by Charles Ross
3 Ibid., I, 599–600, and above, p. 164. He was appointed queen’s chancellor on 26 October 1471, P.R.O., D.L. 29/39/1117, mm. 3–4, and held the office until June 1474. I am indebted to Mr M. A. Hicks for this information.
4 CPR, 1467–77, 264, 272, 297, 315.
5 On this point, see further below, pp. 187–91.
6 CPR, 1467–77,310–11.
1 Handbook of British Chronology, ed. Powicke and Fryde, 103; CPR, 1467–77, 260, 310 (Arundel, warden Cinque Ports); 261 (wardship of Lovell lands to Suffolk and his wife); 258 (Northumberland, justice of forests north of Trent, constable of Bamborough Castle); 262 (Wiltshire, chief butlership of England).
2 Scofield, II, 7; Hist. MSS Comm., Hastings, I, 301 (the duke’s letters patent to Hastings).
3 See further below, pp. 198–203.
4 The large grant to Richard made on 24 August 1462 (CPR, 1461–7, 197) comprised the lordships of Richmond and Pembroke, many de Vere lands (20 manors in Essex, 6 in Suffolk, and 4 in Cambridge) and certain offices and farms, but was largely nullified because Richmond was given to Clarence on 20 September 1462 (ibid., 212–13), the de Vere estates were restored to John, 13th earl of Oxford, on 18 January 1464 (CP, X, 240), and there is no evidence that Richard ever obtained control of Pembroke, which had been granted in tail to William, Lord Herbert, on 3 February 1462 (CPR, 1461–7, 114), and which continued in his possession. On 9 September 1462 Richard was given all the Hungerford estates, but this grant was cancelled by oral order of the king, 30 March 1463 (ibid., 228). On 20 December 1463 he had a grant of the lands of Henry Beaufort, duke of Somerset, but these were not extensive and were encumbered by the interests of two dowager duchesses, Margaret (d. 1482) and Eleanor (d. 1477): ibid., 292; CP, XII, 47, 53. He had to wait until 25 October 1468 for a second grant in tail of the Hungerford estates (CPR, 1467–77, 139).
1 Ibid., 260, 266; and below, p. 189.
2 Ibid., 297.
3 Ibid., 279–80, 335–6. On 16 March 1472 he was reappointed lieutenant of Ireland for twenty years.
4 As suggested by Kendall, Richard III, 50–1. In 1478 the charges against Clarence dwelt upon the very generous endowment made by the king: ‘so large portion of possessions, that no memory is of … that any king of England gave so largely to any of his brothers’ (RP, VI, 193).
1 T. B. Pugh, Glamorgan County History, III, 200.
2 Loc. cit.; cf. Kendall, Richard III, 105–9.
3 CC, 557. For the date of the marriage, usually given as 12 July, see Pugh, op. cit., 200, 613.
4 4 CC, 557; PL, V, 135–6.
1 CPR, 1467–77, 330, 344–6; Gal. Charter Rolls, VI, 239–40.
2 For the complex descent of this inheritance, see R. L. Storey, End of the House of Lancaster, 231–41, and, for a list of the estates, C. D. Ross, The Estates and Finances of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (Dugdale Soc., 1956).
3 Scofield, II, 27.
4 Below, p. 190. Cf. Lander, ‘Attainder and Forfeiture’, 130 and n., for a different explanation of this point.
5 Lander, op. cit., 130; CC, 561; CPR, 1467–77, 428.
1 PL, V, 188–9; Hist-MSS Comm., nth Report, App. VII, 95.
2 PL, V, 199.
3 RP, VI, 100–1; CPR, 1467–77, 455–6, 550. Details of the partition do not survive, but Gloucester is known to have secured the Welsh Marcher lordships of Glamorgan, Abergavenny and Elfael (Pugh, op. cit., 200–1).
4 RP, VI, 124–7; CPR, 1467–77, 487, 557.
5 Common law proceedings against Warwick and Montagu for treason had been instituted posthumously before special commissions in Hertfordshire and Middlesex in May 1472 (P.R.O., K.B. 9/41, mm. 38 ff.); these were often a preliminary to parliamentary sentences of attainder. See Judith B. Avutrick, ‘Commissions of Oyer and Terminer in Fifteenth-Century England’ (unpublished London M. Litt. thesis, 1967).
1 Lander, op. cit., 130.
2 Below, pp. 248–9, 335–7.
3 PL, V, 137; Warkworth, Chronicle, 24–6; CSP, Milan, I, 165; CPR, 1467–77, 346.
1 Warkworth, Chronicle, 25; Scofield, II, 22.
2 PL, V, 188–9; Warkworth, Chronicle, 26; Scofield, II, 59–61.
3 PL, V, 184, 186, 195; CSP, Milan, I, 176; Calmette and Perinelle, op. cit., 161 (for 193 rumours on the Continent); Scofield, II, 29, 58–9. Amongst the charges of treason made against Clarence in 1478 was that he had intended since 1471 to bring about the destruction and disinheriting of the king ‘by might to be gotten outward as well as inward’ (RP, VI, 193–5).
1 For accounts of his career, see Emden, Biog. Reg., Univ. Oxford, II, 1347–9, and the article by James Tait in DNB, XL, 252–6.
2 For a lucid account of the problems of governing Wales and the Marches, on which much of what follows is based, see R. A. Griffiths, ‘Wales and the Marches’, in Fifteenth-Century England, 145–72.
1 T. B. Pugh, The Marcher Lordships of South Wales, 1415–1536, 36–43.
1 Above, pp. 77–8.
2 2 Above, pp. 186–7.
3 CPR, 1461–7, 526; 1467–77, 275, 277.
4 RP, VI, 202–4; D. H. Thomas, ‘The Herberts of Raglan as supporters of the House of York in the second half of the fifteenth century’ (University of Wales M.A. thesis, 1967), chapter VII.
5 RP, VI, 8–9; P.R.O., E. 315/40/75 (indenture with the duke of Buckingham); Griffiths, op. cit., 160.
1 CPR, 1467–77, 429; R. A. Griffiths, ‘Royal Government in the Southern Counties of the Principality of Wales’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Bristol, 1962).
2 CPR, 1467–77, 283; and for the development of the prince’s council generally, P. Williams, The Council in the Marches of Wales under Elizabeth I; C. A. J. Skeel, The Council in the Marches of Wales’, Griffiths, The Fifteenth Century, 159–62.
3 As claimed by Williams, op. cit., 7; for the enlarged council and its instructions, CPR, 1467–77, 361, 365–6, 429.
1 Ibid., 401, 414, 417.
2 Collection of Ordinances … of the Royal Household, 27–33.
3 CPR, 1467–77, 574, 605; Skeel, op. cit., 26–7. Worcestershire was omitted from the March commission.
4 CPR, 1476–85, 5; Williams, Council in the Marches, 9.
5 CPR, 1476–85, 59–60, 94, 339; VI, 202–4.
1 See the valuable discussion of this subject by T. B. Pugh, Glamorgan County History, III, 555–81, and for Henry VII’s policies, S. B. Chrimes, Henry VII, 244–57.
2 R. A. Griffiths, ‘Local Rivalries and National Polities’, 589–90, 631–2.
3 R. L. Storey, ‘The North of England’, in The Fifteenth Century, 138–42.
4 R. L. Storey, op. cit., 129–44; The End of the House of Lancaster, esp. chapter VII; and for the persistence of traditional loyalties into Tudor times, see M. E. James, ‘A Tudor Magnate and the Tudor State: Henry 5th Earl of Northumberland’, Borth-wick Inst, of Hist. Research, Papers, no. 30.
1 E.g. by Scofield, II, 5; Kendall, Richard III, 107.
2 This indenture is printed in Fonblanque, Annals of the House of Percy, I, 549, and W. H. Dunham, Lord Hastings’ Indentured Retainers, 140
1 CPR, 1467–77, 338; Somerville, History of the Duchy of Lancaster, I, 422.
2 RP, VI, 125; CPR, 1467–77, 485, 507, 549, 556; 1476–85, 90. Lady Roos was the widow of John, Lord Roos (d. 1421), not Thomas, as stated in the Patent Roll; she died a fortnight later, 20 April 1478 (Dugdale, Baronage, I, 552).
3 Gladys M. Coles, ‘The Lordship of Middleham, Especially in Yorkist and Early Tudor Times’ (Liverpool M.A. thesis, 1961), App. B.
4 Plumpton Correspondence, 31–3.
1 R. Davies, York Records, 61, 63, 73, 91, 106; York Civic Records, I, 2–3, 35; F. W. Brooks, The Council of the North, 9; R. R. Reid, King’s Council in the North, 44.
2 Davies, York Records, 84–6; 89–90; 126; YCR, I, 3, 9–10, 23–4, 34–6, 51–2.
3 R. L. Storey, The Fifteenth Century, 140.
1 Reid, King’s Council in the North, 44–6.
2 CPR, 1476–85, 34
3; Reid, op. cit., 46; M. A. Hicks, ‘The Career of Henry Percy, 4th earl of Northumberland, with special reference to his retinue’ (Southampton M.A. Dissertation, 1971).
3 RP, VI, 204–5; Storey, ‘Wardens of the Marches’, 608; Reid, King’s Council, 46.
1 For Yorkist Ireland, see E. Curtis, History of Medieval Ireland, 361–91, and ‘Richard Duke of York as Viceroy of Ireland’, Jour. Royal Soc. Antiquaries of Ireland, lxii (1932), 158–86; A. J. Otway-Ruthven, History of Medieval Ireland, 377–400, on which the following very brief summary is based. For the problem after 1485, see S. B. Chrimes, Henry VII.
2 Otway-Ruthven, op. cit., 387.
1 For a list of ‘Chief Governors of Ireland’, see Handbook of British Chronology, ed. Powicke and Fryde, 154–5. John de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, was appointed lieutenant in March 1478, but never took office.
2 Otway-Ruthven, op. cit., 389.
Chapter 9
THE KING’S GREAT ENTERPRISE, 1472–1475
(i) Diplomacy and the Formation of Alliances: the Approach to War
England’s foreign relations in Edward’s second reign do not possess that intimate relationship with domestic affairs which marks the 1460s. The attitude of continental powers no longer seriously threatened the security of the Yorkist dynasty.1 Yet English foreign policy in these years has a considerable interest. It came close to involving England in a ruinous foreign war, which might profoundly have changed the character of Edward’s later years, and from which only good fortune rescued him. Secondly, the settlements made with Scotland and the Hanseatic League, and eventually with France, went far towards determining the main lines of English foreign relations for the rest of Edward’s reign, and the latter two were of considerable importance in the country’s commercial history.
Following his restoration in 1471, Edward was full of resentment against the recent hostility of King Louis of France, ‘the principal ground, root, and provoker of the King’s let and trouble’, who, he claimed, still endeavoured by ‘subtle and crafty means’ to disturb the realm of England.2 This attitude found a ready response in the continuing restlessness of the great French feudatories. Before the year ended, both Burgundy and Brittany were trying to engage him in anti-French schemes. But Edward’s experiences in exile had given him cause to doubt the depth and sincerity of Duke Charles of Burgundy’s friendship for him: Charles’s chilly treatment of him until necessity changed his mind had left a certain legacy of mistrust, assiduously fostered by Louis XI.1 For the time being he was not to be drawn, and in September 1471 ratified a truce with France to last until May 1472.
Early in 1472, however, he began to respond to further overtures from Duke Francis of Brittany, for whom his feelings were a good deal warmer than for his brother-in-law of Burgundy.2 Alarmed by the hostile moves of Louis of France, Francis appealed to Edward in March for 6,000 archers for the defence of his duchy, and in response the king sent Earl Rivers and his brother, Sir Edward Woodville, to Brittany with 1,000 archers, where they arrived early in April. At the same time he made a renewed approach to Burgundy, both for a political cooperation and the settlement of commercial differences, and, as Dukes Francis and Charles were already discussing an alliance, the prospect of an anti-French coalition began to take shape.3 To forestall this, Louis XI struck at Brittany, as the weakest of the three, but the Bretons, with Rivers’s aid, resisted his invasion, and the French withdrew early in August 1472. Further aid for Brittany was approved by Edward, and a force of 2,000 archers under the Gascon, Gaillard, Lord Duras, was assembled by the end of July, and landed in Brittany probably early in September. At the same time an English fleet was equipped for service in the Channel. Burgundy, too, was seeking English aid: there is evidence that the duke offered Edward the county of Eu in Normandy as the price of a descent on France, and that he wanted the services of 3,000 English archers for war against King Louis.4
But Edward was not anxious for England to be used as a mere recruiting ground for foreign princes, nor to assist them in any subsidiary role. His negotiations with Brittany in the summer of 1472 show clearly the direction of his policy – the conclusion of firm alliances leading to an invasion of France, in which England should be the dominant partner. An embassy headed by Earl Rivers in July 1472 laid down the conditions for an English attack on France which were eventually accepted by Duke Francis, and became the basis for the Treaty of Ghâteaugiron agreed on 11 September 1472. In essence, it provided for an English invasion, either in Gascony or Normandy, by 1 April 1473. The English army was to be financed by Edward but was to receive all possible assistance from Brittany, including the use of Breton ports and passage through the duke’s dominions. Any territory conquered from France should remain in Edward’s hands unless he chose to make cessions to Brittany. Aid to Brittany, if needed for the duchy’s defence during the war, should be paid for by Francis and meanwhile he should have the services of 1,000 archers.1
At the same time Edward was seeking to make similar arrangements with Burgundy. In response to English overtures, the duke sent over Lord Gruythuyse, who came in part to enjoy Edward’s splendid hospitality and to receive the earldom of Winchester as reward for his services to Edward during the king’s Burgundian exile.2 But he also carried with him Charles’s conditions for an offensive alliance against France. If the war were successful, the duke expected Edward to grant him, in full hereditary right, the counties of Champagne, Nevers, Rethel, Eu and Guise and the duchy of Bar, which would have provided him with territories linking the northern and southern halves of his divided dominions, together with the French possessions of his enemy, the count of St Pol, and the Somme towns to which he had already laid claim.3
Armed with these indications that Burgundy was ready to enter into active negotiations, Edward was now ready to go before parliament, when it assembled on 6 October 1472, in search of money to finance the war. It has recently been shown that the idea of an aggressive foreign war was a good deal less popular than it had once been.4 Edward could also expect to be viewed with some suspicion by his taxpayers, since he had twice defaulted on promises of military action – in 1463 and 1468 – in return for taxation. For both these reasons, his spokesman – probably the chancellor, Bishop Robert Stillington – in a long address to parliament advanced a whole battery of arguments to justify the invasion of France.1 Some were familiar, like the king’s claim to his ‘right inheritance’ in France, and the argument that external war would be a safeguard against internal commotion by diverting the energies of the unruly elements in the population, and had not the most successful kings in England been those who engaged in war ? The misdeeds and machinations of Louis XI deserved to be met and punished. Finally the king tried to appeal on a more practical plane. The conquest of Gascony and Normandy, by giving control of an enemy coast, would greatly reduce the burden of keeping the seas, and would provide a place to settle for all the landless lads of England, ‘younger brothers or other’. These political persuasions do not necessarily give a true indication of Edward’s war aims, and they were certainly less than candid.2 The king told parliament that he now had alliances with Burgundy and Brittany, purchased at an expense of more than £100,000, and other princes could be expected to join in a league against France. But at this very moment Edward’s supposed allies were preparing to withdraw from their warlike posture towards King Louis.
Brittany was the first to falter. Though Edward had quickly ratified the Treaty of Châteaugiron on 24 October, the Breton government, frightened by the threat of a French invasion, and by the extent to which the treaty seemed to put her in the power of the English, decided they had made a rash bargain. The irresolute duke was persuaded to sign a brief truce with France on 15 October, which was soon extended for a year. He then sent ambassadors to England to persuade Edward to postpone his invasion until November 1473. He also put pressure on Burgundy, which followed Francis’s example, and on 3 November signed a truce with France to last until 1 April 1473. The English troops in Brittany,
badly hit by epidemics, were brought home during October and November, and a force of 400 archers intended for Burgundy never left the country.3 By 30 November, the day the commons made the desired grant of war taxation, any prospect of an immediate anti-French coalition had disappeared. As in 1468, the defection of Brittany, its most vulnerable member, ruined the triple alliance. For Edward, however, this implied a postponement, not an abandonment, of his warlike plans. He, too, found it prudent to sign a truce with Louis on 22 March 1473, to last until 1 April 1474, though he did not find it convenient to tell parliament of this when he asked for more money during its second session (February-April 1473). But he was still pressing hard for a firm alliance with Burgundy as well as a settlement with the Hansards. On 19 January 1473, William, Lord Hastings, left England at the head of an embassy armed with the considered views of Edward and his council on the way the war should be waged and on the subsequent partition of France. Their terms were specific and practical and clearly indicate Edward’s serious intent to make war. They may be summarized briefly as follows:
1.Edward was willing to land in Normandy or nearby in April, May or June 1473, to begin the war ‘on which his affection was now greatly set’.
2.He would cede to Charles all the French territory he had asked for, but he wanted to have at least the diocese of Rheims, which lay within Champagne, for his coronation as king of France.
3.Charles was to aid the English with 10,000 men for a year, the cost to be met from England’s share of the conquests.
4.General direction of the operations should be under English control, but the two armies were to attack the French from different points, not to act as a unified force.
The English ambassadors met Duke Charles at Ghent on 26 January 1473, but they soon discovered they could make little progress, for he was now preoccupied with exploiting a favourable opportunity to seize the Duchy of Guelders, and it was this realization which made Edward conclude the truce with France in March 1473.1