Edward IV

by Charles Ross

  This discomfiture was, in part, offset by the defection to Warwick of a naval squadron commanded by a kinsman, the Bastard of Fauconberg – Thomas Nevill, a natural son of William, Lord Fauconberg and earl of Kent – which had detached itself from Lord Howard’s fleet in the Channel.2 With these reinforcements, Warwick fell upon a large Flemish convoy outside Calais on 20 April and carried off all the ships as prizes – a major naval disaster in the eyes of Duke Charles of Burgundy. Though the vigilant Howard pursued Warwick along the coast of Normandy and successfully recaptured some of the Burgundian ships, Warwick and Clarence still had a substantial flotilla, laden with booty, when they finally dropped anchor in the mouth of the Seine about the beginning of May.

  Warwick’s arrival in France provided that arch-intriguer, Louis of France, with a supreme opportunity to effect the ambitious scheme already canvassed at the French court for some years past.3 With French help, a reconciliation between Warwick and Margaret of Anjou might be used to promote a Lancastrian restoration, and so serve the double purpose of destroying his enemy, King Edward, and gaining a grateful ally for war on the duke of Burgundy, whose overthrow was Louis’s most persistent and dearest ambition. The difficulties and dangers involved were considerable. Apart from the risk of English naval attacks on the French coast, Louis risked the hostility of Burgundy and Brittany, angered by the continuing indiscriminate piracy of Warwick’s fleet. He was soon faced by the threat of combined Anglo-Burgundian naval operations. Nor were his proposed allies exactly eager partners. Warwick wanted assurances of effective French help, and would not be a mere cat’s paw for Queen Margaret. The stubborn queen herself, brought up from the Anjou family home at Bar in eastern France at the king’s expense, was even more recalcitrant at the prospect of cooperating with the man who had done so much to overthrow the house of Lancaster; and the presence of the Yorkist king’s brother was an embarrassment to all. Eventually, after discussions at Amboise, a meeting was arranged at Angers on 22 June between Warwick and Margaret, in the king’s presence. Their agreement centred round a marriage treaty between her eighteen-year-old son, Edward, prince of Wales, and Warwick’s younger daughter, Anne, now seventeen, and on 25 July they were solemnly betrothed in Angers Cathedral.1 Plans were laid for the invasion of England with French aid. Even then Margaret refused to let her high-spirited son take part in any wildcat venture. He must remain in France with Margaret herself until the greater part of England had been secured for King Henry, a decision which later proved unfortunate for the new alliance.

  Warwick then departed to prepare his fleet for the invasion of England, but it was several weeks before they could set sail. The admiral of France, with the escort squadron, and part of Warwick’s fleet, was pinned down at Honfleur by a joint Anglo-Burgundian blockade, and the rest of the earl’s ships were similarly held at La Hogue and Barfleur in the Cotentin peninsula by another Burgundian squadron. Only when these forces were dispersed by a great storm in early September did a crossing become possible. With the earls of Pembroke and Oxford, Warwick and Clarence embarked at La Hogue on 9 September, and some four days later landed safely in Devonshire.2 What plans had Edward made for the defence of his realm against the expected invasion? Contemporary Burgundian chroniclers, echoing the opinions current at the court of Duke Charles, roundly accused him of negligence and insane over-confidence. Commynes relates how1

  the duke of Burgundy, who presently perceiving that there were great transactions in England in favour of the earl, gave frequent information thereof to king Edward. But he never heeded it, which seems to me a fine example of folly, not to fear one’s enemy and to refuse to believe anything, considering the preparations against him.

  The duke, he continues, gave Edward precise indications about Warwick’s coming invasion, and urged him to put his kingdom in a posture of defence:

  But he never was concerned at anything, but still followed his hunting, and nobody was so trusted by him as the archbishop of York and the marquis of Montagu, brothers of the said earl of Warwick….

  Chastellain’s criticisms are rather different but no less firm:2

  … he was a valiant prince, and he was always confident that he would be able to recover against him quickly enough … for he was certain that once he found himself on the field of battle with Warwick, the latter would not oppose him, for he was a faintheart and a coward.

  Burgundy’s good advice did not profit Edward,

  since he never knew how to put into effect what would be for his salvation. He promised many things and said he would do them, but he never did any of them.

  Although echoed by some modern scholars, these charges, especially Commynes’s, are largely without foundation.3 He did not respond to Burgundy’s suggestions that he should seize Calais in person, and thereby frighten Louis and Warwick, and that he should deliver Henry VI to Burgundy’s custody, and ‘thereby deprive Warwick of the instrument on which he relied to aid his return into England’.4 But he did take every reasonable precaution for the protection of his realm, and the mistakes he made sprang from miscalculation rather than negligence or over-confidence.

  Edward had already taken measures to secure Ireland and Calais so as to ensure that they could not be used as springboards for invasion after the pattern of 1460.5 Wenlock was at first rewarded for turning away Warwick and Clarence by an appointment as lieutenant of the town and marches of Calais on 26 May, but on 11 June the king put Calais under Rivers’s control as ‘general governor and lieutenant’, and then, becoming even more suspicious of Wenlock’s loyalties, replaced him altogether by the reliable John, Lord Howard, who was made lieutenant on 2 July.1 Dover and the Cinque Ports had been put in charge of the earl of Arundel as constable and Sir John Scott as lieutenant, and in June the king made a personal visit to Dover and Sandwich to inspect their defences, perhaps with memories of 1460 in mind. In the same month commissions of array were issued to several counties along the south coast and the Welsh border.2

  The invasion scares of 1461 and 1462 had called forth an elaborate series of measures for watch and ward and coastal defence. In 1470 these were not repeated, for he was able to rely primarily on naval defences. The preparations which had been going on for some time for Channel patrol against the Hansards helped him here, for Howard’s fleet, aided by further squadrons from Southampton and Sandwich under Earl Rivers, was already at sea and these forces could be turned against Warwick and the French. Further, thanks to the vigilance of Rivers and several ships’ captains, Warwick had been denied, and Edward acquired, the use of the earl’s own private navy which had already been of great value in previous years. With his usual generosity, Edward rewarded the good service of nine shipmasters, including at least one of Warwick’s captains, with sizeable annuities for life on 1 May.3 Finally, and as a direct result of Warwick’s indiscriminate piracy, Edward had the advantage of powerful assistance from a Burgundian fleet, which put to sea on 11 June and was thereafter almost continuously in operation until September. Together these factors gave the Anglo-Burgundian alliance supremacy at sea. Being first at sea they put the French on the defensive, exposed the French coast to raids and pillage, and neutralized the French and rebel naval forces by almost continuous blockade.4

  But there were limits to the effectiveness of naval power in these days of small ships overcrowded with fighting men and mariners. A blockade could be maintained only for a period of a few weeks before ships had to return to port for revictualling and often for repair. This happened to the Burgundian ships blockading the Seine in July 1470, whilst the English flotilla had to withdraw at the same time to protect the English coast against attack from a Hanseatic naval force.1 But the blockade was later successfully resumed, and only the final ill-fortune of an autumn storm scattered the Anglo-Burgundian ships and provided the invaders with a favourable wind. Warwick and his French allies were lucky indeed, for wind and weather conditions could often keep an invasion fleet in French harbours for months on end, as Margaret of Anjou soo
n discovered to her cost.2

  In all these measures Edward showed clearly that he had learnt much from his own experience as a political exile, and, in his awareness of the value of sea-power, had benefited from the practice and perhaps the advice of his great enemy Richard Nevill.3 In matters of internal security his judgement was perhaps more open to question. A single act of savagery, when Worcester as Constable of England was allowed to add impalement to the usual horrors of execution against the rebels taken in the naval attack on Southampton, was probably designed as a warning and example to others, but for the most part Edward followed his customary policy of generous clemency to his opponents. On 25 April the earl of Wiltshire and Lord Mountjoy were empowered to pardon any rebels who submitted before 7 May, and many took advantage of this offer.4 There were no reprisals and no confiscations. Stanley, Shrewsbury and Scrope were pardoned, and Montagu (though not his brother, the archbishop) continued to enjoy the king’s confidence.5 Though Edward has often been criticized for his apparent naiveté in trusting him, nothing in Montagu’s record suggested he was likely to be less loyal than in the past, and it is doubtful whether Edward felt he had treated Warwick’s brother badly. Further grants and rewards may well have been planned for him.

  Late in July Edward faced a difficult decision when news reached London of further risings in the north on behalf of the Nevills. The chroniclers mention only a rebellion led by Warwick’s brother-in-law, Lord FitzHugh of Ravensworth, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, but there is other evidence of hostile assemblies in the neighbourhood of Carlisle.1 Here the leaders included some local gentry whose families had close associations with the Nevills, among them Richard Salkeld, until recently constable of the castle of Carlisle. How substantial or well supported these risings were is difficult to assess. The list of pardons granted to the rebels on 10 September suggests they were on a very small scale. Only 101 persons were pardoned with FitzHugh, including his five sons, eleven women and four chaplains; almost all the people named came from Ravensworth, and are described as gentlemen or yeomen. This probably represents the retinue or affinity of a baron of modest status, reinforced by some of his local tenants. In Cumberland a mere 97 persons thought it prudent to take out pardons. Reports reaching London, however, suggested something much more serious. On 7 August Sir John Paston told his brother that ‘so many folks be up in the north’ that the new earl of Northumberland could not resist them; and so, he added, ‘the king hath sent for his feedmen to come to him, for he will go to put them down’.2

  Why did Edward allow himself to be drawn away to the north at a time when the risk of invasion from the Continent was daily becoming greater? He could scarcely have been unaware of Warwick’s doings in France, for warnings and advice reached him from the duke of Burgundy, as well as information from his own agents, like the lady whom he sent overseas to make contact with Clarence and persuade him to desert the Lancastrian alliance.3 Even common rumour had it that invasion was imminent, and Sir John Paston clearly believed that Edward was unwise to go north at all, and even less so to linger there.4 On the analogy of 1469, the rebel movements in the north were likely to be little more than a diversion to get Edward away from London and leave the south clear for an invasion. But this was a risk the king had to balance against the proven dangers of northern insurrections spreading unchecked, especially in the presently excitable state of the country. In 1469 he had been slow to move, with disastrous results; the prompt action of 1470 had brought handsome rewards. The silence of Montagu and the apparent lack of success of the new earl of Northumberland, may have been a further cause for concern. Nor could he know in advance where the invasion, if and when it came, would descend. Fifteenth-century pretenders were to assault the coast from as far apart as Spurn Head in Yorkshire to Milford Haven in West Wales, and, as an area of potential support for Warwick and Henry VI, the north was a more likely area than most. In the event, he took the wrong decision.

  With many of his lords, he left London for the north at the end of July. Reaching York on 14 August, he then went on to Ripon, only to find that FitzHugh had fled to Scotland and his men had returned to their homes. By 12 August he was back in York. Since a pardon was issued to the northern rebels on 10 September, the north may be presumed quiet by this time. But the king lingered on in Yorkshire, even though he now clearly anticipated a landing in Kent; on 7 September he had sent instructions to his people there on what to do when it came, and told them he soon hoped to be back in London. Nevertheless, he was still in Yorkshire when news came, about the middle of the month, of Warwick’s landing in the West Country.1

  Immediately they arrived, Warwick and Clarence declared openly for Henry VI. With Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke, and Oxford, they issued proclamations in the old king’s name calling on all able-bodied men to support them. Soon the earl of Shrewsbury and Lord Stanley joined them with substantial retinues, and, gathering in popular levies as they came, they approached Coventry with a large force. When the news of their landing reached the south-east, there were violent outbreaks in Kent, and bands of Kentishmen broke into Southwark and other London suburbs south of the river, looting and plundering chiefly at the expense of Flemings and Dutchmen, whose beerhouses they destroyed. Meanwhile, King Edward set out from York for London but checked his march (near either Doncaster or Nottingham) to await the arrival of troops whom Montagu was assembling on his behalf. Suddenly news reached him that Montagu had defected to his brother and carried most of his men with him, and that he was now in pursuit of the king. Although Edward still had a number of loyal noblemen in his company, including Gloucester, Rivers, Worcester, Hastings, Howard and Say, he decided that the only safety lay in urgent flight. A rapid dash across Lincolnshire brought him to the Wash, where he narrowly escaped drowning, and thence to King’s Lynn, where Rivers had influence. There the party found shipping and set sail on Tuesday, 2 October, for the Low Countries.1 It proved a risky voyage, for they were sighted by a hostile squadron of Hanseatic ships. These gave chase and almost captured them, and were still pursuing closely when the king’s ships touched the Dutch coast near Alkmaar. Having no money, Edward was reduced to rewarding the master of his ship with a fine furred gown, but he was fortunate to fall into the hands of Duke Charles’s governor of Holland, Louis of Bruges, Lord of Gruthuyse, a friend of the house of York who had several times been ambassador to England and knew the king personally. Gruthuyse took charge of the English party, providing food, clothes and money, and escorted Edward and his lords and their small company of followers to his house at The Hague, where they arrived on 11 October.2 Barely three weeks separate the rebel landing in Devonshire from Edward’s flight from King’s Lynn. This short period saw the total collapse of Edward’s position in face of men who had been unable to find any backing for their rebellion against him only a few months before. A revolution so sudden and bloodless drew from Commynes an exclamation of astonishment at the mutability of human fortune, but he blamed it, none the less, on Edward’s sloth and negligence.3 This, as we have seen, is scarcely convincing. Most contemporary accounts suggest that Montagu’s defection was the decisive factor in bringing about Edward’s overthrow, but the story as told by the chroniclers raises a number of questions. Montagu had been ordered to raise large numbers of men; Edward had very few, and could not face him in the field.4 But this seems very unlikely, for the retinues of the magnates who surrounded him were probably considerable, and Commynes, who met Lord Hastings soon after, reported that the latter had said he had a body of 3,000 of his men with the king.5

  A more probable explanation for the débâcle is that Edward faced a sudden crumbling of his authority, a loss of popular support such as happened in the summer of 1469. All contemporary sources emphasize that popular sympathy had swung to Warwick, and that large numbers of people flocked to his standards from the outset.1 Even those who might have preferred to support the king found it politic to abstain. For example, at their council meeting on 21 September, the city fathers o
f Salisbury found themselves in a predicament. It was announced that Warwick and Clarence had entered England with a large army, and their agent, John Pike, esquire, came to demand the services of forty armed men; at the same time Thomas St Leger, one of Edward’s esquires of the body, appeared ordering them to resist the invaders. An attempt to compromise by offering Warwick’s agent 40 marks was refused, and one John Hall, ‘who had already volunteered to serve the king on horseback’, offered to find the men if paid 40 marks, and the city’s little contingent marched out to join the rebels.2

  Edward’s remoteness in the north probably made loyalty no easier. Here too he was isolated in a countryside which, to judge from the events of 1469 and 1471, was either apathetic or hostile. This in turn doubtless influenced the attitudes of the gentry and yeomen who made up the retinues of his lords, for a magnate could not always command the loyalty of his following against their own disposition, as the earl of Northumberland discovered in 1471. Probably the real reason for Edward’s decision to flee the realm is that given in the summary account of these events in the official record of Coventry:3

  So then there drew to them [Clarence and Warwick] much people or they come to Coventry they were 30 thousand. King Edward lay at Nottingham, and sent for lords and all other men, but there come so little people … to him that he was not able to make a field against them … and then he … went to Lynn.