[24b] Richard Neville, eighteenth Earl of Warwick, called the King Maker, was the son and heir of Richard Neville Earl of Salisbury, by Alice, daughter of Thomas de Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, and married Anne, daughter of Richard Beauchamp, sixteenth Earl of Warwick. His power was so great, that he was mainly instrumental in placing King Edward IV. upon the throne in 1461, and again in dethroning him, and replacing Henry VI. upon the throne in 1470; and he was slain fighting against Edward at the battle of Barnet, on 14th of April, 1471. He left issue two daughters: Isabel, married to George Plantagenet Duke of Clarence, brother of King Edward IV.; and Anne, married, first, to Edward Prince of Wales, son of King Henry VI., murdered at Tewkesbury in 1471; and secondly, to Richard Duke of Gloucester, afterwards King Richard III.
[25a] Queen Margaret, usually called Margaret of Anjou, was the Queen of Henry VI., to whom she was married on the 22nd of April, 1445.
[25b] Edward Prince of Wales was the only child of Henry VI. and Queen Margaret. He was born on the 13th of October, 1453, and was murdered after the battle of Tewkesbury, on the 4th of May, 1471.
[25c] James Touchet Lord Audley (the son and heir of John Touchet Lord Audley, who died in the tenth year of Henry IV.) was summoned to Parliament in the eighth year of Henry V., as Lord Audley. He attended Henry V. in his wars in France. In the reign of Henry VI., he took part with the House of Lancaster, and was sent by Queen Margaret to intercept the Earl of Salisbury at Blore Heath, which was not more than ten or twelve miles from Lord Audley’s possession of Red Castle at Hawkstone, now belonging to the Viscount Hill, in Shropshire. After Lord Audley’s death in that battle, his body was interred in Darley Abbey, in Derbyshire. He left a son, John Lord Audley, who adhered to the Yorkist party, and had some offices of importance conferred upon him by Edward IV. and Richard III., and died in 1491, in the sixth year of Henry VII., leaving issue.
[25d] For the historical authorities, see Hall, Holinshed, Grafton, Baker, Speed, Stow, Dugdale’s Baronage, Sandford’s Genealogical History, Kennett’s Lives of the Kings and Queens; Leland’s Itinerary, vol. vii. fo. 32; Rot. Parl. 38 Henry VI. (A.D. 1459), vol. v. p. 348. The latter contains the following passage:—“the sonday next after the fest of Seint Mathewe th’ Apostle, the 38 yere of youre moost gracious reigne, at Blore, in youre shire of Stafford, in the feldes of the same towne, called Blore-heth,” &c. &c.; see also ibid. p. 369, in which it is stated, that Queen Margaret and Edward Prince of Wales had been at Chester, and afterwards at Eccleshall, previously to the battle; and that Lord Stanley was directed, before it took place, to come with his forces, and join the Lancastrians; and that he sent his servant to the Queen and the Prince with a promise to do so in all haste, but failed, and by his failing to join them, the Lancastrians were defeated, although he was, with 2000 men, within six miles of Blore Heath, and that he staid three days at Newcastle, only six miles from Eccleshall, where the Queen and Prince of Wales then were; and that in the morning after the defeat of the Lancastrians, Lord Stanley sent a letter to the Queen and Prince, extenuating his not having assisted them with his forces; and that he then departed home again; and also that the people and tenants of the King and of the Prince, in the hundreds of Wirral and of Macclesfield, had been prevented by Lord Stanley from going to the assistance of the King; and he was also accused of having, on the night ensuing the battle, sent a letter of congratulation to the Earl of Salisbury. If those charges were true, it looks very much as if he had been a Yorkist at heart, but disposed to keep fair with both sides.
[26a] Sir Richard Molyneux was an ancestor of the Earl of Sefton.
[26b] It is remarkable that Ormerod, in his Cheshire, vol. i. p. xxxii., mentions that it was Sir William Troutbeck who was slain in the battle; but in vol. ii. pp. 27 and 28, his son, Sir John Troutbeck, is mentioned as the person who was slain there; and it is stated that the former had been, and that the latter was at that time, Chamberlain of Chester.
[27a] Stow’s Annals, p. 405. See also Holinshed’s Chronicles, p. 649.
[27b] Rot. Parl. vol. v. 38th of Henry VI. p. 348. Leland’s Itinerary, vol. vii. fo. 32.
[27c] John De Sutton Baron of Dudley (called in the act of Parliament of 38th of Henry VI. (1459) John Lord Dudley), being a firm adherent to the Lancastrian interest, and being surprised at Gloucester in the 29th year of Henry VI., by Richard Duke of York (upon his return at that time out of Ireland), was sent prisoner to the Castle of Ludlow. (Stow’s Annals; and Dugdale’s Baronage, vol. ii. p. 215.) He was wounded at the battle of Blore Heath. (Leland’s Itinerary, vol. vii. fo. 32.) The imprisonment of the Baron of Dudley in the Tower of London in 1455, is mentioned in Fenn’s collection of original letters (sometimes called the Paston Letters), vol. i. p. 107. It should seem, therefore, that he was twice imprisoned at the instance of the Duke of York. After the accession of Edward IV., Dudley was, however, reconciled to the House of York, and he does not appear to have ever afterwards assisted the opposite party. By his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Berkley of Beverstan in Gloucestershire, he had issue three sons: Edmund, who died in his father’s lifetime, leaving issue John, from whom the Earls of Warwick and Leicester derived their descent; and William Bishop of Durham; he had also a daughter, Margaret, married to George Longueville, of Little Billinge, Northamptonshire, Esq.