Edward IV

by Charles Ross

  Also in the Yale English Monarchs Series

  ATHELSTAN by Sarah Foot

  EDWARD THE CONFESSOR by Frank Barlow

  WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR by David Douglas*

  WILLIAM RUFUS by Frank Barlow

  HENRY I by Warren Hollister

  KING STEPHEN by Edmund King

  HENRY II by W. L. Warren*

  RICHARD I by John Gillingham

  KING JOHN by W. L. Warren*

  EDWARD I by Michael Prestwich

  EDWARD II by Seymour Phillips

  RICHARD II by Nigel Saul

  HENRY V by Christopher Allmand

  HENRY VI by Bertram Wolffe

  EDWARD IV by Charles Ross

  RICHARD III by Charles Ross

  HENRY VII by S. B. Chrimes

  HENRY VIII by J. J. Scarisbrick

  EDWARD VI by Jennifer Loach

  MARY I by John Edwards

  JAMES II by John Miller

  QUEEN ANNE by Edward Gregg

  GEORGE I by Ragnhild Hatton

  GEORGE II by Andrew C. Thompson

  GEORGE III by Jeremy Black

  GEORGE IV by E. A. Smith

  * Available in the U.S. from University of California Press

  First published in Great Britain in 1974 by Eyre Methuen Ltd

  First published in paperback in 1983 by Methuen London Ltd

  This edition first published by Yale University Press in 1997

  Copyright © 1974 Charles Ross

  New edition © 1997 The Estate of Charles Ross

  New Foreword © 1997 R. A. Griffiths

  All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reveiwers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.

  Printed in Great Britain by Berforts Group

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 97-61404

  ISBN 0-300-07371-2 (hbk.)

  ISBN 978-0-300-07372-0 (pbk.)

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  5 7 9 10 8 6 4

  CONTENTS

  FOREWORD TO THE YALE EDITION (by R. A. Griffiths)

  PREFACE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABBREVIATIONS

  Part I • THE ROAD TO THE THRONE

  1The Heir of York

  2The Yorkist Triumph, 1460–1461

  Part II • THE FIRST REIGN, 1461–1471

  3The Defence of the Throne, 1461–1464

  (i) Disorder, Disaffection and Pacification

  (ii) The Lancastrian Resistance, 1461–1464

  4The Establishment of the Yorkist Regime

  5The King’s Marriage and the Rise of the Woodvilles

  6The Burgundian Alliance and the Breach with Warwick, 1465–1469

  7The Years of Crisis, 1469–1471

  (i) Warwick’s Challenge and Failure, 1469–1470

  (ii) Edward’s Deposition and Exile

  (iii) The Recovery of England, March-May 1471

  Part III • THE SECOND REIGN, 1471–1483

  8Domestic Problems and Policies, 1471–1475

  (i) The Settlement of 1471: Rewards and Punishments

  (ii) The Quarrel of Clarence and Gloucester, 1471–1475

  (iii) Policies towards Wales, the north of England, and Ireland

  9The King’s Great Enterprise, 1472–1475

  (i) Diplomacy and the Formation of Alliances: the Approach to War

  (ii) Financial and Military Preparations

  (iii) The Invasion of France, 1475

  10Family, Politics and Foreign Relations, 1475–1480

  (i) The Fall of Clarence

  (ii) Marriage Politics and Diplomacy

  (iii) England, France and Burgundy

  11Court Life and Patronage of the Arts

  12War, Diplomacy and Disillusion, 1480–1483

  Part IV • THE GOVERNANCE OF ENGLAND

  13Personal Monarchy

  14Councillors, Courtiers and King’s Servants

  15The King and the Community: Nobles, Commons in Parliament, and Merchants

  (i) Relations with the Nobility

  (ii) The King and the Commons in Parliament

  (iii) Merchants and Commercial Policy

  16The King’s Finances

  17Law and Order

  Conclusion: The End of the Reign: Achievement and Aftermath

  APPENDICES

  I Note on Narrative Sources

  II Edward IV’s Governor

  III Edward IV’s Grants to Warwick

  IV The Northern Rebellions of 1469: A Note on Sources and Chronology

  V Warwick, Clarence, and the Lincolnshire Rebellion of 1470

  SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

  INDEX

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  MAPS

  IThe North of England, 1460–1464 page

  IIThe Rebellion of 1470 and the flight of Warwick and Clarence

  IIIThe Campaign of 1471

  IVThe English Invasion of France, 1475

  DIAGRAMS

  1York and Lancaster page

  2York and Bourchier

  3The Nevills

  4The Woodvilles

  5Exports and imports of dutiable commodities in the later fifteenth century

  Diagrams 1–4 were re-drawn from the author’s roughs by Edgar Holloway.

  FOREWORD TO THE YALE EDITION

  by R. A. Griffiths

  Charles Ross died in 1986. Among those of this writings intended for a wide reading public as well as the professional historian, Edward IV (1974) is the finest achievement. The Wars of the Roses (1976) and Richard III (1981) are also highly successful and deservedly popular studies, and together the three volumes display the author’s masterly understanding of Yorkist England and the relationship between king and realm in an age of dynastic civil war.1 No scholarly, large-scale study of Edward IV’s reign had appeared since Cora Scofield’s two-volume compendium in 1923.2 Almost a quarter of a century on, Ross’s Edward IV remains authoritative. Couched in economical and pellucid prose (J. R. Lander found the book ‘grippingly readable’), most of its judgements retain the respect initially accorded them by readers and reviewers alike, and it is likely to remain the most reliable port of call for anyone seeking to understand Edward IV and his impact on England.3

  This is remarkable, for since 1974 the fifteenth century has continued to attract attention from a generation of scholars, many of whom have been inspired personally by Charles Ross or by his writings. Editions of original sources have appeared, and a torrent of books and essays has been published on many aspects of Yorkist England. A substantial proportion of these were part of the frenzied concentration on the quincentenary of Richard III’s usurpation in 1483 and his defeat at Bosworth Field two years later, yet most could not fail to illumine Edward’s reign as well, and Yorkist England more generally. In large part these writers filled lacunae in Edward IV, or substantiated Ross’s conclusions in detail, rather than significantly altered them. This is a tribute to the original text of Edward IV and to Ross’s perspicacity as a historian of the fifteenth century.

  Ross’s acute assessment of Edward’s character and personality is based on a critical yet sympathetic appraisal of the king in relation to the realities of his life and rule. This does not mean that Edward was Ross’s hero: far from it for, as every reviewer noted, his was a penetrating analysis of the king, warts and all – and one that departed from the view of Edward current in 1974. On the whole, Ross’s judgement has not been seriously undermined, though some scholars have not been entirely happy with his harsher colours, stressing (as these do) Edward’s inconsistencies, misjudgements and failures as well as his flair, flamboyance, generosity and
decisiveness. J. R. Lander, himself a distinguished interpreter of Yorkist England, sprang to Edward’s defence, uneasy that Ross was too energetic in finding flaws in his character and policies; yet not even Lander ventured to find substantial fault with Ross’s portrait.4

  Edward IV is based carefully on an interpretation of those original – mostly contemporary – narrative and administrative sources available in 1974. No major narrative source has come to light since then, although a few newly-published contemporary fragments shed light on some aspects of the reign.5 New editions of sources which Ross used tend to confirm and extend his interpretation of their content rather than alter his conclusions. On the other hand, Ross’s valuable ‘Note on Narrative Sources’ (Appendix I) was soon supplemented by two important commentaries. First, Alison Hanham’s Richard III and his Early Historians, 1483–1535 (Oxford, 1975), was in the press when Edward IV was published. Despite its title, it includes extensive commentary on the strengths and deficiencies of the Crowland Chronicle and Dominic Mancini’s De Occupatione Regni Anglie per Ricardum Tercium Libellus (known as ‘The Usurpation of Richard III’), and of Polydore Vergil and Sir Thomas More among early Tudor writers, as important sources for Edward I V’s reign.6 Broader in scope, Antonia Gransden’s Historical Writing in Medieval England, II: c. 1397 to the Early Sixteenth Century (1982), provides valuable descriptions and analyses of those English and foreign writers who commented on the Wars of the Roses.

  New editions of chronicles and other sources, and reprints of older ones, reflect continuing interest in this period and a demand that classic texts be more widely available than in dusty, Victorian editions: for example, John Warkworth’s brief chronicle, which is valuable for the crisis years of 1470–1, the ‘Chronicle of the Rebellion in Lincolnshire’ in 1470, and the propagandist ‘Historie of the Arrivall of Edward IV’ in 1471.7 New editions of the Cely letters and the Plumpton correspondence, and the second volume of Norman Davis’s edition of the Paston letters (the first volume was available to Ross when he wrote Edward IV) are, in large part, more reliable editions of letters and papers already well known; in any case, the Cely collection, for all its uniqueness as a substantial archive of merchants’ business correspondence concerned with the wool trade, contains relatively little of the political comment that was Ross’s prime interest.8

  Of cardinal significance is the new edition of the Crowland Chronicle, published in 1986. In constructing his picture of Edward IV and the politics of the reign, Ross attached great importance to the anonymous political memoir that lies at the heart of the so-called ‘second continuation’ of this chronicle: ‘by far the most important single source for the years 1471–85’.9 The new edition prompted fevered discussion about the authorship of the continuation. Taking his cue from P. M. Kendall’s Richard III (1955), Ross expressed a strong preference for John Russell, bishop of Lincoln, and he also reasserted the view that it was written at the Lincolnshire abbey of Crowland towards the end of April 1486. The editors of the new edition prefer Dr Henry Sharp, one of Russell’s entourage, and others have championed Richard Lavender, another of Russell’s associates, or have resurrected the claims of Peter Curteis, who had been proposed by C. L. Kingsford in 1913 and was keeper of the great wardrobe under Edward IV.10 Whilst authorship and date of compilation pose interesting historical questions, all the protagonists agree with Ross that the author was a close observer of Edward IV, with access to the corridors of his court and government, and that his ‘memoir’ is a first-rate source for the reign.

  Ross was critical of the young Edward as he struggled to secure his grip on the realm after 1461. In particular, he felt that the king was unduly lenient towards his foes in northern England. The unreconciled Lancastrians dominated the north and its castles, yet Edward initially offered pardon to Lancastrian sympathisers who accepted the new regime; and he allowed them to retain positions of trust which they soon abused. With justification, more than one writer considers Ross to have been too hasty in condemning the new king and underestimating the strength of Lancastrian loyalties and the threat they posed so long as Henry VI, Queen Margaret and their son were at large.11 Edward’s urgent need to broaden his support in the north, rather than overconfidence, explains the king’s actions. Moreover, as A. J. Pollard suggested, there was justifiable fear of a Scottish invasion after 1461, to aid the Lancastrians and cause maximum havoc in the borderland by capturing English-held fortresses. Pardons to opponents might buy time and, at best, win support; that they did not do the latter need not invalidate the attempt, for the choices facing Edward IV were difficult and their respective merits far from clear. Whether Edward used his breathing-space to best advantage is an open question, though his lieutenant, Warwick, returned to the north in 1463 and complemented Edward’s diplomacy towards Scotland and France to secure the north for much of the 1460s. Norman Macdougall’s ‘political study’ of James III of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1982) is unequivocal in endorsing Ross’s assessment of the situation in Scotland and the course of Edward’s negotiations with the queen-regent. The king’s desire to come to terms with the Lancastrians as part of a general settlement of the north reflects, at worst, a policy of optimism. In any case, the economic and financial difficulties facing a new king were bound to affect his ability to mount military operations in northern England. Civil war in the late 1450s and early 1460s undermined English trade, especially in cloth, and this caused unrest in southern parts of the realm and led to debasement of the coinage in 1463–4, as Ross noted.12 Edward’s attitude to the north, and his early return southwards, may be more comprehensible in the circumstances than Ross allowed.

  Detailed study of the celebrated trial for treason of Sir Thomas Cook, an influential London merchant, in 1468 has also modified Ross’s judgement of the king. Rather than colluding with the supposed political intrigues of his wife’s relatives, the Woodvilles, against Cook, Edward seems genuinely to have believed the charges against him and felt that action was necessary at a time of Lancastrian and other plots. If the king’s treatment of Cook is to be judged at all misconceived, it must be because of Edward’s later generosity towards him, despite condemnation for misprision of treason.13

  Ross did not see Edward as a great warrior-king: on occasion, the king lacked strategic judgement and decisiveness, and during the rebellions of 1469–70 he made mistakes. This latter verdict partly hinges on Edward’s unwillingness to accept that Clarence and Warwick were behind the Lincolnshire disturbances in March 1470. Yet there remain doubts about the extent of their implication, and Edward, by his propaganda and military campaign, may have magnified their overt treason for his own purposes.14 Later in the year, when Warwick and Clarence were rumoured to be planning an invasion, Edward went north to suppress Lord FitzHugh’s rising, which may have seemed dangerous to those in London. The king was still in Yorkshire when Warwick and Clarence landed in the West Country, and he was forced to flee abroad. Edward faced a dilemma: to suppress a northern rising or await an invasion of uncertain date and destination. That he made the wrong choice does not reflect entirely badly on the king’s judgement.15 The events of 1471, on the other hand, were a triumph for Edward. He crushed his enemies separately by sound strategy and good luck: Warwick was brought to battle and killed at Barnet on 14 April, and the Lancastrian army was intercepted and defeated at Tewkesbury on 4 May. Detailed study of both engagements vindicates Ross’s judgement that ‘the king responded … with the same vigour and decision which mark all his actions in this critical year.’16

  Other criticisms of the quality of Edward’s judgement seem better founded. Ross detected the king’s propensity to illegality and ruthlessness when it suited his purposes, and Michael Hicks asserts that Edward was prepared to countenance breaches of the law on retaining by those who were close to him or had responsibility for controlling distant provinces. The survival of the exceptional cadre of indentures of William, Lord Hastings, Edward’s friend and chamberlain, led several historians to place Hastings in th
is category.17 Hicks confirmed this trait in Edward’s treatment of the countess of Oxford, Elizabeth de Vere. The king allowed his brother, Richard, to appropriate the countess’s estates in 1473–5 by legal means but under duress; Edward declined to intervene on her behalf because he valued Richard’s loyalty at a time when their brother George was proving increasingly irksome.18 When the interests of himself or of those closest to him were involved, Edward’s pliability and passivity-at worst his unscrupulousness-led him to misjudgements which ran a risk of alienating the nobility. Ross was right to draw a contrast with Henry VII; yet at least Edward did not unleash the forces of factionalism and favouritism to quite the same extent as Henry VI had managed to do.

  The politics of Edward’s reign were characterised as much by the actions of senior nobles as by those of the king. The towering figures of Warwick the ‘Kingmaker’ and the king’s brothers, Clarence and Gloucester, alongside the Woodville family of the queen, have centrebilling throughout the reign. Beyond this group were other significant noblemen and their families. In 1974 few of either group had been studied in detail. Ross’s view of the ‘Kingmaker’ and his part in the Yorkist collapse in 1469–70 was damning; Michael Hicks’s forthcoming study will doubtless clarify the significance of this enigmatic figure. Hicks’s study of False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence (Gloucester, 1980), confirms the picture of a magnate whose ‘treasons, perjury, overweening ambition, quarrelsomeness and other faults’ seem undeniable, though the duke had been thwarted in his ambitions by Edward who, in the 1470s, was inclined to favour their younger brother, Gloucester – yet who could blame him after Clarence’s stark disloyalty in 1469–71?19 Gloucester himself attracted most attention in the 1980s. This was partly with the object of rescuing his reputation, but a valuable picture has emerged of Richard’s thirty-one years before he seized the crown, especially the period between 1471 and 1483 when he was usually in the north constructing a dominion for himself with Edward’s indulgence.20