The Last Knight Errant: Sir Edward Woodville & the Age of Chivalry (11 page)

Her mission was not to comfort the Duchess or to offer concessions to Warwick; it was to persuade Clarence to return to his family allegiance. She convinced him of his brother’s goodwill and was able to persuade him that all would be forgiven if he deserted Warwick, his father-in-law. Clarence, who was not enjoying life in exile and felt neglected by Warwick, sent her back with a promise that he would show his allegiance at a propitious moment. This turned out to be nine months later outside Banbury.36 No more is known about the unnamed lady negotiator, but Edward loved women and admired bravery so, no doubt, she was well rewarded.

After acquiring his brother’s army, King Edward made the unexpected move of marching south to London. The city was surprised and uneasy, and the Lord Mayor took to his bed and refused to exercise his authority. But there were others who made the King welcome. Commines points out that many of the merchants were keen to have their biggest debtor back and in power. He also says ‘the influence of many ladies of rank and the wives of rich citizens, formerly very good friends of his, won over their husbands and relatives’.

Left to their own devices, Warwick and the Lancastrians joined together and marched south, tempted by Edward’s move. Just north of Barnet they occupied an east-to-west ridge and sent out scouts. King Edward and his army had spent just 48 hours in London before they marched north. They threw Warwick’s scouts out of Barnet and continued straight through. It was pitch dark but somehow the King’s officers formed the army into battle lines that were much closer to Warwick than he realized. Warwick, knowing they were out there somewhere, ordered a night-long artillery bombardment but this sailed over the top of Edward’s men, who were ordered to keep quiet.

Easter morning (13 April 1471) dawned thick with mist and between 4 and 5 o’clock King Edward, ‘committed his cause and quarrel to Almighty God, advanced banners, did blow trumpets and set upon them first with shot and then, and soon, they joined and came to hand strokes’.37

Knowing what really happened is long lost in the fog of history. Probably the cannons stopped firing because no one could see anything. Then there was a pause while both sides were lined up. The trumpets blew and the armies charged into the fog, completely unaware that the two formations were not centred on each other. The lines crashed together and the Yorkist right then found they overlapped enough to turn their enemy’s flank, which sent an urgent message to Warwick who dispatched part of the reserve to help. On the Yorkist left, where Hastings commanded, the Lancastrian Oxford had overlapped and swung into the Yorkist flank, forcing them to break and run.

Oxford’s men went off in hot pursuit, some reaching Barnet where they began plundering.

Eventually Oxford managed to gather some 500 horsemen together and sent word to Warwick that he was returning to attack the enemy’s rear. After two hours of hard fighting the battle seemed to be going Warwick’s way. The weight of more men was telling in the centre, his right had won and his left was holding. But the whole battle line had swung from east–west to north–south.

Oxford and his men rode up through the fog unaware that the battle lines had slewed 90 degrees. The Lancastrian right – at the south of their line – saw Oxford’s badge, a star with rays, mistook it for the ‘Sun of York’ and loosed a flight of arrows at the horsemen who, fearing the worst, then charged the archers. There were cries of treason that unbalanced the Lancastrian line. King Edward, fighting in the centre, saw the hesitation, seized the moment and led a charge with all he had. It broke the enemy line which turned to flight.38

Warwick was discovered by a couple of Yorkist foot soldiers lumbering off the battlefield to look for his horse. Seeing a lonely, tired man weighed down with valuable armour,39 hardly able to see through his visor, they knocked him over, probably with an axe blow to the un-armoured backs of his legs and then prized open his visor. A dagger driven into his eye delivered death and then his rich armour was stripped off.40 Edward Hall wrote an epitaph: ‘But death did one thing that life could not do, for by death he had rest, peace, quietness and tranquillity, which his life [he] ever abhorred and could not suffer or abide.’

Barnet was the first battle in which the 19-year-old Duke Richard of Gloucester fought. He is said to have distinguished himself commanding the Yorkist right. Anthony Woodville is recorded as having ‘fought with great valour’ and been wounded.41 Edward Woodville, at 12 years old, might just have been there, but if he was then he should have been ‘in attendance’ i.e. with the baggage train.

The next threat was from the west where King Henry’s queen, the ‘SheWolf of France’, was beating the Lancastrian drum. Her invasion, delayed by the weather and lethargy, landed two days after the defeat at Barnet, but despite this she was assured that the Lancastrians still had an excellent opportunity. West Countrymen flocked to her standard and she marched north to join Earl Jasper of Pembroke’s Welsh army. King Edward moved quickly to confront the enemy, leaving Anthony at the Tower of London to recover from his wound and guard the royal back.

On Wednesday 24 April, as the King marched west, a proclamation was sent throughout the land promising death and forfeiture to anyone succouring ‘Margaret, calling herself Queen, which is a Frenchwoman born’. The King’s objective was to fight her army before it recruited any more dissidents or joined up with the Welshmen. The objective of the Queen and her advisors was to avoid him until they could join up with the Welshmen. The Lancastrians dodged, but King Edward eventually caught them on 4 May by the Severn crossing at Tewkesbury.42

The day was ‘right an hot’ and the King’s army had marched or ridden the last 35 miles in 12 hours while the Lancastrians had covered 24 miles in 16 hours, all of them in full fighting order. A complete set of field armour then weighed around 50lbs (23kg), a short mail coat 20lbs (9kg) and a helmet around 5lbs (2kg).

It was a bitter, bloody fight. The Lancastrian right wing tried a surprise attack that might have worked if it had been supported by the centre, but it was not and the wing was routed. The Duke of Somerset, its commander, who struggled back to his own side, was so angry with his commander-in-chief that he went and ‘cleaved’ him on his helmet. It was a resounding victory for King Edward. Even the Lancastrian heir, the 17-year-old Prince of Wales, had been killed in the battle and other loose ends were dealt with expeditiously, the King’s men executing such die-hard Lancastrians notables as they found. Indeed, they found and dealt with some who had made their way to sanctuary at the Abbey and the unfortunate Queen Margaret was picked up the following day.

Meanwhile London was under attack from Warwick’s half-brother, the Bastard of Fauconberg. His fleet had brought over part of the Calais garrison, and the men of Kent, always prone to rebellion, marched. His cannon bombarded the City and his men attacked over London Bridge and at Bishopsgate. They burned the houses on the bridge between the outer gate and the drawbridge but they got no further.

Anthony and his men-at-arms, perhaps 400 of them, sallied out from the Tower postern and attacked the rebels from behind. The rebels were unbalanced and this gave the Londoners the opportunity to open the gates and charge out. Some rebels were trapped on the bridge and killed, others escaped. There was a running fight along Southwark High Street but then the rebels turned and fled across the open fields towards Poplar. At Blackheath the Bastard rallied his forces but then, learning of the approach of King Edward and his victorious army, withdrew to his ships, leaving the Mayor of Canterbury and the men of Kent to their fate.

The King entered his capital in triumph with his two brothers, followed by three dukes, six earls, 16 barons, ‘a host of horsemen’ and his trophy, the captured Queen Margaret in her carriage. She was later sold to King Louis for £10,000.

The mayor and 11 aldermen were knighted to celebrate their doughty defence of the city but, during the euphoria of the victory night, the unfortunate King Henry died in the Tower while Duke Richard of Gloucester was in close attendance. There is some uncertainty about how Henry came to die. Thomas More believed Richard killed him ‘with his own hands’. Fabyan says he was ‘sticked with a dagger’ by Richard himself, and Warkworth reports that he ‘was put to death between 11 and 12 o’clock when Duke Richard of Gloucester was at the Tower’.

There was further tidying up to be done. As the Lancastrian sympathizer Fabyan noted, ‘such as were rich were hanged by the purse and the other that were needy were hanged by the neck’. In reality far more were pardoned than punished. For instance, Sir John Fortescue, who had been captured at Tewkesbury, was, to many people’s surprise, pardoned and wrote a recantation of his Lancastrian views that was particularly useful for King Edward’s publicrelations campaign.

‘The Recoverie of England’ was a setback for the French, and when the Milanese ambassador commiserated with King Louis, he was told with a sigh, ‘I am busy with new schemes, it is impossible to fight against fortune.’

For the rest of King Edward’s reign England remained peaceful. After all, who would challenge such a king, who was unbeaten in battle? According to Charles Oman, ‘he was not only a good tactician, a hard fighter, and a genial leader of men, much loved by his troops, but he was one of the first mediaeval generals who showed a complete appreciation of the value of time in war. His marches were even more remarkable than his battles.’ 43

The only pretender was young Henry Tudor but his claim was so obscure that no one took it seriously and, anyway, he and his uncle Jasper were being chased westward into furthest Wales. The one remaining problem was the Calais garrison which, despite having been in open revolt, had sent its submission to the King in expectation of an easy pardon.

Anthony Woodville, as Captain of Calais, should have gone to deal with the truculent soldiers, but surprisingly declared he would ‘to be at a day upon the Saracens’. Presumably this was the result of a vow made when the future looked bleak. He was a man who took his faith very seriously and if he had come to an agreement with God then he was going to honour it. Nevertheless it was still only a private crusade and the King was furious. He could not understand it;44 what if the Portuguese were planning another expedition against Tangier? It mattered little to him that Tangier had been their goal ever since they had started their conquest of the Moroccan Atlantic ports45 – he had a country to run.

King Edward remained unimpressed by the importance of the vow or the opportunity, and refused to give Anthony permission to go. He reassigned the Captaincy of Calais to Hastings on 17 July (this may just have been a re-arrangement of duties as Calais needed a resident captain) but Anthony seems not to have been included in the new round of royal rewards. However, he remained determined, arguing that the fighting was over in England. John Paston wrote home reporting, ‘The King is not best pleased with him...he [Anthony] desires to depart...the King has said...whenever he has most to do then Lord Scales will soon ask leave to depart...it is most because of cowardice.’ ‘Cowardice’, however, is rather unfair and bad tempered in the light of Anthony’s form, particularly as he had been noted as fighting ‘with great valour’ at Barnet and beating rebels around London.

In August the Portuguese sailed for Morocco. After a ferocious and bloody attack they captured one key stronghold that so dispirited the Moors that Tangier itself fell shortly after. They returned home in great glory.46 In early September the row between the King and Anthony seems to have been settled: ‘Lord Rivers has licence to go to Portugale now within this seven night.’ It was not until October, however, that the ‘safe conduct for the King’s kinsman...who is going to fight the infidels’ was issued, and there were further delays until at last John Paston reported, ‘Men say Lord Rivers shipped on Christmas Eve to Portugal; I am not certain.’

Young Edward almost certainly sailed with his brother, although by the time they arrived it was too late for the honours of Tangier and the Portuguese African campaign. There was no Moor fighting in Spain, as King Henry IV, ‘the Impotent’ of Castile, lived up to his name and did nothing. Perhaps Anthony – and Edward – had a good holiday with a tournament or two for entertainment. Perhaps it was enough for Anthony to feel his vow was redeemed, but whatever they did it gave Edward the opportunity to make a friend of the future King João II who was to greet him so warmly 15 years later. Anyway, that year the Portuguese had good cause for celebration, for not only had they achieved their military goal in Morocco but had also discovered gold in West Africa.

Meanwhile the Speaker of the House of Commons praised the Queen for her ‘womanly behaviour and great constancy’ while her husband ‘our most dread and liege lord the King Edward iiii’, had been beyond the sea.47 He also expressed ‘the great joy and surety to this his land’ for the birth of the prince; he noted the ‘knightly demeninge’ of Clarence and Gloucester and then ‘the constant faith of my lords Rivers and Hastings’.48 But what next for Edward Woodville now that he was reaching a useful age? The King was, of course, the fountain of patronage
and
his brother-in-law.

King Edward sounds a most engaging man. There is a delightful description of him taking a guest to the Queen’s apartments. She was playing marbles with some of her ladies, others were dancing and some were playing skittles with ivory pins, his daughter Elizabeth among them.49 The King, like any happy father, swept the little eight-year-old up in a dance. He was a big affable man who, reported Mancini, ‘was so genial in his greeting that, when he saw a newcomer bewildered by his regal appearance and royal pomp, he would give him courage to speak by laying a kindly hand on his shoulder’.