Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury.

About Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury

Richard Neville, jure uxoris 5th Earl of Salisbury was a fifteenth-century English northern magnate. He was the eldest son by the second wife of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, from whom he inherited vast estates in Yorkshire, which he augmented by marriage to Alice Montagu, daughter and heiress of Thomas Montagu, Earl of Salisbury, from where he received his title. He was a loyal Lancastrian for most of his life, serving the King, Henry VI, in France, on the border with Scotland, and in many of the periodic crises of the reign. This included the fall of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, the fall of the Duke of Suffolk, Jack Cade's rebellion, and the revolt of the King's cousin Richard of York. He was also closely involved in an internicine feud with the senior branch of his family over the dvision of Ralph's estates from the late 1420s to the 1440s, and in the early 1450s his family and that of the powerful northern Percy family indulged in a violent local war, during which period Salisbury was a royal councillor.