Shakespeare's Kings (90 page)

Warwick's
reaction
when
he
heard
was
even
worse
than
the
King had
feared.
The
marriage
meant
not
only
the
collapse
of
his
political plans;
it
also
affected
him
personally
since,
as
soon
became
clear,
Edward was
marrying
not
just
a
beautiful
woman
but
a
highly
ambitious
clan. Over
and
above
her
own
two
sons
by
her
first
husband,
Elizabeth possessed
no
less
than
five
brothers
and
seven
unmarried
sisters,
all
of whom
expected
to
be
generously
endowed.
Three
years
earlier,
they could
have
been
satisfied
without
too
much
difficulty:
Edward
had
had at
his
disposal
all
the
vast
Lancastrian
estates
confiscated
from
their former
owners.
Unfortunately,
however,
these
had
by
now
all
been bestowed
on
the
many
Yorkist
friends
who
had
brought
him
to
the throne.
The
only
thing
he
could
do
for
the
Woodvilles
was
to
arrange profitable
marriages
for
them,
and
these
followed
thick
and
fast:
over the
next
six
years
there
was
not
a
single
heir
to
an
English
earldom who,
on
his
marriage,
did
not
choose
a
Woodville
wife.
Warwick

himself,
who
had
no
male
heir
but
two
daughters
of
his
own
to
dispose of,
saw
them
passed
over
again
and
again
in
favour
of
the
Queen's innumerable
relations;
worse
still,
he
was
forced
to
stand
by
powerless while
his
own
aunt
Katherine
Nevill,
Duchess
of
Norfolk,
was
married off
to
one
of
the
Queen's
brothers,
John
Woodville
-
the
groom
being just
twenty
while
his
bride,
as
the
Nevill
chronicler
records
with
heavy irony,
was
'a
slip
of
a
girl
almost
four
score
years
old'.
He
was,
he
felt, drowning
in
a
sea
of
Woodvilles
-
and
rapidly
losing
the
prime
position at
court
which
he
believed
to
be
rightfully
his.

For
a
man
like
Warwick
such
a
situation
was
intolerable;
before
long he
began
looking
around
for
other
friends.
He
had
never
made
any secret
of
his
connections
with
the
French
court,
and
by
1467
there
were rumours
on
both
sides
of
the
Channel
that
he
was
in
communication with
Queen
Margaret,
to
whom
Louis
XI
had
given
refuge.
In
fact, however,
his
principal
ally
was
rather
nearer
home:
the
King's
brother George,
now
Duke
of
Clarence
and,
for
the
moment,
heir-presumptive to
the
throne.
Warwick
had
long
been
determined
on
a
marriage between
Clarence
and
his
own
elder
daughter
Isabel;
Clarence
too
had favoured
the
idea
—
the
lady
was,
after
all,
the
greatest
heiress
in
England -
and
both
of
them
had
taken
serious
offence
when
Edward
had
rejected it
out
of
hand
on
the
grounds
that
Clarence's
mother,
Cecily
of
York, had
been
both
Isabel's
great-aunt
and
her
godmother,
and
that
the marriage
conseque
ntly
fell
within
the
prohibited
degrees.

Warwick,
characteristically,
refused
to
accept
the
King's
decision. Having
secretly
obtained
a
special
dispensation
from
Pope
Paul
II,
early in
July
1469
he
suddenly
summoned
Clarence
to
Calais,
where
Isabel was
waiting.
The
two
were
married
on
the
spot
by
his
brother
George Nevill
-
now
Archbishop
of
York
-
in
the
church
of
Notre
Dame. They
and
Warwick
together
then
issued
a
manifesto,
announcing
that they
were
coming
to
present
to
the
King
certain
'reasonable
and profitable
articles
of
petition'
and
calling
upon
all
'true
subjects'
to
join them
in
an
armed
demonstration
at
Canterbury
on
Sunday
16
July
to emphasize
the
need
for
reforms.
The
articles,
which
purported
to
be representations
made
to
the
confederates
by
men
'of
diverse
parties', were
for
the
most
part
little
more
than
the
usual
complaints
of
'lack
of governance'
and
'great
impositions
and
inordinate
charges'
that
Warwick
had
so
often
levelled
at
the
Lancastrians
in
the
past;
but
there
was no
attempt
to
conceal
his
real
grievance
-
that
the
King
had
antagonized and
estranged
the
'great
lords
of his
blood'
by
his
blatant
favouring
of the
Woodvilles
and
other
'seducious
persones'.

The
people
of
Kent
gave
the
Earl
a
warm
welcome;
and
all
the
way to
London
he
continued
to
protest
his
loyalty,
much
as
Richard
of York
had
done
on
his
various
marches
to
the
capital
some
fifteen years
before.
Subsequent
events,
however,
soon
showed
that
his
true intentions
were
far
from
peaceable.
Already
in
Yorkshire
an
insurrection had
broken
out
under
a
shadowy
figure
known
as
Robin
of
Redesdale -
but
who
was
very
probably
a
landowner
from
Marske
in
Swaledale (and
an
old
friend
of
Warwick)
by
the
name
of
Sir
William
Conyers. Edward
had
marched
north
to
deal
with
him,
ordering
the
Earls
of Pembroke
¹
and
Devon
to
gather
troops
in
Wales
and
join
him
at Northampton.
The
first
of
these
tasks
they
satisfactorily
performed;
but on
26
July,
at
Edgecote
some
six
miles
north-east
of
Banbury,
they were
intercepted
and
soundly
defeated
by
Robin's
men.
That
evening several
hundred
Welshmen
lay
dead
on
the
field.
Pembroke
and
his brother,
Sir
Richard
Herbert,
were
taken
to
Northampton
and beheaded,
on
Warwick's
orders,
the
following
morning.