Alice Montacute, 5th Countess of Salisbury

Alice Montacute (1407 – bef. 9 December 1462) was an English noblewoman and the suo jure 5th Countess of Salisbury, 6th Baroness Monthermer, and 7th and 4th Baroness Montacute, having succeeded to the titles in 1428. Her husband, Richard Neville became 5th Earl of Salisbury by right of his marriage to Alice.

Marriage and children

Alice was born in 1407, the daughter and only legitimate child, of Thomas Montacute, 4th Earl of Salisbury, and Eleanor Holland, who was the daughter of Thomas Holland, 2nd Earl of Kent, and Lady Alice FitzAlan. The latter was a daughter of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel, and Eleanor of Lancaster.

In 1420, she married Richard Neville, who became the 5th Earl of Salisbury by right of his wife on the death of her father Thomas Montacute in 1428. Alice was thereafter styled as Countess of Salisbury.

The principal seat of the family was at Bisham Manor in Berkshire although their lands lay chiefly around Christchurch in Hampshire and Wiltshire.

She died some time before 9 December 1462 and was buried in the Montacute Mausoleum at Bisham Abbey.

Alice and Richard had ten children who survived infancy:

• Lady Joan Neville (1423-9 September 1462), who married William FitzAlan, 16th Earl of Arundel.
• Lady Cecily Neville (1424-28 July 1450), who married Henry de Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick.
• Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick (1428–1471), who married the heiress Anne Beauchamp, suo jure 16th Countess of Warwick. They were parents to queen consort Anne Neville.
• Lady Alice Neville (1430– after 1503), who married Henry FitzHugh, 5th Baron FitzHugh. Their daughter, Elizabeth, married William Parr, 1st Baron Parr of Kendal. The two were grandparents to Queen consort Catherine Parr, sixth wife of King Henry VIII.
• John Neville, 1st Marquess of Montagu (1431–1471).
• George Neville (1432–1476), who became Archbishop of York and Chancellor of England.
• Lady Eleanor Neville (1438–1504), who married Thomas Stanley, 1st Earl of Derby.
• Lady Katherine Neville (1442-1503/04), who married firstly William Bonville, 6th Baron of Harington, and secondly William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings. By her first husband, she was the mother of Cecily Bonville.
• Thomas Neville (1443–1460), who was knighted in 1449 and died at the Battle of Wakefield.
• Lady Margaret Neville (1444-20 November 1506), who married John de Vere, 13th Earl of Oxford.

• ^ David Baldwin. The Kingmaker's Sisters: Six Powerful Women in the Wars of the Roses, History Press, 1 August 2009.
• Douglas Richardson. Magna Carta Ancestry: a study in colonial and medieval families, Genealogical Publishing, 2005. pg 341. Google eBooks

Ancestry