The Woodvilles: The Wars of the Roses and England's Most Infamous Family (4 page)

King Henry, displaying an uncharacteristic interest in military matters by reading treatises on warfare,
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proceeded to Ludford Bridge in the Welsh march on 12 October. There he and his men encamped, awaiting battle with the forces of York, Salisbury, and Warwick, who circulated rumours that the king was dead. But fighting against their own king was not something that many men could easily stomach yet, and overnight a number of the Yorkist soldiers defected to the king’s side. When those who remained awoke, they found that their leaders had deserted them. York fled to Ireland, leaving his duchess, Cecily, behind, while the Nevilles fled to Calais. With them was York’s eldest son, the 17-year-old Edward, Earl of March.

King Henry was then faced with the task of dislodging Warwick from his perch in Calais. The Duke of Somerset was Captain of Calais in name, but he could get no closer than Guines, where he led a series of bold but unsuccessful attacks on the town.

Lord Rivers, stationed at Sandwich, gathered together a fleet to come to Somerset’s aid. It was here, on 19 January 1460, that John Dynham made a surprise attack on the fleet and dragged Lord Rivers, his lady, and their eldest son, Anthony, from their beds.
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The men were unceremoniously hauled across the Channel to Calais, to the amusement of one chronicler, who wrote that Rivers ‘was commanded to have landed at Calais by the king, but he was brought there sooner than him liked’.
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At Calais, they were paraded by torchlight before Salisbury, Warwick, and March, who improved the occasion by taunting the men with their comparatively lowly origins. As reported by William Paston II:

    My Lord Rivers was brought to Calais and before the lords with 800 torches, and there my lord of Salisbury rated him, calling him knave’s son that he should be so rude to call him and these other lords traitors, for they shall be found the King’s true liege men when he should be found a traitor, &c. And my lord of Warwick rated him and said that his father was but a squire and brought up with King Henry the V, and [afterwards] himself made by marriage and also made lord, and that it was not his part to have such language of lords being of the King’s blood. And my lord of March rated him in like wise, and Sir Anthony was rated for his language of all three lords in like wise.
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Irksome as this must have been to them, the Woodvilles were fortunate to receive no more than humiliation at the hands of their captors; a few months later, it is unlikely that they would have escaped with their lives.

Jacquetta evidently was spared the journey to Calais, as a contemporaneous letter describes her as being still in Kent.
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How long the male Woodvilles remained in custody is unknown, but there is no record of them fighting again until the Battle of Towton in March 1461. Meanwhile, Warwick sailed to visit York in Dublin, where the two men may have agreed that Warwick would help York seize the throne.
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Officially, however, when Warwick returned to England in July 1460, it was as the king’s loyal subject. His protestations of loyalty lost much of their force, however, on 10 July, when Yorkist forces led by Warwick and March encountered the king’s forces at Northampton. A timely defection by Edmund, Lord Grey of Ruthin ensured a Yorkist victory. The Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Beaumont, and Egremont were slaughtered, and Henry was taken to London as a captive in all but name.
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The next arrival in England was the Duke of York himself, who returned in September 1460, when he began acquiring retainers without referring to the king or even to the regnal year in the accompanying documents, a clear sign that the duke had renounced his allegiance to Henry.
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Clad in blue and white livery embroidered with fetterlocks, the duke made his way from Chester toward London. On the way, he was reunited with his duchess, who came to him in a chariot covered with blue velvet and drawn by four horses. At Abington, the duke sent for trumpeters and ‘claryners’ to accompany him to London, gave them banners bearing the royal arms, and ordered that his sword be borne before him.
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With ‘great pomp and splendour and in no small exaltation of mood’, York arrived in October at Westminster Palace, where Parliament had assembled. As one observer wrote:

    [H]e made directly for the king’s throne, where he laid his hand on the drape or cushion, as if about to take possession of what was his by right, and held his hand there for a brief time. At last, withdrawing it, he turned towards the people and, standing quietly under the cloth of state, looked eagerly at the assembly awaiting their acclamation. Whilst he stood there, turning his face to the people and awaiting their applause, Thomas Bourchier Archbishop of Canterbury arose and, after a suitable greeting, enquired whether he wished to come and see the king. The duke, who seemed irritated by this request, replied curtly, ‘I do not recall that I know anyone in the kingdom whom it would not befit to come to me and see my person, rather than I should go and visit him.’ When the archbishop heard this reply, he quickly withdrew and told the king of the duke’s response. After the bishop had left, the duke also withdrew, went to the principal chamber of the palace (the king being in the queen’s apartments), smashed the locks and threw open the doors, in a regal rather than a ducal manner, and remained there for some time.
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Despite the lack of enthusiasm engendered by his bid for the throne, York would not give up so easily, and even began planning his coronation. Dissuaded, he instead submitted his claim to Parliament, which by 31 October had hammered out an arrangement under which York would replace Henry’s own son, the 8-year-old Edward of Lancaster, as heir to the throne. York would receive castle, manors, and lands worth 10,000 marks per annum, part of which would be shared with his first and second sons, Edward, Earl of March, and Edmund, Earl of Rutland. Nothing was reserved for Henry’s own son, although it may have been intended that he be allowed to succeed to the duchy of Lancaster upon his father’s death. The Act of Accord, as it was called, required York, who was older than the king, to swear that he would do nothing to cut short Henry’s natural life, but did provide for the eventuality that Henry might abdicate.
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The Act of Accord also authorised York to suppress ‘rebellions, murders, riots, looting, extortion and oppression’ – the unnamed source of such troubles being Henry’s own queen. Hearing of her husband’s capture at Northampton, Margaret had fled with Prince Edward into Wales, from where she contacted Somerset and her other allies. With every reason to fear for her son’s safety if he fell into Yorkist hands, she resisted Yorkist attempts to lure her to London.
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As King Henry adjusted to this new state of affairs, Margaret’s forces assembled minus Margaret herself, who had travelled to Scotland to seek aid. York went out with his own forces to oppose them. On 30 December 1460, his dreams of the throne ended at Wakefield, where he was killed in battle by forces led by Somerset. The Lancastrians (as it is now most convenient to call them) ordered that the dead duke be decapitated and that his head be placed at Micklegate Bar in York. As a finishing touch, York’s severed head was decked with a paper crown.

There had been a notable absence at Wakefield: York’s 18-year-old heir, Edward, who had been engaged elsewhere, probably in the Welsh march. He now took up his father’s cause. In early February, he defeated Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, Henry VI’s younger half-brother, at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross. This Yorkist victory was quickly followed by a Lancastrian triumph at St Albans. King Henry, who had been dragged along to the battle by the Earl of Warwick, was reunited with his wife and young son. The most significant Lancastrian casualty at St Albans was Sir John Grey, who had been married to Richard and Jacquetta’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth. The death of this luckless knight would have undreamed-of consequences three years later.

Yorkist propaganda had painted a lurid picture of Margaret’s army as a horde of barely civilised northerners set on wholesale destruction of the civilian population.
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With Margaret encamped at St Albans, the nervous Londoners were taking no chances. They appointed Jacquetta, the Duchess of Buckingham, and Lady Scales to join a delegation sent to Margaret to beg for mercy for the city – a service which would be remembered with gratitude some years later.
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What Jacquetta and the other ladies said to the queen is unrecorded, but Margaret promised to leave the city unharmed. Tragically, from her point of view, she chose not to enter it at all, save for a token force. Instead she returned to the north, leaving London to throw its gates open to the charismatic Earl of March. On 4 March 1461, the earl, just a month short of his 19th birthday, took his seat in Westminster as King Edward IV.

The new king promptly led an army northward to confront the queen’s forces. With them by now were Lord Rivers and his son Anthony, who at some unknown point had either escaped or been freed from Calais. On 30 March 1461, in blinding snow, the armies met at Towton. According to the Burgundian chronicler, Waurin:

    Edward had scarcely time to regain his position under his banner when Lord Rivers and his son with six or seven thousand Welshmen led by Andrew Trollope, and the Duke of Somerset with seven thousand men more, charged the Earl of March’s cavalry, put them to flight and chased them for eleven miles, so that it appeared to them that they had won great booty, because they thought that the Earl of Northumberland had charged at the same time on the other flank, but he failed to attack soon enough, which was a misfortune for him as he died that day. In this chase died a great number of men of worth to the Earl of March who, witnessing the fate of his cavalry was much saddened and angered: at which moment he saw the Earl of Northumberland’s battle advancing, carrying King Henry’s banner; so he rode the length of his battle to where his principal supporters were gathered and remonstrated with them.
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Snow blowing into the faces of Lancastrian troops, good generalship by Edward, and the timely arrival of fresh troops led by the Duke of Norfolk resulted in a Yorkist victory, but at a terrible cost to both sides. By the time the battle and the ensuing rout ended, anywhere from 20,000 to 30,000 men lay dead, some on the snow-covered fields, others in the waters of the River Wharfe. Towton would be the bloodiest battle fought on English soil.

The Lancastrian royal family, Somerset, and a few others, fled to Scotland, while the triumphant Edward IV took the time to send a letter to his mother. William Paston II, who was allowed to read the letter when it reached the Duchess of York, reported that Anthony, Lord Scales – that is, Anthony Woodville – was among the dead.
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Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury, also reported that Anthony had fallen in battle, while Prospero di Camulio, Milanese Ambassador to the Court of France, claimed that Lord Rivers had escaped to Scotland with Henry and Margaret.
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In fact, Anthony was very much alive, and if Lord Rivers ever made it to Scotland, he did not stay there. On 31 July, Giovanni Pietro Cagnola reported, ‘I have no news from here except that the Earl of Warwick has taken Monsig. de Ruvera and his son and sent them to the king who had them imprisoned in the Tower’. This seems unlikely, because before this letter was written, Lord Rivers and Anthony had already made a decision that many other followers of Henry and Margaret made after the slaughter at Towton: they offered their allegiance to the new king. Lord Rivers received his pardon on 12 July 1461, while Anthony’s came on 23 July. A third pardon was issued on 8 February 1462 to Anthony’s younger brother Richard.
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On 30 August 1461, Count Ludovico Dallugo, a recent visitor to England, wrote to Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan:

    The lords adherent to King Henry are all quitting him, and come to tender obedience to this king, and at this present one of the chief of them has come, by name Lord de Rivers, with one of his sons, men of very great valour. I held several conversations with this Lord de Rivers about King Henry’s cause, and what he thought of it, and he answered me that the cause was lost irretrievably.
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The Woodvilles, once loyal Lancastrians, were now loyal Yorkists. In December 1462, Anthony was among Edward IV’s forces besieging Alnwick Castle, held by the Lancastrians.
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With the Lancastrian army reduced to a handful of impoverished exiles, Edward set about consolidating his regime. He had another concern as well. For it is a truth universally acknowledged, that an unattached young king must be in search of a wife.