Richard The Chird (6 page)

On November 13 Richard and George, along with Warwick and Warwick's brother Lord Montagu, were appointed to call out the levies of Westmorland, Cumberland, Northumberland, and Yorkshire for defense against the Lancastrians and their allies the Scots. 18 It was the Nevilles, of course, who would actually assemble and command the forces. George of Clarence apparently did not even go north. Now at the ripe age of twelve, he seems to have remained mostly at court, until, in a few years, he was able to persuade King Edward that he was mature enough to have his own establishment. 14

For Richard, however, the appointment signaled the beginning of yet another new life. The King had arranged that he should enter the household of the greatest lord of all, the Earl of Warwick.

Middleham Castle

. . . a world of happy days.

TN November of 1461, or not long after, a small, frail boy who I was Duke of Gloucester and Commissioner of Array for the A North Parts rode for the first time beyond Trent, and passing through the city of York, followed a winding, climbing road which brought him, above Fountains Abbey and Ripon, to the swelling moors of Wensleydale. Here, at the Earl of Warwick's castle of Middleham, Richard was to spend the great part of his next three years. Though it was less grand than Warwick Castle and though the Earl's household, following the peripatetic habit of the time, moved about from one estate to another, Middleham appears to have been the favorite residence of Warwick's Countess and her two daughters and the seat of his "court"— for the great lords of the age emulated the King in having each his own council and an established, rigid household protocol. 1 * Its gray stone walls and towers planted solidly on the southern slope of Wensleydale, Middleham Castle had already dominated the valley for three hundred years when Richard rode up the steep slope through the market place of the village and entered its inner ward by the northern drawbridge and gate. Before him rose one of the largest keeps in England, a massive oblong with walls ten to twelve feet thick, which was closely surrounded by the outer fortifications. A flight of stone steps in the east face led up to a covered landing. To the left was the chapel, which had been built out from the keep; to the right, the entrance to the great hall. This occupied the eastern half of the keep; on the other side of the dividing wall were the family solar and the Earl's presence chamber. The keep stood higher than its protective walls, against which, on three sides, were ranged household buildings, offices, living quarters, a mill, a bakehouse

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with a nursery above it. On the fourth side, the eastern, rose a guard tower from which a drawbridge crossed the moat into a large outer courtyard encircling the stables, smithy, slaughterhouses. Behind the castle, to the south, the moors rolled upward to the sky; there was yet visible on the slope the remains of an earlier Norman "motte and bailey" fortress which had perhaps been raised on the site of a Saxon or Roman or even an ancient Celtic earthwork. To the north, the land fell steeply past the village to the swift-flowing Ure. Beyond, rose the farther slopes of the dale and the moors. 2

On special occasions like the Christmas holidays or the spring festival of Corpus Christi, Richard would ride with the Countess of Warwick and her daughters and the principal members of the household to the city of York, the metropolis of the region. Lodged in one of the great religious houses, they would be ceremoniously welcomed by the Mayor and Aldermen and given fine white bread, wine, fresh fish. 3 But the heart of Richard's life was the castle and the dale.

The Ure tumbled down from the Pennine ridge, foaming into rapids and falls at Aysgarth, ten miles west of Middleham. At Aysgarth stood Nappa Hall, whose owner, James Metcalfe, had served as a captain at Agincourt. Young Richard must have ridden over to Nappa to hear tales of the martial exploits of Harry the Fifth; later, Metcalfe's sons became his faithful followers. 4 Between Aysgarth and Middleham stood Bolton Castle, seat of that doughty fighter Lord Scrope. A mile and a half east of Middleham the Ure was joined by the river Cover, emerging from its smaller dale, and not far beyond rose the walls of Jervaulx Abbey. The moors, men-at-arms, monks—these were Richard's neighbors.

Wensleydale was less subdued to man than the softer countryside which Richard had known in the south: a land of scattered castles and abbeys, their villages and fields huddled about them amidst the great wild sweep of moor. The hills seemed to have been rounded by the stamp of Roman legions and of Celtic kings. The earth was gigantic, elemental—leading men's thoughts to God, teaching men the necessity of human ties, confirming men in their feeling for old ways and old things. The people were di-

MIDDLEHAM CASTLE cj

rectly swayed by their instincts, quick to take arms in a quarrel, slow to shift loyalties, earnest in their convictions. Here young Richard, in those impressionable years between nine and thirteen, discovered the native country of his spirit, a country which half created, half affirmed the kind of man he was to be.

There were several lads at Middleham, like himself apprentices in knightly conduct. Two of them became his dearest friends: Sir Robert Percy and Francis, later Viscount Lovell. 5 * These boys ate and slept and trained together. In the great hall they shared the communal life of Warwick's retainers, officers of the Wardrobe, grooms, esquires of the household, ushers, chaplains, children of the chapel, ladies in waiting upon the Countess, servants. All were under the watchful eyes of the steward, the treasurer, and the comptroller of the household, who maintained order in this bustling hive, according to a detailed code of duties and privileges. King's brother though he was, Richard would have no privacy. Privacy was a luxury whose charms even the greatest lords were only beginning to discover. 6

In the chamber and in the courtyard Richard and his fellows were tutored in "the schools of urbanity and nurture of England." After rising early and hearing Mass, they broke their fasts with a mess of meat, bread, and ale. Studies followed under the direction of a learned clerk or chaplain: some Latin, more French, a smattering of law and of mathematics, music, penmanship. More important still was the subject of knightly conduct. The boys were taught "to have all courtesy in words, deeds, and degrees [and] diligently to heed rules of goings and sittings." They conned a variety of tracts on courtly behavior and Christian doctrine, treatises of knighthood and of war, the accepted code for challenges and the Acts of Arms, allegories such as La Porteresse de Foy, Froissart's Chronicles, The Government of Kings and Princes. In leisure time they developed their knowledge of etiquette by reading romances and by conversing with Warwick's Countess and her two lovely daughters, Isabel, who was about Richard's age > and Anne, four years his junior.

The boys ate dinner at nine-thirty or ten in the morning amidst the throng of the great hall. Then, clad in armor, they sallied

from the castle to bestride their horses, for they must learn "to ride cleanly and surely" and to "wear their harness." In mock tournaments Richard collected his first scars. He practiced on foot with sword, dagger, and battle-axe. There were lighter exercises too: galloping over the moors, learning to manage a hawk and to hunt stag and boar. Their bones aching, the boys took their supper at four in winter, five in summer, and completed the day's regimen by rehearsing the polite arts of harping, singing, piping, and dancing. Then they retired, their servants fetching the "livery" for the night: bread and ale for a bedtime snack and, from All Hallows Day until Good Friday, the "winter livery" of candles and firewood. 7 *

It was here that young Richard began the struggle to accomplish his secret resolve. The sickly child who had become a thin, undersized lad drove himself to grow strong, to wield weapons skillfully. Fiercely, grimly, he worked at the trade of war. His vitality was forced inward to feed his will. He could not afford to take life as it came; he must prepare himself to serve his magnificent brother Edward. Probably as a result of this rigorous training, his right arm and shoulder grew to be somewhat larger than his left. 8

Although these three years (1462-64) were the most tranquil Richard had yet known, or for many years to come would know, his sojourn at Middleham Castle was not unbroken.

After a generation of growing anarchy, the kingdom was painfully groping its way toward order. King Edward was striving to win over the Lancastrians by a ready clemency, to reassert the force of the royal authority, and by means of an active diplomacy to convince the European powers of the stability of his government. The Earl of Warwick and his brother John, Lord Montagu, were constantly in harness, working to subdue the unruly North. The indomitable Queen Margaret and her adherents, however, kept strife and conspiracy alive: along the coasts, in Wales, and in the Marches toward Scotland. Three great Northumberland castles—Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh, and the Percy stronghold of Alnwick—were in Lancastrian hands. Leaving her helpless spouse in Scotland, Margaret sailed to France in the summer of 1462 in

order to plead her cause with Louis the Eleventh, who had ascended the throne a year before. By mortgaging Calais to Louis —a speculation in futures—she was able to invade Northumberland with a small fleet and army under the command of her old friend Piers de Breze.

The report of her landing at Bamburgh on October 25, 1462, reached London five days later. King Edward started northward with what forces he could hastily gather, Warwick was already in Yorkshire, where he had spent the summer raising men. No doubt he had come at intervals to Middleham, radiating upon young Richard his glow of fame and great affairs. When Margaret heard that Edward and Warwick were bearing down upon her, she "broke her field" and took to her ships. A tempest shattered her fleet. With her young son Edward and de Breze she barely managed to reach Berwick in a small boat; most of her troops were drowned or captured. While King Edward remained at Durham, immobilized by an attack of measles, and the Duke of Norfolk conveyed supplies northward, Warwick and Montagu pressed so vigorously the sieges of the three castles that by early January of 1463 they had all surrendered. Perhaps Richard kept Christmas with his sick brother, for Durham lies less than fifty miles northeast of Middleham. It is possible that the young Duke obtained his first experience of military operations by visiting the sieges.

When, by the middle of January, King Edward moved southward, Richard went with him to share a sacred filial duty. On January 30 at Fotheringhay, Edward and Richard commemorated their father's "month-mind" (the Duke of York having been slain on December 30, 1460). In the splendid ceremony were borne a hearse powdered with silver roses and golden suns, four great heraldic banners, a "majesty cloth' 7 depicting Christ upon a rainbow, fifty-one gilded images of kings and 420 gilded images of angels. Two weeks later the three mighty Nevilles—George, Bishop of Exeter and Chancellor, Lord Montagu, and the Earl of Warwick—in a ceremony even more impressive bore the remains of their father and brother to Bisham Abbey in Buckinghamshire. In a triple interment of great pomp the recently deceased Count-

ess of Salisbury was laid to rest with her husband and son. King Edward was represented by Hastings, his Lord Chamberlain, and by John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester and Constable, as well as by the Duke of Clarence—the first record of George's association with the Earl of Warwick. 9

In late February, Richard accompanied Edward to London. Though he was too young to be summoned to the Parliament which met at Westminster on April 29, he may have attended some of its sessions. By early June he was on his way back to the moors of Wensleydale. 10 * The Scots and the Lancastrians were again on the rampage; Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh, and Alnwick had once more fallen into Queen Margaret's hands. Warwick, his work all to do again, marched northward from London on June 3, probably taking Richard with him. King Edward set out a month later. Meanwhile Margaret and the Scots had crossed the border and laid siege to Norham Castle, but Warwick and his indefatigable brother Lord Montagu soon sent the invaders pelting back across the border. Shortly after, leaving Henry in Edinburgh, Margaret and her son returned to France to await a change in fortune.

The Scots had now had their fill of dying for the House of Lancaster. In early December, 1463, they dispatched an embassy to York. King Edward came up from Pontefract on December 3. Six days later, a ten months' truce was signed. Since the King kept his Christmas at York, Richard probably rode down from Middleham to be with him. Perhaps George of Clarence was there also. To help his brothers make merry, Edward gave them each a Christmas present of two tuns of Gascon wine,

By the end of January, 1464, Edward and Warwick were once again on the march, southward this time. Lancastrians were stirring up trouble in Wales; there was unrest in the Midlands and in Lancashire, rioting in Gloucestershire. It was March before the King and the Earl had sufficiently calmed the country so that they could proceed to London. They now determined upon a great effort to clear Northumberland permanently of Lancastrian arms. Edward scraped together every penny he could lay hands

on and he dispatched commissions of array for twenty-two counties, the whole southern half of England.

By these commissions young Richard of Gloucester was suddenly projected upon the stage of great events.

Customarily, a half-dozen or more men were appointed commissioners for each county; a great magnate frequently served on the commissions of a number of counties. In this case, however, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was made sole commissioner for nine of the twenty-two counties: the great belt of western and southwestern lands extending from Shropshire and Warwickshire through Somerset to Devon and Cornwall If his powers were to have been merely nominal—as they had been in the commissions of November, 1461—he would have been associated with other commissioners. It appears that Richard, in his twelfth year, had been entrusted by his royal brother with the surprisingly responsible charge of levying troops from a quarter of the realm. In this region he had not long before been granted broad lands and offices. 11