Edward IV

by Charles Ross

  The defeat and decimation of the rebel forces at Hexham virtually sealed the fate of the Northumbrian castles. This time there was to be no let-off. As the victorious Montagu approached with a royal army and siege-train at his back, Alnwick capitulated without a fight on 23 June and Dunstanborough surrendered then or on the following day. Only Bamborough showed defiance. Here the two chief surviving rebels, Sir Ralph Grey and Sir Humphrey Nevill, were in command; and, since Edward was anxious to obtain the castle undamaged, an offer of pardon was made to the garrison, except its two commanders, if they surrendered at once. This Grey stubbornly refused to do, and thus provoked the only set siege with artillery and bombards in four years of fighting. The king’s great guns, whose weight, value and power earned each its own name, such as Newcastle, London and Dijon, were brought into action, and battered the walls with their heavy fire. Grey himself was seriously wounded-Dijon is said to have ‘smote through his chamber oftentimes’ – and Sir Humphrey Nevill then arranged the surrender of the castle. This obdurate rebel even managed to win a pardon for himself, and only the injured Grey was brought for trial before the earl of Worcester at Doncaster, and paid the penalty for his sturdy defiance by execution on 10 July.2

  Edward had played no direct part in these military successes, and was content to leave the conduct of operations in the hands of Montagu, who was now deservedly rewarded for his labours with promotion to the Earldom of Northumberland. Instead, the king preferred to remain in York and take personal charge of negotiations with the Scots envoys escorted thither by Montagu. The fruit of his efforts was the signature on 1 June of a truce for fifteen years between the two realms, an agreement which Edward ratified on 11 June.1 Thereafter he lingered apparently inactive in Yorkshire, whilst Montagu marched on the northern castles, but on 14 July the king appeared at Doncaster to persuade a diocesan synod to grant him a subsidy. Two days later he moved slowly south to Leicester, and the northern parts of his realm were not to see him again until he came as a prisoner to Middleham Castle five years later.2

  The surrender of Bamborough at the end of June 1464 marks the end of the decisive phase in the Yorkist effort to master a stubborn and determined Lancastrian resistance. Henceforth, the cause of Henry VI could be of significance only when allied with powerful Yorkist dissidents. In the fighting since Towton, Edward had shown clearly that he did not cast himself in the role of conventional warrior-king. Of the four major expeditions involved-three to the north, and one into Wales-Edward had set out for all, and signally failed to arrive. The main burden of defence had been borne by Warwick and Montagu in the north and Herbert in Wales. The king’s failure to take the field was criticized by some of his contemporaries and some modern writers, and seen as a sign of laziness and an excessive concern with his own pleasures.3 But it is doubtful whether events would have been different had Edward conducted his operations in person. His lieutenants were willing and competent enough. More serious were mistakes of judgement and policy, particularly his excessive clemency to his opponents. Men like Somerset, Percy and Humphrey Nevill were not only spared their lives and repeatedly pardoned, but were given the opportunity to make more mischief. Decisions like that to return the Northumbrian castles to the care of Sir Ralph Percy in December 1462, or the failure to reduce them in the summer of 1463, remain hard to justify. They provide at least part of the explanation why a comparatively small group of rebels was able to remain active for so long, even if it never attracted much general support from the country at large, whilst the foreign backing it received was grudging and largely ineffective.

  The king’s absence from the campaigns and sieges of these early years was due less to laziness or a distaste for war than to his own sense of priorities. Like his great rival, Louis XI, he saw his place as being very much at the centre of government, and already the exercise of his personal energy was doing much to revitalize the administration of the realm. For Edward the management of peers, parliament and people was an essential part of successful kingship, and the records of these years show how active he was in the conduct of business.1 The close supervision of his foreign relations with Burgundy, France and Scotland was also very much a matter of intimate personal concern. From all this he did not wish to be distracted except in times of emergency. Above all it was important to consolidate his grip on the heartland of England, whatever the danger on the borders. Against these concerns rebel activity in the far west and north seemed less important, especially if deprived of French or Scottish assistance. Events justified this analysis of the situation.

  All this contains a further implication. Bishop Kennedy’s description of the mighty earl of Warwick as ‘governor of the realm of England beneath King Edward’ implies a certain contempt for the authority of the young king; and the belief that Warwick was the real ruler of England was shared then and later by Louis XI until he ruefully discovered his mistake.2 The illusion has been perpetuated by recent writers. ‘Warwick’ (we have been told) ‘governed in the saddle from the periphery of the realm.’3 But the whole pattern of Edward’s activities in these years suggests that he was very much king in fact as well as in name. Warwick remained invaluable: energetic, influential and self-important, he was allowed every freedom to act on the king’s behalf. It is not altogether surprising that his prominence in the defence of the north and later in diplomatic activity gave foreigners a false impression of his importance. Informed Englishmen probably had no such illusions. Warwick’s great influence was a factor of the king’s permissiveness. Its continuance depended on the continuing identity of interest between the young king and his greatest subject.

  1 For a description of the ceremonies, see Scofield, I, 181–4.

  1 E.g., Edward’s future father-and brother-in-law, Lords Rivers and Scales, both pardoned in July 1461.

  2 PL, III, 292. For the careers of Tuddenham and Heydon, see Wedgwood, Hist. Parl., Biographies, 452–3, 880–1. For commissions to Hastings, Warwick, and other trusted supporters to receive rebels into the king’s grace, CPR, 1461–7, 7, 45, 190.

  3 Ibid., 28–30, 31, 102.

  4 Ibid., 31, 33, 135.

  5 Ibid., 28, 37, 66, 101, 135.

  6 PL, IV, 25.

  1 CPR, 1461–7, 67, 101–2, 132; Storey, End of the House of Lancaster, 197.

  2 Notably in many parts of Wales (R. A. Griffiths, ‘Royal government in the southern counties of the principality of Wales’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Bristol, 1962, pp. 552–9). For the north, see below, pp. 46–7.

  3 CPR, 1461–7, 132–3.

  4 Scofield, I, 231–4, and sources there cited. According to John Benet’s Chronicle, ed. Harriss, 232, the earl of Worcester and Lords Ferrers and Herbert were sent to arrest the conspirators.

  5 Scofield, I, 161, 179; Calmette and Perinelle, Louis XI et l’Angleterre, 2–3.

  6 CPR, 1461–7, 33–4, 38; Scofield, I, 180.

  1 Scofield, I, 207–14; Galmette and Perinelle, 7–16. For the mediating role of Burgundy, M. R. Thielemans, Bourgogne et Angleterre, 383–90.

  2 H. Ellis, Original Letters, I, 126.

  3 CPR, 1461–7, 100–1, 203; Rymer, Foedera, XI, 488; Scofield, I, 234.

  4 Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, 158.

  5 PL, IV, 35

  1 Gregory, 217–18.

  1 Scofield, I, 31–2, 99–100, 134–5, 175–7; Annie Dunlop, Life and Times of James Kennedy, 215–23, for relations with Scotland and the political background there.

  2 RP, V, 478; PL, III, 276.

  3 Rotuli Scotiae, II, 402. On 5 April 1462 he was made warden of the West March for twenty years, R. L. Storey, ‘Wardens of the Marches of England towards Scotland, 1377–1489’, EHR, lxxii (1957), 614. For the garrisons, see Scofield, I, 204.

  1 Somerville, History of the Duchy of Lancaster, I, 538; CPR, 1452–61, 609, 673

  1 Annales, 779. The appointment of commissions of array in the north, November 1461, is further evidence of disturbance (CPR, 1461–7, 66).

  2 Scofield, I, 207, 214. />
  3 CPR, 1461–7, 14, 36–9, 45, 65, 98–9. Early in September sailors were being pressed in Bristol and Bridgwater for the fleet, which was to assist Herbert in the blockading of the castles in West Wales (ibid., 99–100).

  4 Ibid., 98–9.

  5 P.R.O., Exch., Council and P.S., E. 28/89/28; Scofield, I, 197–200.

  1 Ellis, Original Letters, Ist ser., I, 116.

  2 RP, V, 478; Evans, Wales and the Wars of the Roses, 140–5; Griffiths, thesis cited above, p. 43, n. 2; CPR, 1461–7, 100, 132 (for further disturbances in S. Wales, March 1462).

  3 Rymer, Foedera, XI, 483–7.

  1 Annales, 779; PL, IV, 44, 50–1; Dunlop, James Kennedy, 226–9; Scofield, I, 246–9.

  2 Calmette and Perinelle, op. cit., 19–21; Scofield, I, 250–3.

  3 Ibid., 254–61.

  4 Warkworth, Chronicle, 2.

  5 Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, 157.

  1 Excerpta Historica, ed. S. Bentley, 365; and see also Gregory, 219; PL, IV, 60; CPR, 1461–7, 231.

  2 GC, 199–200; Gregory, 218–19.

  3 GC, 200; Kingsford, Chronicles of London, 178.

  4 Contemporary accounts (with some discrepancies as to the names of the commanders) in Excerpta Historica, 365; Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, 159, and in the letter of John Paston the Youngest, who was present at the sieges, 11 December 1462, PL, III, 59–61.

  1 Annales, 780–1; Gregory, 219; RP, V, 511; CPR, 1461–7, 262 (Commission to Percy, 17 March 1463); McFarlane, ‘Wars of the Roses’, 101.

  2 Chronicle, 2; PL, III, 60. Conflicting accounts of the operations at Alnwick are in Warkworth, Chronicle, 2; Annales, 781; Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, 176; GC, 200.

  3 Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, 176

  1 Warkworth, Chronicle, 3; Scofield, I, 268.

  2 Ibid., 269.

  3 Gregory, 219–20; Annales, 781. Grey was apparently piqued because he had not received the chief command at Alnwick, given instead to Sir John Ashley, but cf. Scofield, I, 287.

  4 Waurin, Anchiennes chronicques d’Engleterre, ed. Dupont, III, 159–60 (despatch to the court of Burgundy, 19 June 1463).

  5 Ibid., 160.

  6 Evidence for the dating of the Scots invasion is conflicting. I have followed the version in K. Bittmann, ‘La Campagne Lancastrienne de 1463: un document italien’, Revue Belge de Philologie et d’histoire, xxvi (1948), 1059–83. Cf. Scofield, I, 291–4; Dunlop, James Kennedy, 236–7.

  1 Scofield, I, 290–1; Registrum Thome Bourgchier, ed. F. R. H. Du Boulay (Canterbury and York Society, 1957), I, 100–3. The king’s requests were presented by a delegation of seven royal councillors, including the earls of Worcester and Essex, and Lord Grey of Ruthyn as treasurer of England.

  2 According to Gregory, 221, who also says that the duke’s men (who had formed the king’s own bodyguard) were then sent to Newcasde as part of the garrison.

  3 Bittmann, op. cit., 1061–5; Scofield, I, 293–4, 3001; II 461–2 (letter from William, Lord Hastings, to Jean de Lannoy, 7 August 1463).

  4 Bittmann, op. cit., 1066.

  5 Hastings’s letter, cited above.

  6 RP, V, 497–8.

  1 Hastings’s letter, as above; and for the negotiations, Scofield, I, 294–307.

  2 R. Benson and H. Hatcher, Old and New Sarum (1843), 158; CPR, 1461–7, 280, 303.

  3 Scofield, I, 298, 309; and see further below, pp. 371–3.

  4 Gregory, 221.

  5 Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, 177

  1 RP, V, 497–9, and below, pp. 348–9.

  2 Calmette and Perinelle, op. cit., 40–7; Thielemans, op. cit., 395–402; Scofield, I, 294–307; Bittmann, op. cit., 1067–8. Louis’s offer to help in the subjugation of Scotland is reported in a ‘credence’ from his Scots diplomatic agent, William Monypenny (Scofield, II, 469–70).

  1 Dunlop, James Kennedy, 238–9.

  2 Loc. cit.; Foedera, XI, 511. Margaret and her son had already left Scotland, but Henry VI was now transferred from the refuge Kennedy had provided to Bamborough Castle, probably by 8 December 1463, Scofield, I, 309 n. See also Kennedy’s despatch in Waurin, ed. Dupont, III, 171.

  3 CPR, 1461–7, 303–4; PL, IV, 89.

  1 PL, IV, 88; ‘Gloucester Annals’, in Kingsford, English Historical Literature, 356, whose version is followed by J. G. Bellamy, ‘Justice under the Yorkist Kings’, American Jour. of Legal History, ix (1965), 136–7; R. Benson and H. Hatcher, Old and New Sarum, 159. Treason at Gloucester is also mentioned in RP, V, 499.

  2 PL, IV, 95–6.

  3 Loc. cit.; RP, V, 511–12; Waurin, ed. Dupont, III, 179 (Cousinot’s memorandum of his instructions from Henry VI at Bamborough).

  4 Gregory, 223.

  1 Scofield, I, 312–18; Cousinot’s memorandum in Waurin, ed. Dupont, III, 178–81, and additions printed by Scofield, II, 463–6. For Lancastrian control of Northumberland, E. Bateson, History of Northumberland, I (1893), 44–6. Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, 178 (for Cliffords).

  2 RP, V, 499; Scofield, I, 320–6.

  3 Gregory, 223–4. The only other contemporary source to mention the battle, the ‘Brief Latin Chronicle’ (Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, 178), gives 2 May as the date; but the chronology of this writer, who is critical of Edward and strongly pro-Nevill, is confused. He gives a leading role to Bishop George Nevill, who had been sent north to aid Warwick and Montagu in the negotiations (Scofield, I, 329).

  1 CCR, 1461–8, 230.

  2 Scofield, I, 331, for his extensive borrowing; and see also below, p. 337.

  3 PL, IV, 101; RP, V, 500; Benson and Hatcher, Old and New Sarum, 159; CPR, 1461–7, 391; Rymer, Foedera, XI, 523.

  1 Scofield, I, 333–4. For the executions, I have followed the details in Gregory, 225–6, and Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, 79, 179, where the information suggests a common source in a newsletter of the time. Details of Henry VI’s wanderings, his capture in Lancashire, 13 July 1465, and subsequent imprisonment in the Tower, are assembled by Scofield, I, 380–4.

  2 Warkworth, Chronicle (notes), 37–9, from a contemporary description in the College of Arms.

  1 Rymer, Foedera, XI, 525, 527.

  2 Scofield, I, 338, and below, p. 135.

  3 ‘Brief Latin Chronicle’ in Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles, 177–8; Commynes, I, 203; II, 334; Ramsay, Lancaster and York, II, 305, who comments: ‘The Nevills had done the work: the young King, self-indulgent and fond of pleasure, had contributed little since the day of Towton to his own success.’

  1 See below, pp. 302–7, 399–402.

  2 Waurin, ed. Dupont, III, 173–4. March 1464 the governor of Abbeville reported to Louis that in England ‘they have but two rulers-M. de Warwick and another, whose name I have forgotten’ (ibid., 184).

  3 P. M. Kendall, op. cit., 97. In fact-so far as the witness lists to royal charters are a reliable guide-Warwick was more often at court than away from it. He attests no less than 41 of the 46 charters granted by Edward in the period 1461–6, and only William, Lord Hastings, compares with Warwick in this respect. (P.R.O., C. 53/191–194.) Elsewhere, however, Kendall allows that Edward was less of a puppet on Warwick’s string (e.g. p. 146).

  Chapter 4

  THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE YORKIST REGIME

  An important and necessary consequence of the change of dynasty in 1461 was a large-scale redistribution of political power at the regional and local level. Successful government in the localities depended upon the active cooperation of the nobility and their connections and well-wishers among the knights and gentry; but at Edward’s accession a majority of these, especially amongst the higher nobility, was more or less Lancastrian in sympathy. The local influence and traditional loyalties commanded by these families had to be challenged, and political authority in the shires placed in reliable hands. The problem was the more acute because aristocratic influence had increased sharply during the weak rule of Henry VI.

  Characteristically, Edward IV saw the solution to this problem essen
tially in terms of men and not of institutions. He never contemplated any systematic attack on private power as such, and was not concerned with the potential dangers of ‘bastard feudalism’ which have so alarmed some modern scholars.1 In his eyes no subject could be over-mighty so long as he enjoyed the royal confidence. An expectation of loyalty and a readiness to serve were the conditions upon which he gave his confidence and delegated local authority. For key positions (as we shall see) something more was required, generally an association with the House of York going back before 1461, or a combination of ability and personal friendship with the king. High birth, or even a close connection with the royal family by blood or marriage, was not in itself a sufficient recommendation, as may be seen from the meagre employments and rewards given to men such as Edward’s brother-in-law, John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, and to some members of the queen’s family. At a lower level of political responsibility, however, Edward was quite willing to make use of men whatever their past political record had been.