Monday 27 July 2009

Anne Neville's ancestry - Waltheof

Stephen Lark has kindly sent me this interesting link about Waltheof. Among other things it gives six generations of descent from him and it's clear how he linked to Anne Neville by at least one route.

One area of Anne's ancestry that the coat of arms ignore is that of her descent from the House of York. This gave her some quite remarkable ancestors, including El Cid! I suppose it's proof that even the most complex of quarterings cannot convey everything.

6 comments:

trish wilson said...

So Anne Neville is descended from El Cid. I can top that. According to one book of geneaology that I read mnay years ago HM The Queen is a descendant of Mohammed!

Small world isn't it?

Brian Wainwright said...

Same route I think, through the Yorkists. One of the early Spanish kings married a daughter of a Muslim ruler, and the line passed through the Castilian royal house to Isabel of Castile, Duchess of York, among (many) others.

I am pretty sure that Isabel of Castile also had Jewish lineage through her mother Maria de Padilla. Obviously Richard III and Anne Neville have these ancestors in common as indeed do every English or British sovereign since Edward IV, barring only Henry VII. And indeed any descendant of Edmund of Langley, which is a fair proportion of the English and Welsh people as well as Anglo-Welsh descendants in other countries.

I suspect we are all ultimately cousins, but proving it is the hard bit.

trish wilson said...

Good grief Brian. It seems Isabel and I have something in common, our Spanish/Muslim and Jewish genes. I'm so racially mixed that I don't know who I am - I rather think that in my case the BBC would have to do an extended programme - but I am very proud of the what including true Yorkshire grit and Celtic passion - Irish/Welsh.

It's partly because of my roots that I'm like Sue H neutral but despite my broad back and wicked sense of humour even I'm beginning to lose patience with some of the more diehard Ricardians who I feel are letting the side down and don't seem to realise how their extreme behaviour could not only damage themselves but everyone else - a few weeks ago it came to the point where even I felt so incensed I came very close to doing a 'Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells. Put it this way if the media were to pick up on what I have it might well turn into a case of the brown stuff hitting the whirling object. I've tried your website - no can do - so any chance of another link so I can pass on what I know and you take it up from there?

trish wilson said...

Brian

I've just set up my own blog site entitled 'Daughter of Time

URL http//trishwilsondot.blogspot.com

And do bear in mind my name is Wilson not Weir or Wigram



Trish

Brian Wainwright said...

Hi Trish,

I regard myself as a moderate Ricardian, not an extremist. Richard was not a saint, he was a 15th century aristocrat with no inherited land of his own. Such men had to take what they could, how they could. He had some redeeming features - in modern terms we would call him a good employer - but he was hard because he had to be to survive. The incredibly gentle Richard presented by some would not have survived even 33 years. I wish it were not so, that I could say with my hand on my heart that I thought him the most perfect mortal ever to bless England's soil, but sadly life has taught me that such ideal beings do not much exist outside novels, and those that do rarely, if ever, become kings or the equivalent. Indeed such persons do not want power and wealth - they are too good and above such trifles. They become poets, artists, nurses, carers...

So you need not fear that I think Richard a saint. Where I part from the mainstream is that I cannot see him as markedly worse than his predecessors, while I think him infinitely superior to his successors. Far worse men (and women) have ruled this land.

trish wilson said...

Brian

Do you remember what I said about traumatic childhood and teenage angst?

I've also looked into Richard's two predecessors and two succesors and it seems they all, albeit differently, had the same problem but I think Richard had it the worst, the way he was pushed through the emotional mangle betwen 8-18 and forced to make a choice at 15 which I doubt some people of 50 could make today.

Believe it or nor Richard and I do have something in common, it's called learning survival the hard way. I'm still here but I when I look back I wonder how, possibly due to my racial mix. I've more races in my genes thatn Heinz has varieties, two of which are Arab and Jewish and a third Irish. Try living with that!