York immediately set in motion various plans for restoring stability to the kingdom, but the series of sudden unexpected events continued. On Christmas Day 1454, Henry VI suddenly awoke from his stupor and recovered his senses. There was general rejoicing, but in fact the king’s recovery undermined the progress made by York and his council, since York was now removed from power and the council dissolved. Somerset was released from the Tower and the old factional infighting could resume. By February 1455 York had withdrawn again to his estates in the north, and the country seemed to be preparing for civil war.38
In the coming struggle, what most impresses us is Margaret’s determination to keep Henry’s government intact for her son. It is hard not to attribute Margaret’s mental strength and single-mindedness to her early experiences, when she saw how King René, perhaps through too easygoing a character, lost his throne in Naples, and also how the determination and perseverance of women such as Yolanda of Aragon and Isabelle of Lorraine could triumph over the most difficult circumstances, most notably in winning the French throne for Charles VII.
However, others did not see Margaret in this way. As the struggle for the kingdom developed into a straightforward fight between Margaret on one side and the Duke of York on the other, Margaret’s enemies were horrified – and even her supporters somewhat disturbed – by the way the queen began arrogating royal powers to herself. We can see that Henry was mentally incompetent, and Margaret was probably only doing what she believed was necessary to manage the kingdom. Yet this was politics, and in politics appearance is every bit as important as reality. Just as Matilda had been condemned for appearing arrogant and high-handed when she tried to make good her – perfectly legitimate – claim to the throne, now Margaret appeared to be overreaching her authority as queen. Worse, she also appeared, once again, as a woman who ‘acted like a man’, who showed a ruthlessness and determination that might have been praised in a man, but was viewed as ‘unnatural’ in a woman.
Events now began to move quickly. Somerset resumed control of the government and summoned the nobles to a council in Leicester in May 1455. York and his adherents, particularly the powerful Neville family from the north, believed this would result in a direct attack on them, and marched south. Somerset and the king, who were travelling north to Leicester, had only reached St Albans when they met York and his army. This turned into an armed confrontation, with York’s army forcing its way into the town and widespread skirmishing breaking out, which resulted in victory for York and the death of Somerset and one of his chief supporters, Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, the most deadly rival of the Nevilles.
York was victorious and took possession of the king, who had sat quietly in the market square of St Albans as the battle raged around him. They returned to London, where York now seemed to be in the ascendant, but turmoil continued throughout the kingdom as the partisans of each side prepared to continue the conflict. In November 1455, York had himself appointed protector of the realm, but was forced out of the position by February 1456, unable to gain a consensus for this de facto regency.
Margaret then took the initiative, drawing on her support in the northwest and establishing a power base in Coventry. She summoned Henry VI to join her, and Margaret staged a formal ceremonial entry for her husband that emphasized the ability and right to rule of the entire family: Henry, Margaret and the young prince Edward. A great council then met in Coventry in October and attempted to reconcile all the parties. York and his supporters attended and swore a public oath of loyalty to the king, but now all the public offices were filled with Margaret’s supporters, and a formal council was also appointed to manage Prince Edward’s affairs, again packed with Margaret’s men. Margaret could not forget that York had brought an army against the king and his followers at St Albans, and she seems to have been determined to crush him.
Another great attempt at reconciliation – a ‘loveday’ between the rival parties – was held in London on 25 March 1458, where York and the Nevilles accepted responsibility for those killed at St Albans and were formally forgiven, and Margaret took York’s hand as they processed to St Paul’s behind Henry to show that peace had been achieved. However, despite this pageantry nothing had really changed.39
By 1459, Margaret had again gone to Coventry with Henry and Edward and summoned a council, and when the Yorkists failed to appear, they were charged with treason. Both sides gathered their forces and there were skirmishes, but the reluctance of many of the Yorkists to take the field against a force carrying the king’s banner undermined their cause, and the Yorkists left the country: the Duke of York to his estates in Ireland, and others, including York’s son Edward of March, to Calais where the earl of Warwick commanded the English forces. A parliament held at Coventry in December condemned York, his sons and the earls of Salisbury and Warwick for treason and declared their lands forfeit. Margaret seemed to have won a complete victory, but this was only in theory. The only options now available to the Yorkists were to remain quietly in exile; surrender and be executed; or resume the fight, but this time with the explicit intention of overthrowing the king. They were quick to choose the latter.
The Earl of Warwick raised troops in Calais, and he returned to England in June 1460 accompanied by the Earl of Salisbury and Edward of March. They were welcomed in the southeast and London opened its gates to them, showing that despite Margaret’s steely determination to fight for her husband and son, she had failed to gain wider support for her cause from the general populace. Although she still had considerable support in the north, the people of London and the southeast, perhaps more intimately connected to Calais and the disastrous events in France, were convinced that power had been wrested from an incompetent king and was being misused by Margaret and her supporters.
Now both sides took to the field in earnest. Warwick, Salisbury and Edward of March led their army north, and Margaret sent her army under the Duke of Buckingham, the new Earl of Shrewsbury (son of Lord Talbot who had been killed at Castillon) and Viscount Beaumont south, accompanied by the king himself, though as always he would take no part in events. The two forces met near Northampton on 10 July, and the Yorkists were completely victorious, killing the enemy commanders and capturing the king.
York himself now joined them, and he took events to their logical conclusion. On 10 October, he rode into London flying the royal banner, and formally claimed the throne in the great hall of Westminster. Yet just like Margaret, he had done what seemed to be the hard work of winning the war, but failed to gather the necessary support for his actions. The assembled nobles were not yet prepared to replace Henry VI, and they refused to accept York as their king. After urgent negotiations, they suggested a solution that we have seen on previous occasions: it was agreed that Henry VI would reign for his lifetime, then be succeeded by York, disinheriting Henry and Margaret’s son Edward.40
Margaret refused to accept this defeat, and she still had plenty of supporters. The new Earl of Northumberland, the new Duke of Somerset and Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke (and son by a second marriage of Henry VI’s mother Catherine) were raising forces to defend her. The Duke of York was aware of this, and led his own troops north, hoping to consolidate his hold on power with another victory. This was not to be, since he was surprised by a superior force at Wakefield on 30 December 1460, and he was killed along with most of his men. The Earl of Salisbury was captured and executed. The heads of York, Salisbury and their two sons, who had fallen in battle with them, were impaled on the city gates of York as a warning to other rebels and a paper crown was put on the Duke of York’s head, the only crown he would ever wear. As had happened so frequently in the Wars of the Roses, just when one side seemed to have a complete victory, events could dramatically reverse themselves in a single day.
Incredibly, these constant reversals continued, showing how evenly matched the two sides were, and more tellingly, how neither side could articulate a message that might have a broader appeal than to its own adherents.
It also shows that neither side was monolithic, and the disparate groups that composed each faction would fight on even after a seemingly conclusive defeat. As Margaret marched south in triumph to celebrate York’s defeat and death, Edward of March with another Yorkist army was defeating Jasper Tudor at Mortimer’s Cross on the Welsh borders, a battle in which Jasper’s father, Owen Tudor, ancestor of the Tudor monarchs, was captured and executed.
Warwick, who had raised yet another fresh army in London and was accompanied by Henry VI to give him legitimacy, rushed north to St Albans, hoping to defeat Margaret’s forces under the Duke of Somerset and continue the Yorkist resurgence. Instead, the second battle of St Albans in February 1461 was a victory for Somerset, who also recaptured Henry VI. Margaret and her forces were still on course to capitalize on the death of the Duke of York and end the conflict, though Warwick himself had escaped.41
Now Margaret had only to enter London to claim her victory. But as had happened with Matilda, London proved the insurmountable obstacle for Margaret. Instead of welcoming Margaret and her army, the people of London were terrified of the city being sacked, and sent a delegation to negotiate. Margaret was unwilling to offer a full amnesty to her enemies in the city, and without such assurances the city refused to admit her. A stalemate ensued, and while this happened, Warwick and Edward of March were marching towards London in what must have seemed a forlorn hope when they set out.
Margaret finally decided to retreat rather than be trapped before the city, and in the final reversal of this phase of the war, her victorious army abandoned the field and the city welcomed Warwick and Edward. The Duke of York’s son Edward, who at the age of eighteen was every inch a king – young, tall, handsome and successful in battle – was not one to waste this opportunity. Edward was escorted by joyous crowds to Westminster and crowned king on 4 March 1461. His claim to the throne was unquestionably valid, he was not personally implicated in the more unsavoury episodes of his father’s career, and in London he was infinitely preferable to the queen, who was viewed as little better than a usurper.
Edward wasted no time, and pursued Margaret to end the conflict for good. Their two armies met at Towton in Yorkshire in what would become the bloodiest battle fought on English soil. Thousands died, but for once the battle didn’t overturn the party currently in the ascendant. Edward was victorious, and Margaret, Henry VI and their son Edward fled to Scotland.42
From her exile in Scotland, Margaret first sought help from Charles VII (only to learn that he had died on 22 July 1461), then from his son King Louis XI. Although she was able to muster small forces, these were never a real threat to Edward IV. Margaret also discovered that her allies were more concerned with their own interests than supporting her. When the Scots and Louis XI (called the ‘Spider King’ because of his talent for spinning intrigues) decided it would be to their benefit to reconcile with Edward IV, they dropped Margaret and by the end of 1463 she had been completely abandoned.43
Although King René had been unable to help Margaret in England, he gave her the castle of Koeur in Bar as a residence for herself and her son. More important was who and what he was, because Margaret’s most urgent task was raising funds to prepare for her return. Whatever one thinks about René’s abilities, he was one of the best connected figures in Europe, and these connections were vital. A tantalising example of Margaret and René’s activities can be seen in the ‘Fishpool Hoard’ in room 40 of the British Museum. This hoard of coins contains florins from many of the lands that supported Henry VI, as well as jewellery with the motto en bon cuer (‘in good heart’, but also a pun on Margaret’s residence of Koeur), and it is most likely the product of Margaret’s fundraising activities throughout her father’s network of contacts in Europe.
Henry VI had remained at the Scottish court, but when the Scots made peace with Edward IV he was expelled, and in 1464 the utterly extraordinary situation arose of a deposed king wandering around the north of England as a fugitive. The Duke of Somerset was still in England and attempted to rally the Lancastrian supporters, but he was defeated in 1464 and executed. Henry was finally captured in 1465 and sent to the Tower of the London, though under easy circumstances, because Edward IV preferred to keep Henry alive rather than face the prospect of Henry and Margaret’s son claiming the throne from France. The Lancastrians in England were essentially finished, but Margaret refused to concede defeat and continued in her diplomatic efforts, although she now bore more than a passing resemblance to her father as she schemed futilely to regain her lost kingdom.
King René: Chivalry and Warfare
Although he was a ‘king without a kingdom’, René had similarly not given up, and his prestige was at its high point in 1450, when he had participated in the reconquest of Normandy and held his great tournaments in Lorraine, Anjou and Provence. Perhaps most notably, René founded an order of chivalry in August 1448, the Ordre du Croissant or ‘Order of the Crescent’ (though there is an almost irresistible temptation to call it the ‘Croissant’ even in English). This has been portrayed by some as another example of René’s preference for dressing up and playing chivalric games instead of tending to the ‘real’ business of managing his territories and retaking Naples. Superficially this can seem true: the point of a chivalric order was indeed for its members to dress in elaborate robes, wear the device of the order and attend meetings where they told tales of their military prowess and gathered them into a book of deeds. We have seen this before with Louis of Taranto’s Order of the Knot, and indeed it continues to this day with the Order of the Garter in England.
The Crescent was a multi-layered symbol. It was immediately associated with Islam, fitting well with René’s fascination for all things Moorish, and suggesting the Ottoman Empire and Jerusalem, but the crescent had also been used on Charles of Anjou’s coins, so it had a link to René’s lost kingdom in Naples. The order’s motto was Los en croissant, which means both ‘honour in the crescent’ and ‘increasing honour’, suggesting that members would both gain honour from joining the order and should also work tirelessly to increase the honour and prestige of the house of Anjou. The patron saint of the order was the soldier-martyr St Maurice, the patron saint of Anjou to whom the cathedral in Angers was dedicated, and the order’s chapel was in the cathedral, where it had annual meetings on St Maurice’s feast day, 22 September.44
Yet there was much more to chivalric orders, as they were also diplomatic organizations and a means of cementing relationships, and the order’s statutes required ‘that all members swear loyalty to the Duke of Anjou and his legitimate heirs for as long as the Order exists’.45 If we look at the members of the Order of the Crescent, although most were culturally French, they were from René’s disparate territories and this was a useful means of bringing them together. Others were Neapolitans who had left Naples with René and continued in his service. There were only three properly ‘foreign’ members, but they are notable.
Johan, Count of Nassau and Saarbrücken, was a neighbouring prince and is generally assumed to have been admitted to the Crescent to shore up local support for Bar and Lorraine, although no other German princes were so favoured. However, Johan’s mother was Elizabeth of Lorraine-Vaudémont (sister of René’s old rival Antoine of Vaudémont and thus aunt of Ferry de Vaudémont), a noted literary figure who translated French chivalric romances into German. Johan had commissioned illuminated manuscripts of her works, making it much more likely that Johan and René had a literary association.46
The other two foreign members were Italian nobles: Jacopo Antonio Marcello, a prominent military commander in Venice, and Francesco Sforza of Milan. The timing of Francesco Sforza’s appointment to the order, in 1449, is crucial: Filippo Maria Visconti had died in 1447 without heirs, and Alfonso of Aragon attempted to seize Milan and add it to his kingdom of Naples, but Sforza thwarted this plan and seized Milan for himself. Thus René’s alliance through the Crescent with Sforza and the Venetian commander was a means of consolidating an allianc
e against Alfonso.
This plan bore fruit by 1452. Alfonso allied with Venice against Florence and Milan, leading Sforza and Cosimo de Medici to request assistance from Charles VII, who naturally was more interested in finishing the Hundred Years War, but he offered to back an expedition led by René if Florence and Milan would help him conquer Naples. In April 1453, after the Florentines agreed to pay for the mission, René invaded Italy and drove the Venetians from Brescia by November, but he was now engaged in complicated diplomacy. He wanted the Milanese to help him attack Naples, rather than attacking Venice, which had formerly been René’s ally and to which he was connected through Jacopo Marcello’s membership of the Crescent.
Jacopo Marcello was a close friend of René’s, and throughout 1453 he would send René some of the most precious manuscripts associated with the Angevins. These include the Greek text of John Chrysostom’s first homily with a Latin translation (sent to show his sympathy for the death of Isabelle of Lorraine in February of that year) and an illuminated manuscript of the life of St Maurice as a tribute to the Crescent, one of the most magnificent works of 15th-century illumination. René sent another member of the order, Giovanni Cossa, to Venice to negotiate an alliance, but although he initially believed there was some chance of detaching Venice from Naples, he then discovered that the Venetians were supporting Alfonso in his plans to invade Tuscany.47
René declared war on Venice, but he was now betrayed by Francesco Sforza, who was worried about French aggression in northern Italy if René were successful in Naples. There was reason for this, because by now Charles VII had finished the conquest of Gascony, and France was free to look further afield for the first time in decades. The wisdom of Francesco’s fears would be amply demonstrated, though not for forty years. Another complication was the fall of Constantinople, as Pope Pius II was now desperately – and belatedly – attempting to organize a relief mission and wanted all the combatants in Italy to stop fighting. In this impasse it became clear that René would get no support in his attempt on Naples, and in January 1454 he left Italy in disgust, although his son Jean of Calabria remained to make what he could of the situation.48
Angevin Dynasties of Europe 900-1500 Page 51