Edward IV

by Charles Ross

  1 Robert Constable, Prerogativa Regis, ed. S. E. Thorne, v-vii.

  2 S. B. Chrimes, English Constitutional Ideas in the Fifteenth Century, 41–2, 52–3.

  3 See the examples of disinheritance cited above, pp. 190–1, and below, pp. 336–7.

  1 R. H. Robbins, Historical Poems of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, 221–6; J. Scattergood, Politics and Poetry in the Fifteenth Century, 189–96.

  2 Rymer, Foedera, XI, 709–10; CCR, 1468–76, 188–9.

  3 Robbins, op. cit., 222–5.

  4 Sydney Anglo, Spectacle, Pageantry, and Early Tudor Policy, 44–5; ‘The British History in Early Tudor Propaganda’, Bull. John Rylands Library, xliv (1961–2), 20–4.

  1 B.M., Harleian MS 7353; Lancashire Record Office, Crosse of Shaw Hill Papers, D D Sh. 15/2; cf. D. A. L. Morgan, ‘The King’s Affinity in the Polity of Yorkist England’, TRHS, 5th ser., xxiii (1973), 21–2. For a similarly antiquarian interest, see J. W. McKenna, ‘The Coronation Oil of the Yorkist Kings’, EHR,, lxxxii (1967), 102–4.

  2 J. Bartier, Charles le Téméraire (1944), 271 ff.

  3 Below, pp. 398–9.

  1 S. B. Chrimes, The Administrative History of Medieval England, 261–2.

  2 Chrimes, English Constitutional Ideas, 1–62, and an admirable short summary of the king’s position in government, pp. 342–9.

  3 A. L. Brown, ‘The Authorization of Letters under the Great Seal’, BIHR, xxxvii (1964), 154.

  4 G. L. Harriss, in ‘A Revolution in Tudor History?’, Past and Present, no. 31 (1965), 91.

  1 Below, pp. 341–2, 346.

  2 Below, pp. 353–6, 399–402.

  3 Records of the Borough of Nottingham, II, 384–7.

  4 The full record of the case is printed in The Great Red Book of Bristol, ed. E. W-W. Veale (Bristol Record Soc., xviii, 1953), 57–92, esp. 69, 72–3.

  1 Acts of Court of the Mercers Company, 106, 118–27, 139–40.

  2 A. L. Brown, op. cit., 154, showed that in Henry IV’s reign the king was dealing with at least 2,000 and perhaps as many as 4,000 petitions in a given year, as well as ordering the issue of some 1,500 letters under the great seal, and hundreds of signet and privy seal letters.

  1 P.R.O., E. 28/89; C. 81/1377/9.

  1 PL, I, 202–3, 231–2, 242–3; III, 301–2, 313; IV, 113–15; V, 30–3. The king’s remarks to Brandon are in PL, V, 31. CC, 564.

  2 D. A. L. Morgan, ‘The King’s Affinity’, 21. Documents signed by the king survive in profusion in the P.R.O. classes G. 81 (Signed Bills and Warrants under the Signet) and E. 28 (Exch. T.R., Council and Privy Seal).

  3 CPR, 1461–7, 6–171, collated with the original Patent Roll. On the question of authorization, see A. L. Brown, ‘The Authorization of Letters’, 127–55.

  4 B. P. Wolffe, The Royal Demesne in English History, 156–7.

  5 Ibid., 168. A number of accounts by John FitzHerbert and others, tellers of the exchequer, for 19 and 20 Edw. IV, bear the royal sign-manual: e.g. P.R.O., E. 28/91–2.

  1 Wolffe, op. cit., 174; and for further evidence, see below, Chap. 16.

  2 J. Otway-Ruthven, The King’s Secretary and the Signet Office in the Fifteenth Century, 17–18, 48–9, 56, 59; and below, pp. 320–1.

  3 Commynes, I, 203; II, 5, 153–8, 239–40, 334; and see also J. R. Lander, ‘Edward IV: The Modern Legend: and a Revision’, History, xli (1956), 40 ff.

  4 CC, 564.

  Chapter 14

  COUNCILLORS, COURTIERS AND

  KING’S SERVANTS

  No fifteenth-century king, however energetic or strong-willed, could hope to govern without expert advice and assistance. For matters of high policy, administrative and judicial decisions, and the general day-to-day functioning of the administrative machine, the king relied heavily on the collective wisdom, specialized knowledge and advice of his council. Recent research has gone far to show that the Yorkist council was a more vigorous and significant element in government than was formerly believed. It has also tended to stress the essential continuity in the work of the council throughout the fifteenth century, whichever king happened to be on the throne. Even under a king so personally active as Edward of York, the council ‘remained that central coordinating body necessary to every governmental system’.1

  The composition of the council was governed solely by the king’s choice and need, and was in no way determined by ordinance or custom. Although its members were sworn and salaried, it never had a definite or nominated membership. In spite of the rather fragmentary evidence surviving today, we know the names of 105 persons described as councillor during Edward’s reign, but in practice the working council was a small body. The few known attendance lists – only thirty-nine have come to light for the entire reign – show that as many as twenty people might attend a particular council, but the average was much lower, normally between nine and twelve.2 The core of the council, which did most of the work, was formed from the chief officers of state (chancellor, treasurer and keeper of the privy seal), together with one or two bishops, who were usually themselves ex – or future ministers. In Edward’s first reign these were often men of high birth who had been promoted early to bishoprics and became great figures in government, notably Archbishop Thomas Bourchier of Canterbury and Archbishop George Nevill of York. After 1471, when the bench of bishops tended more to reflect Edward’s own choice, they tended rather to be men of more humble origin promoted for their value to the king in the secular government of the realm, men like Rotherham of York, Russell of Lincoln and Morton of Ely.1 Their regular associates were the successive treasurers, who normally acted as presidents of the council in the king’s absence, and of these the most prominent was Henry Bourchier, earl of Essex, who held the office from July 1460 to April 1462, and then from 1471 until his death three days before the king’s, and who seems to have been something of an elder statesman amongst the king’s advisers. The treasurership was a valuable office, which offered opportunities for profit beyond the £1,330 a year it was worth to Earl Rivers (1466–9), and in Edward’s reign it was held by a nobleman throughout the reign, except for eight months between October 1469 and July 1470.2

  This small group was strengthened by varying numbers of magnates, barons, gentry, lesser ecclesiastics and officials. Magnates (apart from the treasurers) were never very prominent on Edward’s council, and their importance certainly becomes less after 1471, as the king’s security on his throne increased, and he came to rely more on ‘new’ or lesser men. This was certainly not due to any deliberate policy of exclusion: only fourteen peers are not known to have been summoned to council meetings some time during the reign. But it is a striking fact that his cousin, the duke of Norfolk, and his brother-in-law, the duke of Suffolk, were never councillors, probably because the king thought them troublesome or had a low opinion of their abilities. Nor probably were many magnates prepared to give that regularity of attendance which was the key to continuous influence in the council.3 Many had demanding private affairs to engage their attention or had offices or duties under the Crown which made it difficult to attend regularly. Men like Gloucester or Northumberland in the 1470s and 1480s probably could not often spare the time to make the long journey from the north to Westminster, and indeed were not expected to. From time to time council meetings may have become a forum for contending factions amongst the nobility, notably in 1467–8, when the declining influence of the Warwick group was pitted against that of the ‘king’s men’ over the issue of alliance with Burgundy.1 Occasions of this kind were probably rare, for magnates, like other councillors, were summoned to advise and support the king, not to oppose his wishes.

  By contrast with the magnates, some at least of the barons were regular members, amongst them some of the king’s most influential councillors. This phenomenon, however, owes something to Edward’s practice in the early years of the reign of ennobling his most trusted servants. Many of those most prominent in the council between 1461 and 1470 had been newly promoted from the ranks of the
gentry.2 A more significant change in the composition of the council is the increase in the numbers of men of gentry origin, many of them connected with the royal household, amongst them some of the king’s most reliable servants. Their numbers rise markedly (from eleven to twenty-three) after 1471, and we should really add to this total four knights recently ennobled by Edward – Hastings, Howard, Dinham and Mountjoy.3 These figures illustrate Edward’s tendency to rely upon men of lesser rank in the government of the realm. Knights like John Fogge, John Scott, John Elrington, William Parr and Thomas Vaughan, all of whom held important posts in the royal household, were also much about the king at court and served him as ambassadors, military commanders and commissioners, as did Hastings and Howard.4 Such men formed the core of Edward’s personal ‘establishment’, and their conspicuous role in the council, especially after 1471, is evidence of his success in reasserting untrammelled royal control in government and high politics. His liking for laymen, however, did not include a marked preference for lawyers, who were to become so prominent on Henry VII’s council. Edward was the first king to appoint a solicitor-general, and about one-third of the commoners on his council were lawyers, but the gentry of the household remained a majority.5

  The functions of the king’s council seem to have remained much the same under Edward as they had been earlier in the century, except that they were less executive and more advisory in character.1 As a matter of convenience the king consulted his council on a wide variety of issues, from high policy decisions down to comparatively minor administrative matters, including the answering of individual petitions and the disposal of royal patronage. It is clear that major questions of war and peace were discussed in council. It was, for example, by a Verdict’ of the council, sitting in its usual meeting-place, the Star Chamber in Westminster Palace, that reprisals were ordered against Hanseatic merchants in London in November 1468, an act which led to commercial war with the Hanseatic League. It is also an example of the extent to which the private interest of individual councillors helped to shape an official policy decision.2

  Major issues of foreign and domestic policy might also be considered before specially-summoned ‘Great Councils’, particularly when the king was anxious to obtain the advice and cooperation of the lords spiritual and temporal as a whole. In October 1469, after Warwick had been obliged to release him from captivity at Middleham, the king summoned all the peers of the realm to a series of great council meetings between November and February 1470, clearly in order to buttress his exercise of authority. In February 1476 the elaborate and complicated regulations for the Staple’s relations with Calais were submitted to another great council. In February 1477 eighty-five great men were summoned by writs of privy seal to discuss the situation on the Continent caused by the death of Duke Charles of Burgundy, and in November 1480 another great council meeting at Westminster was assembled to support the king’s intransigent line towards the Scots. The importance of great councils can, however, easily be exaggerated. Whilst some meetings were clearly ‘extra-parliamentary sessions of the House of Lords’, others styled as great councils, especially in unofficial sources, resembled specially large meetings of the regular council, reinforced by a number of lords and knights.3

  It was, however, in the day-to-day conduct of government that the council was of the greatest value to the king – in implementing as well as formulating policy, in relieving the king of some of the burden of administrative and judicial decision, and generally in keeping the machinery of government working smoothly. Professor Lander’s researches have shown how the council provided a continuous supervision of particular problems, for example, the many difficult issues involved in the garrisoning and financing of Calais and relations with the Company of the Staple. The council was also consulted and made proposals over the whole field of finance and general administration. Its advice was sought, along with that of the merchants, for the recoinage of 1464–5; it was consulted about the reform of the royal household in 1478; it dealt with problems of customs evasion and restitution for piracy. It was active in the administration of the Crown lands. Its opinion was asked on questions like the summoning of parliament and convocation. But it had only a limited capacity for independent executive action. It was always the king’s council, and its proposals needed the king’s assent, even in times of emergency. In 1464, for example, when money was urgently needed to put down insurrection, the council in London proposed selling licences to trade in wool, but not until the patent had been sent to the king in Yorkshire, and signed by him, did any action result.1

  One of the features of late medieval political development in Western Europe was the emergence of the court as a centre of power and influence. In part this was due to a greater sophistication of social life: the court became a centre of lavish display, and the king came to be surrounded by an elaborate and formal etiquette. This enhanced the importance of the courtier who was part of that ceremonial organization. Much more, however, was it a product of the concentration of patronage in the person of the ruler. The king was the Jons et origo of reward and punishment, lord and master of the whole spectrum of grace and favour. The attraction of the court was the attraction of access to the person of the monarch.2

  At the heart of the court was the royal household which performed the dual function of supplying the ruler’s daily needs and of providing a suitably magnificent setting for his public person.3 Many prominent courtiers were officials of the royal household, though for some their functions had become honorific and their duties were handed over to deputies. But the court was thronged by many other people – relatives of the king and queen, the great officers of state on official business, foreign envoys and visitors, and a host of suitors and petitioners after favour. All, from the highest to the lowest, sought the king’s grace.

  The attitude of most Englishmen towards the government of the day has always been deeply influenced by self-interest. The Yorkist period was no exception. In particular, the politically-conscious propertied classes were much less interested in who advised the king on matters affecting the common weal than in who advised him – and whose advice he took – where their private interests were involved. Influence, properly applied, might help to avert retribution or penalties and open wide the doors of royal patronage. Hence the goodwill and good offices of those about the king were eagerly sought. ‘Friends and influence at court were the key to most things in the fifteenth century.’1 Men about the court were, therefore, focal points for intensive lobbying as petitioners sought to gain the king’s prior attention for themselves. Contemporaries firmly believed that a word from the right people at the right time was essential to achieve or to speed their purpose. This need for lordship, patronage and ‘well-wishers’ in high places is one of the strongest themes in the surviving private papers and letters of the Yorkist age.

  Even for highly-placed persons the normal method of access to the king was by written petition. These were often handed to the king personally, but even for those fortunate enough to get that far, the support of influential friends was thought highly desirable if a favourable response were to be obtained. For example, when the king was visiting Durham in 1461, the prior of Durham sought to obtain repayment of 400 marks, which, he claimed, his monks had been compelled to supply to Queen Margaret, ‘money they might never worse have spared in all their days’. He was lucky enough to have the goodwill of both his bishop, Laurence Booth, and of the great earl of Warwick himself. As the king left the cathedral, the prior relates:

  my lord of Durham took me in his hand, and sat down upon his knee before the king, and so did my Lord of Warwick, and I beside him; and they prayed the king to be my good lord; and the king answered and said, Trior, I will be your good lord, and I shall remember your bill.’2

  For those less well connected than the prior of Durham, it was a matter of keeping a careful watch on the political scene and then seeking the good offices of those judged to be of greatest influence. For the Paston family, thre
atened by powerful and unscrupulous local magnates, the winning of suitable patrons was a constant preoccupation. In the first twelve years of the reign they sought the favour of over a dozen of the king’s councillors and courtiers. In 1461 John Paston approached the treasurer, the earl of Essex. His response is an interesting indication of the constant pressure to which the king was subject from those around him.

  And now of late [writes Paston’s son] I, remembering him of the same matter, enquired if he had moved the king’s highness therein; and he answered me that he had felt and moved the king therein … beseeching him to be your good lord therein, considering the service and true part that ye have done and owe to him … he said he would be your good lord therein as he would be to the poorest man in England. He would hold with you in your right; and as for favour, he will not be understood that he shall show favour more to one man than to another, not to one in England.1

  In other words, the intervention had failed, for it was essentially favour, and special favour, that the Pastons sought. Others about the king whose good offices the Pastons sought in this period included the two royal dukes, three earls (Warwick, Pembroke and Rivers), the archbishop of York, the bishop of Ely, Lords Hastings and Scales, Sir Thomas Montgomery, Sir John Woodville and Thomas Wingfield. In the end none of this lobbying won them redress against the dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, and their failure to win the king’s favour made them welcome the return of Warwick and fight against Edward at Barnet Field. Even the good offices of humbler men whose position gave them access to the king were not to be despised. In 1479, for example, John Paston sought to persuade the king to ‘take my service and my quarrel together’ by enlisting the support of ‘Sir George Brown, James Radcliff and others of my acquaintance which wait most upon the king and lie nightly in his chamber’.2