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.