The War of the Roses

by Timothy Venning

  52 For the story of the Prince’s ‘real’ paternity circulating, see Davies’ Chronicle, pp. 78–9, Benet’s Chronicle, p. 216; Rotuli Parliamentarum, vol v, p. 348. Order for weaponry spring 1459: PRO E 404/71/3/343.

  53 Benet’s Chronicle, p. 223.

  54 Davies’ Chronicle, pp. 80–3.

  55 Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 205.

  56 See n. 32 for the formal statement of this plan in Parliament 1459. This was made in the aftermath of Margaret’s triumph at Ludlow and accompanied the attainder of her enemies so it was clearly a major ‘plank’ of her intentions.

  57 Rotuli Parliamentarum, vol v, pp. 349, 366; Calendar of the Patent Rolls 1452–60, pp. 536–614; Foedera, vol xi, pp. 446–8. See also propaganda against York at this point, e.g. the ‘Somnia Vigilante’, ed. J Gilson, in E H R vol xxvi (1911) pp. 512–25.

  58 Benet’s Chronicle, pp. 150–2.

  59 Ramsay, Lancaster and York, pp. 227–9.

  60 De Wauvrin, Chroniques, eds. W and E Hardy (Rolls Series 1891) vol v, pp. 312–18.

  61 Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 208; Wheathampstead, Registrum pp. 376–80 for the nobles’ dismay at York claiming the throne. Discussion in J Lander, ‘Marriage and Politics in the Fifteenth Century: the Nevills and the Wydvills’ in BIHR, vol xxxvi (1967) pp. 126–8.

  62 Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 208. For papal involvement, see Constance Head, ‘Pius II and the Wars of the Roses’ in Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, vol viii (1970) pp. 160–1. Pius, as papal diplomat Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini, had visited Britain himself so had personal knowledge of some of the contenders.

  63 Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 207.

  64 Hall’s Chronicle, quoted by Alison Weir, The Union of the Two Noble Illustre Houses of Lancaster and York, 1547, reprinted and edited by H Ellis (London 1809) p. 257 for the episode of Margaret gloating over York’s body and putting his head on Micklegate Bar, York. In fact, Hall’s grandfather had been in York’s entourage at Wakefield in 1460, so he may have used family tradition for this story. Clifford’s psychopathic tendencies were already known, as he had led an armed posse to London earlier to demand that King Henry arrest York and Salisbury for killing his father in 1455 at St Albans.

  65 Benet’s Chronicle, p. 228; Bale’s Chronicle, p. 152; Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, pp. 154, 171–2; Ramsay, Lancaster and York, pp. 237–8. See analysis in P Haigh, The Battle of Wakefield (Stroud, 1996).

  66 ‘Short English Chronicle’, in Three English Chronicles, ed. James Gairdner (Camden Society 1880) pp. 76–7; Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 211.

  67 See C A J Armstrong, ‘The Inauguration Ceremonies of the Yorkist Kings, and their title to the throne’ in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, fourth series vol xxx (1948) pp. 51–73.

  68 Croyland Chronicle, pp. 421–3.

  69 Gregory’s Chronicle, pp. 211–15; Davies’ Chronicle, pp. 107–8; Chronicles of London, ed. Kingsford, p. 173; Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, pp. 76, 155, 172. Also see Scofield, The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth (London 1923), vol I, pp. 147–8.

  70 So-called because annalist John Stow relied on it for his 1610 account of the battle.

  71 See n. 52 for the significant timing of this story.

  72 Wauvrin, vol v, pp. 312–18.

  73 For 1327, when Parliament (or rather those peers and MPs carefully selected by the insurgent leader Mortimer) agreed to depose Edward II and the King was informed afterwards and ‘voluntarily’ concurred by abdicating: N Fryde, The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II 1321–6 (Cambridge UP 1979) pp. 197–200, C Valente ‘The deposition and abdication of Edward II’ in E H R, vol cxiii (1998) pp. 880–1, and Ian Mortimer, The Greatest Traitor, pp. 166–70. For the abdication followed by Parliamentary approval in 1399, see Chronicles of the Revolution 1397–1400, ed. C Given-Wilson (Manchester UP 1997) pp. 160–1, 187.

  74 Rotuli Parliamentarum, vol v, pp. 463–7.

  75 Ibid.

  76 See Wolffe p. 270 and Storey, p. 136n and p. 252n.

  77 Paston Letters, vol v, pp. 40–52, 55–7.

  78 Ibid, vol I pp,. 416–17.

  79 Ibid, p. 403.

  80 C Ross, Richard III, p. 4; Paul Murray Kendall, Richard III pp. 37 and 440n.

  81 See n. 65.

  Chapter 3

  1 See A. Allan, ‘Yorkist propaganda: pedigree, prophecy and the “British History” in the reign of Edward IV’ in C Ross (ed.), Patronage, Pedigree and Power in Later Medieval England (Gloucester, 1979).

  2 For the battle of Towton: see Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 217; Paston Letters, vol iii, pp. 267–8; John Sadler, Towton: the Battle of Palm Sunday 1461 (Pen and Sword 2011).

  3 Charles Ross, Edward IV (Methuen 1974) pp. 37–8.

  4 See George Goodwin, Fatal Colours, pp. 214–17. The direction that the sleet-laden wind was blowing in was vital to this tactic succeeding.

  5 Charles Ross, Edward IV, pp. 71, 131–2.

  6 Ross pp. 66–7; J Lander, ‘Attainder and Forfeiture 1453–1509’ in Historical Journal, 1961, p. 124.

  7 Ross, pp. 45–51, (Sir Ralph Percy’s treason) 52–3 ; Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 219; ‘Annales Rerum Anglicanum’ in Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Wars of the English in France, ed. Joseph Stevenson (Rolls Series 1864, 2 vols) vol ii, pp. 780–1; John Warkworth, Chronicle of the First Thirteen Years of the Reign of King Edward the Fourth, ed. J Haliwell (Camden Society 1839) pp. 2–3; Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, p. 176; Jean de Wauvrin, Anchiennes Chroniques d’Angleterre, ed. E Dupont (Paris 1858–69) vol iii, pp. 159–60; C L Scofield, The Life and Reign of Edward the Fourth (1923) pp. 268–9. For early criticism of Edward IV, see: Philippe de Commignes, vol I p. 203; Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 221; Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, pp. 177–8.

  8 The Paston Letters, vol iii, p. 292.

  9 Gregory’s Chronicle, pp. 223–4; Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, p. 178; Paston Letters, vol iv, p. 25 and (siege of Caister Castle) vol v, pp. 40–52, 55–8.

  10 Ross, Edward IV, pp. 43, 57–8.

  11 Wauvrin, ed. Dupont, vol ii pp. 406–9; Warkworth, pp. 6–7; Chronicles of the White Rose of York, ed. J A Giles (1841): ‘Hearne’s Fragment’ pp. 24–5. Edward Hall, Chronicle (ed. H Ellis, 1809) pp. 273–4; The Croyland Chronicle, p. 446.

  12 Warkworth p. 10; Commines, vol I, pp. 200-01; J Calmette and G Perinelle, Louis XI et l’Angleterre (Paris 1930) pp. 317–18.

  13 Croyland Chronicle p. 542.

  14 Ross pp. 90–2 on the French marriage negotiations. For Council criticism of Edward’s choice of wife: Wauvrin, ed. Dupont, vol ii, pp. 327–8. Was Warwick not really all that annoyed, and is it exaggerated to talk of a fatal breach between him and the King’s new wife? See Lander, ‘Marriage and Politics in the Fifteenth Century: the Nevills and the Wydvills’ in BIHR, vol xxxvi (1963).p. 133. For Warwick’s public contempt for the ‘arriviste’ Woodvilles in 1460, see Paston Letters, vol iii, pp. 203–4.

  15 See Lander, ‘Marriage and Politics’, B I H R, pp. 119–52 for detailed discussion of the Woodville marriage. Fabyan, New Chronicles of England and France, ed. H Ellis (1854) –written c. 1500 so not contemporary, but within memory–on the details of the private ceremony at Grafton Regis. See also Scofield, vol I, p. 177.

  16 Fabyan, as n. 15.

  17 See Wauvrin, ed. Dupont, vol ii, pp. 326–8; Scofield, vol I, pp. 351–4; Calmette and Perinel, p. 61.

  18 More, Complete Works, ed. R S Sylvester, vol ii (History of Richard III, 1963) pp. 60–1; Hall, Chronicle, p. 264. For an earlier, contemporary Italian version of this story see C Fahy, ‘The marriage of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville: a new Italian source’, in E H R, vol lxxvi (1961) pp. 660–72.

  19 See John Ashdown-Hill, Eleanor: the Secret Queen (History Press 2009) and Muriel Smith, ‘Reflections on the Lady Eleanor’ in The Ricardian, September 1998.

  20 See Ian Mortimer, The Perfect King: the Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation (Pimlico 2007) p. 267. This papal ruling was in 1349.

  21 E.g.
Charles Ross in his Richard III, pp. 89–91, who also refers to 1483 witness Mancini calling the other party in the pre-contract an anonymous French princess not Eleanor or Elizabeth Lucy. But does this just reflect non-expert foreign visitor Mancini’s reliance on confused second-hand reports of the City speeches?

  22 Paston Letters, vol iii, pp. 203–4.

  23 Warkworth, pp. 46–9.

  24 Calmette and Perinel p. 108, citing a 1469 rumour that reached France.

  25 Warkworth, pp. 6–7; ‘Hearne’s Fragment’, p. 24.

  26 Calendar of the Close Rolls 1468–76, pp. 85-7.

  27 Paston Letters, vol v, p. 63.

  28 Warkworth pp. 8–9; Chronicle of the Lincolnshire Rebellion, ed. J G Nicholls (Camden Society 1847) pp. 6–16; Kingsford, Chronicles of London, pp. 180–1; Six Town Chronicles, p. 164; Polydore Vergil, Anglia Historia, pp. 126–8. For historians’ scepticism over Warwick being behind the rebellion, see Sir Charles Oman, Warwick the Kingmaker, pp. 189, 196–8. Discussion in Ross, Edward IV, pp. 141–2.

  29 Ross, Edward IV, pp. 141–2.

  30 Ibid p. 147; Calmette and Perinel pp. 139–40.

  31 Calendar of the Patent Rolls 1467–77, pp. 214–16.

  32 Croyland Chronicle, pp. 553–4; Wauvrin, ed. Dupont, vol iii, pp. 46–8; Chronicles of the White Rose of York, p. 28–9. For the Coventry records’ testimony to popular enthusiasm for Warwick, see Coventry Court Leet Book vol ii (Early English Text Society 1907–13) pp. 35–9.

  33 J C Wedgwood, The History of Parliament, 1439–1509: Register (HMSO 1938), pp. 378-82. (The ‘Register’ for the period 1439–1509 is one of the volumes in the ‘History of Parliament’ series.)

  34 Ross, Edward IV, p. 155.

  35 Calendar of the Patent Rolls 1467–77, p. 233; Calendar of the Fine Rolls: Edward IV, 1461–71, pp. 293, 295.

  36 Warkworth p. 13; Chronicles of London, pp. 182–3.

  37 John Stow, Annales or a General Chronicle of England (1631), p. 423.

  38 The Arrivall of Edward IV, p. 10; J Lander, ‘The treason and death of the Duke of Clarence: a Reinterpretation’ in Canadian Journal of History, vol ii (1967) pp. 14–15. Clarence’s seemingly self-defeating repeated treachery to all and sundry is more explicable if he had an idea–rightly or wrongly–that he had legal justice on his side.

  39 Lander, pp. 14–15; Ross, pp. 146–7, 156–7.

  40 Commignes, vol I, pp. 207–12.

  41 Wauvrin, ed. Dupont, vol iii, p. 97; The Arrivall, p. 2.

  42 Calendar of the Patent Rolls 1467–77, pp. 251–2.

  43 The Arrivall, pp. 5–7; Wauvrin, ed. Dupont, vol iii, pp. 96–147; Warkworth, pp. 13–20; Polydore Vergil, Anglia Histora, pp. 136–54; Croyland Chronicle, pp. 554–6. See also J A Thomson, ‘ “The Arrivall of Edward IV”–The Development of the Text’ in Speculum, vol xlvi (1971) pp. 84–93; and Alison Weir, Lancaster and York, p. 388.

  44 The Arrivall, pp. 6–7.

  45 Ibid, pp. 7–12; p. 17 (Edward’s entry to London). Also The Great Chronicle of London, ed. Thomas and Thornley (privately printed 1938), pp. 215–16, and Wauvrin, ed. Dupont, vol iii, pp. 210–15.

  46 Paston Letters, vol v, p. 137; Warkworth, pp. 24–6; Calendar of the Patent Rolls 1467–77, p. 346.

  47 The Arrivall, pp. 18–21; Warkworth, pp. 15–17; The Great Chronicle of London, pp. 216–17; Polydore Vergil pp. 144–7; Wauvrin, ed. Dupont, vol iii, pp. 210–15; a reconstruction of the battle of Barnet in Paul Murray Kendall, Richard III (1955) pp. 93–9 and 449–50. On Margaret’s delay, see Scofield, vol I, pp. 558–9, 563–4, and 582–3 and Calmette and Perinel, pp. 133–42.

  48 The Arrivall, pp. 23–8.

  49 Ibid, pp. 28–30; J D Blyth, ‘The Battle of Tewkesbury’ in Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, vol lxxx (1961) pp. 99–120; reconstruction of the battle in Paul Murray Kendall, op. cit., pp. 101–3. The killing of Prince Edward–The Arrivall, p. 30; Paston Letters, vol v p. 104; Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, p. 184; H Kingsford, English Historical Literature in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford 1913) pp. 374 and 377; Croyland Chronicle, p. 555; Great Chronicle, p. 218. Warkworth (p. 18) says he appealed to Clarence for help.

  50 The killing of Henry VI–The Arrivall, p. 38 (which calls it a natural death, unlikely given its convenience); Chronicle of London, ed. Kingsford, p. 185; Fabyan, Concordance, p. 662 (murder by Richard, but this source is writing thirty years later); Commignes, vol I, p. 201, Croyland Chronicle, p. 468, Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History Polydore Vergil, ed. H Ellis (Camden Society 1844). Three Books pp. 155–6 (all say murder by Richard, but non-contemporary); More, History of Richard III, pp. 9–10 (murder by Richard without Edward’s authority, but non-contemporary and with dubious motives).

  51 Colin Richmond, ‘Fauconberg’s Kentish Rising of May 1471’ in E H R, vol lxxxv (1970) pp. 673–92; The Arrivall, pp. 33–9; Great Chronicle, pp. 218–20.

  52 Fabyan, p. 654; and see David Baldwin, Elizabeth Woodville: Mother of the Princes in the Tower, pp. 9–11.

  53 Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 221; Three Fifteenth Century Chronicles, p. 127.

  54 Commignes, vol ii, pp. 63–7; he and Louis XI were probably under a misapprehension about Warwick’s real influence (as opposed to high public profile) in the early-mid 1460s.

  55 Ian Mortimer, The Fears of Henry IV: the Life of England’s Self-Made King (Jonathan Cape 2007) pp. 305–6.

  56 Rotuli Parliamentarum, vol v, pp. 497–9.

  57 See his The English Nobility and the Wars of the Roses 1459–61 (Nottingham Medieval Studies, 1997).

  58 Edward Hall, Chronicle, p. 251. But the surviving statements that this ‘perihelion’ was seen as a good omen were written in retrospect, once Edward was king.

  59 Ross, pp. 124–5; Warkworth, pp. 11–12 (blaming Warwick for stirring up discontent); Commignes, vol I, pp. 214–15 (Warwick more popular than Edward in late 1460s).

  60 Great Chronicle, pp. 204–8 (Cook case); see also PRO King’s Bench 9/319/mm. 7, 35–7, 40, 49–51. See also Warkworth p. 6 and Ross pp. 122–3 on Henry Courtenay. Richard III later claimed in a 1484 letter to the Earl of Desmond’s heirs that the Woodvilles had destroyed Clarence and assorted other relatives and friends of his, but was not specific so we cannot tell which cases he meant.

  61 Ross, pp. 100–01.

  62 See discussion in Ashdown-Hill, Eleanor: the Secret Queen (History Press 2009)on the link between Eleanor and the Mowbrays via her sister.

  63 Paston Letters, vol v, p. 80.

  64 Ross, pp. 54–5.

  65 Bertram Wolffe, Henry VI, pp. 38–9.

  66 Scofield, vol I, pp. 446–53.

  67 Ibid, pp. 518–36, and Ross p. 118 for 1467–8 rumours that Warwick was already in touch with Margaret of Anjou (via Louis XI?). As Margaret had murdered his father and brother and he had not yet lost the power to influence events at the Yorkist court–as he had in 1470–this seems unlikely.

  68 Ross, pp. 112 and 118.

  69 Croyland Chronicle, pp. 558, 559; Great Chronicle, p. 224; Chronicles of London, ed. Kingsford p. 187.

  70 Gregory’s Chronicle, p. 219; Scofield, vol I, pp. 273–4, 292.

  71 Warkworth, pp. 46–9.

  72 Scofield, vol I, p. 320, on the negotiations with Castile in 1464.

  73 For Stillington’s arrest, see Bertram Fields, Royal Blood, pp. 112–15; and Chapter 5, n. 6 for the original sources and modern historians’ verdicts. For Edward’s illegal seizure of the Mowbray estates, see Rotuli Parliamentarum, vol vi, pp. 205–7.

  74 Croyland Chronicle, p. 446; Warkworth, pp. 6–7.

  Chapter 4

  1 Polydore Vergil, Anglia Historia, p. 135.

  2 Croyland Chronicle, p. 557.

  3 Ibid, p. 561; Rotuli Parliamentarum, vol v, p. 173 and (bill of attainder) vol vi, pp. 193–5; pp. 172–3; Scofield, vol ii, p. 188; Calendar of the Patent Rolls 1476–85; Calmette and Perinel pp. 376–7.

  4 Dominic Mancini, History of the Usurpation of Richard the
Third, ed. C Armstrong (Oxford 1969) p. 63; Croyland Chronicle, p. 562 (manner of execution unknown) and Polydore Vergil p. 167 and More p. 7 (butt of Malmsey wine). See also J Lander, ‘The treason and death of the Duke of Clarence: a Reinterpretation’, Canadian Journal of History, vol ii (1967) especially pp. 27–8.

  5 Mancini p. 63 and More p. 7. Analysis in M Levine, ‘Richard III: Usurper or lawful King?’ in Speculum, vol xxxiv (1959) pp. 391–401. Historians still argue over the relationship between Richard and the Queen pre-1483; but the fact that she fled into sanctuary sooner than appeal to his mercy after attempting to block his Protectorship in May 1483 argues for mutual ill-will.