by Charles Ross
Meanwhile, Edward was driving an even harder bargain with Duke Maximilian and Duchess Mary of Burgundy. Two of his daughters, the eldest, Elizabeth, and the third girl, Cecily, had already been provided with suitable prospective husbands, the heirs of France and Scotland. The second daughter, Mary, occupied the rather unfortunate position of first reserve for her elder sister as bride to the dauphin Charles, and no special provision was made for her until she was affianced to King Frederick I of Denmark in 1481. Mary herself died prematurely on 23 May 1482. For the fourth daughter a much more brilliant match was proposed, with the infant Philip (born in 1478), only son and heir of Maximilian and Mary. Edward quite ruthlessly exploited the duke’s desperate need of English support to get Anne’s marriage on the cheap. Maximilian had wanted a dowry of 200,000 crowns with Anne; Edward, on the other hand, regarded paying no dowry as part of the price of signing an alliance with Burgundy. When Maximilian argued that it was quite unreasonable for the bride of one of the wealthiest heirs in Europe to have no dowry at all, he still had small success in persuading her father to release the purse-strings. The original marriage-treaty, signed on 5 August 1480, was modified by supplementary agreements on 14 and 21 August, which effectively released Edward from paying any dowry on condition of releasing to the duke the first year’s instalment of the pension of 50,000 crowns which he was demanding from Burgundy.2
For only one of his children did Edward seek a marriage within the ranks of the English nobility. Here again the avarice which contemporaries saw as a growing feature in Edward’s character in his later years played its part. In January 1476, John Mowbray, 4th duke of Norfolk, earl of Nottingham and Warenne, and earl marshal of England, died, leaving an infant daughter, Anne (born on 10 December 1472), as his sole heir. Though many of the lands of the dukedom were then in the hands of her aged great-grandmother, Katherine, widow of the second duke, eventually she would be among the wealthiest heiresses of England, and she was immediately marked out as a bride for Edward’s second son, Richard, born in August 1473, and created duke of York in May 1474. Even before the marriage took place, he was given the titles of earl of Nottingham on 12 June 1476, and duke of Norfolk and earl Warenne on 7 February 1477. The marriage of the two children took place in St Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster, on 15 January 1478, in the presence of the many lords assembling for the parliament which was soon to attaint the young duke’s uncle of Clarence.1
Unfortunately, the young bride did not live to taste the joys of marriage. She died at Greenwich on 19 November 1481, a few days short of her tenth birthday.2 Since there was no issue of the marriage, her estates should have descended to the heirs at law, William, Viscount Berkeley, and John, Lord Howard, co-heirs of the last duke’s greataunts. But Edward had no intention of letting slip this rich inheritance. Where the interests of his family were concerned, he had already shown himself capable of extinguishing the rights of widows, notably the countesses of Warwick and Oxford in 1475.3 He was now prepared to override the laws of inheritance. An act was put through the parliament of January 1483 which vested the Mowbray inheritance in Duke Richard for his life, with reversion first to his heirs, and then, if he had none, to the heirs of Edward himself. The claims of William, Lord Berkeley, presented no problem, for as long ago as 1476 this financially embarrassed peer had surrendered his rights to the king in return for being released from bonds totalling £37,000 which he owed to the king and to the Talbot family. Rewarded with the tide of Viscount Berkeley in April 1481, he confirmed this renunciation in the 1483 parliament. But no attention whatever seems to have been paid to the rights of Edward’s hard-working and valued servant, John, Lord Howard: the act of 1483 silently disinherited him.1
Not one of Edward’s many children was actually married when he died in April 1483. This was partly a consequence of their youth: even the eldest, Elizabeth of York, was then only seventeen. Partly it resulted from the setbacks which the king’s foreign policy experienced in his last years. The war with Scotland and the Treaty of Arras of 1482 between King Louis and Maximilian of Austria temporarily extinguished the brilliant matrimonial prospects of Elizabeth, Cecily and Anne.2 But these temporary reverses would no doubt have been overcome had their father lived longer, for arranged dynastic marriages were often repudiated when political or diplomatic advantage demanded it.3 The real reason why only Elizabeth of York, as queen of Henry VII, eventually married according to her station, was the failure of the House of York to survive its founder by more than two years. Once the Tudors had mounted the throne, the rest of Edward’s daughters, for all their surpassing beauty, had to be content with an earl, a viscount and a gentleman, a knight and a nunnery.4
(iii) England, France and Burgundy
The fifteen months separating the Treaty of Picquigny from the death of Duke Charles of Burgundy were a golden summer of harmony in the relations between England and France, with nothing at issue beyond a leisurely approach to the questions left unsettled at Picquigny. Edward’s irritation with Duke Charles soon evaporated, and relations with both Burgundy and Brittany were friendly enough. This diplomatic calm was shattered by Charles’s death at the siege of Nancy on 5 January 1477, leaving his daughter, Mary, as his heir. Louis XI at once set about exploiting the succession crisis in Burgundy, invading Picardy, Artois and the Duchy of Burgundy. He was clearly committed to a decisive attempt to extinguish the independence of the Burgundian state once and for all. The revival in this new form of Franco-Burgundian hostility was to dominate Western European politics for the rest of Edward’s reign, and presented him with a series of acutely difficult decisions.
Edward now had to balance the relative advantages of competing claims for his support. At the centre of his policy lay his wish to retain the French pension and the French marriage arranged in 1475. Against this was the danger of allowing Louis a free hand in his efforts to destroy the Burgundian state. With the English alliance sought by both sides, Edward was in a good bargaining position so long as some balance of power between France and an independent Burgundy could be maintained. But as French pressure on Burgundy increased, Edward found it more and more difficult to avoid a decision. Should he consent to a firm alliance with Burgundy to prevent her extinction, but at the cost of losing his pension and the dauphin’s marriage, and at the risk of renewed French intervention in affairs on this side of the Channel; or should he continue to rely upon Louis XI, whose good faith he was coming to doubt, and whose promises in England might soon be forgotten if he achieved his ends in Burgundy and no longer had need of English support? Between these unpalatable alternatives England wavered uneasily. Eventually Edward allowed his own avarice and Louis’s diplomatic skill to render him little more than a passive spectator of developments on the Continent and unable to exploit them to his own advantage.
The Burgundian succession crisis presented Edward with his first dilemma. The dowager duchess, Margaret of York, and her stepdaughter, Mary, appealed for help to Edward, and Mary would have welcomed a suitable English husband. There were good political and economic arguments in favour of intervening to protect Burgundy against French aggression. If France could annex Artois, Picardy and Flanders, the position of Calais would be endangered, and a French presence on the North Sea coast might become a permanent menace to England. The English mercantile interest was also sharply conscious of the threat to its important trading connections in the Netherlands, and there were many influential persons in England whose dislike of France disposed them to favour Burgundy, including William, Lord Hastings. Against this was the difficulty that England really had no suitable husband to offer Mary of Burgundy, other than the duke of Clarence, a choice which Edward himself would not permit. He would have approved of Anthony, Earl Rivers, but this was hardly practical, since, as Commynes observed, ‘Rivers was only a petty earl and she the greatest heiress of her time’.1
The whole problem was discussed by a great council at Westminster in February 1477, where it was decided that England should not interven
e directly, but that Lord Hastings should be sent to Calais with 500 men to reinforce the garrison. On the other hand, Edward clearly hoped that something might be got from Louis XI as the price of English non-intervention. The nature of his demands emerges from the instructions given on 16 February 1477 to his ambassadors, John Morton and Sir John Donne. They were to seek immediate payment of an instalment of 10,000 crowns of the ransom of Margaret of Anjou, already five months overdue; early deposit of the guarantees promised by Louis for the continued payment of the pension; further pledges that the dauphin would marry Elizabeth of York; assurances that the lands held by Duchess Margaret of Burgundy as part of her jointure would not be threatened by the French invasion; and that a major discrepancy in the arrangements made at Picquigny should be eliminated. The truce and the commercial treaty, which were to last for seven years, should now be extended to conform with the treaty of amity, which was to last for the lives of the two kings.2 Louis gave comforting assurances and concessions on most of these issues, and himself sent an embassy, which reached England in June 1477, to discuss certain outstanding commercial questions: this, however, proved little more than a time-wasting device. Opportunities to intervene directly in Burgundy were now slipping away. Though Edward sent an envoy to Flanders to offer the hand of Earl Rivers in marriage and a promise of military assistance from England, Mary had already decided, despite his lack of funds and resources, to accept Maximilian of Austria, son of the Hapsburg Emperor, Frederick III, as her husband; and on 18 August 1477 the couple were married at Ghent.3
The direct result of the Burgundian succession crisis was to place Edward in a position of diplomatic importance, for both sides now sought to involve him in the Franco-Burgundian rivalry. Confronted by French attacks, economic as well as military, and hampered by an unwarlike population and a severe shortage of funds to buy mercenary troops, Maximilian was in urgent need of support, and was soon prepared to bid high for effective assistance from England. Louis, on the other hand, tried to tempt Edward with the idea of a joint Anglo-French partition of the Burgundian dominions, proffering Edward Holland and Zeeland as his share. When Edward refused to be drawn, Louis told his envoys to propose that a de facto partition of the Burgundian dominions should be made, leaving the vexed question of tide to be decided later; that England should be compensated for any trading losses she might suffer in warfare against the Netherlands, and that the truce between England and France should be extended to last at least 100 years.1 Edward responded by sending John, Lord Howard, Sir Richard Tunstall and Thomas Langton to France to say that, if he were to aid Louis, he must have Brabant as well as Holland and Zeeland, and that the French king must bind himself to aid Edward by furnishing him with 2,000 lances until the conquest was complete. These demands were accepted by Louis, who now also agreed informally to extend the truce with England to last for 101 years, and to pay the existing pension throughout that period to Edward and his successors. At the same time a new covenant was signed on 7 April 1478 to settle differences still outstanding under the treaty of 1475.2
Edward’s bargaining position with Louis was now improved by the counter-offers made by Burgundy. In response to overtures from Flanders, an English embassy was sent to Burgundy to negotiate a new commercial treaty, signed at Lille on 12 July 1478, which cleared up outstanding difficulties in the commercial relations of the two countries.3 At the same time, the birth of an heir, Philip, to Maximilian and Mary opened up the prospect of an attractive marriage alliance for one of Edward’s daughters. The threat of an Anglo-Burgundian rapprochement enabled Edward to step up his demands on France. On 13 July 1478 he extracted from Louis’s resident ambassador in England, the bishop of Elne, an agreement in principle that the Anglo-French truce and treaty of amity should be further extended to last for 100 years from the date of death of whichever of the two kings should die first, and that the pension should be paid throughout that period, but the bishop, under instructions from Louis, evaded enshrining the agreement in formal diplomatic documents.1
In August Edward raised an entirely new issue. At thirteen, Elizabeth of York had now reached marriageable age, though the dauphin was still only eight years old, and Edward now demanded that their formal betrothal be carried through, and that Elizabeth should immediately enjoy the jointure of 60,000 crowns a year which had been agreed upon at Picquigny. But Louis, who was far less committed to the match than Edward and his queen, temporized again. Elizabeth, he argued, could have her jointure only when the marriage took place, but the dauphin was still too young.2 Edward’s response was to continue his dealings with Maximilian. At the end of 1478, following discussions with the archduke’s envoy, he pointedly told the bishop of Elne that Maximilian’s father, the emperor, wanted not only a marriage alliance with England but also an alliance against France, and that Maximilian was ready to pay Edward a pension of 60,000 crowns and to supply troops to assist in the conquest of France. This was not altogether bluff. On 18 December 1478 English envoys in Flanders renewed various articles of the treaty between England and Burgundy of 1474, and thereby virtually committed Edward to a secret treaty of friendship and alliance with Mary and Maximilian.3
In spite of growing English irritation with France, and mounting Francophobia among Englishmen in general, Louis continued to prevaricate. A French embassy which arrived in London in December 1478 told Edward that he could not expect immediate payment of Elizabeth’s jointure. The proposal, it was said, was contrary to reason, contrary to the custom of France, and essentially conditional on the consummation of the marriage. This unsatisfactory response produced great indignation in the entire English council, which advised the king to break off all relations with France. This he would not do, but he was angry enough to take up a much more determined line. Early in 1479 Bishop Stillington of Bath and Wells, Bishop Morton of Ely, and Earls Rivers and Essex, were directed to treat with the bishop of Elne to obtain a formal agreement about the payment of the pension and the extension of the truce, as agreed provisionally in the previous June. Morton roundly told the bishop that England would stand no more prevarication. Unless English demands were immediately accepted, England would break off the negotiations and make a formal alliance with Maximilian. The bishop had little choice but to accept, though protesting that he was exceeding his powers (which enabled Louis to disavow his actions later on), and in February 1479 preliminaries of agreement for the extension of the truce, and the treaty of amity and payment of the pension, were signed on the terms dictated by the English.1
Throughout the spring and summer of 1479 discussions continued between England and France on a variety of issues, with the English getting little beyond fair words and prevarications, particularly as regards the ratification of the preliminaries and Elizabeth’s jointure. A Burgundian victory at Guinegatte over the French (7 August 1479), and an agreement by Mary and Maximilian not to betroth their heir to anyone except Edward’s daughter, Anne (18 July), slightly weakened Louis’s position, and he now decided some concession was desirable, Late in the year his envoys offered 10,000 crowns (they had secret instructions to go as high as 25,000 if necessary) as a maintenance grant for the Princess Elizabeth, but the offer was angrily refused. This manoeuvre reflects Louis’s shrewd calculation that Edward could best be kept in line by playing upon the greed which increasingly coloured Edward’s foreign policy. He was well aware that the jointure question was little more than a means of raising the price to France of England’s avoiding an active commitment to Burgundy. But it was becoming more and more difficult for Louis to keep the English on the hook unless he made much more generous concessions than he had done so far. For his procrastination about the marriage of the dauphin and Elizabeth was beginning to raise doubts in England about his sincerity. A perceptive observer at the French court, the Milanese ambassador, Cagnola, correctly believed that Edward was not deceived by French delays and was aware that time was not on his side; and he accurately forecast that the marriage alliance depended intimately on Maximi
lian’s continued ability to make head against French aggression. In January 1480 he reported that English envoys had been instructed
to press in and out of season for the conclusion of the marriage … while the king here stands in fear of the king of England, on the supposition that if he will not pay him any heed while the Flemings still flourish, England will not be able to get his desire when this king has accomplished his purpose; and so diamond cuts diamond.
Edward’s continuing dilemma could not be more neatly analysed.1 Throughout 1480 the diplomatic tussle between the two courts continued, to Edward’s growing disenchantment. His envoys could get no satisfactory reply to their questions. French ambassadors were told to try to distract Edward by proposals about the time, place and manner of Elizabeth’s coming over to France; if she did not come, then Louis would pay 20,000 crowns for her maintenance. These met with a cold response from Edward, who roundly told the French he would accept nothing less than 60,000 crowns for Elizabeth’s jointure, and he repeated his inconvenient offer to negotiate between Louis and Maximilian. Meanwhile, the bishop of Elne, a cleric of nervous temperament, was telling Louis of his alarm at Edward’s obvious hostility and growing anti-French feeling in England. To counter a deteriorating situation, Louis tried to buy goodwill amongst Edward’s advisers by a series of lavish presents to Hastings, Langton and Howard, who was described by Hastings, in a letter of May 1480, as Louis’s ‘very good servant’; even the duke of Gloucester’s good offices were sought by the gift of a great bombard.2 But the failure of a further mission to France under Howard and Langton in May 1480 to obtain satisfaction about the ratification and the jointure could have done little but increase Edward’s mounting anger.