Rose of Raby: Cecily Neville, Duchess of York, 1415-1495

The granddaughter of John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford, Cecily Neville was born to a family closely connected to power.  Her nephew was Richard "the Kingmaker" Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, but Cecily was his match if not more in ambition.  She was known as the Rose of Raby, because she was born at Raby Castle in Durham.  Beautiful, intelligent, proud and temperamental, known as Proud Cis because of her demeanor, Cecylle, as she signed herself, was meant to be a mother of lions.  Her father, Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmoreland, was the warden of young Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and keeper of the Yorkist claim to the English throne.  He and Cecily would have known each other prior to their being betrothed in 1424, when she was 9 and Richard was 13.  They were married and living together by 1429. 

Cecily would bear 13 children, six of whom, Joan, Henry, William, John, Thomas and Ursula, would die as babies or young children.  Her other children were Anne, Duchess of Exeter (whose descendants would later preserve Cecily's DNA and bring Richard III back from oblivion), Edward IV of England, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, who died in his teens, Elizabeth, Duchess of Suffolk, Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, George, Duke of Clarence (butt of Malmsey Clarence), and Richard III.  Cecily not only survived all these pregnancies, but often followed her husband to his various postings around England and France, taking her family with her.  During the Wars of the Roses, while her husband fled into exile in Ireland, Cecily remained in England, working secretly on behalf of the Yorkist cause.  The Yorkist victory at Northampton in 1460 allowed Richard, Sr., to return to London.  Cecily carried his royal standard before him into the city.  By the terms of the Act of Accord, Richard would be Henry VI's heir and Cecily Queen of England.  But it was not to be.  In 1461, Richard, Sr., was killed at the Battle of Wakefield along with his 13-year-old son Rutland, and Cecily's brother Richard, Earl of Salisbury.

Cecily sent George and Richard to safety in Burgundy and braved the consequences in England.  She moved to Baynard's Castle in London while her son Edward successfully reasserted the Yorkist claim to the throne, making her queen mother in all but name.  She adopted the royal arms as part of her own coat of arms and Edward allowed her the precedence of a dowager queen at his court.  Her reputation came into question when her nephew, the Kingmaker, and her son Clarence began spreading rumors that Edward IV was actually a bastard lovechild.  Cecily attempted to make peace between Edward, George and the Kingmaker but was unsuccessful in doing so.  The Kingmaker briefly deposed Edward in 1470-71, but he was killed at the Battle of Barnett and George sent to the Tower.  George died or was executed secretly in 1478.  Edward IV died in 1483, leaving his two young sons under the protection of his youngest brother, Richard.

Richard launched an inquiry into the circumstances of Edward's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville and found that Edward had previously been engaged to another lady, making the marriage invalid and any subsequent children illegitimate.  With his nephews removed from the line of succession, Richard III was crowned King of England, with Cecily taking part in the coronation ceremony as one of the attendants of Queen Anne Neville, her own great-niece.  After Richard's death at Bosworth in 1485, Cecily retired from public life and devoted herself to religious works, earning a reputation for charity and piety.  She died peacefully in 1495 at the ripe old age of 80. Through her granddaughter, Elizabeth of York, wife of Henry VII Tudor, Cecily is the grandmother of every British sovereign down to Elizabeth II and her family.  She was also great-grand-aunt of Henry VIII's 6th wife Katherine Parr.  In fact, all of Henry's wives save Anne of Cleves had some Plantagenet ancestry.  Her mitochondrial DNA survived in her daughter Anne's descendants, who were used to prove that a battered skeleton under a parking lot in Leicester was in fact Richard III.