18. ODNB, ‘Neville, Richard, 16th Earl of Warwick’.
19. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Woodville,_1st_Earl_Rivers (consulted March 2013).
HIGH RIVERS1
Edward IV’s bigamy was not the only matrimonial problem which was (in a sense) resolved at about this time. On Tuesday 14 March 1468/9, the essential papal dispensation allowing George, Duke of Clarence to marry Isabel Neville was finally granted in Rome, thanks to the assistance of the king’s proctor at the papal curia, Dr James Goldwell – a man whom we shall meet again later. The document delivered George and Isabel from their relationships in the second and third and in the third and fourth degrees, and also from the fact that the Duchess of York was Isabel’s godmother:
Dispensatio Pauli PP iii [sic for ii] de matrimonio contrahendo inter nobilem virum Georgium Ducem Clarencie & Isabellam filiam nobilis viri Ricardi Nevill Comites Warwici, licet ipse Georgius & Isabella secundo & tertio & tertio & quarto consanguinitatis gradibus coniuncti sunt, Ac etiam licet mater ipsius Georgij eundem Isabellam de sacro fonte levavit. Datum Rome apud sanctam Petrum pridie Idus Martij Anno 1468 7o Edwardi 4ti.2
In April 1469 the Earl of Warwick requested Edward IV’s leave to reside in Calais, and campaign against the Channel pirates. The king consented, and initially the outcome appeared positive, for Warwick conducted a vigorous campaign against the pirates. But, as Polydore Vergil (with the benefit of hindsight) was later to explain:
to thintent that this so huge sedition, wherewith England was tossyd and tormoylyd many yeres after might once at the last have a beginning, he requyryd his brothers, tharchebysshop of York and the marquyse, to procure soome uprore to be made in Yorkshyre, anone after his departure, so that cyvill warre might be commencyd the while he was farre absent. These thinges thus determyned and his devyses approvyd, therle transportyd with the duke unto Calyce; and here, after the duke had sworne never to breake the promyse which he had made, therle placyd unto him in maryage his eldest doughter, Isabel, betrouthyd to the duke as is before sayd; which busynes dispatchyd, they began both two to delyberate more depely, and to conferre betwixt them selves of the maner and meanes howe to deale in this warre.3
Marriage (fifteenth-century woodcut).
Once he was established in Calais, the earl also requested safe conduct so that he might visit his neighbours, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and his new wife, Margaret of York. Since Warwick had previously been a great opponent of the Burgundian alliance, Edward IV was delighted. The meeting between Warwick and Charles the Bold took place at St Omer, and Charles also seemed inclined to believe that Warwick had turned over a new leaf. Jehan de Wavrin, who was present, tells us that Warwick was:
warmly received and greeted by the duke and by the lords attending on him, who went before him and conducted him to his place of residence. Then he came before the duke, who was staying at the Abbey of St Bertin, where the duke greeted him heartily. And two days later he went to Aire[-sur–la-Lys] to see his cousin, the duchess, who received him sweetly – for no one would ever have guessed what he was up to.4
Of course, Edward IV had overlooked one important fact. The Earl of Warwick had long been the Captain of Calais, with the result that he was able to use the town as a most effective power base.
Meanwhile, in the wake of Warwick’s plans, as reported by Vergil, ‘to procure soome uprore to be made in Yorkshyre’, back in England in April 1469 ‘Robin of Redesdale’ raised a rebellion against Edward IV in the north. This rebellion – which, as we have seen, was said by Vergil to have been planned by Warwick the previous year – was initially defeated by Warwick’s brother, John Neville, Earl of Northumberland, and as a result the first ‘Robin of Redesdale’ was killed.5 However, a second ‘Robin’ took over his mantle,6 and the trouble continued. The specific demands of the rebels included the removal of the Woodville family from power. From this we can see clearly where Warwick and Clarence’s aims were focused at this time, and their subsequent actions bear this out. They had probably not addressed all possible contingencies in their minds, but their main objective was to oust the Woodville family from power so that Warwick and his son-in-law-to-be, the Duke of Clarence, could dominate Edward IV’s government. There was no immediate plan to remove the king himself – though possibly they had not determined their course of action if Edward proved unwilling to abandon the Woodvilles.
Although George, Duke of Clarence seems not to have accompanied the Earl of Warwick on his visit to the Duke and Duchess of Burgundy, George had certainly sailed to Calais with his cousin and the latter’s family, just as Vergil later related. Indeed, for the next two years, approximately, George was a more or less inseparable part of Warwick’s family. Following Warwick’s return from the Burgundian court (accompanied by the chronicler Jehan de Wavrin), arrangements rapidly went ahead for the marriage of George and Isabel. Their wedding took place on Tuesday 11 July 1469. Wavrin had left Calais five or six days earlier, so he was not present at the ceremony, but he tells us that ‘there were not many people, so the festivities only lasted two days – for he was married on a Tuesday and on the following Sunday he crossed the sea, since he had received news that the Welsh were in the field in great numbers.’7
Almost immediately after George’s marriage to Isabel, he and Warwick issued their own manifesto against the Woodville family, criticising their ‘disceyvabille covetous rule’.8 The bridegroom then accompanied his new father-in-law across the Channel from Calais to Sandwich. Having landed, they rode first to Canterbury, where, with some success, they mustered the men of Kent to their support. On about Tuesday 18 July9 they left Canterbury and continued to London, ‘where they waited for their men and sometimes got news of the progress of the northerners’.10 They subsequently rode on towards Coventry. On Wednesday 26 July 1469 both Clarence and Warwick were present at the Battle of Edgecote:
George and Isabel, Duke and Duchess of Clarence (after the Rous Roll) together with George’s signature as Duke of Clarence. Note Isabel’s elongated face. The object above the helmet in the centre is George’s gorget badge, which he probably chose because ‘gorget’ sounds like a play on the name ‘George’.
The erle of Warweke … sent with owt lingering unto the duke of Clarence, who was hard by with an army, that he wold bring his forces unto him, signyfying withal that the day of battayle was at hand. Uppon this message the duke reparyd furthwith to the earle, and so they both having joygnyd ther forces marchyd to a village caulyd Banbery, wher they understoode ther enemyes to be encampyd. Ther was a feyld fowghte,11 Therle of Pembrowghe was taken, all his army slane and discomfytyd. Emongest this number was killed Rycherd earl Ryvers, father to Elyzabeth the queen, and his soone John Vedevill.12
Meanwhile, an anxious Edward IV had been seeking advice as to whether he should himself take up arms against the rebels. Strangely, Lord Hastings, Lord Mountjoy, Sir Thomas Montgomery and others reportedly advised the king to do nothing.13 Possibly the clear focus of the rebellion upon the removal of the Woodville family from power, rather than the removal of Edward IV, was an aim which these lords felt they could live with. It is also reported that the king himself could not believe that his brother, George, and his cousin, the Earl of Warwick, were out to ruin him.14
Nevertheless, some foreign observers were voicing suspicions (possibly hopeful suspicions on their part) that Warwick planned to dethrone Edward IV by declaring him illegitimate, thereby transferring the crown to Warwick’s own new son-in-law, the Duke of Clarence.15 In chapter 7 (above) it was noted that in 1483 Mancini reported that the Duchess of York had herself declared that Edward IV was a bastard. According to Mancini, this outburst had occurred in 1464, at the time of Edward’s acknowledgement of his Woodville marriage. There is no English source confirming such remarkable behaviour on the part of the king’s mother – a lady whom Mancini himself probably never met. Indeed, much later, on her deathbed, Cecily explicitly contradicted the story.16 However, an allegation of illegitimacy was undoubtedly one of the weap
ons which was being used against Edward IV in France: ‘A strong rumour circulating in the courts of Burgundy and France in the second half of Edward’s reign had it that Cecily’s liaison was with an archer named Blaybourne.’17 In 1469, of course, both Warwick and Clarence had recently returned to England from the Continent, so they may well have been aware of this story. Certainly Edward IV later accused George of using the allegation of bastardy against him, and this was one of the factors that eventually contributed to George’s downfall.
Meanwhile, the lawless situation prevailing in England allowed disturbances to spread. The Duke of Norfolk, who had less income than he needed, and who coveted Caister Castle, decided this might be a good moment to use force to remove the Paston family, who were then residing in the castle. In August 1469 Norfolk besieged Caister with a large force said to number 3,000 (though this may be an exaggeration). The Paston defenders of the castle reportedly comprised a mere twenty-seven men. The ensuing private battle loomed much larger in John Mowbray’s mind than the wider conflict going on elsewhere in England, in which Edward IV was confronting the Duke of Clarence and the Earl of Warwick. During the next two months Norfolk was solely occupied with taking Caister Castle. He took no part in the larger battle for power – though it is interesting to note that, while he seems to have been in close contact with the Duke of Clarence and with Archbishop Neville, we hear nothing in August or September 1469 of any communication between Norfolk and the king. Evidently, in John Mowbray’s eyes the real power now lay in the hands of Warwick and Clarence.
Caister Castle had originally been built by Sir John Fastolf, who had died there in November 1459. After his death, the castle – together with other Fastolf property, including Drayton Lodge, just outside Norwich, and Fastolf’s Place in Southwark, where George, Richard and Margaret had stayed with their mother, the Duchess of York, in 1460 – was inherited by Fastolf’s close friend, John Paston I (1421–66). But this came about as the result of a deathbed alteration to Fastolf’s will in Paston’s favour – an alteration which gave rise to subsequent disputes. As a result, John Paston spent much of the rest of his life trying to make good his claim to the inheritance. The expensive legal fees nearly ruined the Paston family, and John I found himself imprisoned in the Fleet gaol on three occasions. While John was in London, his wife Margaret had to assume responsibility for the family’s affairs in Norfolk. Her regular letters to her husband kept him up to date with what was going on, and fortunately their correspondence has been preserved. Meanwhile, despite the fact that she actually preferred the family’s house at Oxnead, Margaret Paston took up residence at Caister Castle.
The Paston ownership of Drayton Lodge was contested by the Duke of Suffolk, brother-in-law of the king and his brothers. Four years previously, on Tuesday 15 October 1465, some 500 of Suffolk’s men had attacked the lodge and the following day, having captured the house, they had sacked and burned it. In the summer of 1469 arrangements were made by John Paston III to show the ruins to Edward IV and Richard, Duke of Gloucester. The king and his brother did indeed view the burnt-out remains on Wednesday 21 June 1469, as they passed through Drayton, riding from Norwich on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. However, if the Pastons had hoped for sympathy and recompense, Edward IV’s response to what he saw must have disappointed them.18
When the Duke of Norfolk subsequently laid siege to Caister Castle, he appears to have sought the support of his cousin, the Duke of Clarence. George and his father-in-law were now the new power in the kingdom. Edward IV had not been deposed, he was still king in name, but since August he had effectively been their prisoner. On Sunday 10 September 1469 Sir John Paston II wrote to Walter Writtle, one of the Duke of Clarence’s men, about plans for a meeting between Writtle’s master and (probably) the Duke of Norfolk.19 Writtle himself seems to have been present at that time at the siege at Caister, and presumably he was there as the representative of the Duke of Clarence. Two days later, on Tuesday 12 September 1469, Margaret Paston reported to her son, Sir John Paston II, that ‘the Duke [of Norfolk] hath be more fervently set þer-upon, and more cruell, sith þat Wrettyll, my lord of Claraunce man was ther than he was before.’ She therefore urged her son to ‘desire writing from my lord of Clarens, if he be at London’.20 Presumably she was hoping that a letter from Clarence would urge his cousin Norfolk to desist, or show mercy. Margaret, like the Duke of Norfolk, clearly believed that the real power now lay in the hands of George, rather than in the hands of his brother, the prisoner-king.
Margaret Paston’s plan produced no immediate result because on Friday 15 September 1469 her son wrote back to tell her that Clarence was not in London. At the same time he mentioned that King Edward IV was currently in York.21 In fact, had they but known it, this was the first sign of Edward’s reassertion of his authority. Meanwhile, however, there was no hope left for the vastly outnumbered Paston defenders of Caister Castle, and they were forced to surrender.
Margaret Paston’s request does, nevertheless, seem ultimately to have been forwarded to the Duke of Clarence by some means or other, and to have received the desired response. On Tuesday 26 September 1469 a safe conduct allowing the surviving Paston defenders to depart the castle unmolested was issued by the Duke of Norfolk. Norfolk informed his opponents that he had granted them this safe conduct at the urging of ‘the right noble prince my lord of Clarence, and other lordes of oure blood’.22
One thing which might have tended to encourage the Duke and Duchess of Norfolk to view Clarence and Warwick as potential friends – and caused Edward IV to doubt their good faith – may well have been the execution of Earl Rivers, father of Elizabeth Woodville, by the Earl of Warwick at Kenilworth on 12 August 1469. As the sister of Eleanor Talbot, the Duchess of Norfolk had no reason to view the Woodville family favourably. As for her husband – whose battle for Caister was part of a desperate attempt to improve his precarious financial situation – Norfolk must have been delighted to learn that, together with the Queen’s father, her much younger brother, John Woodville, had also been beheaded. Despite his relative youth, John had been the Duke of Norfolk’s step-grandfather! An extraordinary arranged marriage had united him to the Duke’s grandmother, Catherine Neville, sister of the Duchess of York, and the senior dowager Duchess of Norfolk.
Two Woodville executions may have seemed like a good start to the process of cleaning up the administration, but by September 1469 the queen’s mother, Jacquette, Duchess of Bedford and Countess Rivers, was also in trouble. Thanks to Warwick and Clarence’s execution of her second husband, Jacquette was now a widow for the second time, but Thomas Wake, one of the Earl of Warwick’s followers, aimed to ruin her completely. He came to Warwick with a damning piece of evidence against her: an ‘image of lede made lyke a man of armes, conteynyng the lengthe of a mannes fynger, and broken in the myddes, and made fast with a wyre’.23
The use of small human figurines for the casting of spells has a very ancient history.24 Often such figurines were made of wax, but in fifteenth-century England the surviving evidence suggests that lead was frequently employed for this purpose. Such figurines were supposed to represent the objects of the magic spells. They could be used to inflict harm – as had been alleged some years earlier, in the case of Jacquette’s sister-in-law, Eleanor Cobham, Duchess of Gloucester – or they could be employed to influence behaviour. One common application was to entangle the spell-victims in love. Allegations had already been whispered that it was only by the use of such magic that Elizabeth Woodville could have ensnared Edward IV.
However, the figurine which Thomas Wake had obtained was obviously not for love magic. It was intended to inflict injury, since it had been broken in the middle, and also ensnared in wire. The surviving records do not state specifically whom this figurine was intended to represent, but the assumption seems to have been that its target was the Earl of Warwick. In addition to producing the lead figurine, Wake also cited John Daunger, a parish clerk from Northamptonshire, who,
he said, would testify that the Duchess of Bedford had also made images both of the king and of her daughter, the queen. This was clearly intended to prove that Edward IV had been entrapped into his secret Woodville union by sorcery. For the first time we see that both Warwick and Clarence now wished to undermine Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth. Therefore, had either of them possessed evidence of Edward IV’s prior Talbot marriage, they would have undoubtedly have produced it at this stage. The fact that neither of them did so clearly indicates that in 1469 they were unaware of it.
Unfortunately, owing to the ultimate failure of Warwick’s schemes against Edward IV, the only surviving accounts of the case against Jacquette date from the period after the king had freed himself and re-established his authority. Indeed, they relate to Jacquette’s petition to the king for the case against her to be quashed. Not surprisingly, given the changed circumstances, her petition was successful and she was cleared of all charges. As a judgement, of course, this is meaningless. The king was hardly likely to support the view that his mother-in-law had seduced him into a dubious marriage with her daughter by witchcraft. At the same time, Warwick and Clarence had also been partial when the case was first brought. They had then only recently made Jacquette a widow, and they were clearly her enemies. Moreover, as we have seen, the allegation of sorcery against her offered them a wonderful opportunity to undermine Elizabeth Woodville’s marriage with Edward IV.
It is probably impossible now to achieve an accurate evaluation of the case against Jacquette – though we shall review the surviving evidence in a moment. Despite her (unsurprising) vindication by the now re-established Edward IV, we cannot simply assume that the case against Jacquette was invented. Suspicions that sorcery lay behind Elizabeth Woodville’s marriage contract with Edward IV had been whispered since 1464, and they resurfaced in 1483, as part of the official parliamentary evidence against the marriage.
The Third Plantagenet: George, Duke of Clarence, Richard III's Brother Page 13