Wars of the Roses (42 page)
As the battle ended, Henry Mountfort, a Yorkist archer, captured the King and confined him to his tent. When it was clear that the day was theirs, Warwick, March and Fauconberg found him there alone, ‘as a man born and predestinate to trouble, misery and calamity’. The three lords fell on their knees and craved the King’s forgiveness for having taken up arms against him, emphasising that their only motive had been the desire to establish stable and just government, and assuring him of their continuing loyalty. Then March, who had not as yet sworn fealty to his sovereign, knelt and did him homage. For all their subservience, however, the Yorkist lords now had the
King in their custody. Later that day they conducted him in procession to Delapré Abbey and thence to Northampton. Meanwhile, Wiltshire and many other prominent Lancastrians had gone into hiding.
Queen Margaret had spent anxious days at Eccleshall Castle, awaiting news. When it came, it could not have been worse: the battle lost, many of her supporters dead or fled, and the King in the hands of the Yorkists, who would now control not only the sovereign but the government and the administrative departments of state. However, with the Queen and her son still at large, the Yorkists would have no scope for complacency.
Some Lancastrian prisoners taken in the battle, including the Lords Hungerford and Lovell, gave their captors the slip and rode to join the Queen, but others, including Lord de la Warre and the Earl of Kendal, transferred their loyalties to the Yorkists. Margaret decided it would be prudent to leave Eccleshall, and fled with her son and a few attendants through Cheshire to Wales. Near Malpas Castle, one of her servants, John Cleger, robbed her of her treasure and jewellery, and even threatened to kill her and the Prince, at which some of her retinue deserted her. However, as Cleger was rifling through her baggage, the Queen and her son managed to escape with the help of her remaining attendants and a courageous fourteen-year-old boy, John Coombe of Annesbury, with whom she and the Prince rode pillion to Jasper Tudor at Harlech Castle. Here she met with a warm welcome and was presented with many gifts. Her brother-in-law ‘greatly comforted’ her, ‘for she had need thereof’, though he was aware that he would not be able to shelter her for long.
Jasper was in control of York’s castle of Denbigh, and he suggested that the Queen move there. ‘Gregory’ says she left Harlech by stealth ‘for she durst abide in no place but in private’ because ‘counterfeit tokens were sent unto her, as though they had come from her most dread lord the King, but it was not of his sending, but forged things, for they that brought the tokens were of the King’s house, and bade her beware that she gave no credence thereto, for the lords would fain had her unto London, for they knew well that all the workings that were done grew by her, for she was more wittier than the King’.
Giving out that she had gone to France to raise troops, Margaret went to Denbigh, where she was soon joined by Exeter and other prominent Lancastrians. On their advice, she now wrote to Somerset, Devon and other adherents, asking them to raise an army in the north and wait upon her at Hull. On 9 August, along with
other royalist constables of Yorkist castles in Wales, Pembroke was ordered by the Yorkist Council to surrender Denbigh to York’s deputy, Edward Bourchier. He refused, continuing to recruit Welshmen for the Queen and for the Prince of Wales, ‘the hope of the British Isles’, and York never regained his former supremacy in Wales.
In London, meanwhile, Salisbury, Cobham and the city’s militia had besieged Lord Scales in the Tower, placing bombards and ‘great ordnance’ on the far side of the Thames and ‘crazing the walls in divers places’. On 16 July, the King, escorted by the Yorkist earls, entered the City with a great retinue and was lodged in the bishop’s palace, while Londoners ‘gave Almighty God great thanks and praise’ for the Yorkist victory. After nearly three weeks, Scales was ready to surrender. He was running out of food and had no hope of receiving any reinforcements; he had also given way to the panic-stricken pleas of the noble ladies who had sought refuge in the Tower. On the night after the surrender, Scales tried to escape by boat to the sanctuary at Westminster Abbey, but the London boatmen surrounded his vessel, dragged him out and murdered him, casting his bloody corpse, ‘naked as a worm’, on to the steps of the Priory of St Mary Overie in Southwark.
Queen Margaret had now left Denbigh and sailed from Wales around the coast to Berwick, intending to seek refuge in Scotland, where James II, whose mother had been a Beaufort, was a friend to the Lancastrians. The Scottish queen, Mary of Gueldres, advised of Margaret’s coming, sent an envoy, Duncan Dundas, to escort her to Dumfries, where she and her son were warmly received. They were then lodged at Lincluden Abbey as guests of Queen Mary, and royally entertained there.
However, Scotland was just then in mourning because of the untimely death of its king, blown up by an exploding cannon while successfully besieging Yorkist sympathisers at Roxburgh. At the time of Margaret’s arrival the regents were in Edinburgh for the late King’s burial and the coronation of James III. James II’s friendly relations with the House of Lancaster were to be maintained, however, by his widow and by the Bishop of St Andrews, who both headed the newly-formed regency council.
From Lincluden, Margaret wrote to Mary of Gueldres, begging for sanctuary and assistance against her enemies. Mary responded sympathetically and soon afterwards arrived at Lincluden with the young king to comfort Margaret and reassure her that help would be forthcoming. The two queens stayed at the abbey for twelve days, discussing what form that help would take. At length, Mary agreed
to provide men and loan money for a campaign against the Yorkists on condition that Margaret surrendered the town of Berwick to the Scots. Margaret, having no understanding of the horror with which her husband’s subjects would view this almost casual cession of one of the most fought-over border towns to their enemy, readily agreed. Mary then assigned the earls of Douglas and Angus to muster their retainers and accompany Margaret back into England. Such was the courage of the Queen that both these hardened warlords came to respect her; they were also gratified to hear her promise that there would be handsome booty for the taking in the prosperous south of England, so long as there was no pillaging and plundering north of the River Trent.
While these preparations for war were being completed, Mary invited Margaret to remain in Scotland, staying at Falkland Palace and other royal residences until she was ready to march into England.
York had in the past made several unsuccessful attempts to assume the role of chief counsellor to the King, to which he felt his birth and position as premier magnate of the realm entitled him. Now, after the success of the Yorkist lords’ invasion, memories of previous short-lived triumphs convinced him that the only way to establish firm government and himself in power was to assert his right to the throne, thus reviving the long-dormant Mortimer claim.
By 1460, after long years of suffering the misrule caused by Henry VI’s ineptitude, the English were beginning to question the right of the House of Lancaster to occupy the throne, and were showing signs of taking the claim of the Mortimers, vested in York, seriously. The whole issue of dynastic right would now be thrown open for public discussion and speculation. A Yorkist genealogy, prepared for propaganda purposes and now in the British Library, depicts Henry IV slicing through Richard II’s line of descent with a sword, while an Old Testament prophet foretells of vengeance being visited upon Henry’s descendants. Such seeds of propaganda fell on fertile ground in 1460.
York was descended from Edward III’s second son through two females, Philippa of Clarence and Anne Mortimer, which made him Edward’s heir general. Henry VI, descended in the male line from Edward’s fourth son, was his heir male. Nowadays the question of legitimate right would be decided without question in favour of York, If, for example, the present Prince of Wales had an only daughter, and his brother Prince Andrew a son, the descendants of Prince Charles’s daughter would inherit the throne as descendants of
the Queen’s eldest son. In the fifteenth century the law of primogeniture was never so strictly defined. Lord Chief Justice Fortescue put forward a hypothetical case in which a king ‘has a daughter and a brother; the daughter has a son. The king dies without a son. Does the kingdom descend to the daughter, or to her son, or to the king’s brother?’ Fortescue concluded that the king’s brother should succeed him because the woman is subject to the man. A woman, he declared, was not fit to rule or transmit a claim. Adam was superior to Eve because he was able to teach her the moral virtues of prudence, courage and temperance, and man was to woman as the soul to the body. When it came to the question of who should have the crown of England, however, Fortescue played it safe and suggested that the Pope should be asked to decide the issue.
York was not concerned with such legal niceties. He had had enough. His ineffective cousin must stand aside for the man who was determined and able to restore good government and rid the realm of corrupt advisers – Richard Plantagenet.
York, however, having failed to take into account the fact that hitherto few lords had actually supported him even in his quest for reform, did not now stop to consult with any of his followers or allies, nor did he try to cultivate sufficient support to back up his claim. He believed that right alone would be enough to win him the crown.
On 8 September 1460 York returned from Ireland and landed in north Wales, near Chester. From here he marched south to Ludlow and thence to Hereford. His duchess had been freed from house arrest after the Battle of Northampton, since when she had been living at Baynard’s Castle with her younger children, awaiting her lord’s return. As soon as York landed he sent a message asking Cecily to meet him at Hereford as soon as possible, which she did, travelling in a chariot, or litter, hung with blue velvet and drawn by four pairs of fine horses.
York had timed his return so that he would be in London when Parliament met in early October. He made no attempt to conceal the fact that he had come to assert his claim to the throne, and proceeded to the capital with as much state and ceremony as if he were already king. At Abingdon, he summoned trumpeters and had them issued with banners displaying the royal arms of England undifferenced – the sovereign’s arms. And thus he came to London.
Somerset, meanwhile, had finally given up trying to wrest Calais from Warwick’s garrison, and had recently been obliged to surrender
Guisnes to the Earl’s men. Towards the end of September he too returned to England, and took up residence at Corfe Castle in Dorset.
Parliament assembled in Westminster Hall on 7 October. The King attended the opening ceremony but thereafter remained in the Queen’s apartments in the palace. In this Parliament Lord Bourchier was made Treasurer of England and Warwick’s brother, George Neville, Bishop of Exeter, was rewarded for his recent support by being appointed Chancellor. At that time he was about twenty-seven years old, a clever, cultivated opportunist who was not at all suited to his episcopal role, for he loved luxurious living and political intrigue. He was a great patron of scholars, corresponded with famous men of letters in other parts of Europe and amassed a respectable library of rare manuscripts. Chastellain describes him as a ‘stately and eloquent man’.
On the 10th, York rode into London at the head of a great retinue, preceded by his trumpeters, whose banners astonished those who beheld them, and by his sword of state, borne upright before him. Gone was his former restraint and caution. His arrogant and dignified bearing proclaimed to all what his intentions were, and it was noted that from now on he would act ‘more like a king than a duke’. Abbot Whethamstead accused him of the sin of pride.
In this manner he came to Westminster Hall, where Parliament was sitting. Dismounting at the door, and with his sword still carried before him, he strode through the assembled throng to the dais at the far end, on which stood the empty throne beneath a canopy of estate. Then, after bowing to the Lords, he placed his hand firmly on the throne, symbolically laying claim to it. As he did so, the Lords and Commons alike ‘ran together and looked’ incredulously. Then York turned to face them, expecting cheers of acclamation. Instead there was an embarrassed silence.
Nonplussed, he moved away from the throne, plainly furious. Nevertheless he announced undeterred that he ‘challenged and claimed the realm of England as heir of King Richard II, proposing without any delay to be crowned on All Hallows Day following’ – 1 November. The Archbishop of Canterbury cautiously suggested he obtain an audience of the King to discuss his claim, but this stirred York to anger. ‘I know of no one in the realm who would not more fitly come to me than I to him,’ he declared.
Nevertheless he marched out of the hall and made his way to the royal apartments where the King, having heard the commotion, had retired to an inner chamber. York was intent on seeing him, and coming to the door of the chamber he thrust aside the guards and
burst in. Henry faced him calmly, but stood by his right to occupy the throne of his forefathers.
The reaction of most noblemen to York’s astonishing act was one of profound dismay. How could they be expected to uphold his claim when they had all taken an oath of allegiance to Henry VI? That Henry should have inspired such loyalty after decades of misrule is testimony to the mystical power of the institution of monarchy at that time – perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Wars of the Roses – and also the personal esteem in which Henry was held for his many virtues. Equally remarkable is the fact that Henry VI failed to capitalise on such support. Powerful magnates had not hesitated to depose Richard II – but Richard’s tyranny had threatened their jealously-guarded privileges. Under Henry VI, many magnates had prospered.
Even Warwick and Salisbury were shocked and angered by York’s behaviour. They had supported him in his calls for reform and in his attempts to gain power for himself, but this time they felt he had gone too far, and without even consulting them. Nor did they feel able to support his claim, for – in common with most magnates – they saw no reason why Henry VI, England’s acknowledged and anointed king for the past thirty-eight years, should be deposed.
