Richard The Chird (12 page)

But Warwick was not happy. He had begun to discover the weaknesses of his son-in-law, and he had failed to regain his power over the King. Before the council meetings were over, Edward published that failure to the world by accepting the honor of the Toison cFOr (the Order of the Golden Fleece) from the Duke of Burgundy and by dispatching an embassy to invest his brother-in-law with the Order of the Garter. Not long after, he took back from Warwick, as has been shown, the offices which the Earl had wrung from him in his captivity. Clarence was probably even less happy than Warwick. He lacked the intelligence to be content with, or to comprehend, the emptiness of his victory.

In the middle of the winter there occurred in Lincolnshire a disturbance which seemed no more serious than others which had been besetting the kingdom. 6 Lord Willoughby and Welles, aided by his brothers-in-law Sir Thomas de la Lande and Sir Thomas Dymmock, had plundered the manor of Sir Thomas Burgh. King Edward took a special interest in the outrage, however, for Burgh was his Master of the Horse and Lord Welles, an old Lancastrian. When disorder began to spread through the county, the King determined to investigate the trouble himself. He sent out a summons for men, ordering his army to assemble at Grantham on March 12; he proclaimed a general pardon for all offenses—even high treason—committed before Christmas; and he ordered Welles and Dymmock to appear before him. Although they promptly obeyed the royal writ, and after affirming their loyalty, as promptly received the King's pardon, Edward kept them in light custody; for by this time Lincolnshire was rioting in behalf of Henry the Sixth. Warwick left London for the Midlands, promising to support the King in his campaign; Clarence's last word to Edward was that he was going westward to meet his wife, but soon after he wrote that he would join Warwick in helping to stamp out the Lincolnshire rising.

Following his interview with Clarence, on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 6, 1470, King Edward rode from London to Waltham Abbey with a noble company including the Earl of Arundel, Lord Hastings, and Henry Percy, who had lost the earldom of Northumberland by attainder and had only been released from prison the previous October. The next morning Edward received serious tidings: on the preceding Sunday, March 4, Lord Welles' son Sir Robert had caused to be announced in all the churches of Lincolnshire, in the name of the Duke of Clarence, the Earl of Warwick, and himself, that every man must be at Ranby Hawe on Tuesday in readiness to resist the King, who was coming to destroy the people.

Sending to London for Welles and Dymmock, King Edward moved swiftly northward. At Royston he received Clarence's letter; and so determined was he to give Clarence and Warwick no cause for complaint that he dispatched to them the commissions of array which he had dictated at Waltham Abbey and then withheld after hearing the news from Lincolnshire. It was a shrewd gamble. The previous summer they had persuaded many that they were the injured parties; Edward forecast that if they assumed the role of aggressors and conspirators they would not fare so well Happy in the loyalties he had won back during the winter and in the knowledge that Wales was firmly held by his brother Richard, he was prepared to test Warwick's and Clarence's intentions.

Welles and Dymmock, under guard, overtook the King at Huntingdon. Confident in their pardons, or their hopes, they declared boldly that they themselves were "the very provokers and causers" of the insurrection. Edward told them tersely that unless Welles persuaded his son to submit, he and Dymmock would die the death. Their pardons covered only offenses committed before Christmas. In terror Welles rushed off to write a letter to his son, while Edward thrust his army forward. When he arrived at Fotheringhay, he learned that Sir Robert with a great host had passed Grantham and seemed to be making for Leicester. Reaching Stamford on Monday, March 12, the King received word from Clarence and Warwick that they were on

their way from Coventry to join him and that they would halt at Leicester that night. Almost at the same moment scouts galloped in with news that Sir Robert Welles and his forces lay at Empingham, only five miles west of Stamford. It was obvious that Sir Robert, abandoning his design of cutting the King off from London, had wheeled about to surprise the royal army and rescue his father.

King Edward instantly sent Welles and Dymmock to the block and flung himself upon the rebels. Sir Robert and his companions tried to rally their forces by shouting "a Warwick! a Clarence!" but the rebels broke and fled, shedding their jackets as they ran, to give the battle its name of Lose-Coat Field. In the victorious pursuit, papers were discovered on a slain servant of the Duke of Clarence, and shortly after, Sir Robert Welles was captured and confessed all. The Lincolnshire rising had been the work of the Duke of Clarence and the Earl of Warwick. Their object: nothing less than to depose Edward so that Clarence himself could mount the throne.

The King began to move warily northward, summoning his two "great rebels" to disband their forces and come to him at once. Even as he was receiving their ready promise to obey, however, news arrived that Warwick's friends in Yorkshire had fomented a rising. Edward sent hasty word to the Earl of Northumberland to deal with these insurgents. In this critical and complicated situation the King needed the services of his Constable. Richard, however, was holding down Wales. On March 14 Edward gave warning to prospective rebels that he was in no mood for mercy by appointing the harsh John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, Constable for life. 7 Continuing to move northward toward Doncaster, by way of Grantham, Newark, and Retford, he received from Warwick and Clarence—who were proceeding on a parallel course some thirty-five miles to the west a

stream of increasingly fervent messages in which they protested their foyalty, asked for safe-conducts, and reiterated their promise to join the King soon.

At Doncaster on Monday, March 19, Sir Robert Welles, publicly reaffirming the guilt of Clarence and Warwick, was be-

headed in the presence of the entire army; and when, at this moment, the King was bombarded by yet another demand for safe-conducts from his "great rebels," he sternly ordered them to appear before him at once or abide the consequences. Next morning "at 9 of the bell, the King took the field, and mustered his people, and it was said that were never seen in England so many goodly men, and so well arrayed in a field." 8 Launching his army southwestward, Edward set out in pursuit of Warwick and Clarence; but upon reaching Rotherham he learned that the pair had that morning fled westward from Chesterfield, intending to join Lord Stanley at Manchester. Forced to turn back in order to replenish his supplies of food and fodder, Edward made his way to Pontefract and then to York, 9

He discovered that Warwick's brother had crushed the Yorkshire rising and brought in its leaders to receive the King's pardon. Yet on March 25, the day after he formally proclaimed Warwick and Clarence traitors, King Edward took the earldom of Northumberland from John Neville and restored it to Henry Percy. Edward's object was to bring peace to the north parts which had so often clamored for Percy's return; the trusty John he hoped to content by elevating him to the marquisate of Montagu, but to the man who had rejected his brothers to support his King the new title and an annuity of forty pounds seemed small recompense for the loss of a princely earldom. 10 * Though Edward's decision would soon cost him dear, its full consequences would be inherited by Richard, Duke of Gloucester—who just a few days before had delivered, it seems, an effective stroke in his brother's behalf.

Richard's part in this campaign remains obscure; the service he performed is reflected in but a single document From such scanty evidence must his movements be reconstructed 11 *

Three or four days after the battle of Empingham, Richard, in Wales, received the news of Clarence's and Warwick's treachery and of the King's decision to continue his northward march. He determined to give his brother what aid he could, and hastily assembling a small band of men, he headed north on the Hereford-Shrewsbury road. As he was riding through Cheshire,

RICHARD THE THIRD

Richard suddenly found his way blocked by followers of Lord Stanley. He scattered them and moved on warily, dispatching to the King a warning of Stanley's hostility.

Richard's intervention had come at an opportune moment. Lord Stanley, who was married to Warwick's sister, had given Warwick and Clarence assurances that 'he would support them. As they moved northward, temporizing with the King, Stanley, at Manchester, was gathering his retainers. The news of the Duke of Gloucester's approach took him by surprise. At almost the same moment he learned that Warwick and Clarence were galloping westward from Chesterfield, expecting him to succor them. Stanley's nerve deserted him. He sent messengers riding in hot haste — one to Clarence and Warwick, with word that he was unable to help them; the other to the King, protesting righteously that the Duke of Gloucester had attacked his people. Abandoning all hope of raising a following, Clarence and Warwick wheeled about and fled south.

By this time King Edward, discerning the true state of affairs, had sent word to Richard thanking him for his prompt action and requesting him to stay his march. Lord Stanley he ordered to disband his retainers and keep the peace. On March 25, at York, Edward commanded proclamation to be made that no man was to stir up trouble because of "any matter of variance late fallen between his right entirely beloved brother the Duke of Gloucester and the Lord Stanley." Two or three days later Richard received commissions to array the men of Gloucestershire and Herefordshire in order to join the King in the pursuit of his rebels. 12

With only a small escort the Duke and the Earl hurried first to Warwick Castle; then, with their wives and Warwick's daughter Anne, they headed for the Devonshire coast. Richard and the King, meeting somewhere in the Midlands, reached Wells on April u and Exeter by April 14; but the fugitives had found ships and got safely away. Anthony, Earl Rivers, beat them off from Southampton; Calais refused to admit them; finally they landed at Honfleur and were given a warm welcome by officers of Louis XI. 13

There now followed in Richard's and Edward's life a twelvemonth span which can scarcely be rivaled in the annals of history for crowding events, reversals of fortune, perils by land and sea, betrayals and double betrayals, bloody battles, and dazzling victories. It is as if fact, charmed by the verve of King Edward, had resolved to outdo the fertile inventions of romance!

Not long after his "great rebels" had fled the kingdom, Edward began to receive a stream of warnings from his brother-in-law, the Duke of Burgundy, and from his own officers at Calais that Warwick and Clarence would surely and shortly attempt an invasion. Well aware of his danger, Edward spent the summer in an effort to meet it. While a Great Council was being held at Canterbury in June to concert measures for defense, Richard rode into the western Midlands to ready men. A little later he was sent by Edward to the city of Lincoln to investigate some troubles in that touchy region. 14 Meantime, the King inspected the Channel ports, loosed spies to watch the Earl of Warwick, and sent Earl Rivers to sea with a fleet that joined Lord Howard and a Burgundian armada in blockading the French coasts. The new Marquess of Montagu and the new Earl of Northumberland were raising forces in Yorkshire. One other defensive means Edward took: he dispatched a lady across the Channel, ostensibly to join the entourage of the Duchess of Clarence but actually to entreat the Duke to return to his family allegiance.

In the middle of the summer, news reached London of a rising in Yorkshire fomented by Warwick's friends. Percy, Earl of Northumberland, reported that it was too powerful for him to put down; the Marquess of Montagu sent no word at all. Early in August, King Edward set forth, accompanied by his brother Richard, Lord Hastings, and a small force. By the time they reached York, the rising had collapsed. But at York the King lingered uneasily. The city and the county seemed so restless that Edward made Richard head of a commission of oyer and terminer to restore order. 15

Yorkshire was the knd which Richard loved and of which he had seen little since his boyhood days at Middleham. The King

had first established him in authority in Wales because it was there that Edward had needed a loyal and zealous lieutenant. Now Richard's own desires and the King's needs marched hand in hand. Weighing the enigmatic silence of Northumberland and Montagu with the insurrections which Yorkshire had so often raised against him, Edward appointed Richard, on August 26, to an office the Nevilles had long held: the warden-ship of the West Marches toward Scotland. 16

Early in September, King Edward received strong warnings that Warwick was preparing to set foot in England. He dispatched orders to the men of Kent to ready themselves, but he continued to stand guard in Yorkshire in order to cut the Earl off from his strength there and in the Midlands. Warwick, however, had other plans and Edward was threatened by dangers he had not foreseen. 17

The Earl of Warwick had experienced a profitable summer. 18 Arriving on the shores of France a fugitive, he was received by King Louis as a prince. In early June they met at Amboise and came to a quick agreement upon a project that Louis had long entertained in his agile mind: the French King would use his good offices to reconcile Warwick and Queen Margaret; Warwick would restore King Henry to the throne; Louis' reward would be an alliance of England and France against Burgundy; Warwick's, the marriage of his younger daughter, Anne, to Margaret's son, Prince Edward. Clarence, a rather embarrassing piece of excess baggage, would be taken care of, somehow. Warwick and the Duke retired to Normandy to allow Louis to exercise his arts upon Margaret. It turned out that, though cast down from Olympus and eager to reascend its slopes, Juno remained Juno. King Louis had to employ all of his extensive repertory of charm to persuade her even to set eyes upon the hated Earl.

On July 22, the Queen and Warwick—Clarence having been left in Normandy—met under Louis' auspices at Angers. For fifteen minutes the haughty Margaret kept the haughty Neville upon his knees begging for forgiveness. At last she consented, grudgingly, to pardon him so that he could place her again upon the throne; but the marriage of Warwick's daughter to her son