The male-line of the family can be traced back to a certain Uhtred, whose identity is unclear, since the ancestors of Robert FitzMaldred first appear in surviving records only decades after the Norman Conquest of England (1066) and Domesday Book (1086), which did not cover County Durham.

[2] As well as prestigious ancient connections with the royal families of both England and Scotland, this claim entailed a line of descent from the Bamburgh dynasty of Earls of Northumbria, attaching the Nevilles' later power in the north to a pedigree of pre-eminence in the region stretching back at least as far as the early 10th century.

[1] Meanwhile, Horace Round (1895) suggests that Uhtred may have been identical with the man of that name who was a son of Ligulf, a great Northumbrian thegn killed at Durham in 1080.

[citation needed] In 1069, William the Conqueror granted the Lordship of Middleham to his Breton cousin Alan Rufus, son of Odo, who built a wooden motte-and-bailey castle above the town.

The Middleham castle eventually passed to Ribald's descendant[citation needed] Geoffrey de Neville (died 1193), 2nd feudal baron of Ashby in Lincolnshire.

[21] Ralph commanded the force that crushed an invading Scottish army at the Battle of Neville's Cross outside Durham and captured King David II in 1346.

Besides their original powerbase in County Durham, they possessed a large block of lands in northern and central Yorkshire and significant holdings in Cumberland and Northumberland.

These competing northern magnates enjoyed an exceptional degree of autonomy from royal authority, owing to the remoteness and insecurity of the region where they were established.

The king, whose court was based in the south, had to rely on powerful lords from both houses to protect the border from Scottish invasion, counterbalance each other's influence, and help with general governance.

Shortly after Bolingbroke's successful usurpation, taking the throne as Henry IV, Westmorland was rewarded with marriage to the new king's half-sister Joan Beaufort, daughter of prince John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

Those of the earldom of Warwick, inherited from the Beauchamp family, were concentrated chiefly in Warwickshire and Worcestershire, but with lesser holdings in County Durham, Devon, Cornwall and the Welsh Marches.

They probably hoped that a Yorkist seizure of power would bring a favourable resolution of major inheritance disputes involving Warwick, and of a sporadically violent struggle for preeminence in the north between Salisbury and the Percys.

They were also connected to York by marriage, as he had married Salisbury's sister Cecily; their children included the future kings Edward IV and Richard III.

In addition to their own wealth and armed following, the Nevilles' heft in this and subsequent conflicts was enhanced by Warwick's position as Constable of Calais and commissioner for the keeping of the seas.

[29] Among the family's rewards for their support was the elevation of Salisbury's brother, the veteran soldier William Neville, Lord Fauconberg, as Earl of Kent.

He, Warwick, and Salisbury's younger son John Neville, now ennobled as Baron Montagu, directed the suppression of lingering Lancastrian resistance in the north, where the ousted dynasty clung on for three years after their decisive defeat at the Battle of Towton in 1461.

The king refrained from punishing the rebels, but sought to reestablish a northern counterweight to the Nevilles by restoring the earldom of Northumberland to the dispossessed heir, Henry Percy.

Edward sought to retain John's allegiance by compensating him with estates in the south-west, the new title of Marquess of Montagu, and the betrothal of his young son George Neville to the king's eldest daughter and current heir, Elizabeth of York.

Defeated, they fled abroad, where they made common cause with the exiled Lancastrians, marrying Warwick's daughter Anne to Henry VI's only son Edward of Westminster.

The legacy of the Middleham Nevilles instead became the object of dispute between King Edward's brothers: Richard, Duke of Gloucester, and Clarence, who had returned to the family fold before the Battle of Barnet.

The northern lands and clientage inherited from the Nevilles became Gloucester's main powerbase, and he adopted Middleham Castle as his principal residence until his usurpation of the throne as Richard III in 1483.

The line of the Earls of Westmorland survived the wars, but the loss of most of the ancestral estates through their inheritance by the Nevilles of Middleham and their subsequent downfall left the family a much diminished force.

[33] Junior lines of the Middleham Nevilles also survived, including the holders of the Latimer and Bergavenny baronies, based, respectively, at Snape and at Abergavenny Castle.

In 1569 the Nevilles and Percys buried their traditional rivalry to undertake the Revolt of the Northern Earls, an attempt to overthrow Elizabeth I and replace her with the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots.