Wars of the Roses (57 page)

Edward IV was at Canterbury with the Queen when, on 18 July, he was informed by a monk – the ‘black monk of Abingdon’ perhaps
– of Henry’s capture. At once he had the news proclaimed and ordered that a service of thanksgiving be held in the cathedral.

Henry was brought south under guard and delivered at Islington to Warwick, who was waiting to escort him into London. On the 24th, the deposed King rode into the capital on a small horse, without spurs, with his legs ignominiously bound with leather thongs to his stirrups, a rope round his body lashing him to the saddle, and a straw hat on his head. As he rode through the streets, along Cheapside and Cornhill, then through Newgate, crowds gathered to see him, shouting derisory remarks and even pelting him with rubbish and stones. One shouted obscenities about Queen Margaret, accusing her of being ‘shameless with her body’. At length, the mournful procession arrived at the Tower, where Henry was to be confined.

Loyal Yorkists, such as Robert Ratcliffe, were appointed his gaolers and were allocated £3 a week for his maintenance. At all times there were two squires and two yeomen of the Crown and their men guarding him. Lancastrian chroniclers allege that Henry was not well treated during his imprisonment, but although he may not have been kept very clean or allowed many changes of clothing, his keepers were fairly accommodating, treating him with respect and allowing him certain comforts, such as the services of a chaplain who came to say the holy offices each day for him and permitting him to receive visitors: Warkworth says that ‘anybody was allowed to come and speak to him’. Yet this brought its own disadvantages. One visitor, whose name is not recorded, attacked Henry with a dagger and wounded him in the neck. Predictably, Henry forgave him, although he did administer a mild reproof, telling him he did ‘foully to smite a king anointed so’. Another tactless visitor asked the prisoner how he could justify having ruled as a usurper for so long, but Henry stood up for his cause, and told him, ‘My help cometh of God, who preserveth them that are true at heart.’

Yet despite these comforts and privileges – King Edward even sent him wine from his own cellar – Henry seems to have withdrawn into himself during his imprisonment. He spent much of his time reading or at prayer, but there were occasions when he was forced to face the reality of his defeat and imprisonment and would gasp with shame, or burst into tears and lament his lot, asking what sin he had committed to deserve to be thus locked up. Generally, however, he bore his confinement with fortitude and patience.

The news of her husband’s capture came as a blow to Queen Margaret and ruined her hopes of a Lancastrian restoration, for even if she persuaded Louis XI or Duke Philip to finance an invasion
force, Edward held Henry hostage for her good behaviour in a virtually impregnable prison, and she could not risk his life.

On 28 September 1465 George Neville was enthroned as Archbishop of York, but the failure of the King and Queen to attend the ceremony gave rise to speculation about a fresh rift between Edward and Warwick. By January 1466 Warwick was growing desperate about his future relations with King Louis. Edward could not be made to see sense about a French alliance and was moving ever closer to Burgundy; Philip’s ambassadors had recently arrived to discuss a marriage between Edward’s sister, Margaret of York, and Philip’s heir, Charles, Count of Charolais. Warwick knew that Louis would soon hear of this, if he had not already done so, and he wanted the French king to think that his influence with Edward was such that he could turn him away from Burgundy and persuade him to restore friendly relations with France. He therefore forged a letter from Edward to Louis, promising that England had no intention of invading France or hindering him in any way from suppressing rebellion in the duchy of Normandy, which Louis had just wrested from his brother – something that Edward, just then, would never have agreed to. In fact, sending such a letter was an act of treason, but Warwick was beyond caring; he knew also that Edward’s negotiations with Burgundy were not so far advanced that war against France was an imminent possibility.

Unaware of Warwick’s duplicity, Edward went to his castle of Fotheringhay, where, on 30 January, he, his heavily pregnant queen, his mother, and a large gathering of relatives and friends, gathered in the collegiate church for the solemn reinterment of the bodies of the Duke of York and the Earl of Rutland, which had lain for five years in humble graves at Pontefract and had now been brought in a long and stately procession from Yorkshire. Both were laid to rest in the choir, near the tomb of Edward, Duke of York, who had fallen at Agincourt. In 1495, Duchess Cecily, at her own request, was buried beside her husband, and a century later Elizabeth I commissioned and paid for a classically inspired monument to York’s memory which may still be seen today.

Afterwards, the King and Queen returned to Westminster, where Elizabeth retired to her chamber to await the birth of her first child. Edward was hoping that it would be a son, to ensure the continuance of his dynasty and the succession, and his wife’s physician, Dr Domenico Serigo, had assured him that it would be a boy. Men, even doctors, were by custom forbidden to enter the Queen’s apartments during her confinement, but Dr Serigo was determined
to be the first to tell the King that he had a son and so hopefully gain a reward. He haunted the corridors leading to the Queen’s rooms and eventually, on 11 February 1466, managed to gain entry to the antechamber to the room where Elizabeth was in labour. When he heard the cry of a newborn baby he called out to ask ‘what the Queen had’, at which one of her ladies called back, ‘Whatsoever the Queen’s Grace hath here within, sure it is that a fool standeth there without!’ The baby was a girl, and the doctor made a hasty departure without seeing the King.

Edward rewarded his wife with a jewelled ornament costing £125 to mark the birth of ‘our most dear daughter’, who was christened Elizabeth by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Warwick was chosen as godfather, and the baby’s grandmothers, the Duchesses of York and Bedford, were her godmothers.

Queen Elizabeth was afterwards churched at a dignified service in Westminster Abbey, to which she was escorted by two dukes and attended by her mother and sixty ladies of high rank. Afterwards she hosted a sumptuous banquet in the palace. Leo, Lord of Rozmital, the Queen of Bohemia’s brother, was a guest, and dined at the King’s table with Warwick, who represented his sovereign, custom decreeing that it was not proper for the King to attend his wife’s churching. There were so many guests that the feast was laid out in four great chambers. Warwick escorted Rozmital through each of these, pausing to see his reaction to such magnificence. His guest’s attendants, including the diarist Gabriel Tetzel, were allowed to stand in the corner of the Queen’s room and watch her eat.

This was the most luxurious of the chambers, hung with colourful tapestries. Elizabeth sat alone at the high table in a golden chair throughout the banquet, which lasted three hours, during which time neither she nor her guests spoke a single word and her ladies-in-waiting, all of noble birth, were obliged to remain on their knees before her. Even her mother had to kneel when she wished to address the Queen. After the banquet there was dancing, as Elizabeth looked on. The courtly reverence paid to her, observed Tetzel, ‘was such as I have never seen anywhere’. The day ended with a performance of the King’s choristers, who sang beautifully: the Yorkist court was renowned for its music.

To foreign visitors, Warwick appeared as powerful as ever. They were amazed at his wealth and influence, and even more at his lavish and now legendary hospitality. Acting as host to the Lord of Rozmital and his suite, he served them a banquet with sixty courses.

On 15 April, the Earl, on Edward’s orders, was in Calais to meet Charolais and discuss the proposed Burgundian alliance. Warwick
did not trouble to hide his hostility to the plan and made it clear that he was determined to conclude an alliance with France come what may. The meeting was hardly a success.

Soon afterwards Warwick and Louis met at Calais and signed a two-year truce, under which Louis again promised not to support Margaret of Anjou, and Edward undertook not to help Burgundy or Brittany against the French. Louis also agreed to find a French husband for Margaret of York and provide her with a dowry. Edward had allowed the truce as a sop to Warwick, but had no intention of keeping to its terms and, indeed, broke them shortly afterwards by sending a safe-conduct to Francis II of Brittany’s envoys, enabling them to come to England. Edward was determined to assert his own authority in this matter: the English might resent Burgundy, but they loathed the French, having never forgiven or forgotten the humiliations they had suffered at their hands at the end of the Hundred Years War.

In October 1466, Edward IV and Philip of Burgundy reached a private agreement that they would sign a treaty of friendship. The terms remained to be negotiated. Queen Margaret, learning that an Anglo-Burgundian alliance was imminent, and knowing how hard Warwick had worked for a French alliance, deduced how disillusioned and frustrated the Earl must feel. She knew that Louis too had wanted friendship with the English. If Warwick could be persuaded to abandon his Yorkist affinities and throw in his lot with the Lancastrians, then Louis might consider funding a Lancastrian invasion of England, for he had great respect for Warwick, and the Earl had the ability to make a success of the venture.

Swallowing her pride, for Warwick had been among the worst of her enemies, Margaret sent a messenger secretly into England to sound him out. But, near Harlech, the man was apprehended by Herbert’s men, who searched him and found the Queen’s letter. He was then sent to London under armed escort, where, under torture, he revealed that the Queen had indeed sought a
rapprochement
with Warwick. Edward himself questioned Warwick about it, but the latter denied that he had ever had any dealings with ‘the foreign woman’.

Margaret’s hopes were thus disappointed, but she knew it would not be long now before her son was able to take up the banner of Lancaster on his own behalf: certainly he was eager to do so, taking after his mother rather than his father. He had grown up surrounded by intrigue and the horrors of war, and had been exposed to Margaret’s prejudices from an early age. The Milanese ambassador in France reported that the Prince, ‘though only thirteen years of age,
talks of nothing else but cutting off heads or making war, as if he had everything in his hands or was the god of battle’. In a few more years, when this boy came to maturity, Edward IV would not sit safely on his throne, but Margaret would seemingly have to rest content until then.

Early in 1467, thwarted of various marriage alliances he had been considering for his daughters, Warwick hit upon one that would outshine them all. As the greatest heiresses in England Isabel and Anne must make brilliant marriages: who better to mate with them, then, than the King’s two brothers, Clarence and Gloucester? Clarence could have Isabel and Gloucester Anne.

It was true that Burgundy had already offered Clarence the hand of his granddaughter, Charolais’s heiress, Mary, but Edward IV was not enthusiastic because Mary would one day inherit Burgundy and her husband would become its sovereign duke. Edward did not want his brother gaining such power on the Continent, nor did he want him embroiled in European politics, fearing that it would bode ill for England. The truth was that Edward did not trust Clarence.

George Plantagenet was now seventeen, a tall, blond, handsome youth who carried himself like the king he wished to be. He could be witty and charming when he chose, but was of weak character, unstable, impressionable, changeable and easily led. His jealousy of his brother had long been apparent, and was now eating into him like a cancer, for he was intensely ambitious. Although he had been generously endowed by Edward with lands, especially in the West Country, and had a great household of his own staffed by 300 servants and maintained at a cost of £4000 a year, he was dissatisfied, for it was power that he craved, and Edward had so far denied him that, being aware of his weaknesses.

When Warwick put it to him that he should marry Isabel, Clarence was quick to realise the benefits of such a union. But he was unable to keep the plan a secret, as Warwick had enjoined, and soon, word reached the King of the matter and caused him to be greatly perturbed. He did not want his brothers allied by marriage to Warwick, nor did he want them squabbling over Warwick’s inheritance in the event of the Earl’s death. It was true that these marriages would bring that inheritance to the House of York, but that might also mean Warwick intriguing against him in order to make one of his daughters queen, or inciting his brothers to treason.

Edward summoned Clarence and Gloucester and demanded to know the truth. Clarence said he knew nothing about such a marriage, although he thought ‘it would not be a bad match’. At
this, the King ‘waxed wrath’ and sent them from his presence, firmly forbidding Clarence even to contemplate a union with Warwick’s daughter. Warwick had more than enough power as it was, without extending his influence through marriage with the royal house. Besides, Edward saw this as a plot to counterbalance the power of the Wydvilles.

As a result of Edward’s actions, there was ‘secret displeasure’ between him and Warwick, and the King suspected that the Earl and Clarence might defy him and go ahead with the marriage anyway. He therefore instructed his agents in Rome to do all in their power to prevent the Pope from issuing a dispensation for it, the parties being within the forbidden degrees of affinity.

In June 1467, Philip of Burgundy’s natural son, Antoine, Bastard of Burgundy, arrived in England, ostensibly to meet Anthony Wydville, Lord Scales, in the lists – for both were renowned throughout Europe as unparalleled jousters – but also to discuss the proposed Anglo-Burgundian alliance with the King. One of the chief topics for discussion was the marriage between Charolais and Margaret of York. ‘If this takes place,’ commented the Milanese ambassador to France, ‘they [the French] have talked of treating with the Earl of Warwick to restore King Henry in England, and the ambassador of the old Queen of England is already here.’