Margaret of Anjou (39 page)

—

N
OTE
ON
E
DWARD
, E
ARL OF
M
ARCH
: In modern times, a height of 6 foot 4 inches is not particularly rare and examples can be found in most gatherings of a hundred people and above. The average modern male height (inexplicably low to my eye) is around 5 foot 8. For the fifteenth century, when the best-guess average height of men was between 5 foot 3 and 5 foot 7, the eighteen–year-old Earl of March would have been a Goliath on the field of war. The equivalent today would be a warrior in iron who stood 6 foot 9 to 10 inches (the height of the author Michael Crichton, by the way) and yet a man who could fight and move with enormous speed and strength. The effect of such a warrior on a hand-to-hand battle can hardly be overestimated.

It is socially interesting to note that diet is a key factor in height. Medieval noblemen ate fish and meat rather more often than commoners. As a group, they would have been taller than most other classes in the country, an advantage of strength and power that would have been increased by constant training from the earliest years.

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E
DWARD
OF
M
ARCH
returned to England from Calais with Warwick in the late summer of 1459, responding to the threat of Attainder and marching quickly to meet up with the forces of York and Salisbury. They would return to complete disaster at Ludlow, with all hopes dashed and all the major players forced to flee. It is true that Captain Andrew Trollope refused to fight against an army apparently led by his king. His desertion with six hundred of the Calais garrison was the turning point of the battle and the cause of York’s downfall. Trollope was later knighted for his service.

After that desertion, the “battle” of Ludford Bridge was practically bloodless. The king’s army had surrounded a much smaller force and barely skirmished with the defenders. York, Salisbury, Warwick, and March made an extraordinary decision to leave. It is perhaps worth pointing out that the idea of slaughtering York’s wife and children would not have seemed likely. York went to Ireland and Salisbury, Warwick, and March escaped back to Calais, arriving in November 1459. By any standards, it was a complete disaster and should have been the end of their cause. It must therefore be some testament to their energy and abilities that it was not.

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W
HEN
RESEARCHING
HISTORICAL FICTION
, one of the joys is occasionally coming across scenes that are simply wonderful—and even better when they are not well known. In an action that could have graced any Hornblower story, Warwick stole a royal fleet from Kent, roping ships together and sailing them back to France, in January 1460.

On the second of July, he used that fleet to land an army on the English coast at Sandwich. With his father and Edward of March, they marched seventy miles through Kent, picking up around ten thousand Kentish men as they went. Some of them would certainly have walked that path before, with Jack Cade.

It is a matter of historical record that Lord Scales commanded the royal garrison at the Tower and that both cannon and wildfire were used against the London mob as they rioted. A royal arms depot across the river was raided and cannon were brought to bear on the Tower’s outer wall, smashing it down. It is true that Scales managed to barricade the broken wall and survived long enough to surrender. He was then murdered in custody.

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L
E
AVING
A
SMALL FORCE
in London under Salisbury, Warwick and March raced north. Their speed paid off as they intercepted King Henry with only five thousand men, before the main royal forces could reinforce the king’s position. The attack was aided by the sudden betrayal of Baron Gray of Ruthin. He changed sides at a vital moment, abandoning King Henry and supporting Warwick and March in exchange for a promise that he would be made Royal Treasurer.

Just eight days and a hundred and fifty miles after landing in Kent, Henry was captured and Margaret forced to run into Wales with her son, Edward of Lancaster. It was an extraordinary feat of tactics, arms, and endurance. It is true that Warwick and March found Henry alone in his tent.

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I
T
WAS
INTERESTING
to include Owen Tudor in this story, mostly because of his more famous descendants. He had married Catherine de Valois, widow of Henry V. His two sons, Jasper and Edmund, would both play their part in the Wars of the Roses—and the Tudor period after it.

It is true that King James II of Scotland died in August 1460, when a cannon exploded during a siege. His son was ten years old and Queen Mary of Guelders would have had to meet and negotiate with Margaret without him, her grief still fresh. Margaret gained her support, perhaps because she was dealing with another foreign queen who had suffered great loss.

The exact number of Scots who returned south is unknown, though it must have been thousands to make it worth doing at all. The agreement was for Prince Edward to marry a princess of Scotland—and for Berwick-upon-Tweed to be handed over as payment. Margaret had her army and a huge force gathered that winter, by the city of York. It is true that the cold months usually made battles impossible. Only the extreme circumstance of Henry being captured could have brought so many to the field as the year ended.

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I
N
LATE
D
ECEMBER 1460,
York and Salisbury found they were vastly outnumbered as they arrived in range of the Lancastrian forces. The best estimates are that they had around eight thousand men, compared to sixteen to eighteen thousand under Somerset, Northumberland, and Clifford. All three of those men had lost their fathers at St. Albans.

York and Salisbury holed up in Sandal Castle to await reinforcements, packing men into the small fortress. The reason they sallied out is not known. Given the small size of Sandal, it might have been because they were running out of food, or because they were drawn out by the sight of a small hostile force and then ambushed. However it happened, they left the castle and were defeated on December 30, 1460. York was killed in the battle. Salisbury was captured and beheaded, and York’s son Edmund was killed by Lord Clifford as he tried to flee the field.

No one knows if Margaret was truly present at the Battle of Wakefield, but there is something very personal about York’s head being made to wear a paper crown. Shakespeare chose to place her at the battle in
Henry VI, Part 3
.

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M
ARGARET
OF
A
NJOU
had won her revenge. She had survived against the odds to see her two most powerful enemies beaten and beheaded. Yet I was struck by the tragedy of York. For all York’s ambition, King Henry was helpless and in his power for months, held at Fulham Palace, the residence of the Bishop of London. We will never know York’s most private reasons, but the fact remains that he did not make Henry disappear, when doing so would have won York the crown. He was a complex man and no clear villain. I could not escape the strong sense that neither York nor the house of Lancaster particularly wanted the struggle. Each house was forced into war, out of fear of the other.

With the deaths of York and Salisbury at Sandal Castle, Margaret seemed to have won. Yet in the end, what she had truly done was unleash their sons.

—

T
HE
PHENOMENON WITNE
SSED
by Edward of March, then Duke of York and heir to the throne, in February 1461, is known as “parhelion.” It involves the reflection of the sun, so that three suns appear to rise. They are also known as “sundogs.” At the time, Edward convinced his men it was a sign of the Holy Trinity and a good omen for the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross, where Owen Tudor was killed. Edward would later take the symbol as his own, surrounding the white rose of York with the flames of the sun.

C
ONN
I
GGULDEN

London, 2014

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