by Charles Ross
Duke George had no obvious reason to be dissatisfied with his brother. Provision for him had been made on an exceptionally generous scale – in August 1464 he was even given the lands of the earldom of Chester, part of the traditional inheritance of the prince of Wales – and by 1465 he was in possession of a very considerable appanage. Two years later his lands were worth about £3,666 in net annual value (only a little less than was allowed to the queen), and he had expectations of another 1,000 marks a year.1 On 28 February 1462 he had been appointed king’s lieutenant in Ireland for seven years, an office which he could execute by deputy, and from June 1465 he begins to appear on several important commissions.2 Perhaps his only genuine reason for discontent lay in the matter of his marriage. None of the various foreign matches proposed for him (like that projected in 1466 with the heiress, Mary of Burgundy) had materialized, and Edward had blocked his union with the most suitable English bride, Isabel Nevill. But this scarcely justified him in plotting treason. The key to his disaffection lies in his own ambition and instability, which made him easy prey to the wiles of Warwick. Although he went with the king to relieve George Nevill of the Great Seal in June 1467, from then on he seems to have come increasingly under Warwick’s influence. By the autumn he had clearly lent his support to the earl’s secret manoeuvres at Rome to obtain the necessary dispensation for his marriage to Isabel, and by Christmas Edward thought it necessary to summon him to Coventry in order to keep an eye on him.3
Warwick’s sulky retreat to his Yorkshire estates in the autumn of 1467 indicates his anger with Edward’s policies and advisers, but he was not yet ready to translate this resentment into openly hostile action. Polydore Vergil believed that he was merely dissembling his fury, whilst continuing to foment discord through months of intrigue;1 but he may still have hoped for a change of heart in Edward, or was perhaps himself unsure of the extent of support he could collect against the king. His mood, however, was prickly and resentful. When, in the autumn of 1467, Lord Herbert captured a messenger from Margaret of Anjou to the garrison of Harlech, this man implicated Warwick (amongst others) in charges of treason, and more particularly alleged that he was in league with Margaret of Anjou. Since similar rumours were already in circulation (at least on the Continent) Edward was not prepared entirely to discount the allegations, and summoned Warwick to come and explain himself. This the earl refused to do, even under safe-conduct. Edward made the concession of sending the accuser to the earl at his castle of Sheriff Hutton, whereby Warwick was able to dispel the charges as frivolous. Edward’s suspicions were no more allayed than was Warwick’s anger, and on 7 January 1468 a second summons to Warwick to come to the king was met by a curt refusal, so long as Rivers, Herbert and Scales were with Edward. But through the mediation of George Nevill, who had had a meeting with Rivers, the earl eventually agreed to go to Coventry to attend a council meeting.2
At Coventry Edward proved far more conciliatory than Warwick. The earl was cordially received and unbent sufficiently to go through a form of reconciliation with Lords Herbert, Audley and Stafford, though not with the Woodvilles. He refused, however, to help underwrite the cost of Margaret of York’s dowry, or to assist in raising archers for Brittany, and continued to urge upon the king the dangers of making alliances with such self-interested princes as the dukes of Burgundy and Brittany. But Edward was not to be deflected from his chosen policy. It was clear that he wanted Warwick’s friendship, but would not take his advice, and the earl was now openly hostile.3
Warwick’s discontent was far from being Edward’s sole cause for anxiety about the internal state of his realm. The years 1467 and 1468 saw a disturbing growth in the incidence of local lawlessness, strengthened, as the months went by, with reports of treason and disaffection. At the end of their first session (June-July 1467), the commons in parliament called the king’s attention to the increase in murders, riots and other outrages, and asked for urgent measures for the enforcement of the law.1 These disturbances sprang from a variety of causes. Some were the product of the ‘heavy lordship’ of great men in good standing with the king: against such powerful offenders it was hard to get redress, as the unhappy experiences of the Paston family at the hands of the king’s brother-in-law, John, duke of Suffolk, amply illustrate.2 Still more dangerous were quarrels between the king’s great men themselves, as they intervened in local disputes on behalf of their retainers and followers. In 1467, for instance, trouble broke out in Derbyshire. A feud between Henry, Lord Grey of Codnor, and Henry Vernon, esquire (who was supported by the earl of Shrewsbury), led to the murder of one of the Vernons. On 3 January 1468 a powerful commission of oyer and terminer was appointed, headed by Clarence, Rivers and Hastings, to deal with these and other local disturbances. But peace was not easily enforced, for as late as June 1468 Shrewsbury, Grey and Vernon all had to be bound over in large sums not to do violence towards the jurors – local Derbyshire esquires – who had been directed to investigate the facts and report to the commission. The dispute found a reflection in ill-feeling at the royal court, where Clarence was said to favour Vernon (later one of his retainers) whilst ‘the king’s men’ favoured Lord Grey.3 It was a sign of the deterioration of royal control that such disputes became more numerous as time went on. ‘Great riots and oppressions done to our subjects’ were widespread enough at the end of 1467 to cause the appointment of commissions of oyer and terminer in six midland counties, and to persuade Edward to surround himself with a bodyguard of two hundred chosen valets and archers when he went to Coventry to spend Christmas.4
Elsewhere there were signs of growing discontent with the Yorkist regime, which may have been inspired partly by Nevill dissidence. In January 1468 one of Earl Rivers’s estates in Kent was attacked by a mob and pillaged, whilst in Yorkshire there was a gathering of malcontents around a captain named Robin who are said to have offered their services to Warwick.1 More alarming was the recrudescence of Lancastrian activity. Rebels were taken in the Isle of Wight in 1466; the stubborn rebel Humphrey Nevill of Brancepeth was again active in Northumberland; and the Yorkist hold on Wales was being threatened by rebel activity. In 1466 the garrison of Harlech sallied forth on a raid which took them seventy miles away to Wrexham, and the nervous captains of Beaumaris, Caernarvon and Montgomery Castles had to be assured that they should have adequate reinforcements for the safeguarding of our strongholds considering our rebels be daily in the said country’.2 Successive attempts to reduce Harlech to obedience had met with no success, nor had an expedition led by the earl of Worcester into North Wales in 1466 brought that area under control. Large parts of the revenues due from Caernarvon and Anglesey were still in 1466 unpaid from the beginning of the reign. It was this still very nominal control over an area of Lancastrian sympathy which explains the success of Jasper Tudor in June 1468, when he could march from Barmouth to Denbigh without meeting serious resistance. His subsequent failure, however, and the vigorous siege pressed by William, Lord Herbert, led to the final surrender of Harlech on 14 August 1468.3
Meanwhile, the king’s relations with Warwick and his kinsmen appeared to improve. Whatever his objections to the marriage of Margaret of York and the plans for war against France announced in May 1468, the earl concealed his feelings sufficiently to make a graceful appearance at the ceremonial departure of the Lady Margaret from London on 18 June. She rode out of the city behind him on the same horse. Although surrounded by an entire pride of Woodvilles, he accompanied her to the abbey of Stratford by Bow, where she spent several days, and then on through Canterbury to the coast at Margate.4 There is much evidence to show that, both then and for some months later, Warwick and his brothers were prominent at court and in the king’s council.5 In council meetings they were probably outnumbered and outweighed by ‘king’s men’. Apart from those ‘evil councillors’ like Rivers, Scales, Herbert, Audley and Stafford, whom they denounced in 1469, most of the other active councillors are not likely to have had much sympathy with the Nevills. The Bourchier group le
d by the archbishop of Canterbury and the treasurer, the earl of Essex; household officers like Sir John Fogge and Sir John Scott; that rising royal servant, Sir John Howard; and the chamberlain, William, Lord Hastings (even though he was Warwick’s brother-in-law), were all men closely attached to the king, and owed little to the Nevill interest. Only Lord Wenlock and Thomas Kent may be classed as Warwickites.1
Yet the Nevills had not lost all influence. During July 1468, Warwick, Northumberland and the archbishop of York seem to have been active in the council deliberations which led to the disastrous ‘verdict of the council’ against the Hansard merchants; and it is significant that all three were prominent among the English shipowners whose vessels had been seized. Probably Warwick pressed for a tough policy against the Hanseatic League, which eventually led to a war at sea, and was in line with the rather irresponsible nationalism he had previously shown the Hansards in the 1450s.2 That Warwick and the archbishop were active at court in October 1468 is known from the evidence of a Paston correspondent, who hoped to enlist their aid against the duke of Norfolk. They had, he reported, spoken to the duke on the Pastons’ behalf’in the king’s chamber’. The archbishop, it was expected, would also tackle Earl Rivers and his wife, and William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, on the same matter – evidence of apparently civil relations between the rival factions at court. It was even rumoured that George Nevill might become chancellor again.3
The Pastons and their agents were shrewd and hard-headed men of business, with a keen, practical interest in unravelling the strands of power at court. That they thought it worthwhile to cultivate Nevill influence shows that Warwick and his brothers still commanded a respectful hearing at court. It also shows how the earl, and still more the clever and plausible archbishop, had been able to convey an impression of political amiability by dissembling their hostility to the king’s men. Unfortunately for himself, the king also chose to believe that they had come to accept an honoured and profitable place at court even if their influence was no longer what it had been, and that they were prepared to tolerate the Woodvilles and the ‘king’s men’. That he continued too long to cling to this belief may have owed much to Nevill skill in deceit, but also reflects his own defects of political judgement. His easy-going nature, persistent optimism, and confidence in his personal charm prevented him from taking a hard and suspicious line. Even if he suspected them of treasonable plans, there was little to indicate that Warwick would command any measure of support amongst the baronage, some of whom now owed a good deal to a generous king. Warwick himself was aware of his political isolation amongst the magnates, and, before he could come into the open, he had to wait upon and foment popular discontent with Edward’s rule.
In the latter half of 1468 Edward’s troubles again multiplied. The realm was filled with reports of intrigue, disaffection and Lancastrian conspiracies. Already in the summer there had been alarms following the capture of the Lancastrian agent, Cornelius, whose confessions eventually involved not only Sir Thomas Cook and other prominent Londoners but also Sir Gervase Clifton, a former treasurer of Calais, and even John, Lord Wenlock, himself. The trial and punishment of some of the accused continued into the autumn.1 In November came a fresh wave of arrests. For some time past the king had been allowing money to the sheriffs to organize a spy service, and now, as information flowed back, yeomen of the royal household were sent down ‘into divers counties to arrest men that be appeached’.2 Among the first to come under suspicion were the heirs to two Lancastrian baronies. Henry Courtenay, esquire, brother and heir of the former earl of Devon, and Thomas Hungerford, son of the rebel Lord Hungerford executed after Hexham, were both arrested in Wiltshire before 11 November, and imprisoned in Salisbury to await the king’s arrival before being brought to trial. Both appear to have been living quietly enough on their estates, but they were obvious targets for a nervous government which thought them likely sympathizers with the exiles in France.3 Soon after, an equally vulnerable figure, John de Vere, earl of Oxford, whose father and brother had already been executed for treason, was apprehended and committed to the Tower. Others arrested as a result of Oxford’s turning king’s evidence included two former Lancastrians, Sir Thomas Tresham and Sir John Marney. Another, a London skinner named Richard Stairs, who had been a former servant of the duke of Exeter and was ‘one of the cunningest players of the tennis in England’, was charged with carrying treasonable correspondence on behalf of Queen Margaret and was beheaded on Tower Hill on 28 November. So too were Poynings and Alford, servants of the duke of Norfolk, who were alleged to have been in contact with Lancastrian exiles at Bruges whilst attending the wedding ceremonies of the Lady Margaret.1
Of the others accused of treason only Courtenay and Hungerford were ever brought to trial. Oxford (who had recently married the earl of Warwick’s sister, Margaret) talked his way out of trouble and was soon released. Sir John Marney was pardoned in April 1469, whilst Tresham was simply held in jail.2 On 12 January 1469, Hungerford and Courtenay were brought before a special commission of oyer and terminer at Salisbury, headed by Duke Richard of Gloucester, Arundel, Scales, Audley, Stafford and Stourton.3 They were charged with having conspired on 21 May 1468 and on other occasions, with having plotted, in league with Margaret of Anjou, the ‘final death and final destruction … of the Most Christian Prince, Edward IV’. Both put themselves ‘upon the country’ (that is, on the verdict of a local jury), and Courtenay pleaded in addition a general pardon granted to him on 25 July 1468. The king’s attorney, Henry Sotehill, then said they were guilty, and the jury of sixteen agreed with him. They were then subjected to the fullest and protracted horrors of a fifteenth-century political execution. John Warkworth reported that their downfall had been brought about by the malice of Humphrey Stafford (who was created earl of Devon in May 1469), but the presence of the king at Salisbury when the verdict was pronounced is significant of his personal concern in the case.4 How far Edward was seriously threatened at this time by any extensive or organized Lancastrian conspiracy is difficult to judge, especially since so little direct evidence was ever produced. Much of this may merely have been the over-anxious reaction of a government alarmed by persistent rumours of treason, and concerned to remove the likely leaders of a Lancastrian rebellion.
More serious was the growth of popular discontent with Edward’s government, some of it probably actively fostered by Warwick. The most direct evidence comes from the Chronicle of John Warkworth, written not later than 1483. This North-Country scholar, who became Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1473, was in no sense a Nevill sympathizer, and his criticisms of Edward IV therefore carry more weight.1 The common people, he claims, had been weary and disgusted with Lancastrian government, and were ‘full glad to have a change’. But they had been disillusioned in their hope that the new king would ‘bring the realm of England in[to] great prosperity and rest’. There had been battles, heavy taxes, and still the need to serve far from home at their own cost; and ‘many men said that King Edward had much blame for hurting merchandise’. Some of these grievances were echoed by the rebel manifesto of 1469. This was clearly a propaganda document, carefully angled against the Woodvilles and the ‘king’s men’ whom Warwick wished to destroy, but to be plausible it also had to appeal to real grievances amongst the common people.2 This, too, complains of heavy taxation, in spite of Edward’s having ‘as great livelihood and possessions as ever had king of England’, and its references to the prevalence of disorder reiterate the remarks of the speaker in the parliament of 1467. It especially emphasized the malignant effects of the power of the king’s great men in the localities. By their maintenances, and those of their servants, it alleged, the king’s laws could not be executed upon those to whom they owed favour; and there were impeachments of treasons brought against men to whom the king’s favourites ‘owe any evil will’. There had been borrowing without repayment, purveyance for the royal household without payment, and money raised for the pope had been held back by the king.
How far these alleged grievances reflect widespread popular discontent is not easy to judge. The commercial treaty with Burgundy in 1467 seems to have been unpopular; in January 1468, William Monypenny could report to King Louis that the talk ran in London taverns that men who had advised the king to refuse an alliance with France for one with Burgundy deserved to lose their heads.3 Even if the Hansards, like other alien merchants, were unpopular with England, the ill-advised breach with them in 1468 probably did not commend itself to the bulk of popular opinion, and, in general, royal policy might well seem to have done more to ‘the hurting of merchandise’ than to the helping of it.1 Royal taxation had not been especially heavy, but the way in which the king had extracted money in 1463 and in 1467, and then failed to carry out his promises, was scarcely likely to endear him to his people.2 The failure to provide impartial justice had been one of the strongest complaints against the government of Henry VI, and here, too, Edward’s government had done little to improve matters.3 There may well have been a general disillusionment with Yorkist government by 1469. Edward seems to have lost ground in popular esteem, whilst Warwick, partly by reason of his open-handed generosity to the populace wherever he went, retained their favour. No doubt Monypenny exaggerated when he observed that, as the earl passed on his way to London, the people had cried out as if with one voice ‘Warwick! Warwick!’ and had behaved as if God himself had descended from the skies; but Commynes was later to report that by 1471 Edward had conceived a great hatred against the ordinary people, ‘for the great favour which he saw the people bore towards the earl of Warwick, and also for other reasons’.4 The commons were far from indifferent to political issues, and (as K. B. McFarlane rightly observed) ‘with little to lose and grievances that were real enough, [they] were easily incited to rebellion by magnates they admired’.5 In the spring of 1469 Nevill agents were already at work in Yorkshire exploiting popular grievances. With the rising of the northern commons in the summer of 1469 the way lay open for Warwick’s attempt to reassert his former dominance.