Neville

Regni Nevillorum - The Reign of the Nevilles

"Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?

Was ever woman in this humour won?

I'll have her; but I will not keep her long!"

Richard III,

Act 1, Scene II

"Among the odder turns of events in this reign, Edward [IV] was himself for a short time a prisoner in Middleham Castle, Yorkshire, in the hands of Warwick [Richard Neville]'s brother, the Archbishop of York. Thus "England was in the extraordinary condition of having two kings, both captive in different place, under the charge of one Earl!"

The Nevilles - Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury - and by marriage afterwards Earl of Warwick, - had all along been the chief supporter of Edward [IV]. He was the greatest and richest nobleman in the realm, and he was in some respects more powerful than the King upon the throne.

He was Lieutenant of Ireland, Captain-General of Calais, Captain of Dover (the lock and key of England), Warden of the Western and also the Scottish Marches, Lord Chamberlain, and Lord High Steward.

His brothers and relations filled high offices. Thirty thousand retainers lived at his different castles; "when he came to London, he held such a house that six oxen were eaten at a breakfast;" and when he came to Parliament, he came accompanied by six hundred armed men in his own livery. "He could raise armies at his call from his own earldoms".

"Was ever woman in this humour woo'd?  

  Was ever woman in this humour won?  

  I'll have her; but I will not keep her long.  

  What! I, that kill'd her husband and his father,  

  To take her in her heart's extremest hate,

  With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,  

  The bleeding witness of her hatred by;  

  Having God, her conscience, and these bars  

  against me,  

  And I nothing to back my suit at all,

  But the plain devil and dissembling looks,  

  And yet to win her, all the world to nothing!  

  Ha!  

  Hath she forgot already that brave prince,  

  Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,

  Stabb'd in my angry mood at Tewksbury?  

  A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,  

  Framed in the prodigality of nature,  

  Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,  

  The spacious world cannot again afford  

  And will she yet debase her eyes on me,  

  That cropp'd the golden prime of this sweet prince,  

  And made her widow to a woful bed?  

  On me, whose all not equals Edward's moiety?  

  On me, that halt and am unshapen thus?

  My dukedom to a beggarly denier,  

  I do mistake my person all this while:  

  Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,  

  Myself to be a marvellous proper man.  

  I'll be at charges for a looking-glass,  

  And entertain some score or two of tailors,

  To study fashions to adorn my body:  

  Since I am crept in favour with myself,  

  Will maintain it with some little cost.  

  But first I'll turn yon fellow in his grave;

  And then return lamenting to my love.  

  Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,  

  That I may see my shadow as I pass."

Q : " Just in general, J.K. Rowling, what's the - what do you think of as the moral of these stories? 

I hear a lot of your own sort of reliving school life - ah - in the form of Harry who is really gifted beyond his awareness, he could be much more powerful [JKR: Mmm] than he actually is. There's something deeply - er - deeply exemplary, moral, good about this young man. 

What are the stories trying to tell us about goodness? "

JKR: "Erm - again - I - I - this sounds like a huge cop-out, but it's - it's hard for me to give you the full picture without ruining future plots, and - because there are kids out there that are so attuned to these books that if I say 'well, you might just find out x, y or z' they'll think 'ah -right, so-and-so's going to die, so-and-so is obviously going to learn to do this' you know that - that they'll just know, so I have to be careful what I say. Erm ... Harry is someone is forced for such a young person to make his own choices. He has very limited access to truly caring adults - and he is guided by his conscience. Now, Harry makes mistakes, repeatedly, erm Harry ha- ... did things like ... he did - he did steal the flying car, that was a very stupid thing to do, he - but it seemed like a great idea at the time, we've all been there - er - but ultimately Harry is guided by his conscience. He is flanked by two friends, they work far better as a team than apart, though Harry tends to be the one who has to shoulder the most of the burden - he is the true hero in that sense, Hermione, who is really the brain of the outfit, and Ron, who is also a very brave character, I mean, I deeply admire bravery in all forms, and that's why ... in book one, if - if people have read book one they'll remember that Neville Longbottom, who is a - who is a comic, but I - he's not a tr- wholly comic figure to me, Neville is actually quite a tragic figure to me as well because there's a lot of Neville in me - this feeling of just never being quite good enough - I mean I - we've all felt that at some point, and I felt that a lot when I was younger, and I wanted to show Neville doing something brave - it's not as spectacularly brave as Harry and Hermione do, but he - he finds true moral courage in standing up to his closest friends - the people who are on his side, but he still thinks they are doing wrong and he tells them so - so that's a very important moment for me too in the first book."

" Neville participates in the battle in the Department of Mysteries, in which he accidentally breaks The Prophecy 'about Harry and Voldemort'.

Dumbledore, to whom it was originally made, explains that it concerned “the Chosen One”, a wizard who would have the power to vanquish Voldemort and who would be born “as the seventh month dies” to “parents who have defied the Dark Lord thrice”; thus could refer to either Neville, who was born on 30 July 1980, or Harry, who was born a day later. "

This means that Neville could easily have had Harry’s fate, had Voldemort chosen to target him instead of Harry. "