Warwick the Kingmaker (11 page)

Abergavenny was altogether omitted – it had not been held by Anne Beauchamp at all56 – a result so highly favourable to Lord Bergavenny and to nobody else that it indicates that he was behind the application for new inquisitions. This may explain why on 5 September 1450 Lord Bergavenny was summoned to parliament: at last, for he had long used the title and had ample means from his late wife’s other inheritances. Secondly, Ewyas Lacy was returned on this occasion not as heritable by the Countess Anne alone, as in September, but as a Despenser property to be shared equally between her and George Neville. The principle of the inheritance by the half-blood was not accepted in this case. The two commissioners responsible were immediately granted the farm of Ewyas Lacy.57 If Bergavenny was behind the new inquisition, he was also seeking to maximize his son’s share of the Despenser inheritance. Warwick’s possessions in the Welsh marches could be halved or worse. One of his two main areas of regional hegemony would be removed.

The partition of the Despenser inheritance was also a feature of an inquisition held by the Gloucestershire escheator on 10 March 1450 at Gloucester, which found Glamorgan to be heritable by both Anne and George, but returned nothing about any other property in the county. This had been preceded by the issue of yet another special commission on 25 February, headed by Lord Berkeley and again including FitzHarry, which sat on 24 April 1450, not at Gloucester, but at Berkeley Castle: a location where the commissioners could evidently exercise maximum pressure on the jurors. The verdict again found Glamorgan to be the inheritance of both Anne and George. What was new about it, however, and different from its predecessor, was that it found Tewkesbury and Sodbury also to be heritable jointly.58 These were properties of the Despenser feoffees, who were still in occupation and whose title was not mentioned. The inquisition, in short, threatened Warwick’s hold on those Despenser lands that were otherwise spared immediate division by the trust.

Several conclusions follow from this. Bergavenny was behind the verdicts of all subsequent juries that the Despenser lands were to be divided between Anne and George. He actually wanted more, to end the Despenser trust and to divide its lands in the same way, but this he was unable to achieve in any other county. Obviously untrue, it apparently required a special commission to achieve such verdicts, and no more were issued. Secondly, such commissions were used in Herefordshire and Gloucestershire, where the Berkeleys were Bergavenny’s allies. This is highly significant since they were the enemies of the elder Beauchamp sisters: the Berkeley–Lisle feud flared up again in September 1450, when the Berkeleys sacked Wotton-under-Edge, house of the Countess Margaret and her son Lord Lisle. The latter secured a special commission of oyer and terminer against the Berkeleys on 28 September 1450, which was headed by Lisle and Warwick himself.59 It seems that Bergavenny was not making common cause with the Beauchamp sisters, but was pursuing only the claims of himself and his son. That was how it was possible for Warwick to get his way in inquisition after inquisition over the Beauchamp lands, but not over the Despenser ones. At this stage Bergavenny was more successful in influencing juries than the Beauchamp sisters. In contrast to what happened only a little later, when feuds escalated and gelled as participants saw allies in their enemy’s enemy, at this stage their disagreements did not force Bergavenny and the Beauchamp sisters together against Warwick as common enemy and did not prevent Warwick and Lisle, otherwise rivals, from co-operating against Berkeley. Moreover, as we shall see, Berkeley was to be the loser.

If there was a considerable gap between a licence to enter and an inquest verdict in one’s favour, there was a still larger gulf between such a verdict and actual possession of the land. The inquisitions confirmed Warwick’s right to the Beauchamp lands that he already held. He did not accept George’s title to the rest. The Gloucestershire verdict did not yet affect the control of the Despenser feoffees over Tewkesbury; nor probably in practice was Warwick dislodged from Abergavenny. The verdicts did imply that Ewyas Lacy, Glamorgan, and a few other Despenser properties held in chief should be divided. George’s share had been farmed by the earl of Worcester; new farmers were found for Ewyas Lacy. In theory. Actually an inquisition reveals that up to April 1450 all the issues from Glamorgan were taken by John Nanfan, the receiver appointed by Duke Henry, and Thomas Butler. Warwick was at Cardiff in the autumn of 1449, when he was accepted unambiguously as lord by the receiver of Tewkesbury Abbey estate. Writs were issued from the Cardiff chancery in March and May in Warwick’s name alone. Thus Warwick probably held the whole lordship even ahead of 20 May 1450, when Worcester surrendered the custody with royal consent to Warwick.60 This concession may merely have recognized reality; it may indicate Worcester’s sympathy for his wife’s brother; and most probably, in view of Worcester’s later track record, it was made for some substantial inducement. It meant that in practice Warwick could keep hold of Glamorgan until he could find some means of re-establishing his title to be sole Despenser heir.

Warwick’s sister the Duchess Cecily died on 26 July 1450,61 when her Beauchamp and Despenser dower should have reverted to the right heirs. Several grants from them were made by the crown, including the under-shrievalty of Worcester on 19 August to John Brome in lieu of Thomas Hugford.62 Several of the inquisitions on Anne Beauchamp also covered the duchess. They found the countess of Warwick to be sole heir of the Beauchamp lands and she and George Neville to be coheirs of the Despenser lands.63 It is probable that Warwick immediately took possession of all of them. Admittedly the exchequer leased out Cherhill (Wilts.) and Flamstead (Herts.) in December.

Another exceptional property was the Warwick chamberlainship of the exchequer, an appurtenance of the former Mauduit and Beauchamp manor of Hanslope (Bucks.), for which the earl secured a royal patent of recognition on 6 December and another notifying the exchequer on 7 December.64 The deputy chamberlain was John Brome of Baddesley Clinton (Warw.), who claimed to have been appointed by Duke Henry on 4 July 1445 after the death of John Throckmorton: if so, Duke Henry had also granted the office to John Nanfan. Brome however had himself confirmed for life or for forty years by the king himself, quite irregularly, on 5 November 1449.65 On 7 December Warwick took possession of the keys and coffers, dismissed Brome, and installed Thomas Colt as Warwick chamberlain.66 Warwick had established his right. The chamberlainship seems to complete his control of the whole of Anne Beauchamp’s estate held in chief, whether Beauchamp or Despenser.

3.3 EFFECTIVELY EARL

It is the contradictory letters patent that indicate that the inheritances were disputed. There is little such evidence in the localities. The inquisitions are unanimous in what they say; the elaborate recital of the Despenser title in particular indicates that they were orchestrated. From the Home Counties to the Welsh Marches and the Midlands heartlands, where juries might perhaps have been overawed, to peripheral areas, where the earl was a minor figure, Warwick’s will prevailed, his rivals apparently powerless or inactive and unrepresented. We have to deduce in the absence of direct evidence. There seems little reason to doubt that Warwick
did
secure the Beauchamp lands in the summer of 1449 – they were, after all, already being administered by sympathetic custodians. He did hold half or more probably all of Glamorgan, again in their custody, from the same date, by March 1450, and certainly by May 1450.67 If there was an interlude, the estate was again in sympathetic hands that represented continuity, those of his sister Cecily and her new husband. And when Cecily herself died and her dower reverted to the heirs, the inquisitions and Warwick’s recognition as chamberlain indicate that he again took possession.

There is little more direct evidence. As we have seen, Warwick proceeded in force almost at once in September 1449 to Abergavenny, where there may have been an intruder, presumably to oust him and to restore order. Although Bergavenny obtained several further licences to enter Abergavenny, he was never to do so again. Warwick visited Cardiff – headquarters of Glamorgan – on several occasions, first perhaps sometime or sometimes between 8 September and Christmas 1449, when his men apparently appropriated 16 quarters of corn and 15 quarters of oats from Cardiff rectory without licence. By then his estates steward was William Herbert of Raglan – future earl of Pembroke and son of the Despenser feoffee William ap Thomas – who claimed expenses from Tewkesbury Abbey’s grange of Llanwit. Hence the abbey receiver composed a petition to Warwick with the help of a clerk of the Cardiff chancery. Warwick pardoned the expenses under his small seal in October, presumably 1449. Subsequently the receiver spent four days at Cardiff in August 1450 putting the abbey’s case over Llanwit to the earl and his council. Warwick’s bailiffs were also oppressively collecting fees and other dues from the estates of the Cistercian abbey of Margam, as Abbot Thomas Franklin complained, so on 24 March 1450 Warwick issued a writ of protection for Margam to the sheriff of Glamorgan, perhaps already his younger brother Sir Thomas Neville. From at least then charters and writs were being issued from the Cardiff chancery on Warwick’s behalf under the style of Lord Despenser, Glamorgan and Morgannok.68 A new charter that he granted to Cardiff borough on 12 March 1451 was witnessed by the three most prominent churchmen in the lordship, the bishop of Llandaff, abbots of Neath and Margam, by his brother Thomas and the prominent local gentleman Sir Edward Stradling of St Donats, and by his trusted servants Nanfan, Colt and Porthaleyn.69 If perhaps his hold was less secure in the Welsh marches – hence the despatch of war-horses there for the use of his men from Warwick in January 145270 – he was nevertheless able to enforce his will and assert control.

On the way to Abergavenny in the summer of 1449, again over Christmas 1449, in January, March, June, August and October 1450, the earl was at Warwick; his countess was at Coventry in July and at Warwick in August and on 5 September 1451, when their eldest daughter Isabel was born.71 Their itinerary indicates that he treated Warwick as his principal seat and resided there. The account of Henry Somerlane as bailiff of Warwick in 1451–2 confirms this impression and enables us to reach back into Warwick’s earliest years. There was continuity among the officers and beneficial tenants at Warwick, many of whom were recorded there in 1446–7 and some of whom were appointed in the 1420s or 1430s. Just as Duke Henry made changes and filled vacancies on his majority, so too did Earl Richard Neville. Geoffrey Lovelace, the warrener, was appointed by the new earl on 20 December 1449, Richard Messenger, the messor, on 1 January 1450, and Helne Wode as one of the parkers of Wedgenock Park on 21 March following; also in 1450 Warwick confirmed or granted annuities to William Pleasance, Margaret Raven and Janet Cokefield. Three cottages in Warwick had been leased, one to Margaret Raven rent-free by the countess on 30 August 1451. Payments were made for grain, bread, and sheep supplied to the separate households of earl and countess; household servants were paid their wages. Many of these are recorded by name: the steward of the earl’s household was John Duffield and the
custos
was William Crosse. Horses were driven to Cardiff for the use of the earl’s men and the bailiff attended on Thomas Hugford and others of the earl’s council in London. Hugford was among those reimbursed on authority of warrants under the earl’s signet or from Crosse, twenty-one of whose bills were filed in the audit house at Warwick, where all the estate’s accounts were traditionally audited, digested into valors, and stored. Such items are the everyday routine of a resident lord. Moreover we know of other annuities and appointments at this time, at Berkeswell, Moreton Morell, Brailes (Warw.), Yardley and Elmeley Castle (Worcs.), and at Walsall (Staffs.), and of new ones granted at this time to Sir Humphrey Stafford and Thomas Burdet of Arrow (Warw.).72

Warwick was accepted as rightful lord in right of his wife by those officers and retainers who mattered. Direct evidence of what they thought comes somewhat later: the roll of that native of Warwickshire John Rous, who does not question the Countess Anne’s right
vis à vis
her sisters; and in the
Black Book of Warwick
, which states that the countess was ‘procreated sister and heir of [Duke] Henry in the whole blood.’73 That was written after 1471 and hence not by Dean Berkeswell, who died in 1470. Of indirect evidence there is plenty. All three of Earl Richard Beauchamp’s executors continued to serve the new earl: Thomas Hugford, appointed constable of Warwick and supervisor of the Warwickshire estates by Duke Henry, was his councillor; William Berkeswell, whom the earl made dean of Warwick in 1454 and who made the college’s records available to him and his countess; and the somewhat older Nicholas Rody who died in 1458, and bequeathed his property in Warwick to the earl.74 As executors of Earl Richard Beauchamp they deferred to the new earl, paying bills, making appointments to office and presentations to livings at his request.75 They never acted thus for the elder Beauchamp sisters. Since Richard and Anne succeeded to the lands in fee, the feoffees accepted them also as heirs to the lands in trust, whatever the sisters themselves on the strength of their father’s will may have asserted.

So, too, it seems with the less well-documented Despenser trust. Though only one of two coheirs to the lands in fee, Anne was treated as sole heir and her husband as lord in the few surviving acts of the feoffees. Though most date to the mid-1450s, it was as early as 24 March 1450 that Warwick was approached regarding the conveyance to Tewkesbury Abbey of the advowson of Sherston (Wilts.) in fulfilment of Duke Henry’s will.76 As the wishes of Isabel and Henry had been fulfilled, the income from the trust was available for Isabel’s heirs to enjoy. Good reason for Warwick and his countess to perpetuate an arrangement that gave them more than their strict legal entitlements under the inquisitions. Sudeley, Beauchamp, Nanfan and Norris all served Warwick in other capacities. One of these committed feoffees was Sir William Mountford, who is wrongly supposed to have deserted Warwick for the service of Humphrey Duke of Buckingham.