John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu
The king, Henry VI, already known to be a weak ruler, suffered a mental collapse which led to a protectorate headed by John's uncle, Richard, Duke of York.
Following a few years of uneasy peace, the Yorkists' rebellion erupted once again, and John Neville fought alongside his father and elder brother Thomas at the Battle of Blore Heath in September 1459.
His father and brother died in battle just after Christmas 1460, and in February the next year, John – now promoted to the peerage as Lord Montagu – and Warwick fought the Lancastrians again at St Albans.
John Neville soon emerged, with Warwick, as representatives of the king's power in the north, which was still politically turbulent, as there were still a large number of Lancastrians on the loose attempting to raise a rebellion against the new regime.
At around the same time, however, his brother Warwick became increasingly dissatisfied with his relationship with the king, and began instigating rebellions against Edward IV in the north, finally capturing him in July 1469.
Montagu, however, having raised a small army, turned against Edward, almost capturing him at Olney, Buckinghamshire; the king, with his other brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester, fled into exile in Burgundy.
News of this must have reached the north within the fortnight, for by the twelfth, one of the Earl of Northumberland's younger sons, Thomas Percy, Lord Egremont, began recruiting men.
[16] John Neville married Isabel[note 1] Ingoldsthorpe (c.1441 – 20 May 1476), of Burrough Green and Sawston, Cambridgeshire, on 25 April 1457; Archbishop Thomas Bourchier officiated the marriage at Canterbury Cathedral.
John Neville included,[1] they gathered an armed retinue and marched to stop the royal party from reaching Leicester, intercepting them at St Albans.
He was part of a delegation of twenty-two Ambassadors nominated to discuss breaches of the Truce with Burgundy on 14 May that year,[32] and two months later he was investigating the murder of a royal serjeant.
[50] During the Protector's absence that winter, and after York's and Salisbury's death, alongside his brothers Warwick and George (the Chancellor) Neville was part of the head of government.
[58] Montagu commanded the left flank of the Yorkist army, which itself was subdivided into a group of archers in the town itself, with the majority posted on Bernards Heath,[59] stretching eastwards towards Warwick's vanguard.
"[63][64] As a result of his capture and imprisonment in York, Montagu escaped participation in the biggest and probably bloodiest battle of the Wars of the Roses which took place on 29 March 1461 at Towton in Yorkshire.
[66] Montagu and Warwick then stayed in the north to attempt the recapture of northern castles still in Lancastrian hands;[67] as John Gillingham has put it, "the unfinished military business would have to be left to the Nevilles.
"[70] Carlisle had had its suburbs burnt and been under siege from June[71] by a Scottish-Lancastrian force, but was easily[72] relieved by him,[73] apparently killing 6,000 Scots and Lord Clifford's brother in the process,[74] before Warwick had even arrived.
"[79] Montagu joined Warwick in escorting the chariot of six horses in the funeral cortege conveying the mortal remains of their father and brother from Pontefract Castle to the family mausoleum at Bisham Abbey,[80] on 14–15 February 1463.
[1] Later that year, he led an expedition to Norham Castle, which had been besieged by the Scots for the previous eighteen days, and relieved it on 26 July; this was followed by a Chevauchée into Scotland which only ceased when Montagu's force ran out of supplies.
On his way to pick them up at Norham, he only avoided an ambush near Newcastle,[98] by a small force of eighty spear and bowmen under Sir Humphrey Neville, by changing his route.
[100] Montagu, having delivered the Scottish embassy to Newcastle, left there on 14 May,[101] either with Lords Greystoke and Willoughby or picking them up en route[72] with other supporters,[102] to seek out the Lancastrians.
[102] Lords Roos, Hungerford, Findern, and Tallboys survived the battle only to be executed, on Montagu's order – and probably in his presence[109] – with the Duke of Somerset in Newcastle.
[115] Later that year – the "high watermark of his House, the zenith of the Nevilles"[116] – Montagu's brother George was appointed Archbishop of York, with John his Treasurer at his enthronement feast.
[120] It was during this time (Hicks has suggested around January 1465)[121] that Montagu and Lord Scales were requested by the Duke of Brittany to accompany a force of 3,000 Breton archers[122] supplied by him, for the League of the Public Weal against Louis XI of France.
[127] The Wardens were the military guardians of the border from the late fourteenth century, and their salaries made them the highest-paid among Crown officers, but this was inclusive of the cost of raising troops and maintaining defence.
[133] However, by this time, it was being rumoured that Warwick was moving towards supporting the House of Lancaster, as a result of dissatisfaction over the king's marriage to Elizabeth Woodville and his pursuit of an anti-French foreign policy.
[139] Montagu was forced to come down from the Scottish border to suppress it;[140] this he did, but, one historian has suggested, albeit that he "allowed the leaders to escape ... ensuring that the rebellion could rise again" at a more opportune moment.
Indeed, it has been suggested that his loyalty might still have been suspected by the newly arrived Lancastrians: having been summoned to the November 1470 parliament, Polydor Virgil states that he had to apologise there for his prior support of Edward.
[169] Montagu, having responsibility for the defence of the north, received various commissions of array, which reflected the government's knowledge that King Edward was equipping a Burgundian-backed fleet in order to re-invade.
[177] Montagu arrived at Coventry, where the Earl of Warwick was camped, in early April 1471;[110] this was probably the day after Clarence had defected back to his brother Edward, and taken his army with him.
[183] It has been suggested that it was Montagu who persuaded Warwick to fight on foot at Barnet,[184] leaving the horses tethered at the rear, in order to demonstrate their commitment to the cause by taking the same risks as the common soldier.
"[189] The Earl of Oxford, commanding the right wing of the Neville army, broke the opposing Yorkist line, under William, Lord Hastings, early in the battle.
