Note 24a — Chapter II · THE FIELD OF THE BATTLE OF BLORE HEATH. [21]

Richard Neville Earl of Salisbury was the son of Ralph Neville, first Earl of Westmoreland (by Joan, his second wife, daughter of John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster, and widow of Sir Robert Ferrers of Oversley), and was created Earl of Salisbury after the death of Thomas de Montacute Earl of Salisbury, his wife’s father, in the fifteenth year of King Henry VI., and made Lord Chancellor in the 32nd year of his reign. He married Alice, daughter and heir of Thomas de Montacute Earl of Salisbury, and had issue by her, four sons and six daughters: Richard the eldest son, Earl of Warwick, and after his father’s death, also Earl of Salisbury, the King Maker, slain at the battle of Barnet in 1471; second, John, Marquis Montague, also slain at the battle of Barnet; third, Thomas, married the widow of Lord Willoughby, and was slain at the battle of Wakefield; fourth, George, Bishop of Exeter, and Lord Chancellor, and afterwards Archbishop of York; Joan, the oldest daughter, was married to William Fitzalan Earl of Arundel; second, Cecily, married to Henry Beauchamp Duke of Warwick; third, Alice, married Henry Lord Fitzhugh Baron of Ravenswath; fourth, Eleanor, married Thomas Lord Stanley, afterwards the first Earl of Derby of that surname; fifth, Katherine, married William Bonvile, son and heir to William Lord Bonvile and Harrington; sixth, Margaret, married John De Vere Earl of Oxford. Richard Earl of Salisbury was wounded and taken prisoner at the battle of Wakefield, and beheaded at Pontefract, and his body was first interred there, and afterwards removed to Bisham Abbey, in Berkshire, which had been founded by, and was the place of interment of the Montacutes, and where the bodies of his sons, the Earl of Warwick and Marquis Montague, were also interred, after the battle of Barnet.