The Last Plantagenets (45 page)

But that is getting ahead of the sequence of events. For a number of years Edmund Beaufort and Suffolk worked together as heads of the administration. Henry was fond of detail and liked to attend meetings of the council, where he would personally dispose of some petitions and minor appointments. It was known that both of the chief ministers took problems of greater importance to the alert and opinionated queen.

After the death of Duke Humphrey, the discontented people had to find a substitute for him and they turned instinctively to Richard of York.

Edward III left five sons: Edward (the Black Prince), Lionel of Antwerp, John of Gaunt, Edmund of York, and Thomas of Woodstock. This Richard of York was descended from Lionel through his mother and from Edmund of York through his father and so had a clearer claim to the throne than the sons of John of Gaunt. It happened that those of the line of Lionel in the previous generation had shown little ambition and little, if any, desire to push their claims. Those stemming from the house of York had been equally unobtrusive. Conspiracies had been hatched in their interests but without their consent or participation.

In his youth Richard of York had been described as having “a perturbed, unruly and audacious mind.” It was clear that he was a man of stouter mettle than his immediate forebears. He was truly Plantagenet in appearance and in the thoughts and ambitions which filled his mind. In his list of titles he almost equaled the late John of Gaunt: Duke of York, Earl of March, Earl of Ulster, Lord of Wigmore, Clare, Trim and Connaught. In his youth it had been impossible to put him under restraint, as was so often done in England with those who stood too close to the throne. He could not be confined to the Tower and refused the right to marry. In fact, he made a most advantageous match, wedding Cicely Neville. His wife, who was beautiful and of an ambitious turn of mind (her envious friends called her Proud Cis), brought him great possessions, so that he had many castles and retainers by the thousands. Richard of York was, in fact, an able leader and in every respect more fitted to rule than the gentle custodian of the throne. If it became necessary to make a change, he was the inevitable choice and in his heart Richard of York wanted the chance to come. He was prepared, if it did come, to move as swiftly and as vigorously as Henry IV had done.

Nothing of these inner feelings showed as yet on the surface. He was
appointed to a command in France and acquitted himself well. When the Beaufort influence led to a division of the command with Edmund of Somerset, he accepted the change unwillingly and was soon justified in his attitude by the feebleness with which Edmund conducted his part of the campaigns. Then he was appointed governor of Ireland and spent some years there, realizing that it was a form of exile but striving to rule that sadly misgoverned land as well as he could, and thereby winning the affections of the people.

While Richard of York was in Ireland, a rebellion started among the men of Kent, fomented by an old soldier from Ireland who claimed to be descended from the noble family of Mortimer. It developed that his real name was Jack Cade, or Jack the Cnape, the knave (from which comes the expression “jackanapes”). He marched with a large army to London and made a military encampment at Blackheath, guided perhaps by the memory of Wat Tyler and John Ball. Cade’s experience as a soldier on the continent showed in the care he took to fortify his position with ditches and earthworks and in the stern discipline he maintained in the ranks.

The rumor spread through London, and then reached all parts of the country, that Cade was acting in the interests of Richard of York. The king marched to Blackheath at the head of an army of 10,000 men. The rebels declared they sought the removal of certain traitors from the royal council and then withdrew as far as Sevenoaks in Kent. Henry sent part of his force in pursuit under the command of Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother William, but Cade had left an ambuscade into which the Staffords fell. The royal troops were cut to pieces and both of the Staffords were killed. Flushed with success, Cade came back to Black-heath, having arrayed himself in the “bryganders, gilt nails and all, and the salet and gilt spurs” which had belonged to the slain Humphrey Stafford.

Henry did not display in this crisis the courage that Richard, the boy king, had shown in facing the peasants under Tyler. It seemed to him and his council that the prudent course was to go to Kenilworth and he was at this safe distance when the rebels broke up and betook themselves back to their furrows and benches. Some of those who were brought to trial later declared that the Duke of York had instigated the uprising. Unquestionably this story had circulated in the ranks.

The story finally reached the ears of Richard of York in Ireland. He
decided he must return and face the charges against him, but he was too shrewd to go at once to Westminster and put himself in the royal power. The king was gentle and peace-loving, but there was a complete lack of these qualities in those about him. To use a modern expression, Richard decided he must go in a conciliatory spirit but carrying a big stick. Accordingly he wrote to all his friends and liege men, advising them of his plan. As a result of this precaution, he found on landing in Wales that his friends were indeed rallying around him. As many as 4000 men had assembled to meet him, all armed for conflict and all wearing the symbol of the house of York in their bonnets.

The Yorkist leader marched with these loyal liege men at his back by the quickest roads to London. Forcing his way into the royal presence, he not only protested his innocence but vigorously assailed those he deemed responsible for pressing the accusation. One version of the scene between the two men was that the king spoke “as if inspired by the spirit of God” and succeeded in subduing the aroused temper of his Yorkist cousin. The first part may be accepted as true, for Henry had become very sure of himself and he was convinced, moreover, that he stood rather high in divine esteem. But it is almost equally certain that the conclusion drawn as to the effect on Richard was quite wrong. He listened to the fair speaking of the king, but subsequent events prove that he went away from the royal presence convinced he must take extreme steps. The only certain outcome of the meeting was an agreement that Parliament must be summoned at once to consider the situation.

Richard of York then held a consultation with his chief supporters, who included the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Salisbury, and other members of the powerful Neville family. Attention should be called to the presence in this group of one of Salisbury’s sons, Richard Neville, who had married Anne Beauchamp, sole surviving child of the great Earl of Warwick. This young man had been created Earl of Warwick when the father of his wife died and so had become one of the largest landholders in this kingdom of immense baronial power. He was to play a remarkable part in the drama of the civil war which soon followed.

As a result of this conference, Richard of York absented himself from court and retired to Fotheringhay to await the parliamentary hearings. The story spread that in this great feudal castle the duke began to bear himself in a regal way and that his wife, Proud Cis, established a fair imitation of a throne room where she received with equal regality.

The sessions of the House, which began on November 30, were chiefly notable for a demonstration of the lack of unity among the members, particularly the nobility. The Yorkist members attended with the family symbol in their hats, the Snow Rose. Those who could not obtain
flowers at this late time of the year fashioned roses from white paper which they wore boldly in their bonnets or on their sleeves. The royalist wing was quick to meet this showing of opposition solidarity. They bedecked themselves with the Red Rose, which John of Gaunt had many years before selected as his symbol. The depth of the breach was made clear when Queen Margaret, whose fiery spirit made her partisan, wore a red rose defiantly in her hair and even persuaded the king to make his appearance in the house with the Lancastrian rose on his cloak.

It was this showing of partisan temper which sowed the seeds of conflict in England. The Red and the White! For years men were to fight and die, with the fury which can be aroused most fiercely in civil war, under banners carrying the rival colors.

The jostling of the rival wearers of roses did not lead to hostilities at once, as Richard of York was not accused openly in Parliament of participation in the Jack Cade rebellion. Henry then proceeded to go up and down through the counties in a seemingly endless processional. This was his invariable answer to criticism and opposition. He seems to have believed that people needed nothing more than a chance to see him to bring them into line with royal policy. When the slow progress of the long trains of court attendants led to a royal residence, a stop would be made there; otherwise they sought hospitality of the nearest great holder of land. It was an honor to entertain the king but an expensive one. Cattle, sheep, and hogs had to be slaughtered every day, to say nothing of the wholesale raids made on chicken roosts and duck ponds and the mad riding of menials to bring fresh fish every day from the sea. Tuns of wine were broached almost daily and the consumption of beer was an appalling item on the statistics of such a visitation. A fortnight of this, even a week, and the much honored host found himself without a flitch of bacon left.

Then, in the spring of 1453, the word was bruited about that the queen, after nearly nine years of barrenness, would soon present her lord the king, and the nation, with an heir to the throne. Henry, alas, was in no position to rejoice over the prospect. Although he continued his dull and monotonous round of processionals, he was obviously in the worst of health. His advisers, remembering with dread the anarchy created in France by the periodical spells of insanity suffered by Charles VI, watched him with anxious eyes. Had he inherited this Valois tendency through his mother?

Henry’s hopeful travels had taken him to Clarendon and there on July 6 the Valois curse descended on him. The light of reason flickered out in his mind and his body became almost completely impotent. He lay in a coma, unable to speak or hear, or even to move voluntarily a muscle of his body. The intelligence was received by the people with more grief and alarm than news of a military defeat; they had suffered through so many defeats that they were becoming inured, although not reconciled, to them. But what would happen to the nation now?

At first nothing happened. The Crown advisers continued to function under the watchful eye and the sometimes imperious guidance of the queen. The unconscious king was taken to Windsor. He did not suffer from the neglect in which the French king had existed. In fact, he was most carefully tended and fed, even though there was no sign of intelligence in his eyes. He never spoke and certainly did not indulge in the maniacal outcries of his maternal grandfather.

The royal child was born on October 13, 1453. It was a boy and the name of Edward was given him. The country, which should have rejoiced, was disturbed by rumors and baseless canards. It was said that the father of the child was Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, the minister so obnoxious to the people but so much favored by Margaret herself. Other stories followed, equally false, that the queen’s child had died and that a boy of low degree had been spirited into the palace and put in the cradle of the deceased heir. It was declared that the unfortunate king, if he ever found it possible to speak again, would refuse to recognize the child as his. This wave of calumny resulted finally in a public statement by the Earl of Warwick at St. Paul’s Cross that the supposed heir was the child of adultery and that the claims made for him were a fraud.

Queen Margaret, so gentle and lovely in appearance but so determined and unyielding in spirit, was furious over these vile aspersions. At first she could do nothing about them because Richard of York had not joined in the campaign of slander. But when the first hint reached her from Windsor that the king was showing some improvement under the enlightened care of Dean Kemer of Salisbury, who was accounted the wisest man of medicine in the kingdom, the queen decided to make a test. She took her infant son to Windsor, hoping that the sight of the boy would bring back the king’s reason.

At the door of the sick chamber the queen confided the infant to the Earl of Buckingham and the latter carried him in. He came back shortly and shook his head. Henry was propped up in bed but had given no sign of intelligence. Queen Margaret still believed that her husband could be brought back to sanity and she carried the infant into the
chamber a second time. She knelt at the side of the royal couch.

She implored the king to give his blessing to the boy. Henry’s face remained without expression. He had not recognized her and nothing that was said aroused a spark of understanding in the weakened brain.

This failure was a sad blow to the royal party. Parliament convened in February of the next year, faced with the problem of naming a protector for the term of the king’s mental incompetence. Richard of York presided and the tenor of the House was strongly against allowing the queen’s officials to remain in power. Margaret asked to be appointed regent, but the request was set aside.

A report reached Westminster that the king was showing signs of improvement and a deputation of lords was sent down to get firsthand information. The report, however, had been premature. Henry again was sitting up in bed. He was obviously very weak although the attendants said he had partaken of a good meal. There was not a flicker of interest or recognition in his eyes. The lords addressed him earnestly and imploringly but failed to arouse the sick monarch. They returned to London, therefore, convinced that some definite decision must be reached.

On March 27 they elected Richard of York protector for the term of the heir’s minority or until the king recovered his senses. The new head of state proceeded to direct things with a firm hand. The Duke of Somerset was arrested and committed to the Tower. The offices of the chancellery were cleared of all the Beaufort appointees, and Yorkist supporters put in their places. Richard’s brother-in-law, the Earl of Salisbury was made chancellor. When Archbishop Kemp of Canterbury died, his successor was not William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester and the great friend of both king and queen, but Bishop Bourchier of Ely, who traced his descent back to Thomas of Woodstock. In France the new head of state was able to check the French and to hold Calais and the island of Jersey from attack.