In the third engraving we see the Earl of Warwick setting out in his own ship, on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He is dressed in pilgrim guise, and, staff in hand, is just stepping into the boat to be conveyed to the ship, his attendants and luggage following him. The ship is sumptuously fitted with castle and state apartments, and has the sail emblazoned with the Beauchamp arms, and the pennon, besides the St. George’s cross of England, bears the bear and ragged staff many times repeated. This badge will be best understood by the accompanying engraving. The Earl had two wives; first, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Thomas, Lord Berkley; and second, Isabel, daughter of Thomas le Despencer, Earl of Gloucester. He was succeeded by his son Henry, who was then barely fourteen years old.
This Henry de Beauchamp—who had during his father’s lifetime been called De Spencer, through his mother’s possessions—when only nineteen years of age tendered his services to Henry VI. for the defence of Acquitane, for which the king created him Premier Earl of England, with leave to distinguish himself and his heirs male by wearing in his presence a gold coronet.
Three days later, he was created Duke of Warwick, with precedence next to the Duke of Norfolk. After this, he had granted to him, in reversion, the Islands of Guernsey, Jersey, Sark, Erme, and Alderney, which he was to hold for the yearly tribute of a rose. He was also by his sovereign crowned King of the Isle of Wight, his Majesty himself placing the crown upon his head. This young nobleman, however, with all his honours thick upon him, lived but a short life of greatness, and died at Warwick at the early age of twenty-two, in 1445. He married Cicely, daughter of Richard Nevil, Earl of Salisbury, by whom he had an only child, Anne, Countess of Warwick, who died when only six years of age, leaving her aunt Anne, wife of Richard Nevil, Earl of Salisbury, heir to the titles and estates, and thus they passed to the family of Nevil.
This Richard Nevil, then Earl of Warwick, is the one so well known in English history as “the stout Earl of Warwick, the king-maker,”—“peremptory Warwick,” the “wind-changing Warwick,” of Shakspere—who, “finding himself strong enough to hold the balance between the families of York and Lancaster, rendered England during the reign of his power a scene of bloodshed and confusion; and made or unmade kings of this or that house as best suited his passions, pleasures, or interests. His life was passed in wars and broils, destructive to his country and his family.” He was killed at the battle of Barnet in 1471. He left issue two daughters, Isabel, married to George, Duke of Clarence and brother to Edward IV.; and Anne, married first to Edward, Prince of Wales, and secondly, to his murderer, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, subsequently King Richard III. To the eldest of these daughters, Isabel, came the Warwick estates; and her husband, George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, was, by his brother Edward IV., created Earl of Warwick and Salisbury. That ill-fated and indiscreet nobleman, however, did not live to carry out improvements he had commenced at Warwick. His wife was poisoned; and he himself, later on, was attainted of high treason, and was drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine in the Tower, by order of his brother, the Duke of Gloucester.
Cæsar’s Tower.
During all this time, Anne, Countess of Warwick, widow of Richard Nevil, had undergone great privations—her possessions being taken from her for her daughters’ husbands—and had been living in obscurity; by Act 3rd Henry VII. she was recalled from such obscurity to be restored to the possessions of her family; “but that was a refinement of cruelty, for shortly after obtaining possession she was forced” to surrender to the king all these immense possessions. After her death, Edward Plantagenet, eldest son of George, Duke of Clarence, assumed the title of Earl of Warwick, but was beheaded on Tower Hill. On his death the title was held in abeyance, and was, after a time, granted to John Dudley, Viscount Lisle, who was descended in the female line from the old Earls of Warwick. This John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, and Viscount Lisle, was made Lord High Chamberlain, a Knight of the Garter, Lord Warden of the North, and Earl Marshal: and was created Duke of Northumberland, but was attainted for the part he took relating to Lady Jane Grey, and beheaded on Tower Hill in 1553. He married Jane, daughter of Sir Edward Guildford, by whom he had a large family, of whom the eldest, Henry, was killed at the siege of Boulogne; the second, John, was called Earl of Warwick during his father’s lifetime; Ambrose, who was created Earl of Warwick; Guildford, who was beheaded with his father; Robert, who was created Earl of Leicester, and others. In 1557 Ambrose Dudley, the third son, having obtained a reversion of the attainder, had the estates restored to him, and was re-created Earl of Warwick. He married three wives, but had no issue by either, and dying in 1589, the title became extinct.
