Page:The Queens of England.djvu/259

ANNE OF WARWICK, WIFE OF RICHARD THE THIRD. Anne of Warwick, the subject of this memoir, was de- scended from some of the most wealthy and powerful of the English nobility. Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, her grandfather, was of that numerous and extraordinary family of the great Earl of Westmoreland, each of whom took a prominent part in the annals of the country during that eventful period, the fifteenth century. The father of Anne Neville was the far-famed Rich- ard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the son of the Earl of Salis- bury, whom the chroniclers of that day distinguish as the "king-maker," and "the most potent earl that England ever saw." He became Earl of Warwick, and took the name of Beauchamp in right of his wife. On the maternal side the ancestors of Anne Neville (for that was her family name) were not less illustrious. Her mother, Anne, was daughter to the great Earl of Warwick, so re- nowned in the wars of France in the reign of Henry the Sixth. This earl had but one son and one daughter, both of whom he allied to the house of Salisbury in marriage. His son was Henry Beauchamp, the chief favorite of the Lancastrian king, who conferred upon him every possible dignity, making him Premier of England, Duke of Warwick, and King of the Isle of Wight. But this accomplished nobleman died at an early age, and his infant daughter did not long survive him, and r.fter her death, Anne, the sister of Duke Henry, came into possession of the family estates, and her husband, the son of the Earl of Salisbury, assumed, in her right, the title of Earl of Warwick. The Countess of Warwick had but two daughters, named Isabella and Anne, and both of them were, like herself, des- tined to experience many vicissitudes and misfortunes in those