ABERGAVENNY. been suo jure Baroness Le Despencer) to. her husband's cousin, Richard (Beauciiamp) 5th Eaul ok Warwick, K.Q-. (by whom slie also hud issue), who d. 30 April 1438. She d. 26 Deo. 1440. Will, in which she directs to be bur. at Tewkesbury, dat. 1 Dec. 1439, and proved 4 Feb. 1439-40. Inq. post mortem at Abingdon June 1441. III. 1422. S. Lady Elizabeth Beauciiamp, who, unless the Peerage be considered as one incident to the tenure of the Castle, must be con- sidered as Baroness Bergavenny, or Beauchamp ok Bergavenny, only da. and h., b. at Hanley Castle, co. Worcester, 16 Dec. 1415. She m. when very young, before 1426 [in which year her husband (as " Lord Bergavenny ") (") had summons to take, with the King himself, the order of Knighthood], Sir Edward Nevill, 6th s. of Ralph, 1st Earl ok Westmoreland, being his 4th s. by his 2nd wife, Joane (Beadkort), Dow. Lady Ferrers of Wemm, the legitimated da. of John (Plantaoenet) " of Gaunt," Ddke ok Lancaster. In (1435) 14 Hen. VI, she was found h. to her grandmother (who had held the lands of Abergavenny and others in dower), when she and her husband had livery of the lands of her inheritance, but not of the castle and lands of Abergavenny to which her right did not accrue till June 1445, even on the most favorable interpretation to the Nevill family of the entail of 1 395-6, ( b ) unless, indeed, that entail is, from some unknown cause, to be considered as invalid, against her right as heir at law to her grandfather, the maker of the entail. She d. 18 June 1447, aged 32, and was bur. at the Carmelites, Coventry. (») See Anstis' " Order of the Garter," p. 93. ( b ) In June 1445 the male line of the Beauchamp family, who [under the entail 20 Feb. 1395-6, of William (Beauchamp), 1st Lord Bergavenny] were entitled to the castle and lands of Abergavenny, became ex. by the death, s.p.m., of Henry (Beau- champ), Duke and Earl of Warwick. A grave question however remains as to what title the Earls of Warwick had therein. The words of the entail are, " Thomas, Earl of Warwick, and his heirs male for ever." Under the construction that such estate constituted one in fee, the castle, &c, is stated to have been held in fee in the Inq. post mortem of Richard, Earl of Warwick (who d. 1439) and of Henry, Duke of Warwick, his s. and h. It is to be noted that Coke says " where lands are given to a man anc hit heirs male he hath a fee simple, becaiiBe it is not limited, by the gift, of what body the issue male shall be." Anyhuw, the castle, &c, was for a long time afterwards withheld from tnis branch of the Nevill family by the following persons, viz. Anne, da and h. of this Duke Henry, who d. a minor in 1448 ; Ann, sister of the said Duke, who m. Richard (Nevill) Earl of Warwick and Salisbury.* Besides these, "George, Duke of Clarence [d. 1477], and Richard, Duke of Gloucester [afterwards Richard III], his [i.e. the Earl of Warwick and Salisbury's] sons in law, were successively seised of the Castle and Lordship of Bergavenuy under some title. On the accession of Henry VII, he granted the Castle and Lordship to Jasper Duke of Bedford. On the death of Jasper, s.p. [1495], the property was restored by Henry VIII to George Neville, Lord of Bergavenuy, upon a petition of right. The fact seems to liave been as thus stated, and therefore, until this restoration, the Neville family, during the seisin of the several persons before named, could not have been sum. to Pari, in consequence of their seizin of the Castle and Lordship of Hcrr/avenny, not having such seisin." See the First Report of the Lords' Committee on the dignity of the Peerage (1826), p. 443. Jasper was certainly in possession in 1493, for in a grant, 10 May 8 Hen. VII, he styles himself " Duke of Bedford, Earl of Pembroke and Lord of Abergavenny" — See Rowland's "Family of Nevill " (p. 133), where it is stated that the author has seen (probably among the muniments at Eridge) such grant. Sir Edward Nevill, however, appears to have asserted his wife's right as heir at law (notwithstanding the entail) soon after it accrued by her grandmother's death in 1445, and to have " Undculy entred upon us in the place and Castel of Bergevenny, whereof the heir is our warde." See commands for his expulsion therefrom issued to the Duke of York by Hen. VI on 15 Oct. [qy. 1447 ?], printed in (Bentley's) "Excerpta Historica " (1831), p. 6. This, his former entry (with that of Elizabeth, his late wife) is alluded to in the licence from the Crown 14 July 1449 for his then entry into the Castle, etc., of -Abergavenny, after the said wife's death. Pat., 27 Hen. VI, p. 2, m. 7.
- The legend on the seal of this nobleman, dat. 1 Feb. 4 Ed. IV (1464-5) is "f!irjillum
llicardi Nevill, Comitis Warrewici, DOMINI DE BERQAVENNY." — See "Visit, of co. Huntingdon, 1613."
