by Charles Ross
The problem of violence and lawlessness was scarcely less acute in the north of England than in Wales and the Marches, and in the twenty years before 1471 it had proved even more dangerously prone to rebellion and political disorder. The Wars of the Roses themselves had been at least in part the outcome of quarrels between great North-Country magnates, and the condition of the north was a matter of great political concern to the government of the day.2 Here the difficulties did not spring primarily from the existence of areas of privileged jurisdiction like the Welsh Marcher lordships. It is true that the north contained two great franchises in the county palatine of Lancaster and the palatine bishopric of Durham, but the former was permanently under the control of the king as duke of Lancaster, and the immunity of the latter could be interfered with when the king chose, quite apart from his ability to select the successive bishops of this princely northern see.3 Northern lawlessness derived from a combination of factors – a chronically disturbed border region; a long tradition of self-help in areas remote from the central courts at Westminster; and the dominance of northern society by an independently-minded nobility, many of whom retained a centuries-old grip on the loyalties and military resources of their retainers and tenantry.4 Not surprisingly, any assertion of royal authority in this region during the 1460s had remained dependent to an alarming degree on the goodwill and cooperation of its aristocratic supporters, and even more than in Wales Edward’s concern lay rather in the political peace of the region than in impartial governance, although the two were not unconnected problems.
These considerations are reflected in two major policy decisions – to restore Henry Percy to the earldom of Northumberland in 1470, and to transfer Warwick’s northern offices, estates and influence intact to his brother, Richard of Gloucester, in 1471. These measures hark back to the arrangements of the 1460s, notably the delegation of power in Wales and the Marches to William, Lord Herbert, and show Edward’s tendency to rule wherever possible through trusted individuals rather than to develop new institutions. By contrast with Wales, no special powers of supervision or jurisdiction were given to Gloucester or Northumberland in the north. Indeed the ultimate direction of Edward’s policy here was in a sense reactionary, leading to the creation of a complex of private power in Gloucester’s hands, even greater than that wielded by Warwick, rather than towards the establishment of an embryo council of the north. Nevertheless, it represented an effort to bring the north under some sort of supervision and control ultimately derived from the king.
The chief beneficiaries of the fall of the House of Nevill had been Duke Richard of Gloucester and Henry Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland. As wardens of the Marches and holders of land and office in the north, they were established as the main supports of royal authority north of Trent, Gloucester more especially in Cumberland and Westmorland, Percy in Northumberland, whilst they shared considerable influence in Yorkshire. It has often been claimed that from 1473 onwards Gloucester was given supervisory authority over Percy, but this is not true.1 Differences between the two led to their appearing before the king’s council at Nottingham on 12 May 1473. There the duke pledged himself not to accept or retain into his service any of the earl’s servants, past or present. A year later (28 July 1474), the earl entered into a contract of retainer with the duke, to do him all lawful service (saving his duty to the king, the queen, and the prince of Wales); in return the duke undertook to be the earl’s good lord at all times, and to sustain his right against all persons. But any subordination implied thereby was essentially private rather than official, and the duke had to confirm again that he would not retain any of Percy’s servants, with one exception, nor ask for or claim any office held by the earl, nor interrupt him or his servants in the exercise of any such office. Northumberland’s independence of action was assured.2
In Yorkshire, the most vital area for the stability of the north, the duke’s influence gradually increased during the 1470s, as royal grant brought more land and offices. Part of his reward for surrendering to Clarence’s demands was the keepership of the royal forests north of Trent (18 May 1472), taken from the earl of Northumberland, and from 4 July 1471 he held the office of chief steward of the Duchy of Lancaster north of Trent, which gave him influence in Yorkshire through the three great Duchy honours of Pontefract, Knaresborough and Pickering within the shire.1 In 1475 Edward gave him the Pennine lordship of Skipton-in-Craven, homeland of the attainted Lords Clifford, and their hereditary sheriffdom of Cumberland, and, in exchange for some of his wife’s lands, he acquired the castle and lordship of Scarborough on the Yorkshire coast. In 1478 the death of Clarence brought him the castle of Richmond, and he was also given the reversion (on the death of Margery, Lady Roos) of the North Riding castle and lordship of Helmsley.2 By then he had become the greatest lord in Yorkshire, and only in the East Riding did Percy’s local influence compare with his. He very largely took over the Nevill influence in the shire: in 1473–4, for example, of thirty-six men who were receiving fees charged upon the lordship of Middleham from the duke, no fewer than twenty-two had been in Warwick’s service in 1465–6.3
But Northumberland remained a force to be reckoned with, and indeed his support was essential to ensure Gloucester’s dominance of the north, for other northern families, such as Dacre, Scrope of Bolton, and Greystoke, were essentially of the second rank. The correspondence of the Yorkshire family of Plumpton, whose interests lay in the Knaresborough area of the West Riding, reveals that the earl was by no means under Gloucester’s control. About 1475 Sir William Plumpton was advised by one Godfrey Grene not to try to ‘labour’ either Gloucester or the king to persuade Northumberland to confirm Sir William in the office of bailiff of Knaresborough which he held from the earl as steward.4 Sir, he was told,
as long as my lord of Northumberland’s patent thereof stands good, so long will he have no deputy but such as shall please him, and can thank him for the gift thereof, and no man else.
And on another matter, Plumpton was advised not to risk anything
to the disworship of the earl of Northumberland, that hath the chief rule there under the king.
Even the powerful Lord Hastings totally declined to interfere in recommending Plumpton to the earl, and roundly told Grene that
we would make a jealousy betwixt my Lord of Northumberland and him, in that he should labour for any of his men, he being present. Sir, I took that for a watchword for meddling betwixt lords.
The care which Gloucester took to ensure that Northumberland was publicly associated with him in all matters requiring joint action, the evidence of Northumberland’s independence on several occasions, and the deference which the citizens of York, Beverley and Hull showed to the earl as the most powerful man in the East Riding, are evidence that in Yorkshire ‘the chief rule of the shire’ remained a condominium. Not until 1482, during the war with Scotland, was Gloucester appointed king’s lieutenant in the north and so given general precedence over the earl beyond the Trent.1
Whether singly or in collaboration, the duke and the earl and their private councils had come to wield a quasi-royal authority in the north by the mid-seventies. The city of York sought and obtained Gloucester’s backing to enforce legislation about unlawful fishing in the Yorkshire rivers, and thereby brought pressure to bear on powerful offenders like the bishop of Durham. At the citizens’ request, the duke discharged a corrupt town clerk and sought licence from the king after the event. In 1480, when a Scots invasion was threatened, the duke and the earl both wrote to the city seeking men for the defence of the north, ‘charging’ them on the king’s behalf, ‘desiring and praying’ on their own authority. In 1482 it could be said in York that offenders were punished ‘according to the king’s high commandment and the Duke of Gloucester’.2 Gloucester was also called upon to use his influence within the palatine bishopric of Durham: in 1475 the prior of Durham thanked him for his ‘good lordship’ and asked him ‘to desire the archbishop of York to be good and gracious lord and tend
er father’ to the prior and convent.3
Together Gloucester and Northumberland contributed towards the keeping of the peace, the administration of justice, the arbitration of private disputes and the enforcement of legislation. Much of this work fell upon the two magnates’ private councils, which, in the pattern of the day, included local gentry and professional lawyers. Among the members of Gloucester’s council were his cousins, John, Lord Scrope of Bolton, and Ralph, Lord Greystoke, retainers and estates officials like Sir William Parr of Kendal and Sir James Harrington, justices from the northern circuit like Brian Nele, and lawyers such as Guy Fairfax and Miles Metcalfe, successively recorders of York.1 In 1482 commissions of oyer and terminer to deal with all criminal offences in Yorkshire were staffed essentially by councillors of the duke and the earl, as the principals prepared to depart to Scotland, and of the twelve men who served Yorkshire as sheriffs between 1470 and 1483, six were Gloucester’s retainers and four more Northumberland’s.2
The advantages which derived from having the royal will implemented by two such dominant and influential lords were obvious enough. Men who might ignore a distant government in Westminster could not afford to risk the displeasure of powerful magnates acting in the king’s name on their very doorsteps, and the resident ducal and comital councils could do something to check the characteristic northern indifference to the authority of the law. But the dangers of this policy were also conspicuous. The powers of the duke and the earl derived not from the delegation to them of specific functions of royal authority, but from their position as great private magnates and leaders of northern society, commanding huge estates, reserves of patronage, and private affinities. Nothing better illustrates the direction of Edward’s policy in this region than his decision in January 1483 to carve out for Gloucester a great hereditary palatine lordship comprising Cumberland, Westmorland and whatever parts of south-west Scotland he might conquer, where he was to enjoy virtually the same high immunities as the bishop of Durham. With this Gloucester and his heirs were to enjoy the wardenship of the West Marches, which was thus alienated from the control of the Crown for the first time.3 No man had ever enjoyed such independent power in north-western England. Potentially at least Gloucester and Northumberland were over-mighty subjects on the grand scale, and only the unexpected development of Gloucester’s becoming king led to the conversion of his private council into a royal regional council on the model of the prince’s council in Wales and the Marches. The underlying dangers of Edward’s policy in the north of England need no emphasis, for in 1483 it was Gloucester, with the implicit support of Northumberland, and the backing of North-Country barons and gentry, who was able to depose Edward’s heir and take over the government of England for himself.
Late medieval Ireland was if anything even more perennially lawless and disturbed than either Wales or the north of England. Edward IV, however, was one of those few fortunate rulers of England for whom Ireland presented no serious political problems. Immunity from an Trish problem’ was bought at the price of virtual surrender of effective royal control. The rare occasions when Edward tried to assert his authority produced trouble, from which he hastily retreated. In effect, Yorkist policy in Ireland amounted to little more than a sell-out to the interests of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy, more especially to the FitzGerald family represented by the earls of Desmond and Kildare.1
The foundation stone of Edwardian policy towards Ireland was laid by Duke Richard of York in the late 1450s. His desire to entrench himself in Ireland led him to appeal to the desire of the Anglo-Irish lords for virtual autonomy, and in a meeting of the Irish parliament he allowed them to adopt what has been termed ca frankly revolutionary programme’, which stated, in essence, that ‘the land of Ireland is and at all times has been corporate of itself, by the ancient laws and customs used in the same, freed of the burden of any special law of the realm of England’.2 This brought him the support of the Anglo-Irish, and the eventual victory of the Yorkists in England also entailed the overthrow of one of the great families, the Butlers, represented by James, 5th earl of Ormond, and earl of Wiltshire, who, with his brothers, John and Thomas, was attainted in Edward IV’s first parliament. Power in the English Pale passed thereafter to the Geraldines, Thomas FitzGerald, who succeeded his father as 7th earl of Desmond in 1462, and Thomas FitzMaurice, 7th earl of Kildare, and, after his death in March 1478, to his son, Gerald, the 8th earl. Edward IV appointed a series of nominal and largely absentee lieutenants of Ireland; George, duke of Clarence (1462–70, 1472–8), John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester (1470), his third son, George (1478–9), and his second son, Richard, duke of York (1479–83), but any attempt to impose an effective deputy of his own choice on the Anglo-Irish proved unavailing.1
Only two such attempts were made. In 1463 Edward proved willing to accept as deputy the versatile and attractive earl of Desmond, ‘a renaissance magnate with an Irish tinge’.2 Like other Anglo-Irish deputies of the period, he was allowed to use the meagre authority and financial resources of the English Crown in Ireland to maintain his own position, and to further his family interests. But quarrels between Desmond and other Anglo-Irish, and his excessive contacts with the native Irish, brought severe disturbances, and in 1466 he was heavily defeated in an expedition against Offaly, a setback which permanently weakened the defences of the Pale. This led Edward to replace Desmond as deputy by the earl of Worcester, who, early in 1468, proceeded to attaint Desmond and Kildare in a parliament held at Drogheda: soon after the former was murdered, and the latter imprisoned. Worcester managed to survive the Anglo-Irish reaction which followed, but was recalled to England to succeed Clarence as lieutenant in March 1470. The Irish lords showed little disposition to support the Lancastrian cause during the troubles of 1470–71, and the earl of Kildare, elected justiciar of Ireland by the Irish Council, declared his loyalty to the House of York. Thereafter Kildare and his son, Gerald, had little to worry about, and ruled Ireland for the rest of the reign, either as justiciars elected by the Irish or as deputies appointed by the king. Edward’s second attempt to interfere proved abortive, for when in 1478 he sent over Henry, Lord Grey, as deputy, he encountered such general resistance from the Anglo-Irish that he was quite unable to wield any authority, and returned to England in the following year. The 8th earl of Kildare steadily strengthened his position in Ireland, and was so strongly entrenched that not even Henry VII was able to remove him. Edward had to be content with an almost totally nominal lordship of Ireland, but, if it brought him little profit, equally it gave little pain.
1 PL, V, 113, and, for the events in this paragraph, C. F. Richmond, ‘Fauconberg’s Kentish Rising’, 681–3.
2 PL, V, 106, no; More, Richard III, 11, 51.
1 PL, V, III; CC, 557; CPR, 1467–77, 270–1, 290–2 (pardons for Calais garrison); Scofield, II, 11–12.
2 CPR, 1467–77, 281, 283, 289, 293 (commissions against rebels); Polydore Vergil, English History, 154–5; Evans, Wales and the Wars of the Roses, 194–5. For the career of Roger Vaughan, see R. A. Griffiths, The Principality of Wales in the Later Middle Ages; The Structure and Personnel of Government, I, 220–1, and, for the settlement in Wales, below, pp. 193–8.
3 CPR, 1467–77, 287–8.
1 GC, 220–1; Warkworth, Chronicle, 21–2.
2 Richmond, ‘Fauconberg’s Kentish Rising’, 686–7.
3 CCR, 1468–76, 217, 226–7; for Arundell, Arrivall, 13, and Ramsay, Lancaster and Tork, II, 391; Richmond, op. cit., 683.
4 Ramsay, op. cit., II, 390–1; CPR, 1467–77, 287; Coventry Leet Book, II, 367–9.
5 Ramsay, op. cit., II, 391, citing Tellers and Receipt Rolls, Michaelmas term, 1471, lists ‘gifts’ totalling £12,904, including 1,000 marks from John Arundell, sums from Lancastrian bishops, and the fines levied on Kent and Essex mentioned above.
6 RP, VI, 144–9; Lander, ‘Attainder and Forfeiture’, 128–30, who suggests that there were special reasons why Warwick and Montagu were not attainted, and ‘the immunity of th
e Nevilles provided an umbrella for others’; see also below, pp. 190–1.
1 RP, VI, 16–22, 24–33, they include many of the former Lancastrians mentioned below.
2 The prelates were the archbishop of York and the bishops of Winchester, Lincoln, London, Coventry and Lichfield, Chichester, Hereford and St Asaph; for their pardons, CPR, 1467–77, 258–9, 261, 267, 280, 294, 299; Scofield, II, 22. Another 224 pardons are entered on the Patent Roll (CPR, 1467–77, 258–313 passim).
3 For Morton, CPR, 1467–77, 261; More, Richard III, 90–1; A. B. Emden, Biographical Register of Members of the University of Oxford Before A.D. 1500, II, 1318–20; for Holland, CP, V, 215; Scofield, II, 22–3.
1 CPR, 1467–77, 265, 266, 300; P.R.O., G. 53/196, m. 3.
2 For his career, Emden, op. cit., II, 1282–3.