The Last Knight Errant: Sir Edward Woodville & the Age of Chivalry (14 page)

At this stage Milan was at its zenith and the huge recently completed Gothic cathedral dominated the city centre which the rulers were busy improving with the new architecture. The Duke, Galeazzo Maria Sforza, lived at the north end of the city in his rebuilt and recently decorated Castello Sforzesco, ‘a massive pile impressive for its strength rather than its beauty...the wealth of internal decoration turned it into the most sumptuous palace in Italy’. One of the principal rooms was the Sala degli Scarloni, so called from its decoration of zigzag stripes of mulberry and white; another was decorated with the Duchess’s favourite device of doves in the midst of flames.28

Anthony and the Duke would have discussed the hot news, the surprise defeat of the pride of Burgundy by Swiss peasants at Grandson on 2 March 1476. How serious did Sforza think this was for Duke Charles, who had even lost his baggage and much treasure? How would it affect European relations? What would happen to Savoy, which was then in the Burgundian sphere of influence and – importantly – might Sforza change his friends? If he was going to, then when might he? King Edward would want to know.

Milan was presently allied to Duke Charles but Sforza was mulling over a move towards King Louis, who did not trust him but would have liked him as a new ally. Just before the battle of Grandson, King Edward had picked up intelligence of the Burgundian plans and passed this on to Sforza; once the Swiss peasants were beaten the great Burgundian army would sweep on and take Milan.29

France also coveted Milan (and would get it 20 years later). One of the Counts Sforza observed, ‘the security of states is like happiness in love; a happy miracle which it is necessary to create anew every day’. Convoluted diplomacy and good intelligence were the ingredients for the happy miracle of state security.

Anthony’s next stop was in Naples where he visited shrines and, given the nature of his journey, would have talked to King Ferdinand who had a treaty of friendship with England. The King’s son was leading a contingent in the Burgundian army and Ferdinand was uneasy about Duke Charles. He too was corresponding with King Louis. Whether it was that correspondence, Anthony’s visit or both, the result was that the prince and his soldiers left Duke Charles’s army two days before the next battle (Morat).

This was Renaissance Italy at its most exciting. Rome was a place of pilgrimage and rich with new buildings, paintings, sculpture and learning, all of which would have fascinated Anthony (and Edward). We know Anthony was interested in literature, and the Italians were then enjoying short stories,
novella
, which ranged from irreverent entertainment such as 
Portantino’s Pork
 by Sabbadino delli Arenti to an early telling of Romeo and Juliet by Salernitano. Machiavelli’s 
Belphegor
 was published in 1469.30 Lord Worcester had already translated a novella by Buonaccorso into English as 
The Declamacion of Noblesse
.

While he was in Rome Pope Sixtus invested Anthony with honours and they would have discussed the political issues around Duke Charles’s ambitions.31 Journeying north from there with two friends, they had their baggage plundered. Anthony lost 1,000 marks’ (£660) worth of jewellery and plate. When he later heard it had been sold to some Venetians he went to Venice and pleaded with the Senate for restitution. They were swayed by his argument and his belongings were returned, the Venetians deciding to favour him out of ‘deference for the King of England and his Lordship’.

The Pope was also looking after his new ‘agent extraordinary’. He offered 300 ducats as a reward as well as threatening the thieves with excommunication, anathema, eternal malediction, confiscation of all property and loss of benefices. The Venetians made arrests and went after the ‘whole truth’ of the matter. Luckily for Anthony he was well in funds, as his sister, Queen Elizabeth, had sent him 4,000 ducats (£800) post haste by a ‘gentleman of the royal household’.32 (A courier from London to Venice took 25 to 30 days, so Anthony was short for two months. That was quicker than a ‘letter of exchange’, which would have taken around three months.33)

They stayed on in Venice. The city was at the height of its power, dominating Mediterranean and eastern trade, while domestic activities ranged from building churches and palaces to turning out warships on a production line.34 Giovanni Bellini and Carpaccio were painting there; Antonello da Messina had recently arrived and his work seems to epitomize the spirit of the time: ‘the dawn of humanism and the conquest of reality that went with it’.35 He had just finished the San Cassiano altar piece where he used ‘the idea of unified figurative space, rather than a figurative panorama’ and ‘it became one of the most famous works of art in Venice’.36 Anthony, perhaps with Edward, was there and so able to see this seminal work.

Philippe de Commines described the Grand Canal as ‘the most beautiful street in the world’. Venice was – and is – a wonderful city with its palaces, churches, piazzas and, particularly, the Doge’s Palace where Anthony would have again enjoyed discussions on international politics. The Venetians were allied to Burgundy, loved intrigue and loathed Milan.

If Anthony’s tour had a foreign-policy objective, which seems probable, then on his way to Venice from Rome, he will have called at Urbino whose duke, Frederigo da Montefeltro, a celebrated 
condottiere
 (mercenary or ‘contract’ general), had been recently elected as a Knight of the Garter. Duke Frederigo was close to the Pope and a particular ally of King Edward, who regularly used him to exercise influence on England’s behalf.37

Perhaps King Edward had sent Anthony on a covert mission to coordinate opposition to Duke Charles. The Treaty of Picquigny had been very lucrative and included a clause for mutual support, so it seems probable. The Milanese certainly thought King Edward was moving against Duke Charles, and King Louis wrote to the Swiss in July saying that he could bring the King of England over to help in the war against Burgundy.38 A pilgrimage combined with a secret mission seem to fit the facts.

Did the 17-year-old Edward go too? Again it is probable. After all, Anthony had accompanied his father until he was 20. If Edward did then he too will have sensed the excitement of the Renaissance and listened to the policy discussions. Anthony turned for home and on his return journey reached the camp of Duke Charles of Burgundy at Morat (20 miles west of Berne) before dawn on 7 July 1476. The Milanese ambassador there reported, ‘the Duke has made much of him’ and he would stay for two or three days before returning to England.

He would have been curious to see how Duke Charles had weathered his defeat at Grandson and how he was progressing – against advice – in his renewed campaign against the Swiss. King Edward would need the report. What Anthony saw was a new and disciplined army with his old 
frère d’armes
, Antoine ‘the Great Bastard,’ as Chief of Staff; gone was the post-Grandson chaos where ill-discipline had reigned. But when the Duke invited him to stay and join in the forthcoming battle, Anthony declined, saying ‘he was sorry he could not stay’. He had to get home. Why should he fight in someone else’s battle when he had little interest in the outcome? But his decision earned the Duke’s sneer: ‘If I was not laughing so much, I too would leave in fear.’ 39

However, Anthony – and perhaps Edward – avoided witnessing the Duke’s awful defeat two weeks later. The Swiss infantry, well-disciplined and armed with lethal 18ft (5.48-metre) pikes, surprised the Burgundians, and the Duke’s smart new army was rolled up and put to flight with losses reckoned at some 25,000. It was the prelude to the Duke’s death at the battle of Nancy in the snows of January 1477 where the Swiss commoners, who were consistently underestimated by Duke Charles, again out-manoeuvred and crushed him with an unexpected flanking attack. Le Téméraire could not believe it and died fighting to the last. His artillery train was captured and much of it is still displayed as trophies in Swiss town halls and museums.

Whether or not Edward was with his brother at the Burgundian camp, he would have heard all about it and discussed the whys and wherefores with his brother; it was a good lesson in deciding who and when to fight. The battle showed that Swiss infantry tactics had started a new kind of warfare and that, together with Duke Charles’s interest in organization, was to change the way armies were recruited, organized and directed. The knight on his charger and the troop of feudal levies were suddenly out of date. The new requirement was for good artillery and tactical infantry, in addition to traditional cavalry. Whatever the shortcomings of Duke Charles may have been, he left an important legacy: his military ordinances on organization, formation, officers, tactics and practising were cutting-edge thinking and set a standard for others to follow.40

An important rediscovery for the Swiss was the tactical infantry officer, the man-at-arms class of officer who directed and fought in the ranks of the foot soldiers, the captain who told the petty officers what to do and led the foot soldiers when the going got tough. It was a new band of middle management for the infantry. However, while the Swiss were good at the tactical level, they were not so good on the strategic side, as they rarely had war leaders or generals at divisional level, which meant that they never really followed up and capitalized on their victories.

King Louis had been so impressed by the Swiss victory that he recruited Swiss 
reislaufers
 (petty officers) to come and train the French infantry that was to be reorganized on the Swiss model. He also annexed parts of Burgundy and persuaded several noblemen to change their allegiance – men such as Philippe de Crèvecoeur, a.k.a. Lord Cordes, who governed Picardy and had lands in both France and Burgundy.

Duke Charles’s death changed the dynamics of European politics. The richest prince was dead, Burgundy was in chaos and the heiress was Mary, the Duke’s only child and Margaret of York’s stepdaughter. She now became the centre of diplomatic attention, not only the greatest heiress of the time, but also directly descended through her father’s mother from John of Gaunt and thus with a perfectly good Lancastrian claim to the throne of England.

George, Duke of Clarence, whose wife had just died, had an eye for the chance. He fancied marrying the little Duchess, but the last thing King Edward needed was a competing claim for the English crown from his brother, who had a habit of treachery. He forbade the marriage. At this point, a suggestion arrived from King James of Scotland that Clarence should marry his sister, Margaret, while his brother, Duke Alexander of Albany, should marry the recently widowed Margaret of Burgundy. It was unsuitable and King Edward blocked both ideas.

Clarence seems to have been unstable and this treatment offended his sense of righteousness. He flew into a fury and planned retribution. He almost certainly involved himself in treasonable activities with King Louis, but he clearly overstepped the mark when he openly challenged his brother’s authority in England. As a result he was immediately charged with ‘heinous, unnatural and loathly’ treason, which probably consisted of a plan to marry Mary of Burgundy, declare his brother illegitimate and then seize the throne with the help of Mary’s claim, money and men.

The King put him on trial. He was found guilty, sentenced to death and probably met ‘his end in a rondolet of Malmsey’, a curious method of execution but apparently one of his own choosing. If this was his choice then, whatever his shortcomings, he clearly had a sense of style. A portrait of his daughter painted around 1530 shows her wearing a miniature cask of Malmsey on a bracelet.

The trial had started just two days after the spectacular marriage of the King’s four-year-old (second) son, Richard, to Anne Mowbray, the richest heiress in England. There were jousts in which six champions challenged all comers; Anthony Woodville, Edward Woodville, Thomas Dorset and Richard Grey were four of the six. They issued the challenge on 10 December 1477 for the tournament on 22 January 1478. Contestants would be dealt with in the order in which they wrote their names on the shield and there would be six courses with spears and 13 strokes with swords, all mounted.

Anthony, very much the flamboyant Champion, created a great stir when he appeared ‘horsed and armed in the habit of a white hermit’ with his pavilion ‘walled and covered with black velvet’ to resemble a hermitage. Edward was not far behind in his ‘Osting Harness’, with his horses dressed in crimson cloth of gold and his servants in blue and tawny velvet.

They all fought. Edward had the misfortune to have one of his horses hurt in a course, but he re-horsed and finished the six runs. Anthony and an opponent were fighting hard when the umpire called and dropped his batton to stop the fight. Anthony immediately stopped but his opponent unwisely took another swing ‘so the Earl furiously returned upon him and so accomplished six strokes between them’.

The Woodvilles seem to have enjoyed themselves, as Anthony tipped the Kings of Arms and Heralds 20 marks. After all the spears were broken and blows exchanged it was time for the party, and they all went to the dance in the King’s Great Chamber where the Princess of the Feast distributed the prizes.41

The King meanwhile was still mulling over Burgundian matters. He needed someone he could trust to marry the heiress and he was being pressed into action by his sister Margaret, the Duke’s widow. Anthony Woodville seemed the best choice, as he could be trusted and his wife had died four years earlier,42 although he did have ‘a beloved mistress Gwentlian, only daughter of Sir William Stradling of Glamorganshire’.43 That was irrelevant and this was politics, so King Edward sent Louis de Bretelles as his emissary to make the proposal. But the suit failed because, as Commines observed, ‘Rivers was only a petty earl, and she the greatest heiress of her time.’