of
Lancaster, third son of that monarch; and that claim could not, in many
respects, have fallen into more dangerous hands man those of the duke of
York. Richard was a man of valor and abilities, of a prudent conduct
and mild disposition: he had enjoyed an opportunity of displaying these
virtues in his government of France; and though recalled from that
command by the intrigues and superior interest of the duke of Somerset,
he had been sent to suppress a rebellion in Ireland; had succeeded much
better in that enterprise than his rival in the defence of Normandy, and
had even been able to attach to his person and family the whole Irish
nation, whom he was sent to subdue.[*] In the right of his father, he
bore the rank of first prince of the blood; and by this station he gave
a lustre to his title derived from the family of Mortimer, which, though
of great nobility, was equalled by other families in the kingdom, and
had been eclipsed by the royal descent of the house of Lancaster. He
possessed an immense fortune from the union of so many successions,
those of Cambridge and York on the one hand, with those of Mortimer on
the other; which last inheritance had before been augmented by a union
of the estates of Clarence and Ulster with the patrimonial possessions
of the family of Marche. The alliances too of Richard, by his marrying
the daughter of Ralph Nevil, earl of Westmoreland, had widely extended
his interest among the nobility, and had procured him many connections
in that formidable order.

* Stowe, p. 387.

The family of Nevil was perhaps at this time the most potent, both from
their opulent possessions and from the characters of the men, that has
ever appealed in England. For, besides the earl of Westmoreland, and the
lords Latimer, Fauconberg, and Abergavenny, the earls of Salisbury and
Warwick were of that family, and were of themselves, on many
accounts, the greatest noblemen in the kingdom. The earl of Salisbury,
brother-in-law to the duke of York, was the eldest son by a second
marriage of the earl of Westmoreland; and inherited by his wife,
daughter and heir of Montacute, earl of Salisbury, killed before
Orleans, the possessions and title of that great family. His eldest son,
Richard, had married Anne, the daughter and heir of Beauchamp, earl of
Warwick, who died governor of France; and by this alliance he enjoyed
the possessions, and had acquired the title, of that other family, one
of the most opulent