A loyal supporter of RICHARD III during the last phase of the civil wars (1483-1487), Sir Robert Brackenbury had custody of the TOWER OF LONDON during the confinement there in 1483 of EDWARD V and his brother Richard PLANTAGENET, duke of York.

The younger son of a minor GENTRY family from Durham, Brackenbury became treasurer of the duke of Gloucester's household in about 1476. Upon Gloucester's assumption of the throne as Richard III in July 1483, Brackenbury was given a lifetime appointment as constable of the Tower, a position of great trust, for it gave Brackenbury charge of important royal prisoners and of the royal mint. Although Brackenbury was a northerner, Richard made him a power in the key southern county of Kent, placing him in charge of all royal manors in the southeast and granting him the Kentish estates of Anthony WOODVILLE, Earl Rivers, and other defeated opponents (see RICHARD III, NORTHERN AFFINITY OF). In 1484, the king knighted Brackenbury, appointed him sheriff of Kent, and named him to the admiralty commission. Invested with numerous duties and offices, Brackenbury soon found it necessary to exercise many by deputy. By 1485, Brackenbury's annual income from royal service approached ÂŁ500, a substantial sum that made him one of the most heavily rewarded of Richard's servants.

According to the account of the deaths of EDWARD IV's sons in Sir Thomas More's HISTORY OF KING RICHARD III, Richard ordered Brackenbury to kill the princes, who were in his charge as Tower prisoners. Brackenbury refused, but did comply with Richard's subsequent order to temporarily deliver the keys of the Tower to Sir James TYRELL, another highly favored royal servant, who then murdered the boys with the aid of several accomplices. Whether or not Brackenbury was involved in or aware of the murder of the princes is now unclear. What is certain is that he served Richard III loyally throughout his reign, actively assisting in the suppression of BUCKINGHAM'S REBELLION in 1483 and dying with Richard at the Battle of BOSWORTH FIELD in 1485.

Further Reading: Horrox, Rosemary, Richard III:A Study in Service (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); More, Sir Thomas, The History of King Richard III and Selections from the English and Latin Poems, edited by Richard S. Sylvester (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976); Ross, Charles, Richard III (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981).

Along with the other Northumberland fortresses of BAMBURGH and DUNSTANBURGH, Alnwick Castle demonstrated the insecurity of EDWARD IV's throne by falling several times into Lancastrian hands between 1461 and 1464.

After the Yorkist victory at the Battle of TOWTON in March 1461,Alnwick was one of several northern strongholds that remained under the control of RETAINERS loyal to the Lancastrian Percy family (see entries under PERCY). The castle fell to Richard NEVILLE, earl of Warwick, in September, but was lost again in November to a Lancastrian raiding party from SCOTLAND under Sir William TAILBOYS. Realizing that the Northumberland fortresses were vulnerable so long as the Lancastrians could cross the border, Edward IV negotiated a three-month truce with Scotland to begin in June 1462. Edward used the ceasefire to retake the lost castles, with Alnwick falling in July after a short siege conducted by William HASTINGS, Lord Hastings, and Sir John HOWARD. Once again, Yorkist control of the fortress was short-lived, for in late October Alnwick capitulated to MARGARET OF ANJOU and her newly landed force of French MERCENARIES under Pierre de BRÉZÉ. The Lancastrian royal family and de Brézé retired to Scotland in November upon receiving news of an approaching Yorkist army. By early December 1462,Warwick was coordinating sieges of all three castles, with the Alnwick operation under the command of William NEVILLE, earl of Kent; Anthony WOODVILLE, Lord Scales; and John TIPTOFT, earl of Worcester.

On 5 January 1463, a Scottish relief force under de Brézé and the Scottish earl of Angus appeared at Alnwick. Warwick, perhaps conscious of the low morale of his men, who had been maintaining a difficult siege in midwinter, declined to fight. Robert HUNGERFORD, Lord Hungerford, commander of the Alnwick garrison, marched his men out of the castle and withdrew into Scotland with de Brézé's force. Warwick installed a Yorkist garrison in Alnwick, but Hungerford retook the castle in March when the Yorkist commander, Sir Ralph Grey, defected and allowed the Lancastrians to enter the fortress unopposed. By June, Warwick and his brother John NEVILLE, Lord Montagu, were again marching north. The Nevilles surprised a large Scottish army as it was besieging Norham Castle; the Scots force, which included not only JAMES III and his mother MARY OF GUELDRES, but also the Lancastrian royal family, fled in panic before the Yorkist army. This defeat cooled Scottish support for the Lancastrians and allowed the negotiation of a ten-month Anglo-Scottish truce in December.

With Scotland thus neutralized, the Yorkists began a campaign to end Lancastrian activity in Northumberland once and for all. In April 1464, Montagu defeated a Lancastrian force under Henry BEAUFORT, duke of Somerset, at the Battle of HEDGELEY MOOR west of Alnwick. The Lancastrian survivors of that battle gathered at Alnwick, where, under the nominal leadership of HENRY VI himself, they reformed and marched out to again face Montagu. At the Battle of HEXHAM on 15 May, Montagu defeated and captured Somerset, while the demoralized remnants of Somerset's force retreated to Alnwick, which they surrendered to Warwick on 23 June. Alnwick was henceforth Yorkist, and the Northumberland phase of the civil wars was over.

Further Reading: Haigh, Philip A., The Military Campaigns of the Wars of the Roses (Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1995); Pollard, A. J., North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990).