The Last Knight Errant: Sir Edward Woodville & the Age of Chivalry (13 page)

On the diplomatic front, King Edward was having trouble with his main ally. Duke Charles of Burgundy had agreed to the plan but now prevaricated, as he was bogged down with his siege. His plan was to get the English to do the fighting and then join in for his share of the spoils. But at least England’s back was safe – Scotland was now friendly with the promised marriage and payments of gold.

Anthony was sent to Neuss to persuade the Duke to abandon the siege and stick to the agreement. But Duke Charles was intent on destroying the city and calculated that Edward had gone too far to pull back. He was correct, for the English would sail for France with no more support than his vague promises.14

King Edward was assembling an army of some 1,100 men-at-arms and 10,000 archers. This was a strong turn out, with five dukes, five earls, 12 barons, 14 bannerets and 28 knights all bringing lances and archers. There was a ‘headquarters’ which included artillerymen, heralds, scurries, sergeants-at-arms, surgeons and clerks.15 In addition to the men, there were munitions: cannons, gunpowder, shot, bows, arrows and all sorts of war materials, even an engine of war for digging trenches that took 50 horses to pull. It must have been colossal but we know no more about it.

The five-year-old Prince Edward of Wales was brought to London, knighted and appointed Guardian of the Realm in the King’s absence. His mother was appointed custodian and granted £2,200 to maintain his establishment. This allowed Anthony, the Prince’s governor, to join the campaign: his retinue is recorded in the muster roll beside the Scales crest of the scallop shell: ‘Therll of Ryvers, 2 knights, 40 lances, 200 archers’.16

We know that one of the knights was Louis de Bretelles;17 the other was almost certainly Edward. The lances would have totalled over 100 horsemen; it meant that his contribution was 300 men or more, a substantial amount and well up to standard for an earl.

Before King Edward sailed he had sent a herald to King Louis with a formal letter of defiance but, interestingly, the herald also had a private word with King Louis about the possibility of coming to terms once there had been enough flag waving. The herald was well looked after and apparently advised King Louis that the men to talk to – at the appropriate time – about reaching an accommodation would be the Lords Howard and Stanley.

Just before the expedition sailed, on Whit Sunday, Edward Woodville and Richard Grey (the Queen’s second son) were made Knights of the Bath, while her eldest son, Thomas, was created the Marquis of Dorset. The Bath ceremony was similar to that of becoming a knight, but grander and rather longer: a formal ceremony of sponsorship, bathing, prayer, vigil and then celebration. It finished with the new member being given a white silk scarf which he was to wear until he had performed a deed of prowess; it would then be removed by a noble lady.18

The Great Enterprise took three weeks to cross to Calais. They used 500 ships and barges, many of which were hired in the Low Countries by William Caxton, who was ‘commissary and agent for the King of England’; the rate agreed was one month’s hire paid in advance. The whole force arrived at Calais by 4 July, the date Duke Charles had promised to be there. Not only did the Duke keep them waiting for ten days, but then he arrived without troops and remarked, annoyingly, that with such a fine body of men King Edward could march through to Rome if he pleased. The English marched south alone.

They reached Peronne on the Somme on 6 August and a detachment was sent forward to take over St Quentin. The Count de St Pol, Constable of France (first cousin to Anthony and Edward through their mother), had promised King Edward and Duke Charles that the city would welcome the English but the detachment was met by unwelcoming cannon fire and came limping back empty handed.

According to Commines, the English were naive: ‘King Edward and his people had little experience in dealing with French affairs; they practised a rather crude and simple form of statecraft. Hence it was that they were rather slow at seeing through the deceptions that are used here and elsewhere.’

The Count de St Pol had been endeavouring to divide his loyalty between Burgundy and France but it all spun out of control. Commines says ‘he constantly sought to keep both duke and king in a state of fear, using one against the other’, with the result that neither trusted him. In this instance King Louis had smelled a rat and put serious pressure on St Pol to conduct the defence. Messengers were flying to and fro.

Duke Charles still provided the English with nothing but empty words. King Edward was angry and worried. He had been let down by Charles, particularly as the French were laying waste to the countryside behind them and summer was drawing to a close; there was a strong argument for strategic withdrawal.

Anthony was at Peronne with the King and the War Council when the contingency plan was implemented. But King Louis had to make the first move towards any negotiated settlement. Luckily the English had a prisoner from the French royal household and this gave the opportunity for finesse. Lords Howard and Stanley released the man and each gave him a gold crown, telling him to particularly recommend them to King Louis.

The signal was understood. Louis immediately sent a messenger to Edward saying France only wished for peace and all his hostile acts had been targeted at the selfish Duke of Burgundy. Also, said the messenger, King Louis quite understood that King Edward had a tricky position at home, but he was sure they could come to a sensible arrangement. The last thing King Louis wanted was war. He had crushed feudal anarchy and secured the imperilled unity of France but Duke Charles remained his rival and his problem. He needed to neutralize England and isolate Burgundy so his subtle mind had worked at the problem.

‘He desired to know everything; he forgot nothing.’ He rarely used the human touch, unless it suited him. Commines reports him saying, ‘Speak to my people? I do not trouble myself with such affairs.’ He also observed that King Louis ‘dressed so badly that worse was impossible’. Apparently his standard dress was grey fustian, a shabby hat without diamond or pearl, only a lead badge and round his neck a rosary of large wooden beads. Neither does he seem to have been physically attractive: ‘small and sharp eyes, a large nose, thin mouth and his cheeks and chin were a little flabby’.19

However, his intelligence gathering was exceptional and his chief intelligencer was Tristian L’Hermit. An English ambassador rated L’Hermit a formidable opponent and had warned the governor of Calais ten years earlier: ‘the most diligent, brisk and keen spirited...don’t let him speak to anyone alone or have any opportunity of discovering the weakness of the forts. He will see and understand everything...in truth he is a terrible man.’ 20

So King Louis was well served. He was also clear about his objectives and was a talented negotiator. King Edward and his advisors were rather different. Edward was not ‘the cleverest man I have known at extracting himself from an adverse situation’, as Commines remarked of Louis. Nevertheless King Edward was playing his hand rather well. He conferred with his Council and put a detailed financial proposal to King Louis with some useful political addenda. (Edward Woodville was far too junior to be involved with the convoluted negotiations but would have been building the relationship with his men that was to serve him so well eight years later.) A deal was struck and the two kings met on a bridge over the Somme with their armies drawn up on opposite banks. ‘In the meantime it fell a raining prodigiously which did considerable damage to the finery and furniture.’ 21 All was friendship, with King Louis inviting King Edward to ‘Come and visit me in Paris; we have ladies there who will entertain you right merrily – and you shall have for your confessor Cardinal Bourbon who knows how to lay light penances for pleasant sins,’ or so Commines reported.

The Treaty of Picquigny was finalized to the satisfaction of both kings. There was a seven-year truce and free trade in France for English merchants. The Dauphin and Princess Elizabeth were engaged and there was much window dressing, but effectively France paid England to go home. There was a down payment of 75,000 gold crowns, followed by 50,000 crowns annually (one crown equalled about four shillings and three pence, so there were around five crowns to the pound).

The following day a public-relations campaign started to justify the treaty. Some Englishmen in Amiens were saying, ‘the Holy Ghost has made the peace’. What was the evidence? Well, a white pigeon that had perched on King Edward’s tent would not be frightened away. Louis de Bretelles, for one, was not convinced: he knew post-event rationalization when he met it and pointed out that the bird was wet from the rainstorm, the sun had then shone, so the pigeon, wanting to dry itself, chose the highest tent to perch on. Edward, as the other knight in the Rivers contingent, would have heard the cynicism of the older man and would have had a view as to what should or should not have been done.

However it looked, King Louis was content and arranged a celebration – four days of unlimited drink in Amiens for the English rank and file, who predictably misbehaved, and extra cash for the nobles. Duke Charles appeared shortly afterwards, discovered to his horror that Burgundy was excluded from the treaty and complained bitterly to King Edward. But the latter was unmoved, having neatly turned a deteriorating situation into success with no help from the perfidious Duke.

The Milanese ambassador reported, ‘The King of England is very dissatisfied with the Duke of Burgundy, although he calls him brother. It is because he [the Duke] did not receive him in his towns as promised and because he obtained no help from him of men or money.’

Neither would King Edward have forgotten that the Duke, just four years earlier, had offered to hand him over to the Lancastrians. Meanwhile Duke Charles tore his Garter to pieces with his teeth in fury and muttered that King Edward was a bastard; his father was an archer called Blaybourne and, anyway, he – Duke Charles – had a better claim to the throne of England.22 It seems there was little love lost between them. Edward was also still in his debt, having only paid half of Duchess Margaret’s dowry of 200,000 livres.

The Milanese also reported that King Edward did not want his brothers to precede him to England, ‘as he feared some disturbance, especially as the Duke of Clarence had previously aspired to make himself king’. The ambassador added, ‘I gather some revolution [in England] would give secret satisfaction to the Duke here [in Burgundy].’ 23

The war had proved useful for King Edward. He had secured a double profit, ‘from his subjects for the war and from his enemies for the peace’.24 He had also anticipated some of the problems that might arise:

He had brought with him ten or twelve men, big fat ones, some from London and some from other towns, who were leading figures of the English commons and who had done much to promote the invasion. King Edward had them quartered in handsome tents, but campaigning was not the sort of life they were used to and they quickly wearied of it; three days after they had landed at Calais they were worrying that there would be a battle. The king stimulated their doubts and fears and thus prompted them to look favourably upon the peace.25

Of course free trade with France dealt with any remaining misgivings the merchants might have had.

King Edward certainly regarded the Treaty of Picquigny as his masterstroke and shortly afterwards commissioned the building of St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, where he had the treaty’s conclusion carved on his misericord. However, there was grumbling amongst the knights and young bloods who had expected to prove themselves in battle and improve themselves by plunder. Louis de Bretelles admitted privately to Philippe de Commines, who was a friend of his, that he thought the French were laughing at the English king. In de Bretelles’s view the shame of the treaty outweighed the honour King Edward had achieved by his nine victories, in all of which he – Louis de Bretelles – had fought.

This conversation was reported to King Louis who observed, ‘He is a shrewd fellow, we must have a care of his tongue.’ The next day he had de Bretelles to dinner and made ‘very advantageous proposals if he would quit his master’s service and live in France’. De Bretelles refused the offer but accepted 1,000 crowns (around £200) as a present and was asked to help promote good relations between the two kings.26

After the treaty, King Louis had some unfinished business. The Count de St Pol had oscillated between the two power blocks, irritating them both, and was now trying to ingratiate himself. ‘It was then that Louis XI, taking pleasure in the Constable’s discomfiture, gave him this reply with such a cruel double meaning: ‘I have so much to deal with that I need a good head like yours.’ 27 (Six months later King Louis caught St Pol and took his head.)

Once King Edward was safely back in England, Anthony’s responsibilities became less onerous. He made a donation to Eton College that was so generous that a mass was said for him and his family every morning and the day, 30 October, was kept as an anniversary to remember him, which lasted for 60 years or more.

King Edward judged the time right for a spectacular parade and so arranged the reburial of his father and brother, Edmund, who had been killed at Wakefield in 1460. They were now brought in a splendid procession from Pontefract to Fotheringay where, on 29 July 1476, they were re-interned with two days of masses and ceremonies.

Now Anthony was free to embark on a pilgrimage to Italy. In practice it seems to have been more of a diplomatic mission. Whether young Sir Edward accompanied his brother is unknown but he may have; it looked an interesting trip. Since King Edward wished to develop good relations with the Duke of Milan, Anthony carried a personal introduction from the King who described him as ‘one of his chief confidents and brother of his dear consort...[who] will visit on his way to or from Rome’.