next king, Edward IV. [1]
He was the younger son of John Wydeville (died before 1401), a Northamptonshire landowner with a long career as administrator and politician, [1] and his second wife Isabel, widow of Robert Passelow, of Drayton Parslow. [2] The heir to the family lands was his elder brother from his father's first marriage, Thomas Wydeville (died about 1435), who followed his father as an administrator and politician. [1]
From at least 1268, the Wydeville family had been tenants in the village of Grafton Regis, where they occupied the manor house next to the church, and had acquired lands in neighbouring parishes. [3] According to Hasted, it was John Wydeville who acquired the manor of Mote at Maidstone in Kent, [4] which eventually came to Richard.
By 1411 he was serving in France in the garrison of Guînes, then part of the English territory of the Pale of Calais, under the Duke of Clarence, King Henry V's brother. In 1415 and 1417, he was a captain in Henry Vs forces fighting in France, later coming under the command of another brother of the King, the Duke of Bedford. [1]
In 1419 and 1420 he was granted various domains, lordships and bailiwicks in Normandy, [2] culminating in 1421 with appointment as Seneschal of the province of Normandy. [1] [5] In 1423 he was Chamberlain to the Duke of Bedford, Treasurer of Normandy, and Captain of the city of Caen. [1] [2] After disturbances in London in 1425, he was ordered there to safeguard the Tower, [6] followed in 1426 by being one of a mission sent to negotiate with Philip III, Duke of Burgundy. [2] In that year, his son Richard was knighted by the Duke of Bedford. [1] In 1427 he was made Lieutenant of Calais, [1] and in 1431 was appointed to safeguard the young king Henry VI while in France. [2]
In 1433 he was elected Member of Parliament for Kent, [1] and was named a justice of the peace for the county. [2] In the spring of 1434 he attended the meeting of the Great Council at Westminster, during which the Duke of Bedford and his brother Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester fell out over the handling of the English war effort in France, following which he was called back to active service there. [2] While he was a member of the council, his son Richard would have met the Duke of Bedford's French wife Jacquetta, whom he married after the Duke's death. [1] [2]
In 1435 he was made Lieutenant of Calais again, [1] and was named as chief commissioner to negotiate for England with the Duchy of Burgundy, the Teutonic Order and the Hanse. [2] In that year his brother Thomas died without children and left nearly everything to his sisters Elizabeth and Agnes, apart from the ancestral manor of Grafton which went to Richard. [1] He disputed the will, and legal argument went on for the rest of his life. [3]
In 1437 he was appointed Constable of Rochester Castle, [1] [2] but later that year was chosen as sheriff of Northamptonshire, [1] [2] where he also served on a commission in 1439. [2]
He made his will on 29 November 1441 and died shortly after, [1] [2] being buried at Maidstone. [4] [2] Despite his career of public service and his close connections to the royal family, he was never knighted. [1]
His wife was Joan, daughter of Thomas (or John) Bedlisgate, of Knightstone [7] [8] [9] in the parish of Ottery St Mary in Devon, and his wife Joan Beauchamp. [2] He had two known children:
His widow died some time after 17 July 1448, when she had property in Ireland, and was probably buried at Maidstone. [2]
Elizabeth Woodville, later known as Dame Elizabeth Grey, was Queen of England from her marriage to King Edward IV on 1 May 1464 until Edward was deposed on 3 October 1470, and again from Edward's resumption of the throne on 11 April 1471 until his death on 9 April 1483. She was a key figure in the Wars of the Roses, a dynastic civil war between the Lancastrian and the Yorkist factions between 1455 and 1487.
Richard of York, 3rd Duke of York, also named Richard Plantagenet, was a leading English magnate and claimant to the throne during the Wars of the Roses. He was a member of the ruling House of Plantagenet by virtue of being a direct male-line descendant of Edmund of Langley, King Edward III's fourth surviving son. However, it was through his mother, Anne Mortimer, a descendant of Edward III's second surviving son, Lionel of Antwerp, that Richard inherited his strongest claim to the throne, as the opposing House of Lancaster was descended from John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the third surviving son of Edward III. He also inherited vast estates and served in various offices of state in Ireland, France and England, a country he ultimately governed as Lord Protector during the madness of King Henry VI.
John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford KG was a medieval English prince, general and statesman who commanded England's armies in France during a critical phase of the Hundred Years' War. Bedford was the third son of King Henry IV of England, brother to Henry V, and acted as regent of France for his nephew Henry VI. Despite his military and administrative talent, the situation in France had severely deteriorated by the time of his death.
Jacquetta of Luxembourg was a prominent, though often overlooked, figure in the Wars of the Roses. Through her short-lived first marriage to the Duke of Bedford, brother of King Henry V, she was firmly allied to the House of Lancaster. However, following the emphatic Lancastrian defeat at the Battle of Towton, she and her second husband Richard Woodville sided closely with the House of York. Three years after the battle and the accession of Edward IV of England, Jacquetta's eldest daughter Elizabeth Woodville married him and became queen consort of England. Jacquetta bore Woodville 14 children and stood trial on charges of witchcraft, of which she was exonerated.
Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers, also Wydeville, was the father of Elizabeth Woodville and father-in-law of Edward IV.
Katherine Woodville was the Duchess of Buckingham and a medieval English noblewoman.
William Neville, Earl of Kent KG and jure uxoris 6th Baron Fauconberg, was an English nobleman and soldier. He fought during the latter part of the Hundred Years' War, and during the English dynastic Wars of the Roses.
Isabel of Cambridge, Countess of Essex was the only daughter of Richard, 3rd Earl of Cambridge, and Anne de Mortimer. She was the sister of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, and like him a great-grandchild of Edward III of England.
Sir Thomas Rempston II was a medieval English soldier, landowner, and a leading military commander during the Hundred Years' War in France. He dedicated his career, as his father had done before him, to the service of the House of Lancaster, the ruling dynasty of England. Much of the Rempston family's fortunes were in fact owed to this. However, several ransoms contracted by Sir Thomas while campaigning in France, coupled with the fact that his long-living mother held many of his estates in dower, meant that he had to endure several financial difficulties for much of his life.
Sir John Woodville was the third son and seventh child of Richard Woodville, 1st Earl Rivers, and Jacquetta of Luxembourg.
Sir William Hawte was a prominent member of a Kentish gentry family of long standing in royal service, which, through its near connections to the Woodville family, became closely and dangerously embroiled in the last phases of the Wars of the Roses.
Thomas Scales, 7th Baron Scales was an English nobleman and one of the main English military commanders in the last phase of the Hundred Years' War. The son of Robert de Scales, 5th Baron Scales, he succeeded his brother Robert de Scales, 6th Baron Scales as baron.
Anne Woodville, Viscountess Bourchier was an English noblewoman. She was a younger sister of Queen Consort Elizabeth Woodville to whom she served as a lady-in-waiting. Anne was married twice; first to William Bourchier, Viscount Bourchier, and secondly to George Grey, 2nd Earl of Kent. Anne was the grandmother of the disinherited adulteress Anne Bourchier, 7th Baroness Bourchier, and an ancestress of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.
Sir John Fogge was an English courtier, soldier and supporter of the Woodville family under Edward IV who became an opponent of Richard III.
Sir Richard Vernon was an English landowner, MP and speaker of the House of Commons.
William Haute (1390–1462) of Bishopsbourne, Kent, was an English politician.
The Feudal Barony of Berry Pomeroy was one of eight feudal baronies in Devonshire, England, which existed during the mediaeval era. It had its caput at the manor of Berry Pomeroy, 20 miles south of the City of Exeter and 2 miles east of the town of Totnes, where was situated Totnes Castle, the caput of the feudal barony of Totnes. The exact location of the 11th-century baron's residence is unclear; perhaps it was next to the parish church on the site of the former rectory known as Berry House, as it is now believed that the nearby ruined Berry Pomeroy Castle was not built until the 15th century.
The Lady of the Rivers is a 2011 historical novel by Philippa Gregory, part of her series The Cousins' War. The story is narrated by Jacquetta of Luxembourg, mother of Elizabeth Woodville, and covers the reign of the Lancastrian King Henry VI. The novel serves as a prequel to Gregory's The White Queen (2009), the story of Elizabeth's reign as Queen consort of England.
Knightstone is an historic manor in the parish of Ottery St Mary in Devon. The surviving mediaeval and Tudor grade I listed manor house is situated one mile south-east of St Mary's Church, Ottery St Mary. It was the seat of the Bittlesgate family, the heiress of which Joan Bittlesgate, daughter of Thomas Bittlesgate by his wife Joan Beauchamp, was the wife of Richard Woodville, grandfather of Elizabeth Woodville (c.1437-1492) Queen consort of England as the spouse of King Edward IV. In 1381 the Bittlesgate family obtained a licence from the Bishop of Exeter to build and operate a private chapel at their home, but no trace of the structure survives. The house has been much altered since the time of the Bittlesgate family. One Tudor-era fireplace survives in a bedroom.
Alice Haute, Lady Fogge was an English noblewoman. She was the second wife of Sir John Fogge, and is thought to be the great-grandmother of Catherine Parr the sixth wife of King Henry VIII of England.
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