IN THE KINGMAKER’S SHADOW
THE STORY OF JOHN NEVILLE, MARQUESS MONTAGU
Montagu cut his teeth in warfare and politics in the early 1450s, but not in France. Instead, he waged his family’s private war for local dominance in the north. Only the Percys, headed by Henry, second Earl of Northumberland, matched the Nevilles’ influence in the region. As the hatchet-man for his family, Montagu was an active and violent participant in the feud between the two households.
The event that pushed the families into open aggression was the marriage between Montagu’s older brother, Sir Thomas Neville, and Maud Stanhope, co-heiress to the manors of Burwell in Lincolnshire and Wressle in the East Riding. This land had previously belonged to the Percys, before being forfeited in 1408 for their rebellion against Henry IV. Hoping to regain his lost estates, Northumberland was furious at the match, and both parties were soon at odds. On 29 June 1453, Montagu led his father’s retainers to ransack the manor of Topcliffe in the vain hope of capturing Northumberland’s son, Thomas Percy, Lord Egremont. He subsequently launched an attack on the Percy manor of Catton.
As the feud escalated, both sides sought allies to tip the scales in their favour. In the search for friends of great political substance, Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, Montagu’s father, allied himself with his kinsman, Richard, Duke of York, and the Percys naturally sought the aid of York’s rival,
