Edward IV

by Charles Ross

  Edward now faced a critical decision. Since 1475 he had failed signally to reach any of his diplomatic objectives. Any French concessions to his increased demands had been no more than partial or preliminary. His show of intransigence towards Louis had misfired, and his attempts to blackmail the French king had foundered (if Commynes can be believed) on Louis’s belief that Edward was too wedded to a life of ease and a regular pension to risk an outright rupture of the Picquigny agreement.3 On the other hand, the arguments for a breach with France were becoming stronger. If Maximilian and Mary were to be deprived of English assistance, then either the Burgundian state might be overwhelmed, or they might seek a separate accommodation with France: in either case Edward would lose any lever to make Louis carry out his contracts to England. Moreover, the attractions of a Burgundian alliance began to improve as Maximilian increased his offers for Edward’s committed support. In the summer of 1480 English foreign policy moved gradually towards firm agreements with her traditional allies against France, the dukes of Burgundy and Brittany.

  1 Above, p. 192.

  1 Duke Charles’s mother, Isabella of Portugal, was a granddaughter of John of Gaunt, father of Henry IV, and his claim had been set forth in a secret instrument drawn up at Arras on 3 November 1471 (Calmette and Perinelle, 149).

  2 This was amongst the charges made against Clarence in 1478 (RP, VI, 194, and below, p. 242).

  3 Calmette and Perinelle, 376–7 (Louis’s instructions to his envoy, Olivier le Roux, September 1477); Scofield, II, 188; Cal. Documents Scotland, IV, 474.

  1 CC, 561; Scofield, II, 190–1; Dep. Keeper, 3rd Rept, II, 214; CPR, 1476–85, 50 (for the commission of oyer and terminer); L. W. Vernon-Harcourt, ‘The Baga de Secretis’, EHR, xxiii (1908), 508–29; and for Stacey and Blake, Emden, Biog. Reg., Univ. of Oxford, I, 197; II, 776; III, 1749.

  2 CC, 561; RP, VI, 173; CPR, 1476–85, 172–3 (petition to parliament of 1478 by Ankarette’s grandson and heir, Roger Twynho, enrolled on the Patent Roll two days after Clarence’s death).

  3 The opening verse of the 23rd Psalm, which appears in the Authorized Version as ‘The Lord is my shepherd’, appears in the Latin Vulgate then in use as ‘ruler’ – Dominus regit me.

  1 RP, VI, 193–5.

  2 J. R. Lander, ‘The Treason and Death of the Duke of Clarence’, esp. 27–8.

  1 It is worth noticing that the official record of the process against Clarence (RP, VI, 193–5) carries the royal sign-manual, the interlocked RE, at top and bottom: this, however, was not part of the Parliament Roll proper, but comes from ‘an original in the Tower of London’, and was probably the council’s draft of an ‘official bill’ to be put through parliament. For the witnesses, CC, 562.

  2 For the legal aspects of the trial, see J. G. Bellamy, The Law of Treason in England in the Later Middle Ages, 170–1, and his ‘Justice under the Yorkist Kings’, 146–7. For the composition of this parliament, see below, pp. 343–4.

  3 Thus Mancini, 63, and the sources cited by his editor on p. 111. Scofield, II, 209, follows the Burgundian chronicler, Olivier de la Marche, for the story that Clarence met his end in a bath. The only contemporary English source to mention the affair, CC, 562, is curiously guarded, and speaks only of ‘the execution, whatever its manner may have been’. Otherwise, the story of the malmsey does not appear in English sources until early Tudor times, e.g. Polydore Vergil, English History, 167; More, Richard III, 7.

  1 Polydore Vergil, 167, for the ‘fact most horrible’; CC, 562, for condemnation and later repentance; W. Stubbs, Constitutional History of England (2nd edn, 1878), III, 220.

  2 Mancini, 63. For later charges, see More, Richard III, 8–9. Kendall, Richard III, 125–6, 454–5, even goes so far as to suggest that Gloucester ‘pleaded with King Edward for George’s life’.

  3 The charge against the Woodvilles is made by Mancini, 63, and, less specifically, by More, Richard III, 7. It is doubtful whether Clarence was circulating the story of the ‘precontract’ which made Edward’s marriage invalid, later used by Richard of Gloucester in his claim to the throne, in 1478: see M. Levine, ‘Richard III – Usurper or Lawful King?’, Speculum, xxxiv (1959), 391–401, rejecting the claim made by Kendall, op. cit., 217–18, on this point. For the unpopularity of the Woodvilles, see above, pp. 97–9, 102–3.

  4 Thus S. B. Chrimes, Lancastrians, Yorkists, and Henry VII, 122, where it is argued that Clarence’s death set a precedent for slaughter within the Yorkist family, with evil consequences in 1483. But, had Clarence been alive then, he would surely have been a competitor for the throne.

  1 CC, 562, echoed by Polydore Vergil, English History, 168 (‘many were persuaded … that he would from thenceforth prove an hard and severe prince … he perceived that every man feared him, so now he feared nobody’).

  2 See Genealogical Table, p. 6.

  1 Rymer, Foedera, XII, 36, 42; Scofield, II, 238–40, 267–70; M. G. Perinelle, ‘Dépêches de Nicholas de Roberti, ambassadeur d’Hercule I, duc de Ferrare, auprès du Roi Louis XI’, Mélanges d’Archaeologie et d’Histoire, xxiv (1904), 425–79; CSP, Milan, I, 235–7.

  1 Pocquet du Haut-Jussé, op. cit., 229–33; Scofield, II, 300–1; Rymer, Foedera, XI I, 142–5.

  2 Above, pp. 213, 233, for the marriage plans of Elizabeth and Cecily; Scofield, II, 337, for Mary’s betrothal to Frederick of Denmark; Rymer, Foedera, XII, 123–35, for the Burgundian marriage-treaty, and see further below, pp. 283–4.

  1 CP, IX, 609–10; Lords’ Report, Dignity of a Peer, V, 406; Scofield, II, 205–6. A contemporary description of the marriage and the ceremonies which followed is in W. H. Black, Illustrations of Ancient State and Chivalry (Roxburghe Club, 1840), 27–40.

  2 This is the date given on her memorial plaque, found on her coffin during excavations at the Minories in London, 1965, now in Westminster Abbey; cf. CP, IX, 609–10.

  3 For the countess of Warwick, above, pp. 190–1. The widowed countess of Oxford, Elizabeth Howard, was forced to surrender all her property to Duke Richard of Gloucester in 1475; CCR, 1468–76, 334–5; RP, VI, 281–2; CP, X, 238.

  1 Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, 118–19; VI, 205–7. For comment on this case, see T. B. Pugh in Fifteenth-Century England, 110–11, where it is assumed that Berkeley also was disinherited.

  2 Below, pp. 290–3

  3 E.g. the dauphin Charles of France rejected Elizabeth of York to be betrothed to Margaret of Austria, daughter of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, only to repudiate her to marry Anne of Brittany, formerly betrothed to Edward, prince of Wales.

  4 CC, 563, for their beauty at the Christmas festivities, 1482; for the marriages of Anne, Cecily and Catherine, see Genealogical Table, p. 6; Bridget, the youngest daughter, became a nun at Dartford (Scofield, II, 299).

  1 Commynes, II, 248. The arguments for and against intervention are discussed by Commynes, II, 245–8, who stressed both Edward’s love of a life of pleasure and the attachment of him and his queen to the French marriage; see also Calmette and Perinelle, 219–21. For Edward’s opposition to Clarence’s marriage, CC, 478.

  2 Scofield, II, 176–82; Calmette and Perinelle, 221–3.

  3 Scofield, II, 184–6.

  1 Calmette and Perinelle, 223–7, 376–82; cf. Scofield, II, 191–9, for a slightly different version of these negotiations.

  2 Scofield, II, 200–2, 225–9; Calmette and Perinelle, 229–31.

  3 Rymer, Foedera, XII, 67–86, for the text of the treaty; and see further below, pp. 368–9.

  1 Scofield, II, 236; Calmette and Perinelle, 232–3.

  2 Calmette and Perinelle, 234–5; Scofield, II, 236–7.

  3 Rymer, Foedera, XII, 95–7; Scofield, II, 240–1.

  1 Rymer, Foedera, XII, 101–8; Calmette and Perinelle, 236–8; Scofield, II, 245–8. The evidence for growing anti-French feeling comes mainly from the reports of the bishop of Elne, summarized by Scofield, II, 222–5, 238.

  1 CSP, Milan, I, 243–4; Scofield, II, 270–3; Calmette and Perinelle, 241; for the agreemen
t with Maximilian and Mary, Rymer, Foedera, XII, 110.

  2 Scofield, II, 274–8; Calmette and Perinelle, 242–5 and 389–90 (for Hastings’s letter).

  3 Commynes, II, 245–6; Calmette and Perinelle, 244, also suggest as a factor the influence on Edward of those of his councillors who were in French pay, notably John, Lord Howard.

  Chapter 11

  COURT LIFE AND PATRONAGE OF

  THE ARTS

  A fifteenth-century king was expected to maintain an estate appropriate to his royal dignity. Sir John Fortescue expressed the common sentiment of his time when he urged the monarch to accumulate treasure, so that he might spend freely on the proper objects of royal magnificence – new buildings, rich clothes, furs, fine linen, jewellery, ornaments for his palaces, plate and vestments for his chapel, expensive horses and ‘other such noble and great costs as suiteth his royal majesty’. If, he warned, ‘a king did not so, nor might do, he lived then not like his estate, but rather in misery, and in more subjection than a private person’.1

  This attitude of mind sprang less from a mere vulgar admiration for ostentatious display than from the sharp contemporary sense of order and degree. Society was competitive and fluid: therefore it needed the social cement of an acknowledged social hierarchy. The conspicuous splendour of his court was a direct yardstick to measure a king’s wealth and power. The maintenance of a proper royal estate became for this reason a political necessity rather than a matter of personal whim or indulgence. Such display was designed in part to impress foreign visitors and representatives, ‘by the which your Adversaries and Enemies shall fall into the dread wherein heretofore they have been’.2 But of greater concern was the need to impress the king’s own subjects with evidence of his majesty, and to outshine the opulence of great seignorial households. To ignore this rule was to risk losing respect. As the author of the Great Chronicle noted, parading the shabby person of Henry VI through the streets of London in 1471 with only an insignificant company merely damaged his cause, especially since he gave the impression he had not even a new gown to his name.3

  There was never any danger that Edward would make the same mistake. He was shrewd enough to appreciate the advantages, especially for a new and relatively unknown king, of calculated display in court ceremonies and public spectacles, just as he appreciated the value of the royal progress through the different regions of his realm. This was an area where policy was nicely married to personal inclination, for Edward was vain of his handsome person, fond of fine clothes, and loved feasts, entertainments and ceremonies.1 This awareness of the political value of display is evident from the very beginning of his reign. In his early months as king he was poor indeed; yet no expense was spared to make his coronation ceremonies, spread over the three days from 28 to 30 June 1461, an opportunity to project a splendid image of the new king. On the third day, when Edward, ‘wishing to pile glory upon glory’, again wore his crown in St Paul’s, the occasion attracted as great a multitude of people ‘as ever was seen afore in any days’. No less than £1,000 was allotted to George Darell, the keeper of the wardrobe, for ‘ready money necessary for our coronation’.2

  Even in Edward’s needy early years, the splendour of his court made a most favourable impression on foreign visitors. The Bohemian gentleman, Gabriel Tetzel, who came to England with his master, Leo of Rozmital, in February 1466, was drawn into a series of superlatives by the quality of their reception at the English court. The visitors were invited to attend the churching of Queen Elizabeth, following the birth of her first child by Edward, Elizabeth of York; and he relates how the queen

  went to church in stately order, accompanied by many priests bearing relics and by many scholars singing and carrying lights. There followed a great company of ladies and maidens from the country and from London … then came a great company of trumpeters, pipers, and players of stringed instruments. The king’s choir followed, forty-two of them, who sang excellently. Then came twenty-four heralds and pursuivants, followed by sixty earls and knights. At last came the Queen escorted by two dukes. Above her was a canopy. Behind her were her mother and maidens and ladies to the number of sixty … [afterwards] she returned to her palace in procession. Then all who had joined the procession remained to eat. They sat down, women and men, ecclesiastical and lay, each according to rank, and filled four great rooms.

  Everything was supplied, he continues, ‘in such costly measure that it is unbelievable that it could be provided’. Rich gifts were made to the trumpeters, pipers, jesters and heralds, the heralds alone receiving 400 nobles. ‘All those who had received gifts went about the tables crying out what the king had given them.’ The visitors were then taken to

  an unbelievably costly apartment where the queen was preparing to eat. My lord and his gentlemen were placed in an alcove so that my lord could observe the great splendour. … The meal lasted for three hours. The food which was served to the queen, the queen’s mother, the king’s sister and the others was most costly. Much might be written of it.

  In all, concluded Tetzel, Edward IV ‘had the most splendid court that could be found in all Christendom’.1

  This testimony, though perhaps exaggerated, is the more striking since the Bohemian party had just left the ducal court of Burgundy, then the great exemplar of courtly magnificence. The extraordinary development by the Valois dukes of the outward trappings of an elaborate code of chivalry, the inventive use of allegory, pageant and symbolism in entertainments and public spectacles, and the sheer lavishness of display had made their court famous throughout Europe.2 Nor was the English court ashamed to emulate the Burgundian model. It was only in part the wish to foster good relations with Burgundy which explains the lavish ceremonies mounted for the Bastard of Burgundy’s visit to England in 1467. There was also a desire to show the visitors a standard of magnificence in no way inferior to their master’s.3 The same concern is apparent in the preparations for the marriage of Margaret of York to Duke Charles in the following year. King Edward was already involved in very heavy expense under the terms of the marriage treaty, and had been reduced to borrowing several thousand pounds from Italian bankers, and to pawning some of the royal jewels to the London goldsmith, Hugh Brice; this apart, there were heavy military expenses to meet. Yet the king did not hesitate to authorize the issue on 8 June 1468 of sums totalling £2,450 6s 8d for his sister’s entourage and trousseau as she crossed to Bruges for the wedding, including £100 for her bedding, carpets and cushions, and £500 in ready cash. The bride was not to be a poor relation at her own wedding.1

  Burgundian influence on the English court was strengthened not only by this marriage alliance but also by Edward’s own experiences in exile as the guest of the Seigneur de Gruthuyse, who had amassed in his house at Bruges one of the finest libraries in Europe. It is no coincidence that Edward began the systematic purchasing of expensive Flemish illuminated manuscripts soon after his return to England in 1471.2 It was in response to an English request for information that Duke Charles’s master of ceremonies, Olivier de la Marche, compiled a lengthy and elaborate account of the organization of the ducal court and household in 1473–4; the desire to compete with Burgundy may have been one of the reasons for the re-ordering of the English royal household which was enshrined in the Black Book of the Household drawn up in 1471–2.3 It is not known in detail how far Burgundian fashions influenced English court festivals and ceremonies in Edward’s later years, for the latter are rather poorly documented, but the lavish tournament mounted to celebrate the marriage of Richard of York and Anne Mowbray in January 1478, with its pageant displays, disguisings, and chivalric inventions, seems to have been directly inspired by contemporary Burgundian tournaments.4 If English ceremonies lacked the ingenuity and fantasy of their counterparts at the ducal court, they were certainly both lavish and expensive.

  One of the few surviving contemporary descriptions of the English court in the years of Edward’s prime was compiled by a herald, Bluemantle Pursuivant, to record the fest
ivities provided for Gruthuyse’s visit to England in 1472 on the occasion of his being created earl of Winchester. It supplies a vivid picture of the royal court in holiday mood at Windsor. On the evening of his arrival there, Gruthuyse dined with the chamberlain, Lord Hastings, in the two chambers provided for him, ‘richly hanged with cloths of arras and beds of estate’. He was then taken into the presence of the king, who led him to the queen’s apartments, where she sat playing with her ladies at the ‘morteaulx’ (a kind of bowls), whilst other ladies danced or played ninepins with ivory pins. The king himself danced with his eight-year-old daughter, the princess Elizabeth. The next day Edward took his visitor to hear mass, ‘which was melodiously sung’, as befitted a country with a high international reputation for music, and where the court was the chief centre of patronage.1 After mass, Gruthuyse was presented with a gold cup garnished with jewels and containing a seven-inch piece of unicorn’s horn, with a great sapphire on the cover. After breakfast Edward took him hunting in Windsor Park, riding on the king’s own horse. This animal was later given to him as a present, together with a crossbow, with silken strings and a velvet cover embroidered with the royal arms and badges, and gilt-headed quarrels. Lunch was taken in a hunting lodge in the park, and the party then returned to its sport, six bucks being slain in the afternoon. As it grew dark, the king took his guest to see his garden and his Vineyard of pleasure’. Evensong was followed by a state banquet in the queen’s chambers, with dancing afterwards. About nine o’clock both king and queen escorted Gruthuyse to three specially prepared ‘chambers of pleasaunce’, hung and decorated with white silk and linen. The bed had fine sheets from Rennes in Brittany, a counterpane of cloth-of-gold furred with ermine, the headframe and canopy in shining cloth-of-gold, and curtains in fine white silk. Baths stood ready, and when the king and queen had withdrawn, Lord Hastings remained behind to share Gruthuyse’s bath and joined him in a final collation of green ginger, syrups, sweetmeats and spiced wine.2