Edward IV

by Charles Ross

  A great sign it is that God loveth that knight

  For all those that would have destroyed him utterly

  All they are mischieved and put to flight.1

  It reappears in a royal proclamation of 27 April 1471 (between Barnet and Tewkesbury), where Edward claims to be lawful king of England ‘both by judgement given in parliaments and by authority of the same, as also by Victory given unto us by our Lord Almighty God in divers battles’, especially lately in the field beside Barnet, whereby ‘the Truth, Right, and Will of God appeareth evidently … for our party’. Margaret of Anjou is disparagingly referred to as ‘a Frenchwoman born’, and daughter of England’s mortal adversary.2

  The ‘Political Retrospect’ of 1462 also develops the theme of the illegitimacy of Lancastrian rule, and, in doing so, interestingly anticipates the main features of what became (with elaborations) the Tudor view of fifteenth-century history. It contrasts the good king, Richard II, with the perjured Henry IV, struck by God with leprosy for his sins; Henry V, though he upheld the honour of England, was nevertheless a usurper; Henry VI’s folly had brought all to langour. Margaret of Anjou is again attacked as an evil-disposed woman, ‘And to destroy the Right line was her intent’. England had become a garden full of weeds: Edward of Rouen was ‘our comforter’ who would ‘keep Justice and make weeds clear’.3

  The genealogical rolls present a rather different propaganda dimension. For the benefit of his Welsh supporters, great play was made with Edward’s British descent (through the Mortimers from a daughter of Llewellyn the Great, or to Cadwallader) in contrast with the English descent of Henry V I; and it has been claimed that Edward made more consistent use of this ancient ancestry than did his successors the Tudors. The Welsh bardic poets present him as a royal Welshman, come to rid the land of oppression.4 Other rolls take the royal ancestry back through the Trojans to Adam, or back to the kings of Judah, and in one mythical pedigree illuminated scenes of his exploits are juxtaposed with appropriate corresponding scenes from the Bible.1 All this was distinctly outmoded by comparison with the court of Burgundy, which, for all its inflation of the chivalrous concept, was more receptive to Renaissance ideas. Charles the Bold sought to emulate the heroes of classical antiquity – Hercules, Alexander, Cyrus and Hannibal; Philip the Good chose Jason as the patron of his new chivalrous order; and Olivier de la Marche derived the descent of the dukes from a marriage between Hercules and Alice, queen of Burgundy.2 The Yorkist dynastic attitude was essentially traditionalist, even old-fashioned.

  If the advent of a new dynasty presaged no new theory of monarchy, this should not be allowed to obscure the strong element of practical innovation in Edward’s government. His reign saw a series of responses to the urgent need of reasserting the royal authority. To accomplish this end, he thought more in terms of new men rather than new institutions, or even the reform of old ones. He was no doubt well aware of the inefficiency and clumsiness of the exchequer, but he made little attempt to reform it. Instead he by-passed it by the use of a more flexible, but by no means new, system of household finance, where much depended on the personal activity of Edward himself and on the work of a small group of royal servants whose importance stemmed not from the offices they held but from the confidence placed in them by the king. It was a system so highly personal that it broke down when an inexperienced king (like Henry VII in his early years) came to take charge of it. Even innovations like the council in Wales and the Marches were essentially ad hoc developments suggested by the existence of a prince of Wales surrounded by experienced councillors whom the king knew and trusted, and only to a limited degree did it ever become institutionalized. In the north of England Edward preferred to rule even more informally through the medium of his brother, Duke Richard, and a ducal council which never acquired any special or official powers. Similarly his use of special commissions of over and terminer as a means of enforcing law and order at the local level is characteristic: they were immediate and personal; and his reign saw no significant increase in the power of regularly-instituted and permanent agencies such as the justices of the peace.3 The legislation of the reign did little to alter the laws or the institutions of the realm. It could be said of his rule (as of Henry VIF’s) that it represented ‘essentially a rejuvenated personal monarchy, able to instil vigour into the old administrative agencies’1 – or to supersede them by informal devices.

  Effective government in fifteenth-century England still depended largely on the personal activity of the reigning king. The development over several centuries of an established bureaucratic machinery had in no way removed the need for vigorous direction and constant personal supervision by the monarch. Nor was this need much reduced by the development of certain legal and practical limits on the exercise of the royal power. He might not make laws without the assent of his subjects; he could not tax them without their consent; he could not dispense with statute law on his own authority. Yet the powers inherent in the royal prerogative remained extensive, and they were inseparable from the king’s own person.2 Some important areas of government had always been regarded as highly personal, notably the conduct of foreign affairs and decisions as to peace and war. The exercise of the royal patronage directly concerned the king, as did the use of the king’s power to pardon or punish and give grace and favour. Yet the king was also expected to make innumerable decisions on all matters of policy and administration, as well as on a host of minor matters, the trivia of day-to-day routine government. As Dr A. L. Brown has shown recently, the most striking impression left by the surviving records is of ‘the dominant and burdensome role that the king was expected to play in government’.3 The need for ca more obsessive and personal rule than was otherwise normal’ was especially acute in 1461, following on the years of disintegrating royal authority during Henry VI’s last decade.4 Neglect or mismanagement of his royal duty to govern had been one of Henry’s major failings as king, and the result had been laxity, weakness and corruption at the very centre of power.

  In contrast, it was a major asset of Edward IV that he never needed to be taught this lesson. From the start of the reign a new spirit pervaded the administration, as the king bent his energies to make his will felt and to demonstrate to his people his close concern for the welfare of his realm. His first parliament was greeted by the first recorded speech from the throne, by a remarkable declaration by the chancellor of the will of the sovereign, and by the king’s promise to tour the country and do justice in person. We have evidence too from this parliament of the attention paid by king and council to the business of the assembly.1 Two areas of government which especially interested the king were the maintenance of law and order and the commercial affairs of England, and ample evidence has been cited below to show how direct and continuous was Edward’s supervision of these matters.2 Occasionally the records reveal in some detail the nature and extent of royal activity. For example, a summons to appear before king and council usually involved facing the king in person. In 1471, for instance, the mayor and corporation of Nottingham sought action against rioters who, they alleged, had been supported and maintained by Henry, Lord Grey. On their appearance in the Star Chamber, ‘in plain council, the King’s Highness being present’, the king’s decision about the rioters was first declared by the chancellor of England, and ‘over this, our said sovereign lord by his own mouth asked and questioned’ Lord Grey about his connection with the accused, and then ‘gave the same Lord Grey in strait commandment and injunction’ that he should not support or favour any persons within the town of Nottingham.3 In 1479 the mayor and corporation of Bristol found themselves in a quandary. They had suffered from the activities of one Thomas Norton, gentleman, the leader of a riotous gang, who was himself a man of evil life – a ‘common haunter of taverns’, who lay in bed to nine or ten in the morning, and during the afternoons, when sermons and evensongs were in progress, was seen ‘playing at the Tennis and other such frivolous disports’. This Norton, out of malice, accused the popular m
ayor of Bristol of high treason, and the corporation appealed to the king. Eventually the parties appeared ‘before the king in his honourable council’ at the palace of Sheen, and there Edward examined Norton and required him to substantiate his charge. This he could not do, ‘but demeaned himself as a person run into frenzy as the King had since said to the said John Twynho Recorder [of Bristol] and to divers other persons’. Like a ‘rightwise natural Sovereign Lord and a verray Justiciar’ Edward then dismissed the case against the mayor.4 Such examples could be multiplied.

  The records of the London Company of Mercers also reveal how often they felt the force of the king’s will. In 1479, when they were late in paying their subsidy, Edward demanded of them a recompense of £2,000, and said he would be answered and paid. When they appeared before the lords of the council and offered instead 500 marks, they were told that the council had no authority or power to diminish any penny of the king’s demand. Only after much ‘labouring’ by the queen on their behalf were they summoned ‘before the king’s good grace at his wardrobe’, and Edward consented to accept a payment of 2,000 marks. In 1480, when they complained about the activities of the Hansards, Edward asked them to produce a memorandum on the subject, which he would show to his council to oversee and understand. Soon after, hearing of the king’s displeasure, they decided to prohibit the practice of going on pilgrimage to the tomb of King Henry VI. In January 1483 the king again expressed displeasure about recent attacks on Dutchmen in London, ‘which it liked the king’s highness to show unto the mayor’. These examples may serve to show that the mercers were dealing not with an impersonal government but with a king whose variable temper and sharp oversight was a matter of immediate concern to the entire company.1

  The king’s interest did not cease with the affairs of wealthy London companies or the corporations of the larger boroughs. His burden of work was considerably increased by the contemporary idea that no matter was too small for his attention, and that he must be accessible to the complaints or requests of even the humblest of his subjects.2 Like all medieval kings, he was beset by a flood of petitions from his people for grace and pardon, promotion or reward. A few examples from among many documents bearing the royal sign-manual – and therefore reflecting his personal oversight – show how insistently his attention was demanded on small matters: they relate to the spring of 1462, during his tour north to Lincoln and back to London. At Stamford in March he was beset by petitions from Cambridge students. Typical of them was one Nicolas Silvester, ‘scholar of divinity, which hath no livelihood nor friend to support him towards his finding and must of necessity without your good grace depart fro his said learning’: the king granted his request to be made a scholar of the royal foundation of King’s Hall, Cambridge. At Huntingdon he is found instructing one of the squires of the body, Thomas Grey, to attend diligently to the lands of the rebel, Sir Thomas Tuddenham, which had been placed in his keeping ‘under a certain form declared by us unto you’ – very likely an oral instruction. At Leicester he accepted John Delves, esquire, as his true liege man and subject, and ordered the sheriffs to refrain from taking any of his goods or livelihood. Also at Leicester he granted a request from John Mason, for the good service he had done to Duke Richard of York, to be master-mason of Chester Castle; he confirmed to Sir John Astley an annuity he had held from John Mowbray, late duke of Norfolk; and he released John Fletcher of Nottingham from the death sentence imposed on him. Back at Westminster he told the chancellor that he had commanded Lord Montagu and Sir James Strangways to find out whether the former rebel, Humphrey Nevill, was now ‘of good and faithful disposition towards us’, and, if they found in his favour, he was to be pardoned his life, land and goods. None of these was a matter of much importance except to the individuals concerned, but they were very much part and parcel of the daily routine of a busy king.1

  The Paston family correspondence likewise reveals how burdensome could be the subjects’ demands for the king’s personal attention to their private affairs. In the first eight years of the reign the Pastons successfully persuaded the king to intervene in their concerns on no fewer than three occasions; on two others they tried without success to get his support; and on another Edward intervened on his own initiative. The letters also illustrate the fact that Edward’s handling of such matters was based upon a wide knowledge of the personalities and issues involved. In dealing with the quarrel between the Pastons and the duke of Norfolk over the Fastolf lands in 1469, Edward was evidently well aware of the influence which Norfolk’s councillor, Sir William Brandon, had over his master, in urging him to violent measures. ‘Brandon,’ said the king, ‘though thou can beguile the duke of Norfolk, and bring him about the thumb as thou list, I let thee witt thou shalt not do me so; for I understand thy false dealing well enough’, and he went on to say that if Norfolk did anything contrary to the laws then he (Edward) ‘would know well enough that it was by nobody’s means but his’ and Brandon ‘would repent it, every vein in his heart’. Such examples lend support to the claim made by the author of the Croyland Chronicle that in spite of his love of boon companion ship, debauchery, extravagance and sensual enjoyments, Edward nevertheless

  had a memory so retentive, in all respects that the names and estates used to recur to him of nearly all the persons dispersed throughout the shires of this kingdom, just as though he were in the habit of seeing them daily; and this even, if, in the districts in which they lived, they held the rank only of a private gentleman.1

  There is ample evidence amongst the records of his reign that Edward took his kingly duties very seriously. Beyond all doubt the business of state was his main preoccupation. A very large number of warrants, letters and petitions bear the royal sign-manual, in the form of the monogram ‘R.E.’. Occasionally the king added further instructions written in his own hand to an official mandate. In 1479, for example, he wrote to ‘our beloved squire’, John Harcourt, rebuking him for delays in supplying money from the lands in his charge, and adding in autograph: ‘John we pray you fail not this our writing to be accomplished’ – a small matter, perhaps, but one which illustrates the personal nature of the king’s control and of his attention to detail.2 Of the thousands of letters patent on the bulky Patent Roll for the first year of the reign (the second largest of the fifteenth century) about one-third were authorized ‘By King’ or ‘The King by word of mouth’, that is, on Edward’s personal instructions; even more, about one-half of the whole, were issued on the authority of privy seal warrants, which normally came also from the king in person.3 The four acts of resumption passed during the reign included no fewer than 817 special clauses of exemption. Each of these was the result of a special petition, and each was signed by Edward himself.4 There is evidence of his scrutinizing and signing the accounts of royal officials, of his acknowledging the receipt of money delivered ‘unto our own person in the Chamber’, and of payments made ‘by our commandment to him given by our mouth’.5 The disappearance of all the financial records of the king’s chamber makes it difficult to know how extensive was the king’s supervision of his finances, but a modern authority had no hesitation in describing him as ‘a king with a forceful personality, great energy and thoroughly conversant with his affairs, especially in matters of finance’.1

  One of the clearest indications of Edward’s close personal control of the work of government comes from the increased use of letters and warrants issued under the signet – the seal kept by his own secretary – and therefore emanating directly from the king. The number of warrants to the chancellor under the signet increases greatly after 1461, and there was a marked tendency to draw up the warrant in the exact form in which letters under the great seal were to be issued, thus leaving the chancellor no discretion. Letters under the signet immediately become of greater importance than they had been under Henry VI, and were used for a wide variety of purposes – for instructions to local authorities or individuals to put down disturbances or to raise troops, for example, or to summon men to
appear before the king and council. The signet letter became one of the most frequently used means of communication between the king and the authorities of the towns in particular (though they are more likely to have survived in borough archives than amongst the more vulnerable records of private families). This increased use of the signet is the main reason why the office of king’s secretary became noticeably more important. For the first time, it has been claimed, it became an essential part of the administration, and the way lay open for the great development of the secretaryship under the Tudor kings. For the secretaries themselves, the office now came to provide (as it had not done before) a direct stepping-stone to a bishopric.2

  It is no longer possible to give credence to the reputation created for Edward by Philippe de Commynes that he was a lazy king, preoccupied by wine, women, food and hunting, and spurred to energy only in times of crisis.3 The author of the Croyland Chronicle, who must have known Edward well, shared the interest which many men felt in the paradox of the king’s character – that a man so given to debauchery could still retain so great a grasp of business – but the two facets of his character were not mutually exclusive.4 If he made mistakes, they sprang from the errors of judgement to which he was prone, not from inattention to the kingly business of governing.