Notes |
- In (1435) 14 Hen. VI, she was found heiress 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 11 June 1446, even on the most favourable interpretation to the Nevill family of the entail of 1395/96, 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.
On 11 June 1446 the male line of the Beauchamp family, who [under the entail 20 February 1395/96, of William (Beauchamp), 1st Lord Bergavenny] were entitled to the castle and lands of Abergavenny, became extinct by the death, sine prole mascula, of Henry (Beauchamp), Duke and Earl of Warwick. 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 died 1439), and of Henry, Duke of Warwick, his son and heir. It is to be noted that Coke says "where lands are given to a man and his heirs male he hath a fee simple, because it is not limited, by the gift, of what body the issue male shall be." Anyhow, the castle, &c., was for a long time afterwards withheld from this branch of the Nevill(e) family by Anne, daughter and heiress of this Duke Henry, and Anne, sister of the said Duke, who married Richard (Neville), Earl of Warwick and Salisbury [on whose seal, of date 1 February 4 Edw. IV (1464/65) is Sigillum : ricardi : neuill : comitis : warrewici : domini : de : bergeuenny : see the Visitation of Huntingdonshire, 1613, Camden Society, page 74.]. Besides these, it was asserted in Fane's case that George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, his [i.e. the Earl of Warwick and Salisbury's] sons-in-law, were successively seized of the castle and lordship as in right of their wives; that Henry VII granted the castle &c., to Jasper, Duke of Bedford; and that after the death of Jasper sine prole, the property was restored by Henry VIII to George Neville, Lord of Bergavenny, upon a petition of right. (Collins, Baronies by Writ, page 79.) "The fact seems to have been as thus stated, and therefore the Nevill family, during the seisin of the several persons before named, could not have been summoned to parliament in consequence of their seisin of the Castle and Lordship of Bergavenny, not having such seisin." (Lords' Reports, volume i, page 443.) Sir Edward Neville, however, asserted his wife's right as heir at law (notwithstanding the entail) and "Undeuly 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 Henry VI on 15 October [1447?] printed in Bentley's Excerpta Historica (1831), page 6. [2]
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