English wine cask units the mediæval French and Italian "botte") or pipe was half a tun, or 1008 pints. Tradition has it that George, Duke of Clarence, the brother of Edward IV of England, was drowned in a butt of malmsey on 18 February 1478. (However, Josephine Tey in "The Daughter of Time" suggests that "drowned in a butt of malmsey" means rather that George, Duke of Clarence, drank himself to death rather than literally drowning in a container of wine.) In Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Cask of Amontillado", the narrator claims he has received "a pipe of what passes for Amontillado".
Isabel Neville, Duchess of Clarence to England's heir presumptive, George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, the brother of both King Edward IV and Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later Richard III). The king opposed the marriage as it would bring the already powerful Earl of Warwick too close to the throne. However the ceremony took place in secret at Calais on 11 July 1469, conducted by Isabel Neville's uncle George Neville, archbishop of York. Following their marriage Clarence joined forces with Warwick and allied with the Lancastrians led by Margaret of Anjou, queen consort to Henry VI. After Isabel Neville's sister Anne was married to Edward