Anne of York

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Anne with her second husband Thomas St. Leger

Anne of York, Duchess of Exeter (born August 10, 1439 in Fotheringhay Castle , † January 1476 ) was an English noblewoman.

Origin and family

Anne of York was the second child and eldest surviving daughter of Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York and his wife Cecily Neville . She was the older sister of King Edward IV ; Edmund, Earl of Rutland , Elizabeth of York, Duchess of Suffolk , Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy , George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence and Richard III. of England .

Wife of the Duke of Exeter

In January 1446 Anne was married to Henry Holland . Her husband was a close relative of King Henry VI. and became heir to the Duke of Exeter title the following year . Despite his class, however, her husband owned relatively little land and had little income for his rank. During the Wars of the Roses , Exeter was among the leaders of the House of Lancaster , fighting Anne's father Richard of York and her brother Edward. When he had fought for power after the Battle of Towton in 1461 and when Edward IV became King of England, Exeter fled into exile in Burgundy .

Takeover of Exeter's holdings, divorce and remarriage

Anne did not follow her husband into exile but stayed in England. In November 1461 a Bill of Attainder was pronounced against Exeter . His goods were confiscated. Initially, Anne was only awarded the income from his fiefdoms, as the king wanted to ensure that Exeter had no income from his possessions while in exile. However, Anne was quick to convince her brother of her loyalty to him. In 1462 he gave her the lifelong use of all her husband's possessions, as well as other estates in Essex that had been confiscated by the Lancastrians . In 1464, the king gave her the lucrative guardianship administration for the underage Henry Stafford and in 1465 the administration of other confiscated goods. Her daughter Anne, who had been declared her heir, was betrothed to young George Neville , son of John Neville, 1st Earl of Northumberland . In October 1466, however, the Queen Elizabeth Woodville paid 4,000 marks to Anne. Thereupon, to the indignation of the Neville family, Anne married her daughter to Thomas Gray , the eldest son from the Queen's marriage. Regulations were repeatedly made about Anne's possessions, about the inheritance rights of her daughter or other children of hers, which indicates that Anne had since entered into a new relationship. After the decisive defeat of the Lancastrians in 1471, Anne and Exeter were divorced on November 12, 1472. Shortly thereafter, Anne married the knight Thomas St Leger for the second time . Anne died a few weeks after giving birth to another daughter. She was buried in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle .

Descendants and inheritance

From her marriage to Exeter, she had at least one daughter:

  • Anne Holland († before February 1474)

From her marriage to Thomas St Leger she had a daughter:

Since Anne's first daughter had already died childless, her young second daughter became her heir. Thomas St Leger became her guardian, but in 1483 after a revolt against King Richard III. was executed. In early 1483, at the instigation of Queen Elizabeth Woodville , the Exeter inheritance was divided between Richard Gray , another stepson of the king, and Anne St Leger by a parliamentary resolution. Anne St Leger was engaged to be married to Thomas Gray , heir to Thomas Gray, 1st Marquess of Dorset. With this inheritance, Ralph Neville , the rightful Exeter heir, was disinherited. However, Anne St Leger later married George Manners.

DNA and Richard III.

In September 2012, researchers from the University of Leicester found the grave of Richard III on the site of the only now undeveloped part of a former Franciscan monastery. The mitochondrial DNA found in the bones was compared with that of a direct descendant of Richard's sister Anne of York in the 17th generation, the London-based Canadian Michael Ibsen. This is related through his mother Joy with Richard through his mother Cecily Neville in a purely maternal line.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Charles Ross: Edward IV. University of California Press, Berkeley 1974, ISBN 0-520-02781-7 , p. 93
  2. ^ Charles Ross: Edward IV. University of California Press, Berkeley 1974, ISBN 0-520-02781-7 , p. 337
  3. ^ University of Leicester: The Discovery of Richard III. Female-line family tree