After the death of King Richard's son Edward (1484), the 10-year-old Warwick was named heir to the throne, possibly thanks to the influence of the queen, his aunt Anne Neville, who had adopted him and his sister Margaret following his parents' deaths. However, as soon as Queen Anne died, Richard named his sister Elizabeth's son, the adult John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln, his heir in place of Warwick. As the American historian Paul Murray Kendall put it (in 1955), "Warwick . . . appears to have been what in the present age would be called a retarded child." British historian Jeremy Potter mentioned (in 1983) some of the contemporary evidence upon which historians based that conclusion: "Warwick . . . may have been simple-minded: later he was said not to be able to tell a goose from a capon." Richard is believed to have named him his heir as a temporary measure only to please his dying queen, who survived her own son's death by less than a year.
After King Richard's death in 1485, Warwick was kept a prisoner by Henry VII because his claim, albeit tarnished, could become a threat to the new king -- particularly after the appearance of the pretender, Lambert Simnel, in 1487. Although, in 1490, he was confirmed in his title of Earl of Warwick despite his (father's) attainder, he remained in the Tower of London until the arrival of another pretender, Perkin Warbeck, in 1499. An unsuccessful escape attempt resulted in the execution for treason of both men.
Preceded by: George Plantagenet | Earl of Warwick | Followed by: Forfeit |
Preceded by: Richard Neville | Earl of Salisbury | Followed by: Margaret Plantagenet |