Ralph Neville, 3rd Earl of Westmorland

Ralph Neville, 3rd Earl of Westmorland

Hornby Castle, Yorkshire, from Morris's Country Seats (1880)
Spouse(s) Isabel Booth
Issue
Ralph Neville
Anne Neville
Noble family Neville
Father John Neville, Baron Neville
Mother Anne Holland
Born c. 1456
Died 6 February 1499
Hornby Castle, Yorkshire

Ralph Neville, 3rd Earl of Westmorland (c. 1456 – 6 February 1499) was an English peer. He was the grandfather of Ralph Neville, 4th Earl of Westmorland.

Family

Ralph Neville, born about 1456, was the only child of John Neville, Baron Neville, younger brother of Ralph Neville, 2nd Earl of Westmorland, and Anne Holland, daughter of John Holland, 2nd Duke of Exeter.[1]

Career

Neville's father was slain fighting for the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton on 29 March 1461, and attainted on 4 November of that year. On 6 October 1472 Ralph Neville obtained the reversal of his father's attainder and the restoration of the greater part of his estates, and thereby became Lord Neville (1459 creation).[2]

On 18 April 1475 Neville was created a Knight of the Bath together with the sons of King Edward IV.[3] He was a justice of the peace in Durham. For his 'good services against the rebels', on 23 March 1484 King Richard III granted Neville manors in Somerset and Berkshire and the reversion of lands which had formerly belonged to Margaret, Countess of Richmond.[4] In September 1484 he was a commissioner to keep the truce with Scotland.[5] On 3 November 1484 his uncle, Ralph Neville, 2nd Earl of Westmorland, died, and Neville succeeded as 3rd Earl of Westmorland and Lord Neville (1295 creation).[6]

After the Yorkist defeat at Bosworth, Westmorland entered into bonds to the new King, Henry VII, of £400 and 400 marks, and on 5 December 1485 gave the King the custody and marriage of his eldest son and heir, Ralph Neville (d.1498).[7]

Westmorland held a command in the army sent into Scotland in 1497[8] after James IV supported the pretensions to the crown of Perkin Warbeck.[9]

Death

Westmorland's eldest son died in 1498. Westmorland died at Hornby Castle, Yorkshire, the seat of his son-in-law, Sir William Conyers, on 6 February 1499, allegedly of grief for his son's death, and was buried in the parish church there.[10] His grandson, Ralph Neville, succeeded to the earldom as 4th Earl of Westmorland.

Marriage and issue

Before 20 February 1473 Neville married Isabel, the daughter of Roger Booth, esquire, and niece of Lawrence Booth, Archbishop of York, by whom he had a son and a daughter:[11]

Footnotes

  1. Richardson III 2011, pp. 251–2.
  2. Cokayne 1959, p. 551; Richardson III 2011, pp. 251–2.
  3. Cokayne 1959, p. 551.
  4. Cokayne 1959, p. 551; Richardson III 2011, p. 253.
  5. Cokayne 1959, p. 551.
  6. Cokayne 1959, p. 551.
  7. Cokayne 1959, pp. 551–2.
  8. Cokayne 1959, p. 551.
  9. Doyle 1886, p. 632.
  10. Cokayne 1959, pp. 551–2; Richardson III 2011, p. 253.
  11. Cokayne 1959, p. 551; Richardson III 2011, pp. 251–2.
  12. Cokayne 1959, pp. 552–3; Richardson III 2011, p. 253.
  13. Richardson III 2011, pp. 253–4.

References

Peerage of England
Preceded by
Ralph Neville
Earl of Westmorland
1484–1499
Succeeded by
Ralph Neville
Vacant
Attainted
Title last held by
John Neville
Baron Neville
1472–1499