Anne de Beauchamp, the Kingmaker's wife

Anne de Beauchamp. Innocent lamb, partner in treason, or something else entirely?

The floor is yours.

Tough old broad, I think. She didn't let her precarious position as Warwick's widow stop her from speaking her mind to the king - or from spending Richard's money on expensive religious jewellery, despite being a guest in his house with overtones of "house-arrest", and depsite his bitching about it.

I wish we had a sample of her hand-writing. There's that book which is signed "Anne Warwick", but nobody knows if it was signed by her or by her daughter.

khafara wrote:

Anne de Beauchamp.  Innocent lamb, partner in treason, or something else entirely?

The floor is yours.

I'd say she was something else entirely.  I see her as a self-respecting person caught in a difficult situation, standing up for her rights as she understood them.

Shouldn't some of her inheritance have been exempted from lands confiscated as a result of Warwick's defeat?  Wasn't the law that gave Clarence and Gloucester control of their wives' inheritance as if the countess of Warwick was dead the kind of thing that got Richard II deposed?  

Helping her oldest daughter give birth to her first grandchild on a ship because her husband lost his battle with Edward IV demanded courage and skill.  Living with a son-in-law and daughter who benefitted from a law that gave them her lands "as if she were dead" probably demanded a lot of self-restraint.  Negotiating with Henry VII's government for her rights while her grandson was in the Tower probably caused her some second thoughts.  The outcome of that deal suggests she balanced her desire to reclaim her inheritance with concern for her grandson's future.

Did any wife of a nobleman who switched sides in the War of Roses fail to support him?  At least in public?  I can't think of any right now.

phaecilia