Margaret Plantagenet: Feudal Magnate

Chapter 2 : Warwick Lands

Warwick's wife, Countess Anne was still alive, and, in strict law, should have retained her Earldom, but Warwick's daughters (the couple had no sons) were married to King Edward's brothers, George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester. All her lands were distributed between the brothers and their wives, as well as the lands of the Salisbury Earldom. Poor Countess Anne was to be treated as though she were "naturally dead", according to the grants to Clarence and Gloucester.

The older sister, Isabel Neville, Duchess of Clarence had two children, Edward, who was named as Earl of Warwick, and granted his mother's share of the Warwick lands on his birth, and Margaret.On Clarence's execution for treason, young Warwick, aged only five, inherited his mother's share of the Salisbury lands. His cousin, Edward of Middleham, son of Anne Neville, Duchess of Gloucester, stood to inherit the remainder, on Anne's death. Sadly, Edward of Middleham, by then styled Prince of Wales, as the son of Richard III, died young, followed, shortly thereafter by his mother.

All of the Salisbury and Warwick lands therefore vested in Edward, Earl of Warwick, whose natural heir, until he married, was his sister Margaret.