Edward IV

by Charles Ross

  Undeterred, he pressed on his negotiations with Scotland and the Hansards, and resumed his discussions with Burgundy as soon as the duke could be persuaded to show an active interest. In May an embassy under Lords Hastings and Howard was commissioned to treat further with the duke for ‘the great enterprise which by them both is intended against their common adversary’, and on which they were now said to be well-nigh agreed. The purpose of the mission was to give Edward’s replies to various questions raised by the duke, especially the nature of English military commitment. Edward now told Charles that he would ship to France in April 1473, with an army of more than 10,000 men, but he did not wish to be obliged to land in Normandy, but ‘wherever might be most convenient for the weal of the conquest’.1

  Charles’s preoccupations with other matters prevented any discussion of these issues until August 1473. Then, in a series of meetings at Bruges, they reached agreement with the duke on what they called ‘the forms and numbers of all the minutes of pactions’ touching the invasion of France, but no formal or precise treaty of alliance was signed. In fact, the negotiations with Burgundy now began to reach a stalemate, largely through the intrusion of Charles’s imperial ambitions. In return for the marriage of his daughter and heiress, Mary of Burgundy, to the Archduke Maximilian, heir to the Emperor Frederick III, he was persuaded to believe that he might himself be elected King of the Romans and elevate his duchy into a kingdom – a prospect which dazzled him more than a combined Anglo-Burgundian onslaught on France. The pursuit of his plans for aggrandizement in the east was to prove henceforward a major hindrance to his final commitment to England. He raised his terms for an offensive alliance; he extended his truce with France by successive instalments until 1 May 1475; and increasingly his attention and his resources became bogged down in Alsace, where a war with the Swiss was imminent.2 These difficulties forced Edward to confess to parliament, when it met for its sixth session on 6 June 1474, that he could not invade France before Michaelmas, as the terms of its grant of war taxation required him to do, and the further extension of the duke’s truce with France eventually made it obvious that he could not go at all in 1474.3

  Suddenly, when all hope had been abandoned for the year, Burgundy came to terms. A formal alliance against France was finally signed by the Treaty of London of 25 July 1474. Edward undertook to land in France before 1 July 1475, upon substantially the same conditions as had been agreed in August 1473. Charles recognized him as king of France, and in return Edward agreed that Charles should hold all his share of a dismembered France, together with his existing dominions, in full sovereignty, save that Edward should have free access to Rheims on the day of his coronation.1 Edward’s negotiations with Burgundy have a considerable bearing on the problem of his true intentions concerning the invasion of France. Some modern authorities have maintained that he had little serious intention of making war, and used the difficulties in coming to terms with Burgundy as a pretext for successive delays and postponements of his undertaking.2 This view seems to make a nonsense of his dealings with parliament over war-finance, and it is also clear from his later actions that he regarded the active and committed cooperation of the duke of Burgundy, whose army was regarded as unquestionably the best in Europe, as an essential prerequisite for a major attack on France.3 His inability to tie the duke down to a specific time-table is less the excuse than the main reason why the whole enterprise hung fire. As if to prove that this was all he had been waiting for, Edward began, within a month of signing the Treaty of London, to enter into contracts with his captains for an invasion in the following year.4

  If the invasion of France were to succeed, it was also essential for England to neutralize in advance any actual or potential enemies who might be tempted to exploit her continental involvement. Chief amongst these were the Hanseatic League and the king of Scotland. In 1471 the Hansards had given Edward valuable assistance in return for his promise to restore their former privileges. Unfortunately Edward did not see fit to honour his pledges, and when, on 6 July 1471, he again granted to the dissenting merchants of Cologne exclusive enjoyment of all the privileges formerly enjoyed by the League as a whole, a return to hostilities was inevitable. Naval war was resumed, and the League closed its ranks against England and Cologne. But as soon as the invasion of France became a serious prospect, Edward became anxious for a reconciliation. Through the good offices of Burgundy, a series of conferences was held at Bruges to discuss terms for a settlement. The road to peace was long and hard. Throughout 1472 the Hansards remained uncompromising in their demands that ‘the verdict of 1468’ must be annulled, full compensation paid for all their goods seized at that time, and complete restoration made of all their privileges in England. The English would not consider these conditions. Eventually negotiations were resumed at Utrecht in June 1473. The instructions given to Edward’s ambassadors reveal the extent of his anxiety to achieve a full settlement even at the cost of substantial concessions: he was prepared to concede nearly all the Hansard demands, but still hoped to get reciprocal privileges granted to English merchants in Hanseatic regions such as they had enjoyed under a treaty of 1437.1 But the English soon discovered that, in spite of the latitude given them by their master, they would have to make further and unpalatable concessions. There was bitter bargaining about the amount of the compensation to be made – the Hansards were eventually knocked down from £25,000 to £10,000 – and the League insisted firmly that Edward should totally abandon his Cologne friends until such time as they had been re-admitted to it. Agreement was eventually reached between the delegations at Utrecht on 19 September 1473, and a formal treaty was signed at a further conference at Utrecht on 28 February 1474. Its terms represented a surrender by England to all the Hansard demands, and in return her envoys got only the limited concession that the English should enjoy their former privileges in Hanseatic territories, but without any exemption from taxes.2 It is to Edward’s credit that he did not abandon the men of Cologne and, through a series of evasions, avoided depriving them of their status in England until they had made peace with the League. Commercially, it was a blow to English merchants and shipping: unable to make good their claim to reciprocity, they saw their share of trade with Germany and the Baltic dwindle, whilst the Hanseatic trade with England soon surpassed its previous high point.3 Edward had put political before commercial advantage, but at least England was now free of a damaging and expensive commercial war and could feel much more secure in the task of conveying a large army with all its transport, artillery and baggage across the Channel.

  A settlement with Scotland proved much easier. King James III was tempted by the blandishments of Louis XI, and dallied with the notion of keeping Edward at home, either by invading England or supporting him against his own subjects, who were thought likely to rebel as soon as he abandoned his plans for an invasion of France.4 But nothing came of it, and the truce between England and Scotland was prolonged by successive instalments to last until 10 April 1475. By September 1473, James was beginning to look favourably upon an English proposal for a marriage alliance between his infant son James, born on 17 March 1473, and Edward’s third daughter, Cecily, now four years old. Preliminary agreement was reached in July, and on 8 October an English embassy led by the bishop of Durham arrived in Edinburgh to sign the marriage-treaty. On 26 October the formal betrothal of the young couple was accompanied by a treaty between the two kings. James and Cecily were to marry within six months of their reaching marriageable age, and other suitable offspring were to be substituted in the event of the death of either of them. Edward was to provide a dowry of 20,000 crowns, payable over a period of seventeen years, and in return Cecily was to be given a suitable jointure in land whilst her father-in-law was alive; and there was to be a truce between the two kingdoms until 21 October 1519. These arrangements ensured good relations between England and Scotland for the next few years.1

  By the end of 1474, therefore, Edward’s diplomacy had achieved some very useful resu
lts – a firm alliance with Burgundy and settlements with his two principal potential enemies. But already he was reaching further afield in the hope of completing the diplomatic encirclement of France. The king’s Gascon-born agent, Barthelot de Rivière, was sent in August 1474 to seek the aid of King Ferdinand I of Naples, with whom he had already a treaty of friendship; and at the same time the duke of Urbino, Federigo da Montefeltro, was elected a knight of the Garter, as a preliminary to winning the services of this noted captain of condottiere, perhaps in the hope of promoting a Neapolitan invasion of France through the duchy of Savoy under the duke’s command.2 In December 1474 the embassy sent to Alsace under Dr John Morton to hold discussions with Duke Charles of Burgundy was also given instructions to seek treaties of alliance with Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, and with the Emperor Frederick III, both of whom he believed to be Charles’s allies.3 But nothing practical emerged from these distant diplomatic forays. Serious efforts were made to clear up outstanding differences with Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, mainly arising out of questions of compensation for English piracy, and in May 1475 this led to a renewal of the treaty of alliance between the two countries originally signed in 1467; but the attitude of the Peninsular rulers to the hostility between France and England remained essentially neutral, for they were preoccupied with the struggle for the succession in Castile.1 Already, on 1 May 1475, a treaty of friendship had been concluded between England and King Christian I of Denmark.2

  This diplomatic build-up now began to affect the attitude of some of Louis’s domestic enemies. The head of the powerful south French house of Armagnac, Jacques, duke of Nemours, was in negotiation with Duke Charles, whilst the count of St Pol, unaware of the arrangement between England and Burgundy to overthrow him, was making treasonable offers to both, and promised to admit English troops into Amiens, Peronne and Abbeville if he were given Champagne as reward.3 More important was the attitude of Brittany. Friendly contacts between England and Brittany continued after the débâcle of 1472, and there was much active negotiation over the problem of piracy. In May 1475 the duke, who had hitherto fought shy of an alliance, suddenly sent ambassadors to England to discuss a treaty similar to those of 1467 and 1472. On 16 May a treaty was drawn up which committed Francis to help Edward with 8,000 troops in the attack on France, and on 19 May Lords Audley and Duras undertook to serve with 2,000 archers under the duke of Brittany, and to be ready to sail from Weymouth on 23 June. Edward also promised aid from the English fleet under Lord Dinham if the duke needed help against Louis. Both England and Burgundy now regarded Brittany as a firm ally, but Duke Francis, a prey to conflicting factions amongst his advisers, never ratified the treaty (though he took the archers) and when war came he made no move.4

  (ii) Financial and Military Preparations

  The intensive efforts of the English government to prepare the way to war in the diplomatic field between 1472 and 1475 were matched by equally long-term preparations at home. When Edward first announced his intention of invading France to the parliament of October 1472, he found a generous response from an assembly which included an unusually high proportion of royal servants and followers of the court nobility.5

  Whilst the lords voted a special tax of one-tenth of their incomes from lands, annuities and offices, the commons, following a precedent set in the parliament of 1453, undertook to provide the king with revenue sufficient to pay the wages of a force of 13,000 archers for one year, the equivalent of £118,625. But instead of voting the money in the form of the traditional tenths and fifteenths levied on the value of personal property (under the terms of a long-outdated assessment), they chose to follow the lords and granted as a first instalment an income tax of 10 per cent. This represented an attempt, along lines already tried without much success, to shift the burden of taxation to those best able to pay, who often escaped under the traditional system. The grant was not made, however, without conditions. Edward now paid the penalty for having twice defaulted upon his promises to make war in return for taxation. This time the commons were determined to ensure that the money would be spent only for its prescribed purpose. The proceeds of the tax were to be paid over not to the exchequer but to four commissioners (the archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Ely, the prior of St John’s and Lord Dudley), and then deposited for safe-keeping in St Paul’s until such time as the king was ready to sail for France. If he had not set forth by Michaelmas 1474, the money was to be returned to the taxpayers.1

  Payment of the income tax became due on 2 February 1473. 8 April, however, the commons had to tell the king that the collection was not complete; some counties had not yet sent in their certificates; and they had no notion of how much the tax would yield. But, recognizing the urgency of the king’s needs, they now granted a further subsidy of a fifteenth and tenth of the ordinary kind, with the now customary remissions of £6,000. Again the tax was not to be paid to the king when it became due on 24 June, and was to be kept in local repositories until he had proclaimed the muster of his army. The lords, however, allowed him to make use of the proceeds of their tax for the purchase of equipment – bows, arrows and ordnance – which had to be assembled long before the expedition set sail. Having just failed to make an alliance with Burgundy, and signed a truce with France, the king was now in no hurry for the money, and deferred the date of its collection from June to Michaelmas 1473. A later indenture discloses that, in fact, the subsidy was never collected as planned.2

  As prospects for the attack upon France began to improve in the following summer, Edward approached parliament again. On 18 July 1474 an indenture drawn up in parliament revealed that the 10 per cent income tax of 1472 had so far yielded £31,410 14s 1½d. Returns from five northern counties were not in even yet, and no collection had been made of the fifteenth and tenth voted in 1473. The commons therefore confirmed their grant of the fifteenth and tenth, to be paid by 1 November, and devised special arrangements for contributions from the northern counties. This new fifteenth and tenth was calculated to yield £30,684; together with the income tax, the commons had now provided £62,094, to which they hoped to add £5,383 from the northern counties. This left a gap of £51,147 if the full cost of the 13,000 archers were to be met, and the money had to be raised from areas which had already contributed to the income tax and were about to pay the fifteenth and tenth. The commons therefore devised a new method of assessment expressly designed to extract money from those who ‘were little or not charged’ to ordinary subsidies, to relieve those already burdened. Since it was now clear that the king could not invade France during the summer of 1474, and the taxpayers were already burdened with the fifteenth and tenth, it was agreed that half of the £51,000 should not become payable until St John’s Day (24 June) 1475, and the remainder at Martinmas; and the king was given until St John’s Day 1476 to start for France.1

  All this represented a considerable charge on Edward’s subjects. Including the income tax of 1472, it amounted to no fewer than 3¾ subsidies, and thus substantially more than the total taxation levied in all the previous years of the reign. Of Edward’s predecessors, only Henry V, with six subsidies in the four years 1413–17 yielding £216,868, had extracted more in the short term for war purposes.2 No wonder John Paston expressed the fervent hope that they should rather have the devil in the parliament house than that they should grant any more taxes.3 Nor did the clergy escape their share. In the same period of three years, the convocation of Canterbury granted three and a half clerical tenths, each worth about £13,000, and the York convocation two tenths, worth £1,400 each, a total of some £48,000.4

  Yet Edward felt that eve these large sums were inadequate. Between November 1474 and March 1475 he launched upon an extensive campaign to raise further sums without parliamentary consent. This was the notorious first benevolence – supposedly free gifts in lieu of military service – aimed mainly at those wealthier elements in the population who escaped the burden of ordinary taxation. The king, observed a Milanese correspondent, ‘ha
s been very active, and has discovered an excellent device to raise money. He has plucked out the feathers of his magpies without making them cry out.’1 Much of this activity involved the personal exercise of the royal charm. Likely contributors were summoned before the king and cajoled or perhaps bullied into promising payments. According to the Great Chronicle, one rich Suffolk widow raised her contribution from £10 to £20 in return for a kiss from the king. By such methods considerable sums were raised – at least £21,656 according to the incomplete surviving returns.2 One reason why Edward wanted money urgently was that, under the contracts of service signed during the previous summer and autumn, the payment of the first quarter’s wages (about £17,696) became due on 31 January 1475, quite apart from heavy expenditure on ordnance, stores and naval preparations.3 The government was obviously anxious if possible to meet these costs out of ready cash rather than by resort to heavy borrowing, and its difficulties were increased by deficiencies and complications in levying the £51,000 voted by parliament in July 1474.

  When parliament reassembled at Westminster for its seventh and final session on 23 January 1475, the commons confessed that there was likely to be delay in payment, ‘the form of the levy being so diffuse and laborious’ – a clear indication that the machinery could not cope with a new and more sophisticated form of taxation. Even the income tax of 1472, now to be handed over to the king on 4 May, was found to be short because of peculation by the official guardians of the money, and there was a clear danger that the king might lack ‘a great part of such sums of money as he should pay at this time to the lords, knights, squires, and others retained with his Highness … to the great let and hurt of his said lords, knights, squires and others so retained, and to the great displeasure of our said sovereign lord’.4 The commons therefore fell back on traditional methods ‘as the most easy, ready and prone payment’, and on 14 March 1475, to replace the special tax of 1474, they voted the king a whole fifteenth and tenth payable within a fortnight after Easter Day (26 March), and a further three-quarters of a subsidy payable at Martinmas following. Even then Edward was told he could not have the money until he was ready to sail, and the grant would be void if he had not set forth by St John’s Day 1476.1 By this time Edward had received or been promised by his subjects the substantial sum of £180,000 to finance the expedition now in its final stages of preparation.