Henry VI

by Bertram Wolffe

  Doubts expressed abroad about Henry’s own authority in his kingdom were certainly justified from the end of 1458. On 2 December 1458, 500 pikes and 500 leaden clubs were ordered to be made immediately available to the royal household for his protection, in view of the activities of ‘certain misruled and seditious persons’. Three great serpentines were also ordered. The warrant for their purchase made Henry’s master of ordnance, John Judde, assure him that with these he would be able to subdue any castle or place which rebels might try to use against him.12 Since the Annunciation loveday Henry’s itinerary had continued to suggest a minimal concern with affairs of state. He returned to the abbey of St Albans for Easter 1458, spending at least three weeks there; during May and early June he was with the queen at Greenwich and from late June to early August at the Woodstock royal hunting lodge. Most of September and early October were once more spent in the abbey of St Albans. At mid-May 1459 he began a second, prolonged withdrawal to Queen Margaret’s Midland, Lancastrian domains, arriving in Coventry about the 23rd. It was from this midsummer of 1459 that the abbot of St Albans, in a typical conceit,13 marked the final setting of the sun of Henry’s royal dignity. From that point, he wrote, the dispensation of royal justice and mercy were entirely ignored. No details follow, but the clear implication is that he was referring to the harsh yet ineffective treatment he next described, which York, Salisbury, Warwick and their associates received in Henry’s name.

  Queen Margaret must be presumed to have continued principally to control Henry’s movements and actions after, as before, the loveday. She was certainly with him at St Albans, where the abbot mentioned her receiving envoys in April 1458, at her palace of Greenwich when Henry was there, and had probably taken him to the Woodstock hunting lodge, since her love of hunting is specially well attested.14 There are plenty of recorded examples of her backing up and reinforcing the royal will in matters which directly concerned her, although these in themselves do not constitute evidence of the new control which she exercised over him in his enfeebled state from 1456 because this had always been her habit, even before his illness.15 York and his associates, who never directly criticized Henry, and were equally mindful that the law of treason also protected the queen, never presumed to criticize her in their public pronouncements. They now castigated the earls of Shrewsbury and Wiltshire and Viscount Beaumont as the evil, avaricious councillors who had assumed the role about the king previously occupied first by Suffolk and then by Somerset.16 That Henry was always controlled by a never failing succession of bad men passes belief, but such an assumption was the only possible alternative to direct attacks on the king himself. The more outspoken chroniclers are unanimous in attributing responsibility for the events leading to the battle of Blore Heath, and its consequences, to Queen Margaret. They show that the queen and her council had taken over the realm through their control of the king. She decided all that was done about him.17 With the assistance of some lords she even tried unsuccessfully to get him to abdicate in favour of the infant prince of Wales. Her own unpopularity was now reflecting on to the Lancastrian heir. Malicious rumour now had it that he was not her son, or Henry’s.18 At her command she had a menacing force of knights and squires of Cheshire and elsewhere, to whom she had given the prince’s livery of the swan. These ‘queen’s gallants’ were first prominent in the battle of Blore Heath.19 Those in the know ‘knewe welle that all the workyngys that were done growe by hyr, for she was more wyttyer then the kynge, and that apperythe by hys dedys, etc.’20 From 1459, Henry had once again ceased to have any use for Richard duke of York, according to Abbot Wheathampstead. He was now thoroughly convinced that York was aiming at the throne.21

  On 7 May 1459, 3,000 bowstaves, and sheaves of arrows sufficient for that number of yeomen archers, were ordered to be put in the keeping of Thomas Thorpe, keeper of the privy wardrobe, ‘considering the enemies of everyside approaching us, as well upon the sea as on land’.22 The return of the court to Kenilworth and Coventry a few days later was certainly a military move. Privy seal writs sent out, some signed by Henry himself, ordered selected subjects to meet him at Leicester on 10 May, equipped for two months’ military service.23 The recently published chronicle of John Benet supplies additional information that a great council was summoned to Coventry and met there after 24 June 1459 in the presence of Queen Margaret and the five-year-old prince. Those summoned who did not appear were Thomas Bourchier, archbishop of Canterbury, the duke of York and earls of Salisbury, Warwick and Arundel, William Grey, bishop of Ely, George Nevill, bishop of Exeter, and Viscount Bourchier. They were then indicted at the queen’s instigation for their non-appearance.24 It is understandable that they should have been reluctant to appear in the king’s presence, to put themselves in his power, without the strongest guarantees for their safety. This mistrust lay at the heart of the problem now leading to hostilities. Henry VI did not command the trust of all his great subjects. York’s later attainder confirms that his and his two principal allies’ final fault was that they failed to respond to these repeated royal summonses and allegedly instead prepared to meet together to destroy Henry, the queen and the prince at Kenilworth.25 They were alleged to have planned to make simultaneous, surprise armed marches on Henry at Kenilworth, with the same purpose in mind as at Dartford and St Albans. But the court at Kenilworth received rapid information of Salisbury’s initial move from Middleham and the king took to the field with a considerable force. By moving to Nottingham castle and the river Trent crossing, he caused Salisbury to divert west towards Richard duke of York at Ludlow, for greater strength.26 En route for Ludlow Salisbury was intercepted on 23 September by the queen’s forces under Lord Audley, at Blore Heath, on the road between Newcastle under Lyme and Market Drayton, some ten miles north-east of Eccleshall, where she was residing. After slaying Audley and routing the queen’s Cheshire and Shropshire men under his command, Salisbury went his way unhindered, to join up with York. Warwick also, who had returned from Calais about 21 September as prearranged, was later noted at Coleshill in search of the king, where he narrowly missed a chance encounter with a force under Somerset’s command. Finally York, Salisbury and Warwick met together at Worcester and then withdrew on the approach of the king’s forces to Ludlow.

  The conflicting story, as told by York and the earls, was that they had been intending peacefully and loyally to come to Henry’s presence, but for this they required certain prior assurances for their safety. They would not believe that the armed attack on Salisbury at Blore Heath, and the subsequent advance of the royal host against them, had been made at Henry’s own will and pleasure. They were his loyal subjects, prevented from their rightful access to his person by malicious persons, bent on their destruction. This they had solemnly declared on oath together, in the cathedral at Worcester, receiving the sacrament from William Lynwode who, with the prior and others, had then taken their sworn testaments of loyalty to the king. Garter king of arms had also been sent with similar messages. A third and final communication had been sent to Henry to the same purpose from Ludlow on 10 October.27 No reply came. Thus from their point of view Henry had been withdrawn from his people by an armed Lancastrian or Angevin caucus. To them Henry was thus a puppet in the hands of evil men, or the queen, who kept all York’s communications from him even when carried by Garter, the principal herald of the realm. That this could actually be the case does not ring true. It was on record that in the identical circumstances at St Albans in 1455, when Mowbray herald, as York’s personal emissary, gained access to the royal presence, this had availed him nothing. Henry had declined to communicate directly with York. If the king was manipulated before Ludlow as before St Albans then he was willing to be so manipulated.

  Henry’s itinerary shows that he had left Kenilworth about 20 September and was back in Coventry by 20 October. This was the period which the authors of York’s attainder subsequently described as his marvellous, manly prowess for thirty days or so in the field, cheerfully enduring cold and roug
h lodgings in bare fields, in pursuit of his manifest traitors. On 12 October the royal host, advancing from Worcester to Ludlow, and plundering as it went, found York, Salisbury and Warwick entrenched at Ludford, to the immediate south of Ludlow town. Heralds had preceded them, proclaiming full pardon to all who would surrender within six days. Unscrupulous rumours that Henry was dead were allegedly being put about to strengthen his enemies’ resolve, but these were confounded when he displayed his banner in the field and made a fighting speech to boot, demonstrating his determination to fulfil his ‘courageous knightly desire’. This put great heart into all his host. Such an ex parte picture of a campaigning Henry at this time is not entirely incredible, at least as regards his capacity for physical endurance which was, after all, to be similarly demonstrated by his subsequent long years wandering as a fugitive. The accounts of the speech itself strain credibility since there appears in fact to have been no battle plan devised to give effect to his alleged bellicose intentions. No moves were made to overcome and secure the persons of the duke and earls once the royal army had run them to earth. That the king had been induced to sit a horse and appear in the field in armour, with his banner displayed, was in itself sufficient to cause considerable defections28 and ruin morale among the duke’s and earls’ followers. This was particularly true of the professional Calais contingent under their captain, Andrew Trollope, whom Warwick had brought with him, but he had apparently not told them that they would have to oppose their lawful sovereign in the field. The royal host appears to have been greatly superior, in numbers, to their opponents, but no one was in effective command of it. Since there was no investment of the traitors’ position they consequently went free. The following morning, St Edward’s Day, the duke’s and earls’ camp was found abandoned. This can hardly have been what Queen Margaret had intended. There could be no resolution of the impasse except by a military verdict which led to the complete triumph of one sectional interest which would control the king. At Ludford the verdict was indecisive because Henry, by the mere fact of being king, and present on the field, determined the immediate course of events. York and his associates were not destroyed. York escaped safely to Ireland, Warwick, Salisbury and Edward earl of March to Calais, equally out of range of royal power as exercised by the queen.

  York’s enforced visit to Ireland strengthened his position. The effort to replace him as lieutenant in Ireland by the earl of Wiltshire on 4 December, together with the nomination of his deputies there, was quite ineffective. The Irish parliament confirmed York’s appointment, protected him with the law of treason, provided him with a force of archers to take to England if he wished, allowed him to issue his own coinage and refused to accept the authority of privy seal writs from England.29 The appointment of the young duke of Somerset to replace Warwick as Captain of Calais from 9 October was equally futile. Refused admission by the garrison, he could only manage to secure the subsidiary fortress of Guînes; all efforts to reinforce him there were anticipated and frustrated and he was finally forced to surrender after defeat by Warwick at Pont de Neullay on 23 April 1460.30 Warwick’s naval control of the English and St George’s Channels enabled York and the earls to communicate freely to concert plans to mount an effective expedition to secure possession of the king’s person. They sent placards into Kent and elsewhere, expounding their aims as entirely loyal subjects of Henry, who himself could do no wrong. Their aims were to rid the kingdom of the traitors about the king, to end the prostitution of the crown by evil advisers, and to free the land from the intolerable burden of their incompetent, corrupt government.31

  On 9 October, before the confrontation at Ludford, a parliamentary assembly was hastily summoned to meet at Coventry. The writs were sent out to sheriffs whose term of office had already expired on 29 September.32 Although letters of loyalty were still being received from York, the queen had obviously determined upon the complete destruction of her enemies. She must have anticipated that when the parliament met they would have been completely defeated and at her mercy, in the actual circumstances she still proceeded with the new, extreme measure of a parliamentary attainder against York, Salisbury and his countess, Warwick, March, Rutland, their principal adherents and their families, but qualified the bill by a promise of pardon for humble submission.33 A separate enactment deprived them of all their offices;34 their lands were put in the hands of receivers; those who had opposed them were given immediate rewards from their lands, and the estates left over were mortgaged to defray the expenses of suppressing their rebellion. Numerous commissions of array were issued to try to ensure their being opposed if they attempted further resistance.35 A propaganda defence of these measures which was compiled confirms that those responsible for them were not at all confident that public opinion would accept that York and the earls were guilty of treason and should thus be destroyed and their families utterly ruined.36 This justification of the actions of the Coventry parliament claimed that Henry was a good and gracious king, ruling a loyal and contented people; that York and his associates had proved themselves incorrigible in their attacks upon him, at Dartford, St Albans and now Ludford; that they were but one rotten tooth in an otherwise healthy set, whose extraction had been twice postponed, but must now be carried out before the poison infected the whole mouth. By the civil law they had earned decapitation and the disinheriting of their heirs. Other men saw the act as ‘a perilous writing’ and ‘mischievous indicting’, likely to rebound on the heads of its authors, the culmination of a series of injustices which had begun with the destruction of Duke Humphrey at the Bury parliament of 1447, but never until this moment had been carried to these dangerous extremes.37 It was the fear come true which York had expressed in 1450 and 1452 that his enemies at court were working to corrupt his blood. This new process of attainder was intended not only to eliminate the confederate duke and earls themselves, but to deprive their heirs and families of their entailed lands, in gross violation of the currently accepted practice of English common law that entails were sacrosanct, even against treason, a convention ominously last flouted by the tyrannous Richard II in 1398. The ‘rout’ of Ludford and the legislation of this Coventry parliament were thus typical examples of the dangerous mixture of weakness and forcefulness inherent in having Henry at the head of affairs.

  When the earls finally mounted their inevitable expedition to capture control of Henry’s person, apparently no question of deposing him in favour of York had yet been discussed. The emphasis of this enterprise, which was in preparation at Calais during the first half of 1460, was again on utter loyalty to King Henry; to rescue his person from control by evil advisers. This time the means was to be a ‘competent fellowship’, that is a limited force of professional soldiers, knowing what it had to do, whose loyalty could be entirely depended on, supported by a considerable artillery train38 and a determination to assault even the city of London if necessary. Salisbury, Warwick and Edward earl of March finally crossed to Sandwich on 26 June 1460 where an advance party under William Nevill, Lord Fauconberg, had first secured them a bridgehead. The papal legate Francesco Coppini, recently accredited to Henry VI, accompanied them. Archbishop Bourchier received them at Sandwich and gave them episcopal protection and their numbers were swollen by many Kentish recruits as they made their way towards the capital. In the event, the threat of assault itself proved sufficient to gain them entry to the city on 2 July;39 only the Tower resisted. Leaving Salisbury in charge of London and of the siege of the Tower, the rest set out to find the king. They encountered the royal army at Northampton on 10 July. The morning was spent in fruitless parleys; battle was joined in torrential rain early that afternoon.40 Warwick gave orders not to spare the nobility, knights and esquires41 and the capture of the king in his tent, in the meadows outside Northampton, between the river Nene and Delapré Abbey, was preceded by the deliberate slaughter of Buckingham, Shrewsbury, Beaumont and others about his person,42 after the manner of St Albans in 1455. They were deemed to be the intimate secular a
dvisers and councillors of the moment. Indeed, the preliminaries of the battle had also been a repetition of St Albans; a series of repeated, abortive parleys, designed to gain Warwick peaceful access to Henry’s person. The complete victory of Warwick’s forces in half an hour’s encounter was, according to the abbot of St Albans and the chroniclers, due to the devastating treachery of Lord Grey of Ruthyn who led the king’s vanguard over to the opposing side.43