Richard The Chird (9 page)

Richard had realized that they aimed at forcing the King to do their will and acknowledge their power. Neither his affection for them nor his dislike of the Woodvilles could corrode his loyalty to Edward. J

To the pair of schemers this defection was doubtless of small moment. Shutting the lad out of their confidence and their company, they pressed on with their plans. Richard could only endure his misery in silence, remembering, perhaps, the contemptuous voice of Clarence calling him a Woodville-lover or a milksop.

Thus, while the kindred of the Queen saturated the court with the glow of their new-minted greatness, and Edward moved to free himself from the domination of the Nevilles, and Clarence and Warwick assembled their power to manage the King, Rich-

ard grew toward manhood, an obscure figure, mute and no doubt lonely.

It appears that Edward had no difficulty in divining his younger brother's choice. In February of 1467 he confidently put Richard, Warwick, and the Earl of Northumberland together on a commission of oyer and terminer * to inquire into some trouble at York. 13 By this time Warwick and the Duke of Clarence were secretly negotiating at Rome to secure the necessary papal dispensation for the marriage of Clarence and Isabel, who were

cousins.

The Earl of Warwick's pride was soothed and—so it then seemed—his hand was strengthened by his conquest of the Duke of Clarence. Early in 1468 he could not resist boasting to Louis XI that he had "drawn over" Edward's brother. 14 But this was only a beginning. He had to answer Edward's challenge; he had to make clear to the world that he was master still of the realm. The issue to which his emotions drove him was the direction of England's foreign policy. This, in the 1460*8, had reduced itself to an essential choice: Burgundy or France?

The aging Philip the Good and his son Charles, Count of Charolais, who in 1465 took over the conduct of affairs and in 1467 succeeded to the ducal coronet, were rulers of an anomalous state. As Duke of Burgundy, Philip was, theoretically, a Peer of France and vassal of Louis XI; as suzerain of the Low Countries he reigned in his own right. Philip, indeed, considered himself an independent sovereign; his son Charles the Rash would spend his life striving ardently to erect the dukedom into a kingdom. It was the dearest object of Louis XI, on the other hand, to round out his northern frontiers at the expense of the Low Countries and to return the Duchy and County of Burgundy to the fold of France.

Since Edward's accession, England, France, and Burgundy had

* A commission conferring the power to hear and determine indictments on specific or general offenses and, often, to investigate and punish riots or other disorders.

J2 RICHARD THE THIRD

been dancing a wry diplomatic pavane, each state dreading the alliance of the other two against it. At first sight, Edward's choice seemed easy. There were traditional ties of friendship and vital ties of trade between England and Burgundy; and only an alliance with Duke Philip would make possible a renewed assault upon Normandy. France was the "adversary"; the English still expected their monarch to make good Harry the Fifth's pretensions to the French throne, or at least to regain some of the lands across the Channel which they had so humiliatingly lost. But there were complications. The Duke of Burgundy had outraged English opinion when he made peace with Charles the Seventh in 1435; in 1464 he had given fresh cause for offense by prohibiting the importation of English cloth into his dominions; and the Count of Charolais, who traced his descent from John of Gaunt, was avowedly sympathetic to the House of Lancaster and sheltered at his court the Duke of Somerset (younger brother of the Somerset slain at Hexham) and the Duke of Exeter. And for England's friendship Louis XI seemed willing to make a high bid: advantageous marriages, the partition of Burgundy, trade concessions to English merchants, a promise to abandon Margaret and the Lancastrian cause. During the first years of his reign Edward had moved with prudent caution, despite pressure from Warwick to rush into the arms of Louis. He had taken short truces with Burgundy and with France; and even after he had dashed Louis' hopes by marrying Elizabeth Woodville, he had left the door open for further negotiations.

Now, Warwick, in a swirl of injured feelings, was determined to refurbish his pride by forcing Edward to make an alliance with France. He and the Count of Charolais, meeting for the first time in the spring of 1466, had instantly hated each other. His vanity was increasingly warmed by Louis' flattering regard. And it was in his negotiations with France that Edward had dared to humiliate him. As for Edward, though Warwick's pointed counterchallenge no doubt inclined him to look the more favorably upon Burgundy, he was too shrewd a king to turn his foreign policy into a joust with a disgruntled baron, however powerful he was. Edward would drive the best bargain that he could.

After he had quarreled with Charolais at Boulogne in the spring of 1466, Warwick returned to Calais to meet Louis' ambassadors. Both parties being of one mind, Warwick soon returned triumphantly to England with a truce for twenty months, a fine offer for the hand of Margaret of York, and a variety of inducements to turn the truce into a permanent treaty of peace. Edward gladly accepted the truce and promised to consider the inducements. In the meanwhile, the Count of Charolais, alarmed by Louis' plans of "extermination," had brought himself at last to swallow his Lancastrian prejudices and bid earnestly for Edward's support. He made a tentative offer to marry Margaret himself, he talked of removing the restrictions on English cloth, and he signed a treaty of amity and mutual defense. Edward, happy to exploit his advantage, encouraged both parties to pursue their negotiations with him. Consequently, the early spring of 1467 witnessed the arrival in London of an imposing embassy from Burgundy and an equally imposing embassy from France. With all the weapons of diplomacy the rival envoys proceeded to do battle, the French actively aided by Warwick. Edward did not yet openly commit himself. The French ambassadors departed with high hopes, for Warwick with a magnificent train of attendants accompanied them to consult with Louis himself, who for years had been trying to meet the Earl face to face—the spider eager to weave his silken web of flattery about this splendid fly.

Edward had been content to give Warwick his head in order to get him out of the way. As the Earl left England, a jocund fleet, bedecked with pennons and banners, sailed up the Thames, bearing Antoine, the Bastard of Burgundy, to joust with Anthony Woodville, Lord Scales, and also an embassy from Charolais to conclude a firm alliance with England. Philip's son was now prepared to make an outright offer for Margaret's hand. Edward, for his part, had come to the conclusion that, however much his subjects might grumble against Philip and Charles, they were of no mind to imperil their commerce with Burgundy and they could not stomach an alliance with Louis XI.

London was at its gayest—bright with a thousand banners and

tapestries, thronged with lords and commons come for a meeting of Parliament, and throbbing with anticipation of the tournament, which was to become the most famous of the century. On Saturday, May 30, the Bastard was accompanied up the river by barges blazing with arras and the gowns of knights and ladies. Taking horse at Billingsgate, he rode in a splendid procession through Cheap and Cornhill, past St. Paul's, to his lodging in the Bishop of Salisbury's palace in Fleet Street, where his chambers had been "hanged with beds of cloth of gold." On the following Tuesday, June 2, King Edward entered London in great state, Lord Scales bearing his sword before him, in order to greet the Bastard and attend the opening of Parliament on the morrow. The tournament would not begin until Thursday, June 11. Under the eye of the Earl of Worcester—the Constable being also the Arbiter of Chivalry—the sheriffs were finishing the construction of the lists, an arena ninety yards long by eighty yards wide. 15

On Wednesday the Bastard and his knights were the King's guests at the opening session of the Lords in the Painted Chamber. They did not hear, however, the customary address by the Chancellor. Angrily suspecting that the warm welcome given the Burgundians portended something more, George Neville, Archbishop of York, dared to show his displeasure by absenting himself under the thin excuse of illness. King Edward was probably already aware that the Archbishop was covertly intriguing for a cardinal's hat and for the dispensation which would permit Clarence and Isabel to marry. On Monday, June 8, the King took horse and rode to his Chancellor's palace near Charing Cross. Coolly he demanded that Warwick's brother fetch at once the Great Seal, waited till it was placed in his hands, and xode away to bestow the chancellorship upon Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells.

Three days later, all London streamed out to Smithfield to witness the great tourney. Two "lodges," or grandstands, had been erected facing, each other across the lists, the larger for the court; the smaller for the Mayor and city magistrates. The Burgundian chronicler Olivier de la Mjarche was there to report that King Edward "was clothed in purple, having the Garter on his thigh,

and a thick staff in his hand; and truly he seemed a person well worthy to be King, for he was a fine Prince, and great. ... An Earl held the sword before him . . . and around his seat were twenty or twenty-five counsellors, all with white hair; and they resembled senators set there together to counsel their master." Below him sat ranks of knights, esquires, and archers of the Crown.

Lord Scales rode first into the field, two helmets borne before him by George of Clarence and the Earl of Arundel. Doing his reverence to the King, he went to his pavilion to arm himself. After the Bastard had performed the same ceremony, the two ran a course with lances, but neither scored a hit. Then discarding much of their armor and talcing swords, they again thundered upon each other. The Bastard's horse rammed its head against Scales' saddle, reared, and fell dead, pinning the Bastard to the ground. After the Bastard had been extricated and Scales proved that he was using no illegal armor, Edward asked the shaken Burgundian if he wished another mount. The Bastard replied that "it was no season" and went to his chambers. Grimly he remarked to Olivier de la Marche, "Doubt not: he has fought a beast today, and tomorrow he shall fight a man."

Next day they were to fight on foot with spears, then axes, but "the King beholding the casting spears right jeopardous and right perilous, said, in as much as it was but an act of pleasaunce, he would not have none such mischievous weapons used before him." So Scales and the Bastard laid on with their axes, Scales striking with the head and his adversary with the small end of the blade. Fiercely they hacked at each other, axes clanging on armor, until the combat became so violent that "the King . . . cast his staff, and with a high voice, cried, Whoo!' Notwithstanding, in the departing there were given two or three great strokes" but at the King's command, they took each other by the hand, and promised "to love together as brothers in arms."

During these days of merrymaking and feats of chivalry, the diplomats in the Bastard's train had held very satisfactory conferences with Edward and his council. More jousts and feasting were scheduled, but when news came that Duke Philip had died

on Monday, June 15, the Bastard hurried home to his father's funeral.

It is to be remarked that young Richard, Duke of Gloucester, took no part in the tournament, save no doubt as an onlooker. Neither as boy nor as man did he display an interest in the mock-heroics of the lists. To him, the manage of weapons was a duty, not a sport. The artificiality of the tournament, its flamboyance of self-display, he had neither the exuberant personality, the playful imagination, nor the gamesome temperament to enjoy. He was apparently too earnest to see in jousting, with its formula of tutoring knights to wage war against the Infidel, much more than a pointless unreality. 16

The Bastard had been gone only a week, when the Earl of Warwick returned, flushed with the triumph of his reception by the French King. As the Earl had sailed up the Seine, Louis rushed down from Rouen to greet him. They walked together in a stately procession to the cathedral to make an offering and then retired to a Dominican convent, so that, Louis explained, they could talk intimately without interruptions or eavesdroppers. When they parted a week later, Louis poured streams of gold upon Warwick's attendants, and bade each man take what pleased him from the great textile shops of Rouen; to the Earl himself the French King gave a cup of gold worth two thousand livres and a hint that might prove to be even more valuable: if perchance Warwick ever decided to restore Henry VI to the throne, his devoted friend and admirer, Louis, would do all in his power to help. At the moment, however, Warwick was interested only in bringing Edward to heel and dictating the French alliance. An embassy accompanied him to England, armed with an array of seductive promises and Louis' injunction to prevent at all costs the marriage of the new Duke of Burgundy with Edward's sfeter.

When he reached London, Warwick's first discovery was that his brother had been deprived of the chancellorship; the next, that though Edward received the French envoys civilly enough, the talk at court was all of Burgundy. Though the ambassadors were invited to follow the King to Windsor—the plague having broken out in London—and remained in England for six weeks, all they

brought back to Louis was Edward's empty promise to send another embassy, and a few hunting horns, leather bottles, and mastiffs. Meanwhile, King Edward had concluded an alliance with Henry of Castile, which was aimed against France; and in renewing their treaty of amity and mutual defense, both he and Duke Charles now bound their heirs and successors to respect the league. At this very moment their envoys were drawing up the marriage treaty. Such was Edward's answer to the Earl of Warwick.

The Mayor of London had had some difficulty with one of his chief ministers this year: "John Derby, alderman, for so much as he refused to carry or to pay for the carriage away of a dead dog lying at his door, and for unfitting language which he gave unto the mayor, he was by a court of aldermen deemed to a fine of £ i , which he paid every penny," 1T King Edward did not have so easy a time as the Mayor.