Warwick the Kingmaker (61 page)

There are some other indications of a carefully planned ideological offensive supplementing the meticulous preparations in France. Four surviving manifestos, copies of which ended up in London, were tailored to different audiences. Others are implied or can be deduced. If there were verses too, none survive. Such preparation was essential to explain the extraordinary speed and scale of Warwick’s recruitment on landing.

Even before agreement with Margaret and the invasion itself, the exiles appealed for popular support. Their letter ‘to the commones of Englande’ could date from before the treaty of Angers; it makes no reference to King Henry. It resembles earlier manifestos of 1459, 1460 and 1469, but does not derive directly from them; most probably because the exiles had no copies to hand. It was posted on the standard in Cheapside, on London Bridge and churches in London, and elsewhere in England. It was another loyal manifesto that sought to exploit popular disillusionment with the government. Warwick and Clarence protested at their disinheritance and estrangement ‘from the londe and naturall place of our births’ (though Clarence was born in Dublin), not because of their own faults, but ‘for the trewe hertis, tendir zelis, lovis and affeccions that God knoweth we have evur borne and entende tafore all thinges erthly to the wele of the crowne and thavauncyng of the commen weele of Englonde and for reproving of falsehod and oppression of the poore peopull’...King Edward was not held personally responsible. There is no hint here of deposition. Remember that if Clarence was to have supplanted him earlier in the year, the rebels never went public; only the king proclaimed it. The culprits were once again the king’s favourites, this time unnamed, again ‘such certeyne coveitous and sedicious personnes...about thastate roiall of the reaume’, who were out for their own benefit ‘to the grete hurte, enpoverisshing and the utter destruccion of you’. The realm, moreover, was to be alienated to and governed by ‘strangeres and outewarde nacions’, by which was evidently meant the Wydevilles’ Burgundian kin: an issue surely current, if at all, only in the mercantile and shipping circles of London and the Cinque Ports? Taking a stand on ‘olde custumes’ against ‘new lawes’ and committing themselves to the crown and commonwealth, the two magnates pledged themselves in the name of God, the Virgin, and St George to chastise the evil councillors, restore justice and end the ‘thraldome of outewarde nacions’. Lord Mayor Lee reportedly tore down such bills to prevent them being ‘openly knowne ner seen to the commones’, not wholly successfully.52

There are no surviving examples of specifically Lancastrian letters sent to particular Lancastrians or of the correspondence of Warwick with his connection, who assured him of their support.53 We do however possess in
The Maner
and Guyding
a treatise from Warwick to those existing supporters of himself, Clarence and Oxford for whom his future, that of his daughter, and their own futures counted for more than dynastic principle. Reading between the lines, they were as concerned about their own pardons for creating the Yorkist regime, their own access to royal favour, and their tenure of Lancastrian forfeitures as Warwick was himself. It dates from between 4 August, ‘which day he departed from Aungiers’, and his embarkation on 9 September, for it refers to actions that Warwick ‘yit dotthe’. Presumably it was sent to inform and reassure either ahead of the invasion or actually at the time. It presents the treaty of Angers as the fulfilment of Warwick’s objectives. Henry VI was to be restored, Edward having been silently supplanted. Warwick himself was to rule, his position much strengthened by alliance with King Henry, and guaranteed by the match between their children. His followers were reassured by Margaret’s pardon to the earl, sealed by her most solemn oath, and by her acceptance of the earl as a faithful liegeman. Clarence and Warwick were to retain their lands. King Louis features as honest broker, surety and supplier of ships, money and men. Whilst the latter were welcome, Warwick was conducting an
English
invasion.54 To an English audience to be enflamed by Edward’s dependence on the Burgundians, it would have been counterproductive to mention the invaders’ own commitments to King Louis, the subservience of their foreign policy to the French, and the silent abandonment of the English claim to France.

A second rebel manifesto followed the treaty of Angers. It is quite different. It said little specific about the ‘great mischevus, oppressions and...inordinat abusiones’ and promises no specific reforms beyond ‘perpetuell peax and prosperite and commone weele’. Nothing was said of evil councillors, though capital enemies were to be punished. The focus was dynastic. The first and longest of the three articles concentrated on the legitimacy of Henry VI as king compared with ‘his grete rebell and enemye Edward, late erle of Marche’ and hence of his ‘verrey trewe feithfull cousines, subgiettes and liegemen’ Clarence, Pembroke, Warwick and Oxford by authority delegated by Queen Margaret and Prince Edward. What Lancastrians wanted to hear could also appeal to the erstwhile Yorkists covered by the general pardon in clause 2 for past offences against King Henry. The chronicler Warkworth reports the support of ‘the more parte of peple’, who had grudged ‘bycause of his fals lordes and nevere of hym’, and were disillusioned with Edward’s failure to deliver ‘grete prosperite and reste’.55 Clause 3 summoned all the king’s new subjects to assist in his restoration on pain of forfeiture. Most probably it was after the invasion had landed and to avoid alienating local people that four additional clauses regulated offences against the Church and women, violence among the troops and billeting.56 There are also two protections for the sanctuaries of Westminster and St Martin’s le Grand, where prominent Yorkists had taken refuge, and, on 26 October from Clarence alone, for Walter Lord Mountjoy.57

Warwick’s multi-pronged strategy was again intended to surprise. A rising in Richmondshire was to be expected, but happened prematurely, so that it was suppressed ahead of the main invasion, though Edward IV understandably kept his eye on it. Once again there were rebels in Kent, who pillaged Southwark, but this time Warwick chose not to land there. Instead on 13 September he disembarked in the far west, at Exmouth, Dartmouth and Plymouth. The removal of Stafford of Southwick made for weak opposition. They recruited ‘a grete peple’ there,58 perhaps of Courtenay of Bocannoc and Beaufort affiliations though aspirants to the duchy of Somerset and earldom of Devon were absent, and certainly of Lancastrian sympathies. They proceeded thence via Bristol, where they picked up the artillery and baggage Warwick had abandoned six months earlier,59 through the heart of Warwick’s West Midlands estates to Coventry, where, the
Coventry Leet Book
reports, they were 30,000 strong. Within three days, wrote Jean de Roye, he had 60,000 men-at-arms: even more than the 50,000 promised in
The Maner and Guyding
!60 Warwick’s publicity and organization must have been excellent. Whilst doubtless exaggerating, this indicates an impressive force: as well as the invaders, West Countrymen, the Warwick connection, and probably Clarence’s North Midlanders, they had been joined by Shrewsbury and Stanley,61 presumably the Midlanders and men of Lancashire, Cheshire and Derbyshire, where their principal estates lay. King Edward at Nottingham, in contrast, recruited few, too few to risk a battle even ahead of Montagu’s betrayal, as Warkworth, Basin, Waurin and Crowland all agree.62 Given that the quality was probably low, it was as important for Warwick to deny Edward manpower as to recruit his own. With his brother Gloucester, Hastings, Howard, Say and Duras, Edward embarked from Kings Lynn on 29 September and arrived at The Hague on 11 October. On 6 October King Henry was ceremonially removed from the Tower to resume his reign: his second reign or Readeption, which however he dated from Michaelmas. Escorted principally by his veteran courtiers Waynflete and Sudeley, he was accompanied by Archbishop Neville, Clarence, the earls of Warwick and Shrewsbury, and by Stanley;63 Oxford arrived later and his half-brother Pembroke was in Wales.

This was not a large turnout of noblemen and consisted predominantly of known supporters of Warwick and Clarence. Such prominent Lancastrians as Exeter and Devon returned only in February. A victory so rapid, complete and bloodless was as glorious as the Crowland continuator observed,64 but it left Edward’s supporters undefeated. Only Warwick’s erstwhile brother-in-law Worcester, notorious as the bloodthirsty beheader and impaler of Lancastrians and of Clapham, was ‘juged by such lawe as he dyde to other menne’ by Oxford, son and brother of two former victims, and was duly executed.65 A few obvious targets had taken sanctuary, such the queen, her mother and the chancellor, but most of Edward IV’s nobility, household and county elites remained in place. They had been denied the chance to fight the invaders and now submitted. Parliament also did their bidding. But the new regime had constantly to work with people who constituted a considerable security problem. Like Warwick himself, King Edward had taken refuge with a friendly power, Burgundy, whence he and his small following hoped to return.

Though Henry was to reign, others were to rule, as envisaged even at Angers. Warwick as king’s lieutenant dominated the political scene pending the return of Margaret and her son. Though often expected, from November onwards, the queen only arrived at Harfleur on 24 March and was then delayed for seventeen days by contrary winds. The capacity of her and Warwick to work together was never tested. Nor, indeed, does it seem likely that the conciliar control of patronage favoured by Sir John Fortescue was fully implemented, though certainly the council was active and Henry’s initiative was confined to clerical appointments. Several warrants explicitly invoked the authority of Warwick alone or in conjunction with Clarence and the archbishop. Warwick received several minor favours, such as the presentation to a prebend at St Stephen’s Chapel Westminster, but he also paid over a thousand pounds towards household expenses.

There was some genuine sharing of office. The great offices went primarily to Warwick’s faction: Archbishop Neville was again chancellor and Langstrother again treasurer, as in 1469, but the keeper of the privy seal was Margaret’s former chancellor John Hales Bishop of Lichfield and the secretary was Clarence’s own servant Piers Courtenay. The household was dominated by two long-standing (and formerly attainted) Lancastrians in Sir Henry Lewis as governor, a new post, and Sir Richard Turnstall (chamberlain); Oxford was steward, the treasurer John Delves transferred from the same office in Clarence’s own household, and the keeper of the wardrobe was the former London alderman and Lancastrian plotter Sir John Plummer.66 Until the queen and prince returned, the regime was bound to appear a revival of the Neville rule rejected the previous autumn.

As early as 15 October a new parliament was summoned to meet at Westminster. There were to be two short sessions, 26 November–December 1470 and January/February 1471. Its task was obvious: to confirm the change of king and to settle the succession; to proscribe those who accompanied Edward into exile; to reverse the sentences against erstwhile Lancastrians; and to confirm the terms of the treaty of Angers. The outline has to be so bald because the parliament roll was destroyed by Edward IV on his return and very little can be known for certain. There is much now lost that we need to know. If there was a general reversal of attainders, as the chronicler Warkworth supposed,67 a general dispossession of the lands and offices of the loyal Yorkists surely followed. At this point the cracks that the treaty of Angers papered over reappeared. If Warkworth is correct in stating that Clarence was recognized as heir in reversion should Prince Edward die, then it was at the expense of long-standing Beaufort and Holland claimants. Such a distant prospect mattered less than possession of the duchy of York, promised in
The Maner and Guyding
, a title which he never used and therefore probably failed to secure. He had to give up lands of the duchy of Lancaster, revested in the Lancastrian dynasty, including his principal seat of Tutbury (Staffs.), but retained Richmond against the king’s own nephew at some political cost.68 On the other hand, Henry Percy had committed no offence to justify dispossession of his earldom and estates in favour of Montagu who, indeed, lost his Courtenay compensation to the restored Courtenay Earl of Devon. Not everyone could be satisfied. Reversals of attainders, in whole or in part, revived old enmities and partly explain the divisions that emerged on Edward’s return. Not only did Clarence decide his interests were best served by the restoration of Edward IV and of what he had previously had, but leading Lancastrians were to consider, mistakenly, their cause to be strengthened by Warwick’s fall.69

Warwick also failed to win a lasting protectorate for himself. On 27 March 1471 Prince Edward himself was appointed the king’s lieutenant.70 This may always have been intended. It may however have been a desperate ploy to demonstrate that the new regime was more than their own faction, to appease Lancastrians, and to maximize their appeal to them. Unquestionably Warwick wanted the queen and prince over sooner; her absence was not his wish. When in Burgundy the dukes of Somerset and Exeter were unenthusiastic about Warwick;71 when back in England in February 1471 it is not surprising that they questioned and resented the Angers settlement. Warwick really needed Margaret and her son if unity was to be maintained.

Security had to be high on the new regime’s priorities. In its favour was a genuine popularity among the commons, of which there is evidence in the West Country, North and Kent. ‘All contemporary sources emphasize that popular sympathy had swung to Warwick.’72 This was acknowledged even by the Yorkist paean of triumph after Barnet and Tewkesbury:

Yett the pepull ben blynde, they will not understonde.

Stryve not with the pepull, ne the werkys of his honde,

And thanke hym hertelyn it pleaseth hym so to doo;