by Charles Ross
Finally, the cause of Warwick and Clarence probably owed something to surviving Lancastrian loyalties. In the circumstances, Edward was right to take flight to the dominions of his brother-in-law. Certainly he could not risk falling into the hands of an enemy whose record (unlike his own) was not conspicuous for clemency to the defeated.
Edward’s political future now depended on two things: the ability of the restored government of Henry VI to consolidate its position in England, and the attitude of Duke Charles of Burgundy, confronted by a regime which had already pledged itself to join the king of France in making war upon him. From the first the so-called Readeption government of Henry VI depended upon an uneasy cooperation between Warwick and his personal following, former Lancastrians, and moderate Yorkist lords. These last, who had mostly benefited substantially from Edward’s rule, and who now formed the largest group amongst the peers, had to be placated if the new regime were to survive, and Warwick went to some lengths to win their support. There could be no extreme measures and no recriminations against them. Certain prominent Yorkists, including Archbishop Bourchier, Norfolk, Essex, Wiltshire, Cromwell and Mountjoy, were at first placed under arrest, but soon released; and when writs were sent out on 15 October for a parliament to meet at Westminster on 26 November, only seven Yorkist peers did not receive a summons. Four of these (Gloucester, Rivers, Hastings and Say) were in exile with Edward; of those still in England the only notable omissions were the earl of Wiltshire and Lords Dudley and Dinham.1 The solitary victim of prominence was the highly unpopular earl of Worcester, whose cruelties would later win for him the title of ‘Butcher of England’. Arraigned before the earl of Oxford as constable of England, he was sentenced to die on 17 October, but such large crowds came to ‘gaze and gawre’ at this hated man that his escort could not get through to Tower Hill, and the execution was postponed until the following day.2 Since the official records of the Readeption parliament have disappeared, we cannot know for certain what measures of political reprisal it approved, but it would appear that only Edward himself and his brother, Gloucester, were attainted. If any of the acts of attainder against former Lancastrians were reversed, this was certainly not taken to involve the restoration of their estates, for any such action would have involved a head-on clash with all the Yorkist lords who held forfeited estates.3
Moderation was imposed on the new government by necessity, and was not a sign of enlightened statesmanship. But Warwick’s problems were not solved thereby; they were merely postponed. In one important respect his position was far weaker than Edward’s had been ten years earlier. He could not reward his supporters or buy support with lavish distributions of land and office from extensive forfeitures. There were few pickings for anyone, and the earl himself took most of what was available – the offices of captain of Calais, chamberlain of England, and admiral, and the wardship of part of the duke of Buckingham’s lordships in South Wales which he had been forced to surrender to Herbert in 1461.1 There were no rewards for supporters like Oxford, Shrewsbury and Stanley. Fortunately for Warwick, his bitterest enemies amongst the disinherited Lancastrian loyalists did not return with him in September 1470. Not until the following February did the duke of Exeter, or Edmund Beaufort, duke of Somerset, return from exile. But other Lancastrians, such as Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke, who had suffered exile and forfeiture for their Lancastrian loyalties, got little from Henry VI’s restoration. Obviously this situation could scarcely continue indefinitely. The return of Queen Margaret and Prince Edward was likely to weaken Warwick’s influence and strengthen that of unreconciled Lancastrian elements. Their supplanters, Edward’s men, many occupying their inheritances, probably viewed the future with suspicion.
Especially vulnerable was George, duke of Clarence. Though rather tardily reappointed lieutenant of Ireland, he was not associated with Warwick as joint lieutenant of the realm, and it is highly unlikely that he was recognized as heir to the throne in the event of the failure of Henry VI’s male line.2 Moreover, on 23 March 1471 he was compelled to give up part of his possessions in favour of Queen Margaret and her son, and accept instead a less secure provision of fee-farm rents, ‘notwithstanding’ (say the letters patent, reflecting the duke’s obvious protest) ‘the agreements made between the said queen and prince and himself and Richard, earl of Warwick and Salisbury, that he should retain all his possessions until duly recompensed, the honour and lordship of Tutbury excepted’. Though confirmed at the time in possession of his earldom of Richmond, his title to it was obviously threatened by the presence at court of its Lancastrian heir, Henry Tudor, son of Henry VI’s half-brother, Edmund Tudor, earl of Richmond.1 Clarence found himself
held in great suspicion, despite, disdain, and hatred, with all the lords, noblemen, and other, that were adherents and full partakers with Henry the usurper … he saw also, that they daily laboured amongst them, breaking their appointments made with him, and, of likelihood, after that, should continually more and more fervently intend, conspire, and procure the destruction of him and all his blood.2
No wonder Edward thought it worthwhile to bring pressure upon Clarence – through his mother, the duchess of York, his sisters, the duchesses of Burgundy, Suffolk and Exeter, Cardinal Bourchier, Bishop Stillington, and the earl of Essex to persuade him to defect whenever opportunity arose. Clarence’s position may have been particularly invidious, but his feelings were probably shared by many other Yorkist lords. The Lancastrian-Nevill misalliance could offer them little but unease and insecurity.
How narrowly based was support for the government amongst the barons as a whole can be seen from its defence measures. When, towards the end of 1470 and in the early months of 1471, Warwick began to fear invasion, he trusted only a very small group of men with the task of raising troops – Montagu alone in the whole of the north, Clarence, Oxford, Lord Scrope of Bolton and himself in the rest of England, and Pembroke, again with Clarence and himself, in Wales and the Marches.3 Never had commissions of array for national defence been placed in the hands of so few. A similar caution appears in other government measures. Many of Edward’s barons were removed from the commissions of the peace. Despite his Lancastrian record, the new earl of Northumberland, Henry Percy, did not appear on a single commission, whilst the heir to the Lancastrian earldom of Devon was confined to a solitary commission of the peace in Devon.4 Attempts by Warwick to win over the earl of Essex seem to have been a failure, and on the eve of Edward’s landing the duke of Norfolk and probably other lords were arrested for safety’s sake.1 Even Montagu’s loyalty was not above suspicion, and, according to one report, he had to apologize to parliament for his previous support of King Edward.2 Most of the barons were unsympathetic if not actively hostile to the new regime.
How far the new government commended itself to the mass of Englishmen is not easy to assess. Some gentry families had private reasons for welcoming the change. The Pastons, for example, found a new and powerful patron in John de Vere, earl of Oxford, in their efforts to recover Caister Castle from the duke and duchess of Norfolk, and clearly relished the temporary fall of their mighty and oppressive neighbours, ‘who now’ (wrote Sir John) ‘sue to him [Oxford] as humbly as ever I did to them’, and, he went on, ‘as for my Lord of Oxford, he is better lord to me, by my troth, than I can wish him in any matters’.3 Self-interest and local politics explain the presence of both Sir John and his brother on Warwick’s side at the battle of Barnet.
Contemporary chronicle evidence suggests that the restoration of King Henry, for whom there still existed much personal respect and sympathy, was generally welcomed, ‘whereof’, says one writer, ‘all his good lovers were full glad, and the more part of people’.4 Nor had Warwick lost all his popularity. Even that enthusiastic Yorkist, the author of the Arrivall, the official chronicle of Edward’s 1471 campaign, had to admit that there was little sign of popular welcome for his king in March 1471.5 Baronial support for Edward, and to some extent the self-interest of the merchant classes, rath
er than any change in popular esteem, were to prove his principal assets.
The most difficult problem facing Warwick’s administration sprang from the commitment made at Angers to join King Louis in making war upon Burgundy. Earl Richard was no unwilling partner in this venture. Sentiment and self-interest – he had been promised the provinces of Holland and Zeeland if the war were a success – combined to make him press forward his plans. On 16 February 1471 a ten-year truce with France, with provision for freedom of commerce, was signed. Already, on 5 February, he had told the French ambassadors that he would be ready to begin operations against Duke Charles within a few days, that he was sending troops to Calais, and that he would later go there himself, in command of 8,000 to 10,000 prime English archers. On 12 February he gave orders to the Calais garrison to begin hostilities against adjacent Burgundian territories.1 None of this was likely to commend itself to mercantile interests, already suffering from the commercial war with the Hanse, and for a government still precariously in control at home to risk even a limited military venture abroad seemed unwise. War meant taxation, for the government was already very short of funds. It could draw upon the revenues of the royal estates and upon the profits of the customs, but these sources probably provided less than £15,000 a year, and Warwick had been compelled to provide finance for the royal household out of his own resources for some time.2 His difficulty in raising loans is a sharp indication of how little confidence the propertied classes had in his regime. London had lent him only £1,000 (to be compared with the £11,000 it had advanced to the Yorkist earls in 1460–1), and was already pressing for repayment of an earlier loan made in 1469.3 Funds were simply not available for heavy military spending, and attempts to raise troops by other means were likely to prove unpopular. Entries in the Coventry records make it clear that Warwick was expecting the town to supply men for service overseas at its own expense, an unwarrantable demand, for the crown had long since recognized that local militia could be used only for the internal defence of the realm.4
The chief short-term danger of Warwick’s policy of aggression lay in its effect upon Duke Charles of Burgundy. The earl was to some extent the victim of Louis XI’s impatience. In December 1470 he had denounced the Treaty of Péronne, declared war on Burgundy, and moved French forces into Picardy to threaten the duke’s northern dominions. But the effect of English support for these offensive moves by France was to change Duke Charles’s attitude to the Lancastrian regime. From an embarrassed but careful neutrality it was now transformed into positive hostility. His immediate reaction was to give his support to a Yorkist invasion.
Edward IV’s arrival in his domains had not elicited any welcome from Duke Charles. He was well aware of Louis’s intention of using England against him, and therefore exerted himself to avoid any action against England which might be seen as providing a casus belli. He repeatedly expressed his friendship for the House of Lancaster.1 But Anglo-French hostility gradually forced him to change his attitude. For more than two months Edward had been compelled to depend on the hospitality of Louis of Bruges, and not until 26 December 1470 was he finally summoned to a meeting with the duke himself. A conference between the two at Aire on 2–4 January 1471 was followed by another at St Pol on 7 January, where Edward had been invited to stay with his queen’s kinsman, Jacques de Luxembourg. Even then the duke would not commit himself publicly to Edward, and officially forbade his subjects to give him aid, but in private he supplied Edward with 50,000 florins (£20,000) and gave orders for three or four Dutch ships to be fitted out for him at Veere on the island of Walcheren.2
Meanwhile, Edward himself had not been inactive. He was in touch with Clarence and with other loyal or potential supporters in England, including Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, who had reason to fear that if the Readeption proved lasting he might again lose his earldom in favour of Montagu.3 He also appealed for aid to Duke Francis of Brittany, and entered into negotiations with the Hansards, who were promised great privileges when he recovered his kingdom. The Hansards eventually provided fourteen ships to aid his crossing and to serve him for fifteen days after his landing in England. In Bruges Earl Rivers was bargaining for the hire of more ships. Two sea-captains from England, John Lyster and Stephen Driver, brought their vessels over to join the small invasion fleet which began to assemble at Flushing during February. English merchants trading in Bruges lent Edward modest sums of money. On 19 February he left for Flushing and on 2 March embarked upon the Antony, a ship belonging to the Burgundian admiral, Henry of Borselle, lord of Veere. The invasion force now consisted of 36 ships and about 1,200 men, some English, some Flemings, the latter including a number of gunners. Held back for nine weary days by contrary winds, they finally set sail from Flushing on 11 March 1471.4
(iii) The Recovery of England, March-May 1471
It was a highly risky venture on which Edward now embarked. Considering his limited resources, Warwick deserves every credit for his vigilant precautions against invasion. All along the coast of eastern England, where a landing was held to be likeliest, Warwick’s agents had scoured the countryside, threatening and exhorting local authorities to be on guard. The king’s friends were closely watched and his enemies correspondingly active. For some time past an English fleet under the command of the Bastard of Fauconberg had been patrolling the Channel. Warwick overcame the problem of financing these naval operations by allowing his ships to indulge in profitable and successful piracy, and large numbers of Spanish, Portuguese and Breton ships had been captured. Help could be expected also from Louis XI, who had made extensive naval preparations for the war with Burgundy. In spite of the secrecy with which the invasion force had been assembled in the creeks of Walcheren Island, the English government was not caught off its guard. But in one respect Edward was fortunate. The English fleet was diverted by the activities of a Breton naval squadron in the Channel as well as by continuing hostilities with the Hansards, and the French ships were lying in the Seine waiting to escort Queen Margaret and her company from Honfleur to England. Like Edward’s fleet, they had been held in port by continuing bad weather during February. Edward’s chances of a safe crossing of the North Sea were better than he could have known.1
The invaders’ plan was to make for the coast of East Anglia. Here they might hope for help from the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and Rivers had lands and friends in northern Norfolk. After an uneventful voyage, they put in at Cromer on 12 March, and Edward sent off two of his company with local knowledge, Sir Robert Chamberlain and Sir Gilbert Debenham, to make enquiries. They returned with warnings from the archbishop of Canterbury and Thomas Rotherham, bishop of Rochester, that it would be quite unsafe to land. Norfolk and other friends were in custody, and Oxford and his brothers had been raising men and were very much on the alert. The king then decided to sail north to Yorkshire. But his fleet was hit by storms and scattered. Edward himself eventually came ashore on Thursday, 14 March, at Ravenspur on the Humber, where Henry Bolingbroke, duke of Lancaster, had landed on a similar mission seventy-two years before. The other ships all made land within a few miles of the Antony, and on the next day ‘the whole fellowship’ was reunited.1
‘It is a difficult matter to go out by the door and then try to enter by the windows. They think he will leave his skin there.’2 Such was the Milanese ambassador’s comment from France on early reports of Edward’s landing; and probably few men in England rated his prospects much higher. As the author of the Arrivall emphasized, Yorkshire was essentially a hostile countryside. The government had many supporters in the region. Large bands of armed men were afoot lying in wait for Edward, notably one under a local gentleman, Martin de la See, from Barmston in Holderness, and the nearest town, Kingston on Hull, which had Lancastrian sympathies, refused to admit Edward. He was reduced to attempting what might be called the king’s gambit by repeating the tactic used by Henry Bolingbroke in 1399 – that he had come back to claim not the throne but his own ducal inheritance. He also displayed
letters from Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, saying he had come there by his advice; and this helped in a region where Percy influence was strong.1 But it was still a risky gamble in the early stages. He was able to gain admission to York on 18 March only by leaving his troops outside the walls and chancing his safety in the city with no more than sixteen or seventeen men at his back. According to Warkworth, he also pledged loyalty to Henry VI and wore the white ostrich feather (the prince of Wales’s badge) in his hat. From York he went on to the family castle of Sandal, near Wakefield, the scene of his father’s death ten years before; but even here he did not find much support; there ‘came some folks unto him, but not so many as he supposed would have come’.2
But popular sympathy – or lack of it – was not to be a decisive factor in 1471. Much more now depended on the attitude of the magnates and local gentry. Two men in Yorkshire – Montagu and Northumberland – could easily have snuffed out Edward’s chances by a prompt move in these early days of his invasion. His first clear stroke of luck came when Montagu failed to move against him from Pontefract Castle, as Edward marched nearby from York to Wakefield. He ‘suffered him to pass in peaceful wise’ (says the Arrivall) ‘whether it were with good will or no, men may judge at their pleasure; I deem yea’; but the author goes on to advance other reasons why Montagu remained inactive. The most important of these was that Henry Percy held the greatest influence over gentry and people in that region, and they ‘would not stir with any lord or noble man other than with the said earl, or at least by his commandment’. The earl, however, though loyal to Edward, could make no positive move on his behalf, for memories of Towton were too strong hereabouts: men who had lost fathers, sons, or kinsmen a decade before were still unwilling to fight for a Yorkist king. But merely by taking no action, the earl ‘did the king right good and notable service’. Edward’s decision to restore him in the previous year now paid a handsome dividend.1