WARWICK, RICHARD NEVILLE, EARL OF

nobleman generally known as "the kingmaker" in Shakespeare's Henry VI, Part 2 and Henry VI, Part 3. A man of great ambition and few scruples, Warwick swears to make Richard Plantagenet, duke of York (and then his son Edward), king in exchange for a share of power. He abandons the Yorkist cause in a fit of pique when Edward ignores the French marriage negotiated by Warwick and weds Elizabeth, Lady Grey. His perfidy is but one example of the general dissolution of the kingdom.