by Amy Licence
A second letter, dated from 3 June, also survives, acknowledging the receipt of a letter written by their father on 29 May at the city of York, which had been brought to them by the family servant William Cleton. Their father had commended them to ‘attend to our learning in our young age, that should cause us to grow to honour and worship in our old age’. They requested that York send them Harry Lovedeyne, groom of the kitchen, ‘whose service is to us right agreeable’.12 By then, the Croft situation appeared to have been resolved. The boys’ gratitude for the father’s success over his enemies was soon to be replaced by concern, as another rival rose from within the family ranks. Richard remained in York until after 20 June, the Feast of Corpus Christi, according to a letter received by John Paston from an R. Dollay. The duke was received there with ‘great worship’. As the birthdates of her children suggest, she travelled regularly with her husband, Cecily may well have been staying with him in the medieval city.
The Yorks had so many properties that it is more helpful to think of their household as a body of people rather than a physical place. This was concentrated on the immediate needs of the family but had a number of branches, spread through their estates in England and Wales. Some of their staff were attached to specific locations by a particular role, such as parker or steward. They often fulfilled other, more general, unspecified positions as councillors or general aides. In the last decade, York’s household had undergone some changes and now comprised a mixture of loyal friends and associates from Normandy and Ireland, as well as new faces who had transferred their support from the households of Bedford and Gloucester, and those who were dissatisfied with Somerset and Henry VI. The retinues of great magnates offered protection and opportunities to those aspiring to better themselves; any slight connection with social betters brought prestige and the opportunity to serve. Even the wearing of a lord’s livery was something most medieval people aspired to. To enter the service of the heir to the throne was, in itself, an achievement and people were wise enough to try to support those who had the promise of being more powerful in the future. Without question there were many who were personally loyal to the family, but it would be unrealistic to expect that to be motivated by anything other than a desire for self-advancement.
As York’s duchess, Cecily would have known the family servants well. The book of the Ménagier de Paris, a series of guidelines for medieval wifedom, states that it is crucial for a woman in her position to be able to deal with servants on a regular basis. She must be wise enough not to be cheated by them and ensure that they carry out their duties properly, particularly in the absence of her lord. Cecily would have known John Cotes, parker of Fotheringhay by the early 1450s, who was paid £2 a year for his work. There was also John Leyland, seneschal of Fotheringhay, and Thomas Willoughby, already auditor and newly appointed treasurer in 1453. Their old associate Edmund Mulso, a loyal Yorkist, was now steward of the castle; William Burley remained as their lawyer; their cofferer, John Kendal, would go on to become secretary to Cecily’s new baby, Richard. Roger Crosse was listed as York’s chaplain on 3 September 1452, perhaps replacing James Hamelin, who was listed as performing this role in the 1440s; William Wilflete acted as the duke’s confessor. Given that in their early married life they applied for a joint confessor, he probably served Cecily as well. Their auditing clerk was Thomas Aleyn, who would later work more closely with Cecily and was clearly trusted by her.13
The members of the household who assisted with the daily running of the hall and hearth would have been accustomed to receive their orders from the lady of the house. Roger Ree was usher of the chamber, Richard Stalworth was the valet, and John Thykkethorpe groom of the chamber. John Malas, valet of the Yorks’ wardrobe from 1453, had been valet to the Duke of Gloucester and previously had an annuity paid. Along with his wife, Joan, he had been with them in Ireland, making it likely that Joan, if still alive, was also in Cecily’s household in the early 1450s. The Yorks’ domestic servants in the early 1450s included John Boyes, Richard Chapelyn, Thomas Grey, William Kirby, William Cleton, John Harpsfield, John Lardener and William Mayell.14
Preparing the family’s food was Henry Cook, a yeoman of the kitchen, from the Welsh valley of Usk. John Hemmingbrough was also a cook in York’s service by 1451, and would go on to be chief cook to his son, Edward IV. Harry Lovedene was the groom of the kitchen, Walter Moyle was valet of the cellar and John Walden was clerk of the kitchen, having progressed from being responsible for buying poultry a decade before. John Oram was clerk of the spicery in the 1430s, but had become clerk of the itinerant household by the early 1450s. They were overseen by Richard Wigmore, steward of the household, possibly the son of John Wigmore, who served York in the 1430s as an attorney. The extent of the ducal household reached far beyond this; their names represent only a fragment of those who lived and worked in the Yorks’ service, at one or many of their properties. They also relied on the service and supplies of London men like fishmonger Richard Drax, broker John Snow, draper Henry Wever and goldsmith Robert Butler.15 Servants came and went; some drifted in and out of their employ, while others remained with the family for three decades and went on to serve Cecily’s sons.
Although her existence was a peripatetic one, Cecily would have been a regular visitor to Ludlow, overseeing the household and the education of her two eldest sons. As well as a traditional academic grounding and the obligatory lessons in polite behaviour attested to by surviving manuals, they were being prepared for a chivalric life as knights of the future. No doubt their reading would have encompassed the French romances that told of such struggles and the heroic accounts of historic and legendary figures, but there was also a practical element to this preparation, involving riding at the quintain, the handling of weapons, agility in armour, throwing and climbing.16 While their exact regime does not survive, the best indicator for its nature is the set of Ordinances that Cecily’s son Edward drew up for his own ‘first begotten’ son, in 1473.
Under these ordinances, the three-year-old Edward was allowed to rise at a convenient hour according to his age and be interrupted by no one except for his uncle Anthony Wydeville, his chamberlain and chaplains. The chaplain would say matins in his presence before Edward headed to chapel for Mass, where he was to be uninterrupted. Immediately after this, he was to have breakfast, honourably served at a convenient hour. While he ate, he was to listen to ‘such noble storyes as behoveth a Prince to understand’ and go from there to his learning, followed by disports and exercises ‘as behoveth his estate to have experience in’. He attended evensong before supper, followed again by such ‘honest disportes’ that may be ‘conveniently devised for his recreation’. Dinner was to be served at ten, or eleven on fast days, and supper at four. He was to be put to bed at eight, and his servants were to make him ‘joyoux and merry towards his bedde’.17 Standards of behaviour were important too. No one in the household was permitted to be a ‘swearer, brawler, backbiter, adventurer or use words of ribaldry’ in the prince’s presence. If one person struck another within the house he would be punished, but if he drew a weapon he was to be set in the stocks, losing his position on the second offence. No one should be absent without sufficient licence and the gates were closed and opened at set hours and ‘guarded well and all servants furnished and harnessed according to their degrees’.18 Cecily’s youngest boys, George and Richard, would have been following a similar regime in the nursery at Fotheringhay, under the careful eye of Anne of Caux.
When it came to the education of her daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, Cecily may have had a more direct input. In 1454, Elizabeth was ten and Margaret eight. Their education would have been overseen by a lady governess, but Cecily herself may also have instructed them in reading and writing. The ordinances drawn up for her household in later life display an extensive library, including the popular Golden Legend, Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ, Walter Hilton’s Active and Contemplative Lives and other saints’ lives. Her will, drawn
up in 1495, lists breviaries, Mass books, psalters and gospels. She may have read her daughters stories and histories herself, as well as modelling feminine behaviour and accomplishments. Most of all, they were trained to be wives, administering to their husbands, children and their estates. In this, female relatives were traditionally the first guides, as the husband in the Ménagier de Paris wrote to his wife in the late fourteenth century – ‘the women of your lineage are good enough to correct you harshly themselves’ – although for a long time she had none of her ‘kinswomen near you to whom you might turn for counsel in your private needs’, and she, in turn, would ‘be able to teach better wisdom to [her] daughters’.19 Devotional and instructional literature also cites female examples, such as the loyal wives Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel and the patience of Chaucer’s Griselda, as well as the examples set by the lives of female saints in the popular hagiographies of the day. One of Cecily’s daughters would be in need of such patience and endurance in the coming years.
By this point, the couple’s eldest daughter, Anne, had consummated her marriage to Henry Holland, Earl of Exeter. Around this time, at the age of seventeen, she fell pregnant with their only child. The young earl, though, had proven himself to be imprudent and impulsive, allying with York’s enemies, the Percy family, in a bitter land dispute with the king’s chamberlain, Ralph, Lord Cromwell of Tattershall. Now he was resentful that York had been appointed Lord Protector instead of himself. In May 1454, Holland led an uprising from the Percy Manor of Spofforth towards the city of York, under the standard of Lancaster. However, he did not get very far. York quickly marched north; he was in London on 13 May and in the city of York eight days later, where he passed sentence on the Percys, imposing huge fines so they were imprisoned as debtors.20 It also emerged that Holland had been planning his father-in-law’s death; York may have even survived an assassination attempt, and although Exeter eluded capture and fled, he was apprehended in London and sentenced to be imprisoned in Pontefract Castle. York was in London in June and back again in July when he received the commission to deliver his wayward son-in-law to his confinement on 24 July. Once at Pontefract, he could leave Exeter under the watchful eye of Cecily’s brother, Salisbury. This cannot have been an easy time for Cecily, watching Anne’s husband develop such intentions towards her family while Anne was carrying his child. Around this time, at the age of thirty-nine, Cecily herself also fell pregnant again.
One of York’s first tasks as Lord Protector was to plan for England’s future in Normandy. He guaranteed the debts owed to the garrison at Calais, succeeded in revoking some of the more punishing trade conditions with the Merchants of the Staple and calmed a major rebellion. In July he was in London to be appointed Captain of Calais, and ordered the assembly of a fleet to defend it and England’s right to trade in the Channel.21 On 3 August, he was again at York, then progressed to his castle at Sandal, from where he wrote to John Paston regarding his patronage of Walsingham. On 19 September, he was overseeing the local courts of oyer and terminer in Derby. Most significant of all, a date for the trial of the Duke of Somerset was established, for 28 October.
Calais having been dealt with, Richard turned his attention to Henry’s court. It had become an unwieldy and wasteful establishment and needed to be thoroughly investigated and the essential roles redefined. If the duke and duchess were not actually living at court at this time, they must have been close by, in order for York to oversee this huge operation. No provision is made for them within the court itself, which may well indicate that they were elsewhere. At this point, Baynard’s Castle was still in the hands of Henry VI and Richard is not recorded as living there until 1457, but it is quite likely that, as Lord Protector, he had the use of the property. The castle had four wings enclosing several courtyards but recent excavations have shown that the wall flanking the river had five smaller, projecting towers. Its great hall was 40 feet long by 24 feet wide and could accommodate several hundred people. In addition to the riverside entrance, granting easy access to Westminster, there was a cobbled land entrance to the north. Inside, archaeologists recently found tiled flooring and the remains of a fireplace. Cecily would have established herself here, at the head of a household that included her husband’s retinue of 400 men and the nursery for her young children. While she was laying out the domestic roles at Baynard’s, York was doing a similar task on a much larger scale.
Finally published in 1455, York’s household ordinances of Henry VI provide an interesting snapshot of the English court on the eve of war. Allowances were made for the permanent residence of the king’s confessor and his staff; the two Tudor earls, Jasper of Pembroke and Edmund of Richmond, each with seven men; then there was a viscount, then the Lord Chamberlain and two barons. After that came the officers of the king’s household: carvers, physicians, chamberers, secretaries, chaplains, squires, ushers and so forth. All the names are male, from the scullery and kitchens to the launderers and poultry keepers. Queen Margaret was allocated 120 people and Prince Edward was granted 38, although Margaret had retreated to Greenwich during York’s ascendancy. The document has twenty-eight signatories, starting with the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard’s kinsman Thomas Bourchier, who is followed by nine more bishops. After that came York’s turn to sign but, instead of writing his name beneath that of the Bishop of Ely, he began a new column and wrote his name highest of all. The other signatories were his nephew the Earl of Warwick, the earls of Devon and Buckingham, the Tudor brothers, York’s brother-in-law Salisbury, along with Stanley, Say and others.22 A significant number of them would lose their lives in the coming conflict.
The call to arms came fairly quickly. One moment York was at the pinnacle of government, reshaping the royal regime, with his enemies under control, and the next he was on the outside again. He was in London attending Parliament on 7 November, by which time the proposed date for the commencement of Somerset’s trial had passed without any appearance of the necessary legal proceedings. It may have been postponed due to the riots that took place in the city that autumn against Italian merchants. The event that precipitated the change in Richard’s fortunes happened on Christmas Day 1454. He would have been with his family, perhaps at prayer, or feasting, when the news came. King Henry had come to his senses. He was able to acknowledge his son and was made aware of the events of the previous year. The brief taste of power was over.
Early in the New Year, York resigned his position as Lord Protector with ‘great honour and the love of all’.23 He had little choice but to do so. Yet it was not quite with the love of all; once restored to power, Henry freed Somerset from the Tower in February 1455. ‘The duke said that during the king’s disease he was committed to the Tower of London and kept there a year, ten weeks and more’,24 and asked for exemplification of the act that had committed him there. On 4 March, Somerset was with the king and queen at Greenwich, where he secured a declaration of his innocence regarding all the criminal charges levelled against him, with others to be put to arbitration. Exeter was also released from Pontefract Castle but, worse still, York was relieved of his captaincy of Calais, which had been intended to last for seven years, only to find it awarded to Somerset. The reprisals he had feared soon materialised. Other small privileges and benefits were removed from him and his allies, and when a special session of the Great Council was called at Leicester for 21 May, York and his allies believed it would seek to question their loyalty. At least York was not alone this time, having the powerful Neville family members of Cecily’s brother Salisbury and his son, Warwick, at his side. They withdrew from court without seeking permission and attempted once more to intercede between the king and the Lancastrian faction before they reached Leicester.25 Henry’s confessor, John Blackman, wrote of York, ‘Sullenly the disgraced nobleman retired to his estates in the North and there, brooded over the affront put upon him by the Queen and her party.’26
But York was a man of action, never one to brood for long. With Somerset fully restored to power, it
was clear that he would seek to move against York and attempt to remove him permanently from government, and thus a group of councillors was summoned to attend secret meetings between 15 and 18 April. This was followed by a declaration that the Great Council would meet at Leicester. York suspected, probably quite rightly, that on this occasion steps would be taken against him. He needed to pre-empt the meeting. On 18 May, he sent out summonses to his estates for men to rally to his side. In a letter dated two days later, he wrote from Royston in Hertfordshire to the king regarding the ‘subtle means’ of their enemies and that he must ‘be of power to kepe oureself oute of the daungier whereunto our enemies have not ceesed to studie, labour and compass to bring us’.27 On 21 May, the king was at Watford, and York was just over 20 miles away at Ware. Between them lay the small Hertfordshire market town of St Albans. It must have seemed to Cecily and Richard that they were back to square one again. This time, it meant war.
9
Fortunes of War
1455–1459
Myssereule doth ryse ans maketh neyghbours werre1
Outside the little Hertfordshire town of St Albans, the opposing sides drew up their armies. Yet, even at this stage, not many of those involved really expected an actual fight. The king, flanked by the dukes of Somerset, Exeter and Buckingham and the earls of Northumberland and Devon, headed boldly into the marketplace and unfurled his banner. Just as at Blackheath three years earlier, a series of difficult negotiations began, with messengers running back and forth. The townsfolk looked on, alarmed, wondering what would happen next. They could not have predicted the course of that afternoon, which left them and much of the English nobility in a state of shock.