Neville's father was slain fighting for the Lancastrians at the Battle of Towton on 29 March 1461, and attainted on 4 November of that year. On 6 October 1472 Ralph Neville obtained the reversal of his father's attainder and the restoration of the greater part of his estates, and thereby became Lord Neville. On 18 April 1475 Neville was created a Knight of the Bath together with the sons of King Edward IV. He was a justice of the peace in Durham. For his 'good services against the rebels', on 23 March 1484 King Richard III granted Neville manors in Somerset and Berkshire and the reversion of lands which had formerly belonged to Margaret, Countess of Richmond. In September 1484 he was a commissioner to keep the truce with Scotland. On 3 November 1484 his uncle, Ralph Neville, 2nd Earl of Westmorland, died, and Neville succeeded as 3rd Earl of Westmorland and Lord Neville. After the Yorkist defeat at Bosworth, Westmorland entered into bonds to the new King, Henry VII, of £400 and 400 marks, and on 5 December 1485, he gave custody, Ralph Neville, to the King. Westmorland held a command in the army sent into Scotland in 1497 after James IV supported the pretensions to the crown of Perkin Warbeck.
Death
Westmorland's eldest son died in 1498. Westmorland died at Hornby Castle, Yorkshire, the seat of his son-in-law, Sir William Conyers, on 6 February 1499, allegedly of grief for his son's death, and was buried in the parish church there. His grandson, Ralph Neville, succeeded to the earldom as 4th Earl of Westmorland.
Ralph Neville, Lord Neville. As noted above, on 5 December 1485, his father had granted his custody to the King. Accordingly, Lord Neville married firstly, in the presence of King Henry VII and his Queen, Elizabeth of York, Mary Paston, the eldest daughter of Sir William Paston by Lady Anne Beaufort, daughter of Edmund Beaufort, 2nd Duke of Somerset. She died of measles at court, about Christmas 1489. There were no issue of the marriage. Lord Neville married secondly, again in the royal presence, Edith Sandys, sister of William Sandys, 1st Baron Sandys, by whom he had two sons, Ralph Neville, 4th Earl of Westmorland, and a son who died young. After Lord Neville's death in 1498, his widow Edith married Thomas Darcy, 1st Baron Darcy of Darcy, who was beheaded on Tower Hill on 30 June 1537.
