Warwick the Kingmaker (24 page)

The preliminaries to this coup are not documented by judicial records because the rebels won. There were no judicial sessions. The precise form that they took was determined by the summons of the Leicester council on 16–17 April. After receipt of their writs considerable pre-planning was required. Between 3,000 and 7,000 were deployed at St Albans by three magnates, none of them particularly powerful in that region; they were also supplied, since no looting or foraging is reported. Very little is known of the composition of this force. One important element consisted of the borderers or ‘marchmen’ observed by the chroniclers: 600 northerners led by Salisbury’s retainer Sir Robert Ogle of Bothal (Northumb.) played a key role.39 As in 1450, 1452 and 1460, York most probably called out his Welsh retainers: Lord Grey of Powys may have been in his contingent. Warwick was also powerful in Wales. At the council on 11 February, Warwick was absent on 4 March. He was at Warwick on 12 April and 17 May and recruited there.40 Humphrey Stafford of Grafton, as in 1450, was probably one of his men. Since York, Salisbury and Warwick were at Royston (Herts.) on 20 May and at Salisbury’s town of Ware (Herts.) next day, their contingents cannot have met up significantly earlier, if they did at all. Possibly the various retinues, as opposed to their lords, were only combined at St Albans on the eve or day of the battle.

The first record that we have of the government’s response to these manoeuvres is an urgent summons sent to Coventry on 18 May to send a contingent to St Albans; other letters were surely sent simultaneously to the offending lords. Privy seal letters probably preceded those under the great seal ordered on 19 May, which restricted York to a company of 200 and Norfolk, Salisbury and Warwick to 160 each. Presumably all these were preceded by the deputation of the Earl of Worcester, Bishop Boulers, and the prior of St John of Jerusalem, who were sent to summon them – a clear sign that they were known to be disaffected – and who were apparently detained by York to maintain secrecy about his movements and intentions. Perhaps because of these disturbances, the king’s departure for Leicester was delayed until 21 May, the day the council was due to commence. Doubtless some lords absent from the battle were already at Leicester; others were not far from St Albans when the battle began. With Henry on leaving London were the Bishop of Carlisle, thirteen lay peers, and about 2,000 others. He overnighted at Watford. It would have been possible at this point for him to withdraw and thus avoid encountering the Yorkists, temporarily at least, as Somerset recommended. Instead, on the advice of Buckingham, to whom he had transferred command, he proceeded to St Albans, where – to his surprise – the Yorkists were already waiting for him. That was on Thursday 22 May at 7 a.m. There followed three hours of negotiation via heralds and perhaps also by letter, which were conducted on the king’s side by Buckingham and for the rebels by York alone. These apparently began with instructions via Somerset and Buckingham to York to disband and withdraw, which York did not obey, supposedly because they did not come directly from the king. Failing this, Buckingham asked him at least to withdraw to Barnet or Hatfield and to nominate ‘a man of estate’ – a magnate – to undertake substantive negotiations. York wanted a reply to petitions that had been delivered earlier by Salisbury’s brother Lord Fauconberg. When it emerged that the king had not seen them, possibly because they had only been delivered in the early hours of the morning by York’s confessor, Buckingham agreed to show them to the king and obtain his reply. York insisted on a response, which probably had to be favourable, without further delay and declared himself unwilling to accept promises. Henry did not answer, which probably means that he reserved his response to articles that he had only just received: ‘Le Roy sadvisera’ in parliamentary jargon. Henry revealed once again his refusal to be coerced. York was being unreasonable; he was trying to dictate terms by force. The victors’ official version of events, the
Stow Relation
, states that they were threatened with the penalties of treason – death and forfeiture – if they attacked. This was not strictly accurate, but Buckingham’s careful reminder that the king was present and his banner displayed amounted to the same thing. Buckingham stated that those with him were engaged in defending the king not any particular individual, e.g. Somerset. He invoked his kinship to all the parties and in particular to his nephew Norfolk, whom he supposed to be present and the one most susceptible to persuasion. At this point, the Yorkists attacked; Warwick may have attacked before the negotiations were over.

The king’s best protection against attack was his special semi-divine status: for anyone to attempt to kill or even speak against him or to confront him with his banner displayed was treason. Henry was present and his standard was flying at St Albans: though, hidden behind the houses, it may not have been visible to many. Failing that protection, the two sides were ill-matched. All sources agree that the king’s force was smaller, about 2,000. It was made up of people who had not expected to fight and were probably not equipped for it, including domestic servants and chancery clerks. York’s force was larger, expecting and equipped to fight, and included, the sources testify, substantial numbers of hardened borderers accustomed to war. The comments of Abbot Whetehamstede of St Albans on the martial qualities of the northerners and the effeminacy (or civilian character?) of the king’s forces has therefore some validity. Evidently the Yorkists also included archers and artillery that could injure from afar: the king and the more important of the wounded were hit by arrows in the face, shoul-ders and hand, Buckingham no less than three times. The royal force was on the defensive, in the town, which was not walled or gated. It was strung out along the main North–South thoroughfare, in Holiwell Street to the south, the market place in the centre, and St Peter’s Street to the north; the king and his banner were in Holiwell Street. Failing to force an entry down St Peter’s Street, which was barricaded and defended by Lord Clifford, Warwick led an attack across the gardens through the houses in Holiwell Street, blowing trumpets and shouting his warcry ‘À Warwick! À Warwick!’ This caused enough distraction for the barriers across the street to be penetrated. A key episode was Ogle’s capture of the market square,41 which punched a hole through the royal army and divided it into two halves. Somerset was killed, fighting valiantly, together with Northumberland, Clifford, and about fifty others. The king, Buckingham, Stafford, Dorset and Sudeley were slightly wounded. The possessions of the defeated were looted. ‘And when the said lordes were dead, the battle was ceased’, observes a Yorkist source. Presumably many of the royal party escaped over the fields to the west. His banner abandoned and himself slightly wounded in the neck, Henry took refuge in the abbey itself, where he was found by the Yorkists.

The events are clear enough, but it is not easy now to identify precisely what York intended. We have neither his ‘peticions, requestes et demandes’, nor any of the inquiries, warnings, summonses, commands and prohibitions that the government surely sent him in the days before the battle. What we do have is the rebels’ point of view – or, rather, their successive points of view42 – in the form either of their propaganda or sources based upon it, which were designed to conceal the truth. Furthermore the battle itself, which York honestly hoped to avoid, changed the situation and made redundant demands, arguments and evidence that had applied earlier. What we have are principally explanations and justifications constructed by the victors with the benefit of hindsight. Their view prevailed. No Lancastrian version made its way into the chronicles.

Any insurrection was treasonable in fifteenth-century terms, however restricted its objectives. This particular rebellion had limited aims. York and the Neville earls did not seek to depose Henry VI; their consistent protestations to this effect may be accepted. At all stages they pronounced themselves his true liegemen. What they were engaged in was a coup d’état, much like those of 1450 and 1452, that were designed to change the king’s government, his principal counsellors, especially Somerset, but also others unnamed. Perhaps there was a list as in 1450, on which from later evidence it seems likely that the Nevilles’ northern enemies Lord Clifford and Sir Ralph Percy were included. To ensure they did retire, they were to be destroyed, executed;43 in Somerset’s case probably by convicting him of the treason alleged by Norfolk, as
Benet’s Chronicle
explicitly states.44 Somerset, remember, was brother-in-law to Warwick and cousin to them all. The rebels were able to persuade themselves that they were fighting Somerset not the king. We can be sure that the rebel articles contained more than this, but not what else they sought. Probably the expectation was that York and his principal allies would take Somerset’s place, in pursuit of Henry’s ‘plesire, the honour, prosperite and wele of oure said Soveraine Lord, his said land and people’ and ‘the good publique, restfull and politique rule and governaunce’ of the same. Only thus, surely, could they have restored their advantage over their private rivals? Ideally these aims were to be achieved peacefully, those offending being surrendered to them and perhaps even remanded pending a form of trial, which was to be conceded by the king to avoid ‘any inconvenience’ – a euphemism for the violent achievement of the same ends with the overwhelming armed force that they had accumulated. If such inconvenience ensued, it would be the fault of those about the king.45 The lengthy negotiations on the morning of the battle were intended by York to render the use of force unnecessary.

The ideology, objectives and strategy of 1455 were thus very similar to York’s earlier coups, but the differences are much more striking. This time their intentions were not advertised by appealing to public opinion, but were concealed, as they sought to take the government by surprise and thus avert effective countermeasures. It was not popular supporters, but their own retainers, who supplied them with the necessary manpower. The propaganda that they did distribute – their letters to the chancellor and king of 20–21 May – were designed not to inform, but to deceive. In them the three magnates asserted their loyalty, their commitment to the welfare of the king and the commonweal, their intention to come to the king and attend on his person to the Leicester council. They explained that they needed their forces as protection for themselves against their enemies about the king and they warned him against taking seriously those enemies about who doubted their intentions.46 These letters were designed to reassure – wrongly – that they did not intend violence or treason: not just the king, government and perhaps potential opponents, who might otherwise have opposed them, but perhaps also their supporters too, who had no desire to fight the king or to commit treason. These assurances were obviously untrue. They need to be set alongside other instances of straightforward dishonesty: their reuse of the strange notion of loyalty that York had renounced in 1452, when his oath had specifically excluded the ‘weye of feete’; and York’s bond to keep the peace towards Somerset. In the first case he pleaded duress and doubtless would have done the same in the second. The success of such letters is perhaps shown in the fact that Buckingham, right up to the moment of battle, could not believe that York actually meant to attack and that some of the royal troops, who evidently shared his belief, had not put their armour on. Finally these two letters contained a threat of violence more muted than on previous occasions, when it had not been implemented, but much clearer on the morning of the battle. This time the king was to exercise no veto over legislation as in 1450, nor could he be sure as at Dartford that his opponents would not dare to fight him.

The crucial change from a semi-constitutional protest to a determined and decisive exercise in force has been credited to the Neville earls, most probably correctly. They had already shed blood in the North. The management of the whole campaign was much more direct than on York’s previous coups. The Nevilles alone were prepared to couple their names with York both in his letters, unlike any other lords in his company or sympathizers like Norfolk, and in reports on the battle from which the names of all other participants were omitted. They attached their names to a tradition of protest associated with York that was potentially treasonable the moment they called out their men. The rebels of 1455 were more ruthless than York had ever been. They were the first to resort to violence and to the deliberate elimination of opponents. They attacked even when the king’s banner was displayed. Their reckless reliance on ordnance and archery, which they wisely omitted from their official narrative, reveals them willing to risk killing Henry himself; far from being disastrous, this would have made Prince Edward king and ensured a prolonged protectorate that they could dominate. If York wished to dispose of Somerset, so did they. It was they who had an interest in the deaths of Northumberland and Clifford, if these were by design and not mere accidents. They surely suggested blaming Sir Ralph Percy for what happened. From Warwick’s angle, the risks were justified by the results.

5.3 YORK’S SECOND PROTECTORATE 1455–6

The
Dijon Relation
reports that York removed the king to safety in the abbey before the fighting was over.47 Duke and earls then went to the king, knelt before him, protested that they were humble liegemen, declared that they had been fighting not him but traitors, and had never intended to hurt him personally. They begged for grace and forgiveness. Henry was a prisoner in their power and had no choice. He accepted them as true liegemen and asked them to stop fighting, at which York proclaimed, in the king’s name, that fighting should cease. It did. ‘Thanks be to God’, wrote the Yorkist narrator. Next morning they all travelled together to London, arriving in the evening, and processed through the city, Salisbury and York on either hand of the king and Warwick bearing his sword point uppermost in front. Henry stayed at the bishop’s palace with all due solemnity and agreed to hold a parliament on 9 July.