by Charles Ross
From the outset of his reign Edward invested a heavy political capital in a policy of conciliation. Even men who had had close personal association with the households of Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou were given a chance – often more than one – to enter the service of the new king. So, too, were the trimmers, the doubters, and the passive Lancastrian sympathizers. Past loyalties were ignored in the hope of future commitment. Such clemency fits well with what we know of Edward’s easy-going temperament, and was continued even after 1471 when he had far more provocation to indulge motives of revenge with much less risk.1 His record of mercy to his enemies is quite remarkable in a ruthless age. But clemency was also dictated by policy, by the need to widen the basis of support for his regime, especially among the baronage. On the whole the policy was only partially successful. We have already seen, in the careers of men like Sir Ralph Percy and Sir Humphrey Nevill, the risks involved in trusting active Lancastrians. The behaviour of Henry Beaufort, duke of Somerset, is a prime example of ingratitude. Following his surrender at Bamborough in December 1462, Edward made every effort to win over this prominent rebel, whose conversion would have an obvious propaganda value. He became the king’s close companion, sharing the royal chamber, and going out hunting with him when three out of his six attendants were the duke’s retainers. Later, he was made captain of the king’s bodyguard. Edward even mounted a great tournament at Westminster so that Somerset might ‘see some manner sport of chivalry after his great labour and heaviness’. In March 1463 he was given a general pardon, and later, in parliament, was restored to his ‘name, state, title, and dignity’, and recovered all his lands, together with money advanced by the king for his immediate needs, and an annuity of £220.2 But none of this prevented Somerset from defecting at the earliest opportunity.
Nor did Edward have any better success with the de Vere family, earls of Oxford. Following the execution for high treason of the 12th earl, John, and his eldest son, Aubrey, in February 1462, the latter’s younger brother, John, was allowed to succeed; and in January 1464 had licence to enter on all his lands without making proof of his age. In May 1465 he was made a Knight of the Bath at the queen’s coronation. Committed to the Tower in November 1468, on suspicion of plotting against the king, he was nevertheless released, and pardoned in April 1469, only to join Warwick and Clarence in their rebellion in July.3 Edward’s generosity to the Courtenay and Hungerford families met a similar response. Henry Courtenay, brother of the attainted earl of Devon, was allowed a generous share of the forfeited estates.1 Thomas Hungerford, son of the attainted Robert, Lord Hungerford, who continued in arms against the king, not only escaped attainder himself, but was pardoned in November 1462, knighted not long after, and permitted to recover some of his lands. Provision was also made for his mother, Eleanor, and her three younger children, and for his grandmother, Margaret.2 But both the young lords became involved in conspiracy in 1468, and were eventually executed for treason in the king’s presence at Salisbury in 1469, though rumour had it at the time that their downfall owed something to the machinations of Edward’s favourite, Humphrey Stafford.3 William, Viscount Beaumont, was yet another defector. After his father had been killed fighting for Henry VI at Northampton, he was allowed to enter on his inheritance. He then joined Margaret at Towton, and on 21 December 1461 was attainted. But two days later, ‘in consideration of the approach of Christmas’, he was pardoned, an act of personal generosity by the king. This time, however, he was not permitted to recover his lands, which passed to buttress the midland influence of the powerful William, Lord Hastings. In 1470 this disinherited lord joined the Lancastrians, and remained a die-hard exile until imprisoned in 1474 for the remaining few years of Yorkist rule.4 The unreliability of such men was at least one of the reasons why in the first years of the reign Edward was compelled to delegate extensive authority to a comparatively small group of Yorkists on whose loyalty he could depend.
The extent of Edward’s desire for general conciliation emerges clearly from his treatment of the baronage at the outset of the reign. In the parliament of 1461 sentences of attainder were passed against 113 persons for their share in the fighting of 1459–61.5 These included fourteen lay peers. Seven of them had already died in battle or under the executioner’s axe. Six others were still actively hostile and in arms with Margaret of Anjou.6 Much more remarkable, however, is the number of peers who were not attainted, even though they had fought against Edward. Among them were the young John, earl of Shrewsbury, whose father had been killed on the wrong side at Northampton, and had himself been at Towton; John, Lord Lovel, who had fought against the Yorkists in 1459 and 1460; Edward’s future kinsmen by marriage, Richard, Lord Rivers, and Anthony, Lord Scales, both taken prisoner at Towton, but pardoned in July 1461, and Lords Grey of Codnor and Willoughby, with similar records. Two North-Country lords, FitzHugh and Greystoke, who seem to have been rather unwilling Lancastrians in spite of their presence in Margaret’s army in January 1461, soon came to enjoy Edward’s confidence; and a third, Thomas, Lord Scrope of Masham, whose record was also rather dubious, likewise escaped attainder, but was evidently not trusted for some years.1
Edward was no less generous to his non-noble opponents. In 1461 sentences of attainder were passed against ninety-six men of the rank of knight or below. Many were quite humble people, yeomen or clerks who had held minor offices in the household of Henry VI, but they include at least twenty-four who had sat in parliament, and a number of other prominent gentry. Some were already dead, others were to lose their lives in the fighting of the next three years, and others again remained die-hard Lancastrians in exile. But even prominent Lancastrians who continued in arms against the king could make their peace if they wished. A good example is the Northamptonshire knight, Thomas Tresham, whom Edward had every reason to view with disfavour. In 1455 he had been blamed by the Yorkists as one of ‘the solicitors and causers’ of the First Battle of St Albans; he had served as controller of Henry VI’s household; and in 1459 he had been speaker of the vindictive Coventry Parliament which had attainted Edward himself and the Yorkist group. On 6 March 1461, two days after Edward’s accesssion, a price of £100 was set on his head.1 Yet in March 1464 he was pardoned his life, and in 1467 was elected to parliament as knight of the shire for Northamptonshire. There he secured the reversal of his attainder on the ground that he had been brought up in the service of Henry VI since his early youth, and knew no other loyalty, and (as he further pleaded) his official position gave him no choice but to fight at Second St Albans and Towton.2 But he was not restored to his estates, and had to work his way back into the king’s favour. The process of recovering his lands by purchase left him saddled with debt and disillusionment, and he became involved in Lancastrian plots which landed him in prison in 1468.3
Yet as with the lay peers, the number of gentry attainted is less remarkable than the many who might have been but were not. In May 1461, for example, Edward ordered the seizure of the lands of twenty lords and gentry of Northamptonshire on grounds of their treason, but only six of these were later attainted or finally deprived of their lands.4 Nor was anything done to disinherit the heirs of several men who had died fighting against the Yorkists at Towton or elsewhere.5 It was also very much easier for families to secure the reversal of sentences of attainder, and hence to recover their estates, under Edward IV than it was to be under Henry VII, who used attainders as a system of political control.6
The parliamentary attainders of 1461 brought into the king’s hands a great conglomeration of lands and offices, together worth many thousands of pounds annually.1 Along with the hundreds of offices of which Edward could dispose as king, or as duke of Lancaster or duke of York, these provided the means for Edward to enrich and aggrandize his supporters and thereby to strengthen their own and his influence in the shires. The early months of the reign saw the beginning of a series of grants which continued almost undiminished for the first four years of the reign until the resources of patronage had almo
st been used up. From the pattern of this flow of patronage it is possible to derive some indication of Edward’s political objectives and of his relationship with particular individuals or groups within the baronage and gentry.
Most of his supporters expected some kind of reward in proportion to their rank or the value of their services, and few went wholly unsatisfied. Yet some had long to wait or got surprisingly little. For example, Edmund, Lord Grey of Ruthyn, whose opportune treachery had done much to bring about the Yorkist victory at Northampton, got no lands from Edward, and, although briefly enjoying the lucrative office of treasurer of England from June 1463 to November 1464, had to wait until May 1466 before the king created him earl of Kent. Similarly, Richard Fiennes, Lord Dacre of the South, received little tangible reward for his services, even though in 1462 he was said to be, along with Hastings, ‘now greatest about the the king’s person’, and was clearly then and later close to Edward. The king’s cousin, William FitzAlan, earl of Arundel, and his brother-in-law, John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, likewise received virtually nothing from their royal kinsman.2 It may be said in criticism of Edward that a disproportionately large amount of his patronage went to a comparatively small group of men. Some, already powerful, were made even more so; others, of relatively humble origins, were newly elevated into magnate status by royal policy. It is arguable that Edward might have obtained better dividends from his investment of political capital if his patronage had been spread more widely and evenly. He was dangerously dependent on a Yorkist aristocratic group, which was ultimately torn to pieces by quarrels amongst its members, whilst the rank-and-file of the nobility had been given little tangible inducement to support his rule.1
To some extent Edward’s deployment of patronage may have been influenced by his personal likes and dislikes, but for the most part its purpose was primarily political, in that it was aimed at securing future service rather than rewarding past loyalty. His generosity to his principal supporter, Richard Nevill, earl of Warwick, however, set that nobleman’s rewards in a class apart. His debt to his political mentor and ally was clearly great, but it was munificently repaid. To list Warwick’s dignities and rewards in detail would involve an excessively lengthy catalogue. The more important, however, included the great chamberlainship of England; the office of captain of Calais, Guines and Hammes; the constableship of Dover Castle and wardenship of the Cinque Ports (with a fee of £300); the wardenship of both the East and West Marches towards Scotland; the chief stewardship of the Duchy of Lancaster in both north and south parts, and the stewardship of the Duchy Honours in Lancashire and Cheshire, Pontefract, Knares-borough and Pickering in Yorkshire, and Tutbury in the midlands; and the office of Admiral of England, Ireland and Aquitaine. In addition, he was granted eight substantial manors and lordships forfeited from the Percy family in Yorkshire, and all the Westmorland estates of John, Lord Clifford, together with other lands in the counties of Buckingham, Worcester and Warwick. He was also given custody of the lands of his idiot uncle, George Nevill, Lord Latimer, and of important lordships in the Marches of Wales belonging to the duke of Buckingham and the earl of Shrewsbury. Further valuable grants to the earl continued to be made until the very eve of his rebellion in February 1469.2 Some of these grants did no more than confirm Warwick in offices which he or his father had held under Henry VI, or had acquired during his period of control of government in 1460. Others can be seen as a means of strengthening his position in the vulnerable north of England, in line with Edward’s policy of entrusting great power in the regions to his chief supporters. Such justifications, however, do not dispel the impression that Edward was excessively generous and Warwick excessively greedy. For the earl was already by far the richest of Edward’s subjects in his own right. Yet he appropriated for himself a disproportionately large share of the most valuable offices at the king’s disposal and continued to acquire more as the reign wore on. No wonder contemporaries, even on the Continent, commented on his wealth and rapacity: ‘his insatiable mind could not be content and yet before him was there none in England of the half possessions that he had’, as one chronicler roundly remarked.1
Even by the standards of an acquisitive age Warwick appears exceptionally grasping. His private greed is well illustrated by his efforts to expand his territorial influence not merely in the north of England but also in South Wales, where he sought to get control of the duke of Buckingham’s lordships adjoining his own Marcher holdings of Glamorgan and Abergavenny. Here, however, his ambitions ran counter to Edward’s own plans. Once the king had decided to make William, Lord Herbert, his principal lieutenant in South Wales, he did not hesitate to override the grants to Warwick. Only four days after custody of the Buckingham lordships had been given to the earl, effective control was transferred to William Herbert. This rebuff may well have marked the beginning of the enmity between the earl and the rising Welshman who had once served him as sheriff of Glamorgan and who soon became the dominant force in South Wales.2 Similarly, Edward had no scruple in replacing Warwick by William, Lord Hastings, as steward of the Duchy of Lancaster’s Honour of Leicester, in order to strengthen the latter’s influence in the midland shires.3 These actions, so early in the reign, are a very clear indication that Edward intended to be master where his own plans for government were at stake, and that his indulgence to his powerful cousin’s ambition had definite limits.
The remarkable series of grants to Warwick by no means exhausted the king’s generosity to the Nevill family. The earl’s brother, George Nevill, was the only prelate to benefit substantially from the change of dynasty. The young and talented bishop of Exeter had been appointed chancellor in July 1460, during the period of Warwick’s dominance, but was confirmed in office six days after Edward’s accession. On 15 March 1465 he was translated to the archbishopric of York, the first major see to become available to the king. He was also given a series of valuable wardships, notably of nineteen manors belonging to John de Vere, earl of Oxford, in July 1463.1 Warwick’s uncle, William Nevill, Lord Fauconberg, was promoted to the earldom of Kent on 30 June 1461, and appointed steward of the royal household on the same day. On 1 August 1462 he was granted some fifty-six manors in the West Country forfeited from the earls of Devon and Wiltshire.2 Only Warwick’s youngest surviving brother, John Nevill, remained for a time something of a poor relation. Though created Lord Montagu in 1461, it was not until his northern victories of 1464 that he was rewarded with the title of earl of Northumberland (27 May) and a grant of almost all the Percy estates in Northumberland, which were worth in excess of £700 yearly.3
The Nevills apart, it is possible to distinguish a group of about a dozen peers who came to enjoy the king’s special confidence in the early years of the reign, and were the chief props of his power. His confidence was not, of course, confined to lords alone, and the vital part played in government and administration by non-noble laymen will be discussed elsewhere.4 The distinction between lords and gentry is, in any case, blurred by the fact that so many of the new Yorkist nobility had risen from the ranks of the gentry, and were promoted and enriched by Edward himself. But it was the lords whose support was politically decisive, especially in terms of regional and local influence and the capacity to raise troops when needed. Some were important chiefly for the regional power entrusted to them. Others held major official positions. Nearly all were prominent members of the royal council. It is significant that the majority of them were Edward’s own creations. In 1461 he created seven new barons and six more were summoned to parliament as barons before his deposition in 1470. Four of these new titles were for the benefit of the sons of existing peers, but the remainder were promotions of gentry.5 Amongst these latter, all of whom had some previous connection with the House of York, were several who were to become Edward’s most powerful and trusted lieutenants. These were the core of the new Yorkist nobility, the king’s friends against whom the dissident Warwick fulminated in 1469. A brief consideration of their careers will show what manner of
men Edward chose to rely upon and how they rose to power in the uneasy politics of his first decade.
Of all Edward’s councillors, none stood closer to him personally than Sir William Hastings. Their relationship was based on mutual trust and affection and compatibility of taste. Royal confidence in Hastings was repaid by a lifetime of personal devotion. Hastings left behind him an enviable reputation for loyalty and uprightness: he was, according to Sir Thomas More, ‘an honourable man, a good knight and a gentle … a loving man, and passing well-beloved’, a man who preferred to be buried at Westminster alongside his royal master rather than beside his wife near his home at Ashby de la Zouch. Despite his wealth and the high favour he enjoyed throughout the reign, he made remarkably few enemies. Those who intrigued against him, like the queen and some of her kinsmen, were moved primarily by his influence over, and intimacy with, his royal master.1
There is abundant contemporary testimony as to his special standing with the king throughout the reign. In part this derived from his appointment as king’s chamberlain in the summer of 1461 (an office he held until Edward died), which gave him control over all who wished to have access to the king.2 Already in 1462 the Pastons believed him to be greatest in influence with the king, an opinion repeated in 1470 by Philippe de Commynes, and afterwards echoed by Sir Thomas More.3 Writing in 1483, Dominic Mancini placed him with Archbishop Rotherham and Bishop Morton of Ely in a triumvirate which ‘helped more than other counsellors to form the king’s policy, and besides carried it out’, and even goes so far as to describe him as ‘the author of the sovereign’s public policy’ as well as being ‘the accomplice and partner of his privy pleasures’.1 In 1472 a Paston correspondent remarked that ‘what my said lord chamberlain may do with the King and with all the lords of England, I trow it be not unknown to you most of any one man alive’.2 This view was shared by many shrewd and hard-headed contemporaries. An impressive list of English lords and ladies, bishops, abbots and gentry paid him annuities or gave him profitable sinecures, and thought it money well spent to engage his influence with the king. The company includes even the earl of Warwick himself in the first decade of the reign. In cash alone these annuities yielded Hastings well over £200 a year after 1471.3 It is also worth noticing that Hastings was able to engage the services of a powerful retinue without (as was usual) paying them cash fees: the promise of his ‘good lordship’ was sufficient.4 Hastings heads the list of English notables whom Louis XI of France thought it prudent to have in his pay in 1475, with a pension of 2,000 crowns, and he was by then already receiving a pension of 1,000 crowns from Duke Charles of Burgundy.5