The Last Knight Errant: Sir Edward Woodville & the Age of Chivalry (18 page)

The Council met three days after the funeral to handle the routine business of running the kingdom and, in particular, deciding how to deal with the threat to the realm. Whatever plans there had been for attacking France were impractical without the King’s leadership, so the Council restricted itself to commissioning a squadron of warships to stop the French making further depredations against English shipping and the coastal towns. Edward Woodville was appointed to command the squadron, presumably because he had been lined up for the main expedition, was ‘a bold and valiant Captain’ and already in control of the men, money and munitions, probably at Porchester.

The Council’s instructions were perfectly clear, so Edward commissioned his squadron and recruited his men. His second in command was Robert Radcliffe, the Gentleman Porter of Calais so disliked by Hastings, an experienced naval officer who had commanded the naval squadron against the Scots in the campaign of 1482.

There were at least four ships, probably six, the nucleus being
The Trinity
and
The Falcon
, both Tower ships (‘of the Tower’ was the equivalent of today’s ‘HMS’).
The Trinity
was the same ship that Anthony Woodville had captured from Warwick at Southampton back in 1470 and may have been Edward’s flagship.11 She was 350 tons and her building had been authorized by Henry VI nearly 40 years earlier. In 1470 her captain was John Porter and then, in 1478, William Comersal. There is no further detail on
The Trinity
but the
Mary James
(bought in 1509) was a similar tonnage and, 20 years later, was manned by 85 sailors and 150 soldiers equipped with 200 bows, 500 bowstrings, 400 sheaves of arrows, 160 bills, 160 pikes and 130 harness (sets of armour).12

The Falcon
was a ship that Edward knew, for he had sailed in her to collect the Duchess Margaret of Burgundy three years previously. Her captain was William Fetherston, who had recently received ten guns with 36 chambers ‘for the apparel and defense of the King’s ship Fawcon’.13 In 1478 she had been employed for mysterious affairs of state, carrying ‘certain secret persons...to bring us knowledge of certain matters’; hence a
proper
Tower ship. Originally she was Spanish and bought by King Edward for £450 in 1475. Again, there is no other detail but she is assumed to be smaller than
The Trinity
and a guess would be around 100 to 120 tons, so perhaps similar to
The Lizard
of 1513, which carried 32 sailors and 60 soldiers. Perhaps there were a total of 200–300 soldiers on those two ships.

The two newly acquired carracks, which had cost £856-13s-4d, seem likely candidates for the squadron and then merchant ships were hired to make up the numbers. These merchantmen were chartered complete with sailing master and crew. They were given a military commander and soldiers at a ratio of two or more soldiers to one seaman and equipped with weapons of war: cannon, powder, shot and arrows. Quite often the merchant ships were foreign and on this occasion Edward hired at least two large Genoese carracks which probably carried some 200 soldiers each.

It took Edward and his team only nine days to commission, provision and make ready to sail, complete with captains, crews and fighting men, including ‘ones that by every kind of tie were most devoted to the commander Edward’. The squadron sailed on the evening tide of 29 April and the following morning was out patrolling the Channel. Edward, who was looking for a fight with Lord Cordes, spent his time chasing and capturing French merchant ships. After a ten-day cruise he had certainly done damage to the French, in addition to taking a couple of prizes.14

He would have been unaware of the events unfolding at home. Mancini believed a story that Sir Edward had taken treasure from the Tower. In theory it was possible, but as Edward almost certainly sailed from Porchester, not London, and certainly before Gloucester had made any move, it seems most unlikely. Also and rather more importantly, there was no money in the Treasury: the cost of the war preparation had depleted the Exchequer and there was only £1,200 left, which was insufficient to pay for the King’s funeral costs of £1,886.15 No other source agrees with Mancini. Duke Richard and the Council knew there was no treasure in the Tower, so it was Richard’s propaganda that gives us the clear understanding that the Woodvilles had helped themselves because they were ‘greedy, selfish and unpublicspirited’.16

The same Council meeting that sent Edward off with his commission had to agree other plans which were not so easily settled. The date for the coronation was disputed. Queen Elizabeth and Dorset favoured government by the Council and an early coronation. This would follow the precedent set 60 years earlier, the last time a minor had been king. On the other hand, Lord Hastings believed his position would be jeopardized if the Queen’s family gained control of the country through the Council and consequently wanted Duke Richard to assume unrestricted power.

Dorset proposed Sunday 4 May for the coronation but, much to his irritation, some of his colleagues on the Council said the decision should be postponed until Duke Richard arrived. Dorset at his most arrogant retorted, ‘We are important enough to take decisions without the King’s uncle and see they are enforced.’ 17 When he suggested the new King should come to London with an army to escort him an exasperated Hastings asked if the army was to be ‘against the good people of England or against the Duke of Gloucester?’ Hastings went on to warn that if the escort was more than 2,000 men, he would withdraw to Calais. It is not clear where the number of 2,000 came from but it seems improbably high, and the thinly veiled threat of using the Calais garrison probably persuaded Dorset to accept the limit, which he did with little grace.

The young king-in-waiting and his uncle Anthony were at Ludlow Castle in Shropshire, the centre of Welsh and Marcher administration. It was from here that Anthony, as governor to the Prince of Wales, exercised the wide powers that the King had personally reconfirmed only six weeks earlier. At the same time, King Edward had made his youngest stepson, Richard Grey, effectively deputy governor and further strengthened Anthony’s position by issuing him with a new patent that enabled him to raise troops in the Welsh March ‘if need be’. These additional measures are clear confirmation of the King’s decision to place his heir, together with Wales and the Marches, firmly in Anthony Woodville’s safekeeping.

On 8 March Edward IV was certainly alive but there may have been unease about his health, as Anthony wrote to his lawyer, Andrew Dymmock, asking for the newly issued patents to be sent ‘me by some sure man’.18 That sounds as if he was worried about something; he had been responsible for the Prince of Wales since 1473 and there was no apparent threat, so why the patents by ‘some sure man’?

News of the King’s death reached Ludlow on 14 April. Nine days later, on St George’s Day, a service for the Knights of the Garter was held there. The service could have been in the circular Norman church within the castle or, and this is more likely, in the huge parish church of Ludlow with its wonderful Perpendicular nave. The pageantry of the procession from the castle through the town to the church would show strength and calm at a time of uncertainty. After the service the Prince of Wales, his uncle Anthony and an escort set out for London.

Dorset had written to Anthony instructing him to bring Prince Edward to London by 1 May; the sharpness of the letter may have been due to Anthony’s reluctance to become involved in the politicking. Queen Elizabeth and Dorset had a tight timetable that could have been driven by their interest in power, but it might simply have stemmed from the Queen’s distrust of Richard, who had written to her expressing his devoted allegiance to her son. Did she distrust him at this date and doubt his devoted allegiance? It seems unlikely, as, according to Polydore Vergil, Duke Richard, ‘in the meane sent most loving letters to Elizabeth the queen comforting her with many words and promising...’

Thomas More says that Duke Richard persuaded the Queen it would be a mistake for a large company of armed men to escort the young King, because ‘there was goodwill between all the lords and towards the young King’. It seems the Queen took his advice, for she sent word to Anthony, who consequently ‘brought the King up...with a sober company’, or so More reports.

The size of the escort that Anthony took is disputed: was it near the limit of 2,000 men or a
sober
, i.e. moderate in number, company? It would be practically impossible to raise 2,000 men in the eight days available and it is also unlikely that a brave and experienced soldier like Anthony would have considered an escort the size of a small army to be necessary in a peaceful realm. Indeed most people would regard a troop of around 200 men as perfectly adequate for the task; King Edward had only taken 200 men as escort when great riots were widespread in 1467.19

The real questions are about Anthony’s political instinct and his belief in Duke Richard’s integrity. The Duke was on his way to London and had written, so reports Mancini, to the Council making his case: ‘He had been loyal to his brother Edward, at home and abroad, in peace and in war, and would be, if only permitted, equally loyal to his brother’s son and to all his brother’s issue, even female, if perchance, which God forbid, the youth should die.’ It was a good appeal and succeeded in ‘winning many of them to his thinking’. He also wrote to Anthony suggesting that they meet en route for London.

The uncrowned King, Anthony and their entourage are recorded as arriving at Stony Stratford on 29 April 1483. Grafton, Anthony’s family home, is just four miles north of Stony Stratford on the way to Northampton. There is nothing now to show that Grafton was once a place of great value and strength, except the site itself which is ten or so flat acres on a little plateau with the ground around falling steeply away to valley land. It makes an excellent defensive position, dominating the river Tove and the road that runs from Northampton to Stony Stratford. If Anthony was due to meet Richard at Northampton then it was the obvious place for them to spend the night, although tradition has them staying at the Rose and Crown in Stony Stratford.

That same day Duke Richard of Gloucester arrived with 300 men at Northampton. While there is no documentary evidence to show that Gloucester and Anthony had agreed a rendezvous, it would be a remarkable coincidence for both of them to arrive around Northampton on the same day, given their starting points of Ludlow and Yorkshire. If there was a rendezvous then Richard must have arranged it, and that raises the question: what was Richard’s objective and when did he decide to pursue it?

As soon as Anthony heard of Duke Richard’s arrival in Northampton, he left the young King and rode back alone to see the new Protector. It is ten miles from Grafton (or 14 from Stony Stratford); he rode as if to a friend and was ‘greeted with a particularly cheerful and merry face’ by the Duke, so he decided to stay for dinner and overnight.

Duke Richard remains an enigma. There are occasional glimpses of him, one from a visiting Silesian who describes him as ‘very warm hearted’ and physically tall, lean and fine boned – the Silesian was short and square.20 Anthony certainly regarded him as a friend, and only a month before had agreed that Richard should be the arbiter in a property dispute where he was a litigant. There was friendship and trust between them, or so Anthony believed. But Richard had his own agenda: just nine months earlier he had seen the regime change in Scotland, executed without a hitch by Bell the Cat, a determined man. This may well have given Richard an idea.

In the inn Anthony and Richard talked, drank together and started dinner. Halfway through, Harry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham and Anthony’s brother-in-law, arrived with an escort of 300 men and joined them at dinner; was that another coincidence?

‘Perceiving that the evening was merry he at once matched his spirits to the occasion. When supper was cleared away the three noblemen lingered over their wine. It was late evening by the time they rose from the table and, agreeing to ride together to Stony Stratford in the morning, Rivers left and went to his inn to bed.’ 21

He was fast asleep as dawn broke and armed men surrounded his inn and then rudely woke him. Thomas More relates what may be an imaginative account:

When Lord Rivers understood the gates closed and the ways on every side beset...comparing this manner present with this last night’s cheer in so few hours so great a change marvellously misliked...he determined upon the surety of his own conscience to go boldly to them [Gloucester and Buckingham were up and dressed] and enquire what this matter might mean...they began to quarrel with him and say that he intended to set distance between the King and them...And when he began – as he was a very well-spoken man – in goodly wise to excuse himself, they tarried no the end of his answer, but…put him in ward [arrest].

So Duke Richard of Gloucester became ‘the smyler with the knyf under the cloke’. He and Buckingham wasted no time and immediately rode on to gather up the young King. They arrived just as the boy was about to mount his horse, with his old tutor, Sir Thomas Vaughan, and his half-brother, Sir Richard Grey, beside him. Courteously Gloucester suggested they should all go back inside as he had important things to say. Once there, he told them he knew of a dangerous plot, one that had been hatched by Rivers, Dorset and Grey against him, the Protector! He continued on the lines that these Woodvilles were corrupting men who had brought about the King’s death by ruining his health by involving him in their debaucheries.

The colour must have drained from their faces. There was shock and incredulity. The surprise was total. Gloucester dominated the scene, his words unnerving and his hostility suddenly apparent. In reality his ambition was driving him to exploit the opportunity that had been created by the King’s unexpected death. This was the start of what Professor Ross has called ‘the virulent and puritanical propaganda campaign by which Richard sought to discredit the Woodvilles’.