General Notes

Sir RALPH DE NEVILLE, K.G., 6th Baron de Neville of Raby, created in 1377, Earl of Westmoreland, Earl Marshal of England. He was Constable of the Tower and member of the Privy Council of King Richard. He died 1425

Sixth BARON NEVILLE. Ralph Neville, sixth Baron Neville and first Earl of Westmoreland, eldest son of Raby and Maud Percy, dau. of Henry Percy, who d. in 1352. In 1380, in his sixteenth year, he entered the service, in the French expedition under the King's uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, Earl of Buckingham, afterwards Duke of Gloucester, who knighted him. In 1384 he was associated with his father in receiving the last instalments of David Bruce's ransom. In 1385 he was appointed joint governor of Castile, with the eldest son of Lord Clifford. On the death of his father in 1388, at the age of twenty-four, he became Baron of Raby. On the 24th of May, 1389, he was made warden of the royal forests north of Trent. The following year he was employed in negotiations with Scotland.

Neville's power was great in the north country where he, as Lord Raby and Brancepath in the bishopric of Durham and Middleham, and Sheriff Hutton in Yorkshire, was fully the equal, simple baron though he was, of his cousin, the head of the Percies. His support was therefore worth securing by King Richard when, in 1397, he took his revenge upon the Duke of Gloucester and other lords. The Lord of Raby was already closely connected with the crown and the court partly by marriages and alliances. He had secured for his eldest son, John, the hand of Elizabeth, dau. of the King's step-brother, Thomas Holland, Earl of Kent, who was deep in Richard's counsels, and he himself had taken for his second wife, Joan Beaufort, dau. of John of Gaunt, the King's uncle. In the distribution of rewards among the King's supporters, on Sept. 29, 1397, Neville was made Earl of Westmoreland. When Richard drove his brother-in-law Henry, Earl of Derby, out of the realm, and refused him possession of the Lancaster estates, on John of Gaunt's death, Westmoreland took sides against the King, and was one of the first to join Henry when he landed in Yorkshire in July, 1399. He and his relative, Northumberland, who had joined Henry at the same time, represented the superior lords temporal in the parliamentary deputation, while on Sept. 29, 1399, received in the tower, Richard's renunciation of the crown. The next day Westmoreland was granted for life the office of Marshal of England, which had been held by the banished Duke of Norfolk. When Henry IV was crowned on the 13th of October, Westmoreland bore the small sceptre, his younger half brother, John Lord Latimer, who at the time was a minor, carried the sceptre royal. The garter vacated by the death of Edmund, Duke of York, in August, 1402, was bestowed on Westmoreland. During the following year the Percies revolted and Westmoreland found an opportunity of weakening the great rival house in the north. One of Hotspur's grievances was the transference of his captaincy of the Roxbury Castle to Westmoreland in 1402. The day after the battle of Shrewsbury, in which Hotspur was slain, Henry wrote to Westmoreland and other Yorkshire chiefs, charging them to levy troops and intercept the Earl of Northumberland, who was marching from the north, Westmoreland drove the old Earl back to Warkworth and sent an urgent message to Henry, advising him to come into the north, where reports of his death were being circulated by the Percies. The King came and three days later transferred the wardenship which Northumberland had held since 1399, to Westmoreland. On his return south, Henry directed Westmoreland and his brother, Lord Furnival, to secure the surrender of the Percy castles. Soon after Northumberland was pardoned by the King and reconciled to Westmoreland. Westmoreland and Somerset were the only two Earls in the council of twenty-two whom, the King was induced, by the urgency of the Commons, to designate in parliament as his regular advisors.

Northumberland's reconciliation was not sincere. In 1405 he was again in revolt and remembering how his plans had failed and how he had been foiled by Westmoreland, two years before, he began with an attempt to get his cousin into his power by surprise. Westmoreland happened to be staying in a castle belonging to Sir Ralph Eure when it was suddenly beset one night by Northumberland at the head of four hundred men. But Westmoreland had received timely warning and was already flown. The flame of rebellion broke out in three different points. Northumberland was moving from the north to effect a junction with Sir John Faucenburg and other Cleveland connections of the Percies and Mowbrays who were in arms, and with youthful Thomas Mowbray, Earl Marshal and Archbishop Scrope, who raised a large force in York and advanced northward. One of Mowbray's grievances was that the office of Marshal of England had been given to Westmoreland and that he therefore had an additional spur to prompt action against the threatening combination. Taking with him the young Prince John, he threw himself between the two main bodies of rebels and routed the Cleveland force and intercepted the Archbishop and Mowbray little more than five miles north of York. Westmoreland finding himself the weaker in numbers had to recourse to strategem.

Explanations were exchanged between the two camps and Westmoreland expressing approval of the articles of grievance submitted to him by Scropy, invited the Archbishop and Earl Marshal to a personal conference. They met with equal retinues between the two camps. Westmoreland declared their demands most reasonable and promised to use his influence with the King. They there joyfully shook hands over the understanding. The unsuspecting archbishop was now easily induced to dismiss his followers with the cheerful news. As soon as they were dispersed Westmoreland laid hands upon Scrope and Mowbray and soon after handed them to the King, under whose order they were executed. The crisis over, Westmoreland returned to his employment, associating with him his eldest son, John, and during the rest of the reign was constantly engaged on the frontiers. He had made himself one of the great props of his brother-in-law's throne. Two of his brothers, Lord Furnival, who for a time was war-treasurer, and Lord Latimer were Pcers, and towards the close of the reign he began to make those fortunate marriages for his numerous family by his second marriage, which enabled the younger branch of Neville to play so decisive a part in after years. One of the earliest of these marriages was that of his dau. Catherine in 1412 to the young John Mowbray, brother of the unfortunate Earl Marshal, who had been entrusted to his guardianship by the King. Westmoreland d. Oct. 1, 1425. His wife, Catharine Swynford, widow of Sir Robert Ferrers, survived him and d. Nov. 13, 1440