Warwick the Kingmaker (21 page)

Scarcely any decisions were taken over the Christmas period and there are no surviving council records until February 1454, when parliament was to resume. However, there was plenty of political activity and preparations were afoot nearly a month beforehand to locate parliament amidst an armed camp. The unfolding crisis is documented by the newsletter of 19 January 1454 of John Stodeley. The king’s incapacity had been confirmed. Far from accepting defeat, the regime had been planning for the future and making the most of its control of the machinery of government and household. Anticipating a potential coup involving the seizure of the person of the king, it was proposed that a guard should be set about him. Even imprisoned, Somerset was the mind behind the regime, a potent and, to Stodeley’s mind, a malign influence, whose spies were everywhere. Letters were being intercepted and Norfolk should watch out for ambush. As Somerset’s continued rule was apparently unattainable, rule by the queen, enhanced in status as mother to the heir, was being advocated. Five articles were proposed that would have given her ‘the hole reule of this land’, control over appointments to royal and ecclesiastical office, and sufficient resources to support the king, prince and herself. Nothing was to be left to chance. An armed retinue attended Cardinal Kemp, the chancellor. All the lodgings by the Tower had been taken for the retainers of Somerset, who was thus assured against the repetition of Lord Say’s seizure or his own attempted lynching in 1450. Prominent magnates were coming in force: the courtier Viscount Beaumont; the treasurer Wiltshire and Bonville were recruiting men at Taunton at 6
d
. a day; the northerners Lord Clifford and the Percy brothers Poynings and Egremont, fresh from his alliance with Exeter at Tuxforth. Reportedly Buckingham had prepared 2,000 Stafford bands with knots – his livery badge – ‘to what entent men may construe as their wittes wole yeve them’. Bills supporting the king and prince had been posted by courtiers, determined this time to get public opinion on their side, and York himself was to be discredited if not destroyed. Articles against him had been prepared by the Speaker himself, Thomas Thorpe, for this was the same Reading parliament that had been so accommodating to the court and so condemnatory of Dartford and Oldhall. Moreover the royal council had written to Norfolk and doubtless other disaffected lords directing them not to bring large forces with them. The government was to be strongest and the stronger party was to prevail.

From such a coalition, York and the Nevilles had much to fear. They were not daunted and were no less advanced in their preparations. ‘A feliship of gode men’ had been sent in advance of the duke, who was bringing his household fully equipped for war, and was to be accompanied by the two Tudor brothers and Warwick himself. ‘And natheles therle of Warwyk wole haue M [a thousand] men awaityng on hym beside the feliship that cometh with him, as ferre as I can knowe.’ Salisbury was due on Monday with 140 knights and squires, ‘beside other meynee’. Stodeley’s master should bring as many men as he could make and explain that he needed it for his own security.81 Conflict loomed. And Warwick and Salisbury were agreed that this time they would fight on the side of the Duke of York.

NOTES

1. T. B. Pugh, ‘Richard Plantagenet (1411–60), Duke of York, as the King’s Lieutenant in France and Ireland’,
Aspects of Late Medieval Government & Society
, ed. J. G. Rowe (Toronto, 1986), 126.

2. Griffiths,
Henry VI
, 684.

3. I. M. W. Harvey,
Jack Cade’s Rebellion of 1450
(Oxford, 1991), ch. 2.

4. Watts,
Henry VI
, 222–36.

5. M. H. Keen and M. J. Daniel, ‘English Diplomacy and the Sack of Fougères in 1449’,
History
lix (1974), 383.

6. G. L. Harriss, ‘Marmaduke Lumley and the Exchequer Crisis of 1446–9’,
Aspects of
Late Medieval Government & Society
, 147, 149, 152–71.

7. A. R. Myers, ‘The Household of Queen Margaret of Anjou 1452–3’,
Crown, Household
and Parliament in Fifteenth Century England
(1983), 137–9; B. P. Wolffe,
Henry VI
(1981), 141.

8. M. K. Jones, ‘Somerset, York, and the Wars of the Roses’,
EHR
civ (1989), 289–90.

9. Keen and Daniel, 383.

10. Griffiths,
Henry VI
, 677.

11. Harvey,
Jack Cade’s Rebellion
, 186–91, at 189.

12.
RP
v. 210.

13. Johnson,
York
, 91n; R. Virgoe, ‘Some Ancient Indictments in the King’s Bench referring to Kent 1450–2’,
Kent Records: Documents Illustrative of Medieval Kentish
Society
, ed. F. R. H. Du Boulay (Kent Rec. Soc. 18, 1964),
passim
.

14. Johnson,
York
, 88.

15.
Vale’s Bk.
180–2, 187–8; Jones, ‘Somerset, York’, 305–6.

16. Johnson,
York
, 79–81; R. A. Griffiths, ‘Duke Richard of York’s Intentions in 1450 and the Origins of the Wars of the Roses’,
King & Country
, 301. Vale’s book says ‘our’ towns,
Vale’s Bk.
186.

17. Griffiths,
King & Country
, 299, 301.

18.
Calendar of the Carew Manuscripts
, ed. J. S. Brewer and W. Bullen, v (1873), 258; Griffiths,
King & Country
, 299; M. A. Hicks, ‘From Megaphone to Microscope: The Correspondence of Richard Duke of York with Henry VI, 1450’,
JMH
. The next 4 paras are based on ibid.; Griffiths,
King & Country
, 277–304; Johnson,
York
, 83–8;
RP
v. 347. Apparently Lord Rivers and Lord Scales accompanied York at the presentation of one of his bills, Griffiths,
Henry VI
, 707 at n. 108.

19.
Vale’s Bk.
187–8.

20. Jones, ‘Somerset, York’, 288.

21. Ibid. 288, 290–1, 304–6.

22.
Six Town Chronicles
, ed. R. Flenley (1909), 137; Johnson,
York
, 91; Jones, ‘Somerset, York’, 287. I doubt if York was concerned that his rival should survive.

23.
Six Town Chronicles
, 137.

24.
Annales
, 766.

25.
PL
iii. 44.

26.
A Collection of Political Poems and Songs
, ed. T. Wright (Rolls Series, 2 vols, 1859–61), ii. 222.

27. Griffiths,
Henry VI
, 707 at n. 108.

28.
CPR 1446–52
, 437–9.

29.
Annales
, 770.

30. Jones, ‘Somerset, York’, 286.

31. Virgoe, ‘King’s Council’, 158.

32. B. P. Wolffe,
Royal Demesne in English History
(1973), 259;
Henry VI
(1981), 246;
CPR 1446–52
, 57. They remained in possession until the inquisitions were returned.

33.
CFR 1445–52
, 184.

34. E 404/67/226; E 159/227 brevia Hil. 29 Hen. VI m. 33, which is discussed by Johnson,
York
, 93n.

35. Warwicks. RO CR 1886/59/8. For what follows, see
CPR 1446–52
, 451.

36. E 149/189/3 m. 3.

37.
CFR 1452–61
, 28; BL Add. Ch. 72684. On 22–3 May Salisbury was at Westminster at the council and treating with the Scots, E 28/83/9;
Rot. Scot.
ii. 368.

38.
CPR 1446–52
, 430, 451. This had already been conceded in December 1449, Watts,
Henry VI
, 258.

39. Pollard,
Talbot
, 132–3; Griffiths,
Henry VI
, 573.
Pace
Johnson, York may well have conveyed Berkeley to prison. Such disputes had not yet determined local alignments. Shrewsbury was York’s annuitant, T. B. Pugh, ‘The Magnates, Knights and Gentry’,
Fifteenth-Century England 1399–1509
, ed. S. B. Chrimes, C. D. Ross and R. A. Griffiths (1972), 108.

40.
Annales
, 770–1.

41.
Vale’s Bk.
193–4.

42.
Cardiff Recs.
i. 38–41; BRL 168023 m. 3;
CPR 1452–61
, 476;
1494–1509
, 99;
Ministers’ Accounts of the Warwickshire Estates of the Duke of Clarence,
ed. R. H. Hilton (Dugdale Soc. xxii, 1952), 21; Warwicks. RO Warwick Castle MS 491 m. 4–d;
Rous Roll
, no. 58.

43. BRL 168023 m. 3; Ellis,
Original Letters
, i.i. 14, ii.i. 116–17; Warwicks. RO Warwick Castle MS 491 m. 4;
Stratford Gild Accounts
, 33.

44.
Annales
, 770; Griffiths,
Henry VI
, 698–9.

45. E 159/228 recorda Easter 30 Hen. VI m. 3; C 81/1458/10;
CPR 1446–52
, 523–4, 580–1, 596;
CFR 1445–52
, 268–9; see above pp. 76.

46.
DKR
48 (1887), 392.

47.
CPR 1452–61
, 544, 574.

48.
RP
v. 250–3; Anstis, i. 150.

49.
CPL 1447–55
, 151.

50.
RP
v. 227.

51. Griffiths,
Henry VI
, 699.

52. S. J. Payling, ‘The Ampthill Dispute: A Study of Aristocratic Lawlessness and the Breakdown of Lancastrian Government’,
EHR
civ (1989), 892–3; for the quotation, see Storey,
Lancaster
, 27.

53. Johnson,
York
, 121.

54. E 28/83; Pugh,
Glamorgan County History
, 196;
Stratford Gild Accounts
, 33; BL Egerton Roll 8536 mm. 2–3.

55. E 28/83/41–2.

56. E 28/83/76.

57. Johnson,
York
, 122.

58. BL Egerton Roll 8536 m. 2.

59. Ibid. 8536 m. 2; 8541 m. 7.

60. A. J. Pollard,
North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses
(Oxford, 1990), 249.

61. Ibid. 248, here preferred to Summerson,
Carlisle
, 440.

62. Unless otherwise stated, this section is based on Storey,
Lancaster
, 105–32; Griffiths,
King & Country
, 321–64.

63. E 28/83/15, 19A, 21.

64. E 28/83/43.

65. E 28/83/39;
CPR 1452–61
, 122.

66.
CPR 1452–61
, 122–3; E 28/83/43, 45.

67. E 28/83/46.

68.
Annales
, 770.

69.
CPR 1452–61
, 64.

70. Griffiths,
Henry VI
, 604.

71. Griffiths,
King & Country
, 325; T. B. Pugh, ‘Richard, Duke of York, and the Rebellion of Henry, Duke of Exeter, in May 1454’,
HR
lxiii (1990), 251–2.

72. Carlisle RO Cockermouth Castle MS D/Lec 29/3 m. 2d.

73. BL Egerton Roll 8536 m. 3; Bodl. MS Dugdale 13, f. 434.

74.
Paston L & P
ii. 295–9.

75.
POPC
vi. 163–4.

76. Johnson,
York
, 124.

77.
CPR 1452–61
, 143–4; R. A. Griffiths, ‘The King’s Council and the First Protectorate of the Duke of York 1450–1454’,
King & Country
, 315–17.

78. Griffiths,
King & Country
, 316–17.

79. Ibid. 307.

80.
CPR 1452–61
, 143–4.

81.
Paston L & P
ii. 295–9.

5.1 YORK’S FIRST PROTECTORATE 1454–5

The climax that Stodeley foresaw did not happen. Or did not happen yet. For several reasons. Whilst prepared for violence, the magnates did not want it, and avoided precipitating it. York’s allies brought weapons, not to hand but in carts,1 because they hoped not to use them. The Nevilles and Percies had alike declined the opportunity for battle both at Heworth and at Sand Hutton. Whatever Stodeley’s impression on 19 January, Exeter and the Percies did not actually come to parliament. Stodeley misunderstood their intentions. Maybe Bonville and Wiltshire were more interested in their quarrels with Devon. Perhaps Exeter and Egremont rated their disputes with Cromwell and the Nevilles higher than the fate of the government. It is subsequent historians who have read two sides into Stodeley’s report, which may not have been meant. Perhaps he really did not know to what end Buckingham ordered his knots? Surely there were at least three sides: the court, represented by the queen, cardinal and Somerset; York and the Neville earls; and Exeter and the Percies. For the latter, the enemy was not just the Yorkists, but also the court. As grandson of Henry IV’s whole sister Elizabeth, Exeter saw himself as the legitimate heir of the house of Lancaster and of the duchy of Lancaster too. His father-in-law York, the queen and the Beauforts could all be expected to oppose his claim in parliament. Therefore it was not worth attending. Though the Nevilles had turned to York against Somerset, the Percies did not yet perceive Somerset as their natural ally against the Nevilles. Rather than fight a hopeless battle at court, was it not better for Exeter and the Percies to assert their authority in the North, where the duchy of Lancaster was so strong, against the Nevilles and subsequently to pressurize the government? Their behaviour towards officially constituted authority was similar to York’s the previous year.

Avoiding meetings dominated by opponents, where crucial decisions had to be taken, or where responsibility had to be accepted was already the practice of many of the lords.
Pace
K. B. McFarlane, there was already plenty of that craven-ness that he observed in 1485. More than half the nobility failed to appear. Whilst personal animosities ran deep, all of those present did recognize the need for a caretaker government, to maintain order at home and defend against French attacks.