The War of the Roses

by Timothy Venning

  Returning south, Edward was caught unawares at Doncaster as news arrived that Montague, raising an army for him at Pontefract to his rear, had declared for Warwick–a repeat of his being caught out by Somerset in 1464 and Warwick in 1469. Edward and a few close associates, including Lord Hastings (a local magnate so able to guide him) and Lord Rivers, headed swiftly to the nearest port at King’s Lynn and found a ship; within days they were in Holland, part of the Burgundian domains of the King’s brother-in-law Duke Charles. This left the south of England to the invaders and enabled Warwick’s brother Archbishop George Neville of York to head for London unopposed, with Warwick following; on 5 October the Archbishop secured the abandoned capital and the person of Henry VI, who was still in the Tower and was now moved into the abandoned royal apartments. Their most recent occupant, heavily-pregnant Queen Elizabeth Woodville, took refuge in the sanctuary at Westminster Abbey. Edward’s decision not to fight was probably wise, given the speed with which Montague could intercept any attempt by him to raise troops and the possibility of further defections, and it is possible that the Marquis deliberately let him escape to save the embarrassment of what to do if he was captured. (If Edward could be executed as a traitor to Henry VI, what of the rest of the Yorkist leadership who Warwick now needed to woo as a counter-weight to the Beauforts and Henry’s Queen?) Notably, the official records of Coventry reckoned that up to 30,000 men flocked to Warwick and Clarence as they arrived in the Midlands to confront Edward, suggesting lack of enthusiasm for the King as much as eagerness to back the winners.32

  Once Edward had fled Warwick’s faction was confident enough to summon all but seven peers to the next Parliament despite the potential problems this would cause in requiring many loyalists of Edward IV to perjure themselves by abandoning the man they had sworn allegiance to and recognize the man they had deposed in 1461.Four of the seven were in exile with Edward already, the exceptions being the Earl of Wiltshire and Lords Dudley and Dinham.33 Warwick certainly did not rely on fear or the use of a narrow faction of his own supporters to impose recognition of Henry VI, though the majority of peers had stood aside from his challenge to Edward and now, as he reckoned correctly, preferred the safe course of recognizing a fait accompli to arguing about legality. Arguably, the swift course of events in September to October 1470 had taken them by surprise; but they did not rally to Edward’s side when he returned in March 1471 either. As far as we can tell from the absence of records for this Parliament (destroyed by Edward IV), nobody dared to suggest on Clarence’s behalf that attainting Edward IV–thus debarring him from his York estates as well as the ‘illegally seized’ Crown–would make Clarence his legal heir to all the York inheritance. (The matter of Edward’s supposed illegitimacy could also count.) The number of Parliamentary attainders was minimal (headed by the ex-King and Richard of Gloucester);34 despite the need for acquiring lands and titles to buy support, Warwick dared not stir up extra opposition. Typically, he secured not only the militarily necessary leadership of the new government (as ‘Lieutenant of the Realm’), and his old Captaincy of Calais but extra offices seized from the ex-King’s close supporters, e.g. the Admiralship and Chamberlainship, and the control of the Duchy of Buckingham’s Welsh estates, which Edward had taken from him.35 Only one Yorkist loyalist, the much-reviled ex-Treasurer and alleged sadist Lord Tiptoft who was accused of assorted unjust executions as Constable of England, was executed and others who were arrested were soon released.36 The ambiguity and embarrassment of the political leadership recognizing their past actions of 1461–70 as illegal were avoided as far as possible, with no investigation of Archbishop Bourchier for crowning a ‘usurper’ and no re-coronation of Henry VI as had been necessary for the ‘deposed’ and re-acclaimed Stephen in 1141 (a Saxon-style ‘crown-wearing’ ceremony in St Paul’s Cathedral on 13 October sufficed).37

  ‘Realpolitik’ evidently impelled most of the political nation to recognize reality and abandon Edward’s cause for Henry’s in October 1470, though there was no enthusiasm for the new order. The new King was not even placed in a royal palace, but lived under supervision at the Bishop of London’s residence pending his Queen’s return. Fortunately, the uncomfortable political result of Warwick’s alliance with ex-Queen Margaret and Louis XI–the return as his allies of his arch-enemies in the Lancastrian faction–was not immediately tested. Margaret and her son, the Duke of Exeter, and the Duke of Somerset (Edmund, brother of the Duke executed in 1464 and son of the man killed by Warwick’s father and uncle in 1455) were all still abroad; the latter two did not return until February 1471 and Margaret was still in France as Edward IV invaded. The inevitable quarrel over patronage and renewal of old mistrust was thus put off, though there was already a major problem over the status and estates of the Duke of Clarence, Warwick’s son-in-law. Edward IV’s male heir until the birth of the ex-King’s son in sanctuary at Westminster on 2 November 1470, he had been lured by his father-in-law to support his brother’s arrest and probable overthrow in 1469 and had joined Warwick in rebellion and flight in 1470. His allegiance to the Lancastrian cause brought in more ex-Yorkists than the ‘hard core’ Neville partisans in autumn 1470. He owned massive estates across the country, especially in the West Country, whose tenants would follow his standard–though many of these lands had been confiscated from prominent Lancastrians by Edward IV and in March 1471 Clarence had to hand some of them over to endow Queen Margaret and her son. This transfer of lands was accepted in the documentation as a breach of the promises Warwick and the Queen had made that Clarence was to keep all his lands until properly recompensed–and it is probable that his resentment at this was one reason why he listened to messages sent from Edward IV promising a pardon if he defected.38 There was also the unresolved question of Clarence’s acquisition of the lands of the Earldom of Richmond, which had been taken from the Tudors by Edward IV; the late Earl Edmund’s posthumous son Henry (the future Henry VII) now appeared at Henry VI’s court as the protégé of his uncle Jasper, the new regime’s ‘strong man’ in South Wales. Would he be endowed at Clarence’s expense next? Clarence’s accepting Henry VI as legitimate king–and by implication his son Prince Edward as heir–was not the end of his ambitions for the throne, and it seems that he was promised the succession next in line after the Prince. He may well have initially hoped to be named as Henry’s direct heir as he prepared in invade in 1470, and been reluctant to accept that the terms of Warwick’s alliance with Queen Margaret ruled that possibility out.39 Naming him as next heir would also dash the hopes of the Beauforts, who were technically illegitimate but could be legitimized by Act of Parliament. The lack of any public declaration of the new line of succession in the early months of 1471 may show that Warwick had to balance the competing claims of Clarence (who brought with him ex-Yorkists) and the ‘hard-line’ Lancastrian Beaufort partisans to be Henry VI and Prince Edward ‘s next heirs. Legally, Clarence had the better claim. If the 1461 claim of Edward IV as rightful king as heir of Lionel of Clarence was disallowed, that still left the York line as rightful heirs after the Lancastrians, as descendants of the younger brother of John ‘of Gaunt’, Edmund of York–and if Edward IV was debarred and his son illegitimate, Clarence was next male heir to this line. The priority of other matters may be a reason why there is no hint of any attempt to investigate the legality of Edward IV’s marriage–or his mother’s alleged affair with his ‘real father’ Blaybourne–during the five months of his exile. Declaring either would have been to Clarence’s legal benefit and added to Warwick’s ability to justify his revolt, but nothing is recorded as happening.

  Warwick was able to gamble successfully on the grudging neutrality of almost all the senior figures in English politics during winter 1470–1. The ambiguity over who exactly was now legitimate king–with two rival crowned kings to choose from–and the sheer attractiveness of not running risks worked to his advantage. There was no great exodus of peers or Household loyalists to join the ex-King in exile, as loyal Lancastrians from
the ex-King’s Household had gone into exile in 1461–and the relatively bloodless nature of the invasion meant that the new regime did not have to consider naming many who had fought against it recently as traitors. Nor did Edward’s host in exile, his brother-in-law Duke Charles of Burgundy, hasten to raise an army on his behalf. He treated Edward coolly, did not let him come to his court to be feted as rightful king, and did not loan him troops or ships until Margaret and Warwick’s ally Louis XI of France attacked him in December 1470. Only when Louis attacked Picardy did he condescend to meet Edward and given him a few ships, after a two-month delay.40 Warwick had had to agree at the Angers ‘summit’ in 1470 to commit English troops to Louis’ planned war with Charles, thus placing himself at imminent risk of Burgundian attack if Edward or his heirs escaped to Burgundy, but this did not work out to his immediate disadvantage. Arguably, the notoriously calculating ‘spider-king’ Louis miscalculated on this occasion. If Louis had not bound Warwick to assist him, Duke Charles–who at first recognized Henry VI that autumn–would not have reacted and the chances of Edward IV receiving adequate aid to invade England would have been minimal. He could have invaded without official support and then secured adequate backing within England, as Henry of Bolingbroke was able to do from France (an official ally of his ‘target’, as Duke Charles was of Henry VI until December 1470). But Charles’ support secured Edward a fleet of thirty-six ships and around 1200 men, many of them local Flemings, with whom he sailed from Flushing on 17 February 1471–giving him a better chance than he would have had with no official backing.41

  The uneasy alliance of Warwick’s and Clarence’s ex-Yorkists and the ‘diehard’ Lancastrians was always problematic, and Warwick’s fear of betrayal is shown by the limited number of magnates who he gave commissions to raise troops as he faced invasion in early 1471.42 In Yorkshire, where Edward was to land, the Earl could not even entrust a commission to the young Earl of Northumberland, allegedly a reliable Lancastrian and the son and grandson of two Earls killed by the Yorkists (who had then included Warwick). Nor was it clear where Edward would land, and he made an initial descent on Cromer in Norfolk to be warned by his ‘contacts’ that the local pro-Yorkist Duke of Norfolk (the Pastons’ enemy) had been arrested and there was no opportunity to rally support there with the Earl of Oxford advancing. Instead, he landed at Ravenspur in Yorkshire, where Henry of Bolingbroke had landed in 1399, and like him cleverly dissuaded immediate attack from local magnates by claiming that he recognized the current King and was only coming to regain his confiscated dukedom.43 This gave waverers who had sworn allegiance to Henry VI and/or were Percy foes of the Nevilles an excuse not to have to attack him, as he had legal justice in claiming that he had been illegally despoiled of his inherited estates (as Henry had been in 1399). He was duly admitted to the city of York as a publicly professed subject of Henry VI, and both the armed magnates who had troops in the locality–the Earl of Northumberland and Warwick’s brother Montague– avoided attacking him. Either could have crushed his small army, but instead Edward was left alone to march on south and slowly bring in adherents as he closed in on Warwick at Coventry. The only detailed source for the campaign, the so-called ‘Arrivall’ of King Edward (first compiled within weeks of the events), was undoubtedly crafted as propaganda to show the ‘miraculous’ nature of Edward’s success and so present his cause as divinely blessed, but there is no reason to doubt its accuracy concerning the small numbers of Edward’s army and the luck that he had in evading disaster in Yorkshire. It also states that memories of the slaughter at Towton Moor in 1461 were so strong locally that sympathies were generally Lancastrian and pro-Percy, meaning that Montague (a Yorkist until 1470, and a Neville) could not have guaranteed that his troops would follow if he defected to Edward; the crucial reason for Edward’s success was thus the Earl of Northumberland standing aside. Edward IV’s restoration of the earldom to its rightful owner in 1470 thus now paid off, and he was able to march on south unmolested.44

  Montague and Northumberland enabled Edward and his small army to move on southwards and gain more recruits than they had done in York, building up their force until they could challenge Warwick. No major pro-government peers came in to support Edward, although his East Midlands ally Lord Hastings’ supporters brought recruits; the Duke of Somerset had gone to Dorset to meet Queen Margaret and the pro-Lancastrian Dukes of Exeter and Oxford fled south to join Warwick. The latter, evidently fearing desertions, refused to fight and stayed immobile in Coventry, probably to await Clarence’s arrival with his tenants to make his army larger. But when Clarence arrived from the south-west on 3 April he joined Edward and Richard of Gloucester near Burford. This crucial defection boosted Edward’s army enough for him to risk leaving Warwick undefeated behind him and head for London, where he arrived without resistance on 11 April. Archbishop Bourchier of Canterbury (who had crowned Edward) and most of the other civilian government figures stayed to welcome Edward; the only pro-Henry VI figure of importance left in the capital, Warwick’s brother Archbishop George Neville of York, tried parading Henry VI through the streets to win support but was treated with indifference. Apparently, according to Warkworth’s chronicle, the time-serving Neville then entered into secret communication with Edward and agreed to keep Henry secure and out of sanctuary until the Yorkist army arrived to recapture him.45

  Had Neville had the loyalty to take Henry out of danger to join Warwick in the Midlands or to wait for Queen Margaret in Dorset, the King would have had a reasonable hope of escaping abroad as his cause collapsed. He would have been a poor figurehead for a declining and militarily lost cause with Prince Edward dead, but would have been able to live out his final years in peace (perhaps in France). But Neville, more of a politician than a cleric, took care of his own interests instead, and duly survived the ruin of his brothers’ cause to keep his archbishopric for the rest of his life. Deprived of his chancellorship again so probably not trusted, he was arrested on suspicion of renewed contacts with his exiled brother-in-law Oxford in April 1472, deprived of his revenues, and locked up in Hammes Castle near Calais (safely out of England) until Oxford was in custody and it was safe to release him in 1474.46 He died in obscurity in 1476.

  When the other Neville brothers, Warwick and Montague, finally joined armies and confronted Edward at the battle of Barnet (Easter Sunday, 14 April), they were without a significant part of the Lancastrian forces as Somerset (and Warwick’s veteran captain Sir John Wenlock) had gone south-west to meet Queen Margaret at Cerne Abbas. Ironically, she landed on the same day as the battle. Had she and her French mercenaries had time to reach London and join Warwick things would have seemed much more hopeless for Edward, who had around 9,000 men but probably the smaller army. Indeed, her failure to return to England sooner, as expected (Warwick had gone to Dover to meet her in February), was a disaster for her cause. It may have doomed her husband, who was left in the treacherous Archbishop Neville’s hands in London, and it left the Lancastrian armies short of leaders and troops; Somerset, for example, was not able to fight at Barnet. It also kept her warlike and possibly inspiring teenage son, a useful rallying-point for his family’s cause, away from the main Lancastrian-Neville grouping at the Court in London in the crucial early months of 1471. (On the bonus side, her absence helped to avert a clash between her, Warwick, and Clarence over patronage.) Her party, in fact, boarded their ships at Honfleur on 24 March, to be held up by northerly winds until 13 April; the factor of an adverse wind thus arguably seriously weakened the Lancastrian cause in 1471 as it undermined King Harold’s chances of defeating the Norman invaders in 1066.

  At the battle of Barnet, the two ex-Yorkist Neville peers were finally defeated by their royal cousin Edward IV. Montague was killed along with Warwick after a hard-fought hand-to-hand combat in early morning fog–and as his body was discovered to be wearing Edward’s heraldic device under his armour he may have been considering changing sides again. Thanks to a muddle in the thick fog, Warwick’s possessi
on of a large, coherent army did not secure him victory despite his men pressing the Yorkists back alarmingly at one point. His right wing under the Earl of Oxford drove their opponents off the battlefield, leading to panicking fugitives fleeing back to London crying that all was lost, but as Oxford returned to the battlefield Warwick’s men mistook their ‘Silver Star’ banner for Edward’s ‘Sun in Splendour’ and fired at it. Oxford’s men attacked them or fled, securing Edward the vital chance for an assault and victory.47 The Duke of Exeter was wounded and captured, and some surviving Lancastrians were able to escape to Dorset to inform Queen Margaret of the disaster.

  Edward was then able to catch Queen Margaret’s army at Tewkesbury as it headed for the Severn valley to link up with Jasper Tudor’s army in Wales, having left Windsor on 24 April after the St George’s Day ceremonies to head for Malmesbury. Initially, a clash east of Bristol at Chipping Sodbury on 1 May seemed probable and Edward drew his army up there. But the Queen chose to avoid a clash, withdrew her men from Bristol without Edward’s scouts finding out quickly, and raced north to secure Jasper’s assistance; she was at Berkeley that evening while Edward was still waiting for battle.48 Edward headed the Queen’s army off the Severn crossings in time in a desperate race across the western Cotswolds, luckily managing to send a force ahead to secure Gloucester where she arrived early on the 3rd. The Queen had been able to raise local troops from the Beaufort and Courtenay estates in the south-west, and had received support in Bristol; more time would have made her even more formidable. Instead, the arrival of the victorious royal army meant she had to retreat from a direct confrontation and try to link up with the Welsh levies. Luckily Edward was only a few hours behind the Queen’s army, giving them no time either to rest or to secure a Severn bridge once they failed to secure Gloucester. Instead, the Lancastrians arrived at the next town and bridge upstream (Tewkesbury) later on 3 May with the enemy so close behind that they had to stand and fight. The resultant battle in the water-meadows saw both sides exhausted from the pursuit but Edward’s with the advantage of a recent victory to boost their confidence, and the Lancastrians made more mistakes as Somerset (possibly goaded by Edward’s artillery) abandoned his strong defensive position in front of the town to attack southwards across open fields. This advance brought his right wing within reach of a Yorkist force hiding in a spinney adjacent to the battlefield, who then emerged to take him in the flank. The Lancastrians were pushed back, and in the resultant chaos one of their generals axed Lord Wenlock, claiming that his failure to back up the attack meant that he had been bribed. The Queen’s army was destroyed, and Somerset and other leaders captured hiding in Tewkesbury Abbey were dragged out and hastily tried by a ‘kangaroo court’ before execution (4–5 May). Prince Edward was killed either in the battle or in the ‘round-up’ afterwards (according to Warkworth calling out for help to Clarence),49 Queen Margaret and Anne Neville were taken into custody at a nearby priory, and with them dealt with the captive Henry VI’s death was announced within hours of Edward’s return to London on 21 May. The blatant nature of Henry’s convenient demise was obvious, though it was arguably politically ‘necessary’, and it was later claimed to be the first of the future Richard III’s murders. In 1483 the French historian Philip de Commignes heard that Richard (as Constable of the Tower) had either done the killing or watched it; Robert Fabyan, a London chronicler, heard that Richard had stabbed Henry and the ‘Croyland Continuator’ recorded that Henry was found dead and Richard was blamed for it. Edward almost certainly ordered it, though Sir Thomas More (a generation later) claimed Richard had acted alone.50 A final descent on London by yet another army of Kentish rebels, led by the Nevilles’ naval commander the ‘Bastard of Fauconberg’ (son of Warwick’s late uncle), was driven off in time as Edward arrived back in his capital.51 This left only Jasper Tudor and his young nephew Henry (who fled to Brittany and were interned) and the fugitive Earl of Oxford at large to rally the Lancastrian cause, and Oxford was to be captured on landing in Cornwall in 1474.