Anne Neville, the odd queen out

To catch a king - the romance and politics behind a royal marriage have long fascinated historians and novelists alike. What is it about the women who wear a consort's crown that makes them marriage material for monarchs?  The hint of a love story is enough to send hearts racing and pens pounding paper while the heartbreak of young women left in miserable marriages because it suited the ambitions of their husbands, fathers and brothers has a poignancy all of its own.  In England, monarchs have ascended the throne with a spare consort's seat to their left with astounding regularity.  Kings complete with queens on the day they took the throne were a rarity and from 1377 until the rise of the House of Stuart in 1603, just one queen was already wed to her king on the day of his accession.  And that was Anne Neville.

 

Anne Neville (Faye Marsay) and Richard III (Aneurin Barnard) save money by being crowned at the same time in The White Queen

From the accession of Richard II on that fateful day in 1377 to the rise to the throne of Edward IV in the bloody battles of 1461, all English kings had been free and single - if not always young - when they took the crown.  Youth had certainly played a part in some kings not having wives to be crowned alongside them - Richard II was just ten when he became king as was Edward V and although that didn't preclude marriage or betrothal, it also meant there was still time to find a bride if no arrangements had already been made.  Henry VI had been just nine months old and even medieval royals, on the whole, considered that too young for a promise of marriage.

 

Henry VI (David Shelley in BBC One's The White Queen) was 23 years into his reign when he married for the first (and only) time - a record for an English king.  But then he was just 24 at the time of the wedding.

But the political instability surrounding the crown had also played its part.  Edward IV was 19 when he became king but he was also a usurper and they weren't top of the shopping list for ambitious fathers looking for husbands for royal princesses or wealthy heiresses.  That wariness about hooking up with wobbly kings might have had a bearing on the marriage prospects of Henry V.  He was heir to the throne because of his father's usurpation and while dad, Henry IV, negotiated marriages for his two daughters to European royalty, none of his surviving sons married until late into his reign.  Henry IV himself had taken the throne unmarried, his first wife dying five years before he became king.  All told, the kings of the Wars of the Roses didn't exactly attract royal brides like bees to honey.

 

Mean, moody and marvelously good looking, Edward IV (Max Irons in The White Queen) was too busy fighting battles to find himself an eligible European bride so became yet another single king

 

But then kings fighting for thrones had other things on their minds than marriage.  Once the crown was secured, the choice of bride was perhaps even more important for usurpers than kings who ruled by right of birth.  And from Richard II through to Richard III, choosing who to ally the royal house with via the marriage of the king was of huge importance.  Richard II's advisers linked him to powerful families in Europe while Henry IV chose a women with political clout of her own.  Henry V picked a bride who could give him another kingdom while Henry VI's advisers chose someone who might just help their failing war in France.  Edward IV had changed everything by marrying a commoner but Elizabeth Woodville's real power was in destablising the dominace of Kingmaker Warwick at a time when Edward was in danger of falling into the pattern of a puppet king.  Edward IV picked a bride who would make him powerful where it mattered - in the heart of his own court.

Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville made each other very powerful indeed

 

Anne Neville was not a potential queen by either standard but then Richard wasn't choosing a consort on the day of his wedding.  He had no realistic prospect of being king and needed a powerbase to stop himself being written out of the story of the three sons of York as a poor relation.  Anne had cash and needed a husband to protect her as her brother in law - and Richard's brother - wanted her fortune and had his hands half way round it.  Their marriage suited them both as younger siblings of splendid families.  But it wasn't a marriage of a king and a queen.  The main beneficiary was Edward IV.  He was now more secure on the throne than ever and he owed his crown this time mostly to himself.  Whereas his accession in 1461 had been the work of the three York boys and the Kingmaker, this time round Edward had fought for the right to rule and won.  And strong kings can divide and rule.  By allowing Richard to marry Anne he antagonized middle brother, George, who wanted the Neville fortune to fall intact to his wife, Anne's sister Isabel.  The wedding of 1472 made sure that Richard and George would never come together to side against him.  He had all his men, friend and foe, where he wanted them.

 

The marriage of Anne Neville to the man who would make her his queen, Richard III, in a scene from The White Queen

 

 

Which makes Anne Neville an accidental queen of England.  When Richard became king it didn't take long for rumours to surface that he wanted rid of his wife.  Whatever the source of those whispers, the queen consort had few friends to defend her and her death in 1485 was followed soon afterwards by suits of interest from Richard III to a Portuguese princess.  The fact that Richard was only linked to women of royal blood after Anne's death - even if two were his nieces - demonstrates that he was reverting to type when choosing a queen.   Anne may have bucked the trend for queens just as much as The White Queen, Elizabeth Woodville, but she never came close to enjoying the success as consort that her rival did.