by Charles Ross
During 1467 London became the centre of an increasingly vigorous competition for English support. A series of dual negotiations followed. In December 1466 a Burgundian embassy came to England to discuss the problems of ‘intercourse of merchandise’, and negotiations on the English side were led by Earl Rivers, Lord Hastings and Bishop Stillington of Bath and Wells, but progress was slow because of Burgundian reluctance to revoke the ban on the import of English cloth. Then, in February 1467, safe-conducts were granted for a French embassy led by the Bastard of Bourbon to come to London. It arrived with plans to extend the truce and for mutual aid against each other’s rebels, but more important were Louis’s proposals for a French-sponsored marriage for Margaret of York and his offer to pay Edward a regular pension of 4,000 crowns annually.3 Tempting as this last offer might have been, Edward was not to be diverted. He carefully avoided all contact with the French embassy, leaving Warwick to deal with it. But he was also anxious to keep alive the negotiations with France, partly to avoid an open breach with Warwick, and partly to get better terms from Burgundy. The negotiations with Charolais were continuing. In April 1467 an English embassy was sent to Bruges to talk further about the marriage and the conclusion of an alliance. Arrangements had been made for the long-awaited tournament between Anthony, Bastard of Burgundy, and Anthony, Lord Scales, to take place in London in May or early June, and it was convenient for Edward to have Warwick out of the way during the ceremonial flattery of Burgundy which would accompany the Bastard’s visit. For these reasons, therefore, Edward commissioned Warwick and Wenlock on 6 May 1467 to lead an embassy to France for further discussions of Louis’s proposals, and on 28 May they sailed from Sandwich in company with the returning French ambassadors.1
Louis’s warm reception of this embassy marks the high peak of his efforts to bid for an English alliance through the medium of Warwick’s influence. Everything possible was done to flatter the ambassadors and win their goodwill; expensive presents were lavished upon them, including a great jewelled gold cup costing 2,000 livres for the earl, and no fewer than twelve silver cups for his steward. The benefits of a French alliance, especially the commercial advantages, were firmly placed before them. Louis offered to create free fairs for English merchants to supplant those in Burgundian territory at Antwerp, and to reduce the tolls and restrictions which had hampered the trade in wine and cloth between England and France for many years. He also commanded the merchants of Rouen to supply the English party with all they wanted of silk, damask and velvet free of charge, as an advertisement for fine French textile manufactures. In public he had already professed high hopes for the future of Anglo-French cooperation. Together they would destroy the Burgundian state and partition its territories. Holland, Zeeland and Brabant might form a dowry for the marriage of Duke Richard of Gloucester and Louis’s second daughter, Jeanne, and Margaret of York should marry Philip of Savoy, brother of Queen Charlotte of France.2 In private, he was probably less sanguine. The Milanese ambassadors believed that it was now, for the first time, that Louis put forward his scheme for a rapprochement between Warwick and Margaret of Anjou, and the subsequent restoration of Henry VI.3
The events of the summer and autumn of 1467 made it entirely clear that where foreign policy was concerned Warwick could no longer maintain the illusion of influence over his royal master. There is a striking coincidence between Warwick’s absence abroad and the events in London during the first fortnight of June. The ceremonies which followed the arrival of the Bastard of Burgundy in London prominently featured the Woodvilles and their new connections by marriage, like the earls of Arundel and Kent, and men from the king’s personal circle, such as Lords Herbert, Stafford and Mountjoy.1 On 3 June, after having audience with the king, the Bastard was among the spectators at the opening of parliament in Edward’s presence in the Painted Chamber at Westminster. A notable absentee was the chancellor, George Nevill, archbishop of York, who may have been ill at the time.2 On 8 June, however, he was dismissed from office. The chancellor had probably acted as his brother’s spokesman during Warwick’s absence; he is said to have tried to obstruct the Bastard’s visit to England; and he was intriguing in Rome for a cardinal’s hat.3 Probably Edward was no longer prepared to be lectured by him. But his dismissal was the most direct and unequivocal blow at Nevill power the king had hitherto allowed himself, and his action was made the more pointed by the way it was done. For Edward rode in person, with Clarence and eleven of his closest supporters in his company, to George Nevill’s inn at Charing Cross, to demand the surrender of the Great Seal, and he stayed there until it had been handed over to the keeping of Robert Kirkham.4 Finally, and as another indication that in matters of foreign policy he intended to have his own way, on 9 June he concluded a thirty-year truce with Duke Francis of Brittany, and undertook to help him against whatever enemy might attack him.5
The death of Duke Philip of Burgundy on 15 June 1467 put an end both to the Bastard’s visit to England and Warwick’s mission to France. Louis appointed a substantial embassy under the archbishop of Narbonne to accompany Warwick on his return to England, where both arrived on 24 June. Although not entirely cold-shouldered by the king, they saw little of him, and evidently felt themselves ill-used.6 Quartered in apartments just vacated by the Bastard and his train, receiving only the most meagre of the customary presents given to ambassadors (in pointed contrast to Louis’s generosity to Warwick’s mission), they could get no answer to any of their proposals, except that Edward promised to send an embassy to France bearing his final answer. Moreover, during their stay in London, Edward renewed his treaty of friendship with Burgundy, and also, on 6 July, concluded an alliance with King Henry of Castile, equally a potential threat to France.1 On 14 July the French ambassadors, aggrieved and empty-handed, left for home, whilst Warwick, having escorted them to the coast, withdrew to his estates in the north. As the arbiter of English foreign policy, his credibility was now wholly destroyed in the eyes of Louis XI.
Edward now pressed forward his plans for a firm alliance with Burgundy and Brittany. With the new Duke Charles the bargaining was hard and the English got the worse of it. Edward, risking considerable unpopularity, cleared the way for commercial settlement by annulling the statutes of 1463 and 1465 which had prohibited Burgundian imports into England. A commercial treaty was drawn up on 24 November 1467, which provided for free ‘intercourse of merchandise’ between the subjects of the two princes for the next thirty years, but it specifically reserved the problem of the ‘enlarging’ of English cloth for discussion at a diet to be held at Bruges on 15 January 1468.2 There was less difficulty in agreeing upon a truce for thirty years and pledges by the two princes to give each other aid against their enemies.3
The marriage treaty, settled at Brussels on 16 February and ratified by Edward on 14 March 1468, raised its own problems. Edward had to bid high for Charles’s hand. The bride’s dowry was fixed at 200,000 gold crowns (£41,666 13s 4d), of which 50,000 were due on the wedding day. Further, Charles insisted that Edward’s bond for this sum should be guaranteed by responsible groups of English or Italian merchants. It was essentially his difficulties in raising this money which caused the marriage day to be postponed from 4 May to 3 July 1468. With the commercial treaty unpopular among English merchants, he did not dare ask parliament for money to be sent to Burgundy. Eventually he raised the down-payment by loans chiefly from Staple and London merchants, on the security of grants voted by parliament for the purpose of war with France.1 Margaret of York finally left London on 18 June, crossed from Margate to Sluys, and on 3 July, amidst ‘the most splendid and extravagant festivities ever contrived in the entire annals of Burgundy’, was married at Damme to Duke Charles.2 Negotiations with Brittany were much easier, for her relations with France had been deteriorating steadily, and her need of English support was correspondingly greater. Duke Francis’s main need was for English troops to help him when his six-month truce with France, signed on 6 January 1468, expired. On 2 and 3 Apri
l 1468 an Anglo-Breton conference at Greenwich agreed on the main features of an offensive-defensive treaty of alliance. England was to supply 3,000 archers to Brittany at two months’ notice, and to pay half their wages for six months; arrangements were made for the division of conquered territory in the event of an English invasion of France; there was to be a truce for thirty years between the two, complemented by an elaborate commercial treaty, on much the same lines as that between England and Burgundy.3 Since Brittany and Burgundy were already bound to each other by agreements for mutual aid, the diplomatic triangle pointed at France now seemed complete.
By midsummer 1468, therefore, Edward had completed his first major series of diplomatic manoeuvres. From the wholly defensive posture of his early years, imposed by insecurity and internal conflict, he had moved into the classic anti-French stance of late-medieval English kings, exploiting opposition within the kingdom of France, and the malice of her external enemies, for their own aggressive purposes; and this pattern was to be repeated in 1472 and 1475. On 17 May 1468 the new chancellor, Bishop Robert Stillington of Bath and Wells, was able to inform parliament that the king had now concluded, or was about to conclude, treaties with Castile, Aragon, Denmark, Scotland, the Empire and Naples, but especially with the dukes of Burgundy and Brittany; and that he now felt secure enough in his alliances to invade France. The commons responded by voting him a substantial grant of taxation for war purposes. All this was done in the teeth of continuing opposition from the earl of Warwick.4
In the event, the new anti-French coalition proved brittle. Brittany was its weakest link. King Louis persuaded Charles of Burgundy, still engaged in his fortnight-long wedding celebrations, to agree to a truce with France to last until 1 August, and then ordered his troops to strike at Brittany immediately after the expiry of the Franco-Breton truce on 15 July. Edward showed no haste to come to the aid of his ally. In London haggling continued over the diplomatic details of his treaty with the duke, and not until 3 August did he ratify the clause committing him to send troops to Brittany. There was further delay before indentures were signed with the commanders of the English forces. On 10 September Lord Mountjoy undertook to lead the expeditionary force of 3,000 archers, and Lord Scales to command a naval force of 3,000 soldiers and 1,100 sailors serving at Edward’s own cost and under English control, and intended, apparently, to descend upon France.1 But on the very same day Duke Francis, unable to resist the French invasion any longer without immediate aid, came to terms with France, and by the Treaty of Ancenis agreed to abandon his allies.2 Edward now united a much reduced force under Mountjoy with the fleet under Scales and seems to have projected a landing in southern France.3 Diverted from this plan by reports that Margaret of Anjou, with a small force collected at Harfleur, was preparing to invade England in October, the English fleet set out to patrol the Channel. It encountered no enemies except heavy storms and eventually retired ingloriously to the Isle of Wight in November. All Edward had to show for the expenditure of about £18,000 was some help in the reconquest of Jersey from the French.4 Nor did Charles of Burgundy prove a satisfactory ally. He soon made a separate settlement with Louis, and by the Treaty of Péronne (14 October 1468) he promised not to aid the English if they invaded France, and agreed to a truce. Clearly nothing more could be expected of him for the time being.5
Whether Edward seriously intended to invade France in 1468 on any substantial scale is very doubtful, despite his grandiose statement to parliament. There was no plan for a direct frontal assault under his own command on the lines of the grand expedition of 1475. He seems to have thought primarily in terms of assistance to allies who would bear the main burden of war with Louis. His commitment was at best of a very limited character, and the defection of his allies soon put an end to his hopes. Yet not all was lost from his diplomatic labours. Close relations with Burgundy and Brittany were soon renewed, and on 20 October 1468, after months of negotiations, a treaty of alliance with John II, king of Aragon, complemented England’s treaty with Castile, and completed the diplomatic encirclement of France.1
An active anti-French policy, however, carried its own inherent risks. Support for the Lancastrians was Louis’s obvious response to Yorkist hostility. The revival of Lancastrian plots made 1468 a year of alarm and intrigues.2 In June Louis gambled, in rather miserly fashion, on Jasper Tudor’s chances of raising insurrection in Wales. His tiny expedition of three ships and some fifty men reached West Wales in July, only to find the garrison of Harlech Castle now closely invested by Lord Herbert. Marching towards the north coast, Jasper had more success, and roused enough support to sack and burn the town of Denbigh, before meeting defeat at the hands of a royal force under Lord Herbert and his brother, Sir Richard. Though Jasper made good his escape to France, disappointment at his failure drove the defenders of Harlech to capitulate on 14 August 1468.3 But the danger of active French assistance to the exiled government of Henry VI remained real enough. Official Lancastrian spokesmen were now commending their cause to Louis by proposing to enlist the aid of the earl of Warwick.4 Growing unrest in England and the prospect of support from abroad were a dangerous combination in the winter of Richard Nevill’s discontent.
It is far from easy to trace with precision the development of the breach between the king and his most powerful subject. Some modern critics have accused Edward of tactless and provocative behaviour towards the Nevills. His worst rudeness seems to have been directed rather at Archbishop George Nevill than at his brothers. The king and queen were conspicuously absent from the vulgarly ostentatious ceremonies accompanying his installation as archbishop of York in September 1465.1 The way in which he was dismissed from the chancellorship in June 1467 was equally pointed. According to one report, Edward mocked the archbishop’s ambitions for a red hat by sending to him the pope’s letter announcing that Archbishop Bourchier of Canterbury had been made a cardinal in September 1467.2 The earl himself was more directly affected by Edward’s refusal to consider Warwick’s wish to marry one of his daughters to Duke George of Clarence. No one knows when Warwick first conceived this scheme, but it was probably during 1466 as the Woodville marriages were being completed, and it was certainly being discussed at the French court by April 1467.3 The fact that Warwick had to negotiate secretly at Rome in order to obtain the necessary papal dispensation for the marriage shows that Edward was not to be diverted from his opposition to a plan which would link the Nevill interest to the succession to the throne, for Clarence was still Edward’s heir male presumptive.4
But it would be false to suppose that by a series of calculated insults Edward deliberately drove Warwick into a position from which rebellion was the only honourable escape. In spite of his already massive gains from the Yorkist victory, Richard Nevill continued to bask in the golden sun of royal patronage. His rewards included further forfeited lands in the north, the profitable office of justice of the royal forests north of Trent, which carried a fee of 100 marks yearly, the valuable wardship of the estates of the baronial family of Lovel, with the marriage of the heir, Francis, and (with his brother, John) the profits of all royal mines of gold, silver and lead north of Trent. Further grants were made to him as late as February 1469.5
Nor was royal goodwill confined to an attempt to pacify Warwick’s ill-humour through a series of profitable favours. In spite of the earl’s truculent opposition to his foreign policy, and accumulating evidence of his dissidence, Edward still wished to allow Warwick an honourable, if not a dominant, place in government. The earl was offered a series of opportunities to share in the work of the council. In general, the king showed remarkable patience with his angry and overbearing cousin. Eventually this forbearance became an almost culpable failure to believe him guilty of treason. The breach with Edward was essentially of Warwick’s own making, and was the product of his inability to accept anything less than domination over the king.
The earliest evidence that Warwick was actively turning to treason comes from a rather suspect source. Th
is is the circumstantial account of events in London during the visit of the French ambassadors in June and July 1467, written by the Burgundian chronicler, Jean de Waurin.1 According to Waurin, the earl was already engaged in suborning the young duke of Clarence from his allegiance. Warwick alleged that Rivers and his children controlled everything at court, and, on being asked by Clarence how this might be remedied, told the duke that he would make him king of England or governor of the realm, and he had little doubt but that most of the country would support him. He also spoke openly to the French ambassadors of the traitors around the king who had caused his brother to be deprived of the office of chancellor. Waurin’s account may be highly coloured, but it is quite likely that Warwick was already exploiting the young duke’s temperamental weaknesses and incipient discontent. Contemporaries credited the eighteen-year-old Clarence with much of the charm and ability of his brothers, Edward and Richard. Like Edward, too, he was very good looking, was possessed of a silver tongue, and not without a sarcastic wit.2 But his character was neither strong nor sensible, and, as his later career proved, he could be ambitious, jealous and grasping. Heirs presumptive to an hereditary throne often became a focus for discontent, and Clarence was no exception.