Edward IV

by Charles Ross

  Appendix II

  EDWARD IV’s GOVERNOR

  The statement that Richard Croft, of Croft, in Herefordshire, was ‘governor’ to Edward and his next brother, Edmund, was first made by Sir Harris Nicolas in an article on the Croft family in Retrospective Review, 2nd ser., i (1827), 472–3, and was repeated by Scofield, I, 11, Ramsay, Lancaster and York, II, 268, and elsewhere. Nicolas admitted it to be an inference from the complaint made by the young lords, in a letter written to their father, probably in 1454 (Ellis, Original Letters, 1st ser., I, 9–10), against the ‘odious rule and demeaning’ of Richard Croft and his brother. Nicolas suggested that this was corroborated by a further statement in B.M., Cotton Charters XIV, 3, that Croft’s wife, Eleanor, was ‘Lady governesse unto the yonge princes at Ludlow’. This comes from a genealogical roll of the descent of Sir Thomas Cornewall, Knt. Baron of Burford, made c. 1600, and its reliability on a point like this seems doubtful, representing no more than hearsay or family tradition at best: it is perhaps worth noting that it wrongly’ describes Croft as controller of the household to Edward IV (instead of Henry VII). Croft was an extremely obscure person to act as governor to the sons of a royal duke; he does not appear on the Herefordshire commissions of the peace until 1474, which suggests that his landed estate was small, and in 1459, when pardoned, he is described merely as ‘gentilman’ (CPR, 1452–61, 539). Moreover, there is a difficulty about his age. He died in 1509 and unless he was unusually long-lived, was probably little older than Edward himself (who would have been sixty-seven at that date). It seems much more likely that Croft and his brother (and the boys’ complaint was directed against both of them) were the sons of minor gentry of the neighbourhood who were being brought up in a great household, a practice very common at the time, and were just sufficiently older than Edward and Edmund to bully the pair. For Croft’s later successful career under the Yorkists and Henry VII, see Wedgwood, Hist. Pari., Biog., 237. I am indebted to Mr G. R. C. Davis for help on this point.

  Appendix III

  EDWARD IV’S GRANTS TO WARWICK

  On 7 May 1461, whilst the king was staying at Warwick’s castle of Middle-ham in North Yorkshire, the earl was appointed Constable of Dover and Warden of the Cinque Ports (with a fee of £300 a year to support the office), steward of the manor or lordship of Feckenham, Worcestershire, and master forester of the king’s forest there, master of the king’s mews and falcons, and great chamberlain of England for life, and was given the custody of all the lands of his uncle, George Nevill, Lord Latimer (CPR, 1461–7, 45, 71). At the same time he was confirmed in his tenure of the wardship of most of the Stafford lordships in South Wales and the Marches, and of the Talbot lordships of Goodrich and Archenfield, Co. Hereford, which had already been granted to him on 4 November 1460 (CFR, 1452–61, 287; 146171, 37, 40): but (as noticed above, p. 71) these were soon granted instead to William, Lord Herbert. Two days previously (5 May 1461) he had been given for twenty years all the offices, farms and custodies held by his father, Richard Nevill, earl of Salisbury (CPR, 1461–7, 95). On 31 July 1461 he was appointed warden of the East and West Marches towards Scotland during pleasure, and on 5 April 1462 this was converted into an appointment for twenty years (Rot. Scotiae, II, 402; Storey, ‘Wardens of the Marches’, 614–615). Though replaced on the East March by his brother, John Nevill, on 1 June 1463, he held the West March until 1470, in spite of the Act of Resumption of 1467. Meanwhile, he had been confirmed in his post as Captain of Calais (CPR, 1461–7, passim), was acting as Admiral of England by 14 December 1461 (ibid., 89), and was appointed to act as Steward of England ‘at the trial of Henry VI’ and his associates, 3 December 1461 (ibid., 63, 89). Having been appointed jointly with his father as Chief Steward of the Duchy of Lancaster, both north and south parts, on 1 December 1460, he was reappointed alone on 15 December 1461, and at the same time was made chief steward of the Duchy honours in Lancashire and Cheshire, and steward and constable of the honours of Pontefract, Knares-borough, Pickering and Tutbury, and constable and master forester of Needwood and Duffield. He had held the Tutbury offices from 4 November 1460, and was also from 18 November 1460 steward of the honour of Leicester and constable and master forester of Castle Donington, but was replaced in these latter offices by Hastings on 4 July 1461 (Somerville, History of the Duchy of Lancaster, I, 421–2, 429, 493, 514, 524, 534, 540, 564).

  On 27 May 1462 he received a revised form of a grant of 27 April, of Topcliffe and a series of Percy lordships and manors in the North and West Ridings of Yorkshire (CPR, 1461–7, 186, 189: of these Topcliffe alone was worth 3690 a year in 1478–9; J. M. W. Bean, The Estates of the Percy Family, 1416–1537, 47). Together with these Percy lands he was given also in fee simple, the castles, manors and lordships of Pendragon, Brough, Brougham and Appleby, and all other Clifford lands in Westmorland, the manor and lordship of Newport Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, forfeited from the earl of Wiltshire, that of Strensham, Worcestershire, and three royal manors in Cos. Northampton and Warwick. In June 1463 he was allowed to convey lands worth £1,000 a year to a group of friends and councillors in order to execute his will, even though the reversions of the properties might belong to the king if he died without issue (CPR, 1461–7, 270), and on 12 December 1463 was given custody of the temporalities of the see of Carlisle during vacancy, which he held until June 1464 (ibid., 292). On 11 April 1465 his fee simple grant of the lands given him in May 1462 was converted to one of tail male, and in addition he was given the important Percy lordship and castle of Cockermouth in Cumberland, and a third part of the lordship of Egremont, together with the office of hereditary sheriff of Westmorland, paying nothing to the king save a rent of £100 from Cockermouth so long as Richard Salkeld lived (ibid., 434–5). On 21 November 1466 he was made justice and given custody of the king’s forests north of Trent, with a fee of 100 marks a year, and on 13 November 1467 was granted the wardship of all the lands of John, late Lord Lovell – one of the wealthiest of peers below the rank of earl – and the marriage of the heir, Francis (ibid., 540; 1467–77, 51). He was appointed constable and steward of the Duchy lordship of Kenil-worth on 14 February 1468 (Somerville, op. cit., 560). With his brother, John Nevill, and Sir John Howard, he was given custody for forty years of all the king’s mines, of gold, silver and lead north of Trent, taking most of the profits thereof (ibid., 132). Finally, on 22 February 1469, the earl was granted in tail three further Percy manors in Cumberland (Papcaster, Aspatrick and Withall) and the manors of Solihull and Sheldon, Warwickshire, the reversion of three more manors in Cumberland, and a release from the charge of £100 a year he had been paying from the lordship of Cockermouth (ibid., 137).

  Under the Act of Resumption of 1467, all royal grants to Warwick were exempted, save those made to him for a term of years (RP, V, 579). From the list above, it will be clear that only the offices, etc., held by his father, and granted for forty years to the son, came under this heading, and the earl’s losses could not have been substantial. They were probably more than made good by the grants of 1468–9. John Warkworth (Chronicle, 25–6) had every justification for his statement about Archbishop George Nevill, who was also very wealthy, that ‘he and his brodiers had the rule of this land, and had gathered great riches many years …’.

  Appendix IV

  THE NORTHERN

  REBELLIONS OF 1469:

  A NOTE ON SOURCES

  AND CHRONOLOGY

  The fullest and most elaborate account of these risings is by Polydore Vergil (English History, 121–3): it is also the most obviously contrived, and of very late date to be reliable for events of this character. It mentions only one rebellion, that in Holderness under a leader named ‘Robert Hulderne’ (Robin of Holderness?) and ‘Robin of Redesdale’ is nowhere mentioned. According to Polydore, after the leader had been executed by John Nevill, his followers moved on south, and this was the force which was to defeat Herbert (Stafford is not mentioned) at Edgecote Field. No indication of date is given. John Warkworth’s Chronicle, the
only contemporary source with North-Country associations, describes the rising of Robin of Redesdale, but on the other hand makes no reference to the rebellion of Robin of Holderness. This latter, in fact, is mentioned otherwise only in the contemporary ‘Brief Latin Chronicle’ (Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, 183), where its purpose is described as being different from that alleged by Polydore (see above, chapter 7, p. 127,). The ‘Brief Latin Chronicle’, however, raises difficulties of dating by placing the Holderness rebellion after Redesdale’s, which is said to have broken out ‘about Trinity Sunday’ (i.e., 28 May). Of the London chronicles, ‘Vitellius A. XVI’ (Chronicles of London, 180) barely mentions a rebellion, and the account in GC, 208–9, is uncertain and confused : it dates Redesdale’s rising merely as ‘in the summer time’ and believes that the rebels (not Warwick) had the Woodvilles put to death. The chronicle known as ‘Hearne’s Fragment’ (Chronicles of the White Rose, 24–5) adds some details, but is at variance with other accounts on many points, and is itself confused.

  These difficulties are reflected in the confusion of modern writers. Oman, Warwick the Kingmaker, 183–4, believed that there was only one rising, led until his death at the hands of John Nevill by Robert Huldyard, and then by a new leader, Sir John Conyers; both these captains called themselves Robin of Redesdale. Ramsay, Lancaster and York, II, 338–9, speaks of two risings (Robin of Holderness followed by Robin of Redesdale), but explicitly has to reject the date (28 May) given by the ‘Brief Latin Chronicle’ as being much too early. To overcome these difficulties, Scofield (I, 488-go) proposed three risings: (a) an abortive rising under Redesdale; (b) Robin of Holderness; and (c) the revived rebellion of Redesdale. This version has been followed above, but it must be emphasized how very doubtful is the evidence, especially for the first rising of Redesdale.

  Appendix V

  WARWICK, CLARENCE,

  AND THE LINCOLNSHIRE

  REBELLION OF 1470

  The notion that Warwick and Clarence were not implicated in the Lincolnshire rebellion (see above, chapter 7, p. 138), and that the king merely made use of it to brand them as traitors, was strongly argued by Sir Charles Oman in his Warwick the Kingmaker, 196–8. He claimed that the official narratives, more especially the ‘Confession of Sir Robert Welles’ (made in an attempt to save his life and therefore untrustworthy), were highly suspect. Why, he asked, should they have gone to a county where they had no influence, and used men like Welles with strong Lancastrian backgrounds? Why did they not call out their retainers in the midlands and South Wales, or raise Kent and Yorkshire? Why, having managed a successful rising in the previous year, did they display such insane bad management as the unsuccessful Lincolnshire rising displayed? For Oman, it was in keeping with Edward’s deceitful character that, finding himself at the head of a successful and loyal army, he took the opportunity to fall on Warwick and Clarence, and revenge himself for the deaths of Pembroke and Rivers in 1469.

  These arguments deserve respect, but must on balance be rejected. It seems, on the whole, unlikely that Warwick and Clarence initially stirred up the Lincolnshire rising, but they were clearly prepared to profit from it. Once the rebellion was under way, a connection between the duke and earl and the rebels is strongly suggested by the rebels’ movements, aiming at a junction with them at Leicester. Both Clarence and Warwick were now somewhat discredited, and (as argued above) could now scarcely pose as champions of popular discontent with much conviction, and the rebellion they stirred up in Richmondshire in 1470 found little support. We also have the explicit statement of John Warkworth (Chronicle, 8), admittedly in a confused and contradictory account, that they (Warwick and Clarence) ‘caused all this, like as they did Robin of Redesdale to rise afore that at Banbury Field’. If they were innocent, why did they ignore the king’s repeated messages to join him in suppressing the rebellion? Finally, they can hardly have been innocent of a share in the risings in Richmondshire and the West Country (above, chapter 7, pp. 141–3 and notes). Nor does Oman’s very hostile character-assessment of Edward seem to fit the facts. The king had gone to considerable lengths to avoid trouble and to show that he was prepared to overlook past offences. It seems most unlikely that a king who was prepared to trust them with commissions to array troops would not have accepted their declarations of innocence a few days later. It was their own behaviour which convinced him that they were not guiltless. Even then he waited until 23 March before making any official statement that they were rebels and traitors (in his letters to Ireland and Calais, above, p. 144). Clearly, the official versions of the rebellion must be regarded as possessing a substantial accuracy.

  To those writers noted above (chapter 7, p. 138, n. 2) who regard the rebellion as being inspired initially by Lancastrian sentiments must be added Calmette and Perinelle, Louis XI et I’Angleterre, 109 (‘les partisans de la Rose rouge conduits par Richard Welles’). But the only direct contemporary evidence that it was Lancastrian in character is Warkworth’s statement (Chronicle, 8) that the rebels under Welles ‘cried “King Harry” and refused King Edward’, which he then proceeds to reject by the specific statement quoted above that Warwick and Clarence were behind the rising. The most recent discussion (by R. L. Storey, ‘Lincolnshire and the Wars of the Roses’, Nottingham Medieval Studies, xiv (1970), 64–83) suggests that the trouble arose originally from the resentment felt by older-established families in the shire for the rise of the ‘Yorkist parvenu’, Sir Thomas Burgh. He was Master of the Horse to the king, and had been richly rewarded for his services with land and office in Lincolnshire, as steward of the Duchy of Lancaster honour of Bolingbroke, constable of Lincoln Castle, and beneficiary of the forfeited lands of William Tailboys of Kyme. He had also sat as M.P. for Lincolnshire in the parliament of 1467–8. Morgan, ‘The King’s Affinity in the Polity of Yorkist England’, also notes (p. 20) how Burgh was allowed to build up an ascendancy in Lincolnshire.

  SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY

  The bibliography which follows is intended to provide details of printed works and unpublished theses cited in the footnotes to the book, and is in no sense designed to provide an exhaustive book-list. Very comprehensive bibliographies up to 1936 will be found appended to the chapters (XI and XII) by K. B. McFarlane and C. H. Williams in Cambridge Medieval History, Volume VIII, and much recent work is cited by A. R. Myers, English Historical Documents, IV, 1327–1485 (1969). To facilitate ease of reference from books and articles cited by short titles in the footnotes, primary sources and secondary authorities have been combined in a single alphabetical list.

  Abbreviata Cronica, ed. J. J. Smith (Cambridge Antiquarian Soc. Publications, 1840).

  Acts of Court of the Mercers’ Company, ed. L. Lyell and F. D. Watney (1936).

  Acts of Parliament of Scotland, ed. T. Thomson and G. Innes, 12 vols (1844–75).

  ANGLO, S., ‘Anglo-Burgundian Feats of Arms at Smithfield, June 1467’, Guildhall Miscellany, ii, no. 7 (1965).

  ———, ‘The British History in Early Tudor Propaganda’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, xliv (1961–2).

  ———, The Great Tournament Roll of Westminster (1968).

  ———, Spectacle, Pageantry and Early Tudor Policy (Oxford, 1969).

  ‘Annales rerum anglicarum’, in Vol. II, pt ii, of Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France, ed. J. Stevenson, 2 vols (Rolls Series, 1864).

  ANSTEY, H., Epistolae Academicae Oxon. (Oxford Historical Society Publications, xxxv, xxxvi) (Oxford, 1898).

  Antient Songs, ed. J. Ritson (1790).

  ARMSTRONG, C. A. J., ‘The Burgundian Netherlands, 1477–1521’, in The New Cambridge Modern History, I, ed. G. R. Potter (1957).

  ———, ‘Had the Burgundian Government a Policy for the Nobility?’, in Britain and the Netherlands in Europe and Asia, II, ed. J. S. Bromley and E. H. Kossmann (1964).

  ———, ‘The Inauguration Ceremonies of the Yorkist Kings, and their Title to the Throne’, TRHS, 4th series, xxx (1948).

  �
��——, ‘The Piety of Cecily, Duchess of York: A Study in Later Medieval Culture’, in For Hilaire Belloc, ed. D. Woodruff (1942).

  ———, ‘Politics and the Battle of St Albans, 1455’, BIHR, xxxiii (1960).

  ———, ‘Some Examples of the Distribution and Speed of News in England at the Time of the Wars of the Roses’, in Studies in Medieval History Presented to F. M. Powicke, ed. R. W. Hunt, W. A. Pantin and R. W. Southern (Oxford, 1948).