by Charles Ross
He did much to consolidate the monarchy, to rehabilitate its finances, and to restore its prestige. He stopped the process of decay in monarchy and government … he went far to remedy the ‘lack of politique reule and governance’ which had brought Henry VI to disaster; he was not to be led astray by Henry V’s martial dreams; he grasped firmly the financial nettles which Henry IV had either evaded or sown. He achieved much that Richard II had tried but failed to do. … Edward’s achievements as man and king were not small. … The foundations of what has commonly been called the ‘New Monarchy’ were laid not by Henry VII, but by Edward IV.
To a large extent this re-appraisal was overdue and well deserved Yet it should not be carried too far. His failings as a politician can easily be overlooked among the general chorus of approval for his achievement in domestic government. He was at once more fallible, more impulsive, more inconsistent, and less far-sighted than the judgement quoted above might suggest.2 It may also be argued that he was more self-interested and lacking in principle. For what were the principle. on which Edward based his government?
The answer to this question must lie in a consideration of the policies he adopted or further developed after 1475 when at last he had full freedom to rule as he wished. His first reign saw him largely on the defensive, concerned with the problem of survival in face of powerful opposition at home and the threat of foreign intervention, and with the urgent need to restore the royal authority with only a comparatively slender power-base on which to rely. After 1471 his rule was based much more firmly on the prestige of his own great victories, the overthrow of internal challenge to his authority, and the absence of any plausible claimant to the throne – for Henry Tudor became a serious contender only after the Buckingham-Woodville rebellion of 1483 further weakened an already divided Yorkist group at the centre of government. But not until 1475, when he had stabilized his foreign relations and shelved the schemes of overseas military adventure which had preoccupied him for three years, had he the means and the opportunity to develop his domestic policies without distraction or distraint. What use did he make of this power?
For both the Croyland Chronicler and Polydore Vergil the fall of Clarence brought more than a risk of despotism.1 Yet to the former – an understanding, sympathetic, but by no means uncritical student of the king he served – the most conspicuous feature of the last eight years of the reign was Edward’s sustained effort to accumulate personal wealth by all possible means in order to eliminate his dependence on his subjects.2 Such emphasis on the pursuit of royal wealth serves to highlight an aspect of his rule which has not, perhaps, been sufficiently stressed – that is, the extent to which it was government by the king in the interests of the king.3 Edward never escaped from the rather old-fashioned proprietary notion of kingship implied in his own claim to the throne. This monarch who spoke of taking possession and seisin of the realm of England was the son of a great private landowner who now saw himself restored to an even greater inheritance from which his immediate forbears had been unjustly excluded. Moreover, he had grown to manhood during a struggle for power when the greed and land-hunger of the English aristocracy had been permitted their most naked expression. In an age of partisan government the competition for the profits and perquisites of political power had largely obscured the older ‘medieval ideal of government by the king for the good of the whole community.’4 It is scarcely surprising that a king of such preconceptions and background should have approached his position in terms of marked self-interest.
Much has been written for and against the concept of the ‘New Monarchy’, of which J. R. Green originally saw Edward as the creator, and the arguments need not be rehearsed here.5 In so far as there was novelty in Edward’s rule, it can be claimed that it lay less in the extensive personal exercise of power by the king, in the use of ‘new men’ in government, in a preference for working through ‘household’ agencies and servants, in the avoidance of royal dependence on parliament, than in the degree to which Edward governed for himself, his family and his friends. The public finances of the country were transformed into the king’s personal finances, the requirements of which were given ‘absolute, immediate, and automatic priority’.1 Nor is it a coincidence that so many of the administrative reforms and innovations which have been closely associated with the notion of a ‘New Monarchy’ – chamber finance, household reform, the ‘land revenue experiment’, the beginnings of the exploitation of royal feudal and prerogative rights, effective exploitation of the customs system – were the direct and immediate product of the campaign to accumulate royal treasure, much of which was spent upon objects equally personal to the king.2 Further, Edward was perhaps more concerned with the aggrandizement of his own kin by blood and marriage than any of his predecessors since Edward I. In the later years of his reign this led him to interfere extensively with the rights of the nobility, whose class-interests he had otherwise respected – in this, as in much else, he was not a very consistent king.3 We have seen, too, how much his foreign policy was influenced by essentially dynastic ambitions – the wish to marry his children into the royal and princely houses of Europe. There was, however, nothing unusual or novel in this, except in the degree to which he allowed avarice to temper his dynastic schemes and in his stubborn pursuit of the proposed French marriage for his eldest daughter at the expense of diplomatic advantage.
It would not do to overplay this aspect of Edward’s rule. A highly personal exercise of power was an obvious necessity after what K. B. McFarlane once called ‘forty years of virtual minority’ when ‘the medieval kingship was in abeyance’,4 and the desired reassertion of royal authority could most readily be achieved by the use of royal servants and agencies directly and immediately responsive to the king himself. In part also his policies were imposed upon him by the prejudices and attitudes of his subjects, for Englishmen had become weary of underwriting the extravagance and insolvency of their rulers and were less than enthusiastic in their support of sustained wars of foreign conquest for dynastic ends. Unlike his brutal and ruthless grandson, Henry VIII, Edward did not choose to attempt the immense task of imposing on his subjects their forced cooperation in foreign policies involving heavy expenditure and taxation. Still his avoidance of major schemes of foreign conquest may have been partly a matter of temperament – for he was a rare example among medieval kings of a successful commander in the field who yet had little natural taste for warfare. In any event his reluctance to commit himself to foreign war in his later years (with the usual inconsistency of Scotland) was an essential condition of his search for royal solvency at home.
It remains open to question whether Edward had much disinterested or altruistic concern with the good of the whole community. His determination to be obeyed, his suppression of major disorders, his expansion of the prestige of monarchy – all these were conditions of survival. His concern for justice did not extend beyond his own interest and was not allowed to clash with those of his family and friends. Even his promotion of English commercial interests owed much to his dependence on London merchant pressure-groups and his own financial interest in improving trade and customs revenue. The very absence of constitutional conflict during the reign is largely due to the separation of the king’s interests from those of the realm, especially in matters of finance.
Yet it is easy to see why his own contemporaries, and the early Tudor commentators (though for somewhat partisan motives) both admired and respected him. Whatever his motives, he had achieved much. He had put an end to civil conflict; he had brought a measure of political stability and order, if not impartial justice, into a divided realm; and he had given his people some years of respite from overseas war, trade conflict, and the burdens of heavy taxation. He had restored the prestige of the monarchy, and given England the reassurance of a strong hand at the helm of government. Until 1478, when a growing avarice and arbitrariness made Englishmen perhaps a little fearful for the future, his firm rule had been tempered by a natural generosity a
nd clemency. His handsome kingly image, personal charm and affability, which continued to the end of the reign, and his avoidance of policies which exploited his subjects, combined to make him a king who was generally popular as well as respected. There can be little doubt that if he had lived a few years longer, he would have transmitted to his son a secure throne as well as a prosperous realm.
Still the inevitable questions remain. Why was a king so successful in his own lifetime unable to secure the peaceful succession of his heir? How far can he be held responsible for the upheavals which within two years overthrew his son and the House of York itself? There is an obvious and striking contrast between the sequence of events in 1422, when Henry V died at the age of thirty-four, leaving an heir of only nine months, twenty-two years after the House of Lancaster had usurped the throne, and those of 1483, when Edward’s death at the age of forty left an heir of twelve, after a similar period of rule by a new dynasty. In 1422 a united aristocracy had no difficulty in defeating the aspirations of the infant king’s younger uncle, Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, to an effective regency, and the question of replacing Henry VI was never raised, in spite of the prospect of the longest royal minority England had ever faced.1 Why did things go so differently in 1483?
The real answer lies in the continued dependence of the Yorkist regime at the highest political level on a small group of over-mighty or mighty subjects. Politics had become the preserve of about one-third of the nobility, nearly all of whom were either Edward’s kin by blood or marriage or had been raised by him to power and influence, and this group was seriously divided internally. In particular, there was an inherent conflict in the positions of the Woodvilles and of Duke Richard of Gloucester. In April 1483 Earl Rivers was at Ludlow with the prince of Wales, and his powers as governor of the prince’s household had been revised and perhaps enlarged as recently as 27 February; he was also in a position to raise an army in Wales, and on 8 March had sent to London for a copy of his letters patent authorizing him to raise troops if need be.2 The rest of the Woodvilles were in London, where Thomas, marquis of Dorset, as deputy-constable of the Tower, controlled Edward IV’s treasure, and his uncle, Sir Edward Wood-ville, was soon to be placed in charge of part of the king’s navy.3 The family was in a position to secure its control of the young king and his brother by force if necessary, and evidently planned to do so. Yet Gloucester, through his own independent affinity and influence in the north, also had the resources to engineer a take-over of power by force, and could expect the support of several powerful people who had suffered materially from Edward IV’s rule or stood to gain substantially if Richard came into control. Among them were the two leading representatives of the older nobility, Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham, and Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland.
All this might have been less disastrous if the Woodvilles had not been so unpopular with the ruling group as a whole, and on bad terms with Gloucester and Hastings in particular. Duke Richard had every reason to fear the jealousy and malice of the queen’s family if once they were established in power.1 Hastings was equally afraid of ‘their most signal vengeance’, and played a decisive part in persuading the council in London, meeting soon after Edward IV’s death, to prohibit Earl Rivers’s plan to bring Edward V to London at the head of an army.2 Even the dead king’s councillors, though ardently desirous that ‘the prince should succeed his father in all his glory’, viewed the prospect of a Woodville-dominated minority with unmitigated dismay.3 Outside this court group the majority of the barons had neither the power nor the will to interfere, for the Wars of the Roses had wrought a change in their political attitudes, and few were anxious to commit themselves to this dangerous game,4 certainly not in the Woodville interest. Even when the actions of Gloucester and Buckingham had begun to raise doubts about their intentions, the queen’s family still could not rally much support. Mancini tells us that ‘when they had exhorted certain nobles … and others to take up arms, they perceived that men’s minds were not only irresolute, but altogether hostile to themselves’.5 Lord Hastings’s change of mind – a rapprochement with the Woodvilles to protect Edward V’s position – came too late to deflect Gloucester from his almost involuntary march to the throne.
This situation was the direct outcome of Edward IV’s policies in his later years. He can scarcely have been unaware of the unpopularity of the queen’s kin, and of their jealousy of Gloucester and Hastings. Yet he had done nothing to reduce their power, and by placing the prince and his brother in their exclusive charge, had given them an entrenched position from which they could be removed only by force. At the same time he had built up Gloucester as the mightiest magnate in the realm, and provided him with potential allies by alienating others. As the only surviving adult male of the House of York, Gloucester was the natural protector or regent of England in the event of a minority. This was the insoluble dilemma which confronted Edward during his final illness. We cannot be certain what his intentions were, since his last will and the codicils which he added to it have not survived: it is probable, but not entirely certain, that these designated his brother as protector of the realm.1 Not to have appointed him was a recipe for disaster, since neither he nor many others would accept the queen’s family. Equally, the Woodvilles could be expected to oppose any attempt to deprive them of control of the princes, which would expose them to the revenge of their many ill-wishers. The king’s deathbed attempt to reconcile Dorset and Hastings did little to solve this central problem.
Edward IV’s failure to make early and deliberate provision for the succession in the event of his own premature death is certainly consistent with his attitude to politics in general. His pragmatism persisted to the last, and he assumed too readily the influence of his own personal charm and his ability to cover all contingencies.2 He remains the only king in English history since 1066 in active possession of his throne who failed to secure the safe succession of his son. His lack of political foresight is largely to blame for the unhappy aftermath of his early death
1 CC, 563.
2 CC, 563–4; Polydore Vergil, English History, 171–2; Hall, Chronicle, 338; Mancini, 59.
1 Commynes, II, 304, 344; and see the edition by B. de Mandrot, II, 63, for his use of the word ‘quaterre’; Kendall, Louis XI, 368–9.
2 Mancini, 67; CC, 564.
3 Commynes, II, 231; Grants of Edward V, ed. J. G. Nichols (Camden Society, 1854), liii (for Russell’s statement). Mancini, 59, also suggested that melancholy over the Treaty of Arras hastened the king’s death.
4 That his death was brought on by apoplexy following a surfeit is accepted by Calmette in his edition of Commynes, II, 231. For other modern views, see Ramsay, Lancaster and York, II, 452–3 (following Hall); Scofield, II, 365–6 (‘anger and chagrin’ about the Treaty of Arras combined with ‘libertinism and high living’); Kendall, Richard III, 153 (following Mancini); Winston Churchill, History of the English-Speaking Peoples, I, 377 (who suggests appendicitis). The views of some foreign contemporaries are summarized by C. A. J. Armstrong in Mancini, 107.
1 More’s circumstantial story of the deathbed reconciliation is supported in its essentials by Mancini, 69.
2 CC, 564.
3 What follows is based on the contemporary accounts by heralds in Letters and Papers … Richard III and Henry VII, ed. J. Gairdner, I, xvii,3–10. For the expenses of the funeral, see Registrum Thome Bourgchier, II, 54.
1 Excerpta Histories, 366–79, esp. 366–7.
2 Beltz, Memorials of the Order of the Garter, lxxiv; Hope, Architectural History of Windsor Castle, 418–19, 428–9; Colvin, King’s Works, II, 887–8; GC, 229.
1 J. R. Lander, ‘Edward IV: The Modern Legend: and a Revision’, History, xli (1956), 38–42.
2 Constitutional History of England (1878 edn), III, 219–20.
3 These are the opinions of, respectively, J. R. Lander, op. cit., 52; A. R. Myers, England in the Late Middle Ages, 113; G. A. Holmes, The Later Middle Ages, 220; B. Wilkinson, Constitutional
History of England in the Fifteenth Century, 144. A more sceptical note is sounded by K. B. McFarlane, ‘The Wars of the Roses’, 101, 114.
1 S. B. Chrimes, Lancastrians, Torkists and Henry VII, 124–5; and see also his review-article, ‘The Fifteenth Century’, History, xlviii (1963), 27.
2 These specific points are discussed in my article, ‘The Reign of Edward IV, in Fifteenth Century England, 49–66.
1 CC, 562, quoted above, p. 245; Polydore Vergil, English History, 168.
2 CC, 559, and above, pp. 380 ff.
3 Except by Dr G. L. Harriss in his two valuable contributions to the debate on ‘A Revolution in Tudor History?’ in Past and Present: see no. 25 (1963), 8–39, and no. 31 (1965), 86–94. These stressed the ‘personal’ as distinct from the ‘household’ character of late medieval government, and the self-interest of Yorkist and early Tudor rule.
4 Harriss, Past and Present, no. 31 (1965), 91–2.
5 See for example K. B. McFarlane, Nobility of Later Medieval England, 279–87, and Past and Present mentioned above. The original theory is in J. R. Green, History of the English People (1878), II, Bk V, and esp. 27–8; cf. his Short History of the English People (1876), 282–7, which shifts the emphasis from 1461 to 1471.