Warwick the Kingmaker (31 page)

The Loveday enabled Henry VI to resume diplomatic relations with France that had officially ceased in 1449. What Henry had in mind was a long truce rather than a final peace. His model was the treaty of Tours of 1444 that had resulted in his own marriage, which he evidently did not see as the disaster that most modern historians perceive. English public opinion was not yet ready to acknowledge decisive defeat by France. He proposed the marriage of his heir Prince Edward and sons of York and Somerset to three French princesses. York had sought to marry his heir to a daughter of France a decade earlier and his own daughter to Charles the Bold, only son of Philip of Burgundy, in 1453–4. A match between Somerset and a Scottish princess was mooted.81 York and Somerset were eligible to European eyes and were willing to be pawns in such diplomatic games. Such proposals assumed and reinforced the restoration of domestic peace. Henry’s agents justifiably claimed the backing not only of the king and court, but of York, Norfolk and the Neville earls. An Anglo-French peace was compatible with continued amity towards Burgundy, though it is not certain that this is what Henry intended. Apparently he had still not forgiven Duke Philip for deserting him at the Congress of Arras in 1435!82 Moreover Charles VII was sympathetic. A year earlier he had declined to join in a Scottish attack on England and had waxed eloquent on the financial strain of maintaining defences along 450 leagues of coast from Bayonne to Picardy against enemies who knew the lie of the land as well as he and needed only six hours’ favourable wind for the crossing.83 For him, too, a cessation of hostilities would reduce financial strains; perhaps, as his enemies suspected, it would free him to attack Burgundy, which was harbouring his recalcitrant dauphin, the future Louis XI; perhaps, as he stated more than once, he could then assist crusaders against the Turk.

The fly in the ointment was the Yorkist lords. They interpreted the Loveday as a fresh start, that restored them to favour. Warwick received assignments from the exchequer for his long overdue pay as a royal councillor. York returned many bad tallies dating back to his time in Ireland and obtained substitutes. They continued to co-operate with one another – there was interchange of personnel and Warwick kept in closer touch with the developments in the North – and they were emboldened to act as a particularly forceful pressure group. Reconciliation for them entailed their restoration to political influence and a say, even a decisive say, in the making of policy. No longer defensive, they were self-confident, even aggressive. We have seen evidence of this in Warwick’s maritime exploits in the summer of 1458. Nowhere is this more apparent than in international relations.

The Yorkists wanted to share in the making of England’s foreign policy. They also wanted to shape it. They were unwilling to be bound by the government’s assessment of national interests. They did not perceive that independent foreign policies were the prerogative of sovereign states. Warwick’s use of sea-power itself determined national alignments. Moreover York resumed diplomatic manoeuvres of his own. When protector, he had still favoured an aggressive policy towards France, seeing an alliance with the Duke of Alençon as a means to resume the land war; in 1458, with Alençon in custody and about to be tried, this was no longer practical. As protector he had proposed his eldest son Edward as husband for Charles VII’s daughter Madeleine. Secret proposals on his behalf were made on 23 May 1458 to King Charles at Montrichard, several months ahead of direct contacts between the English and French governments; the French proceeded no further because it was dishonourable to treat with a mere subject.84 Warwick meantime appeared sympathetic to Burgundy. Subsequently the Yorkists committed themselves to Burgundy and undermined any
rapprochement
with France. Warwick’s naval activity and their secret diplomacy was designed to align England with Burgundy against France: whether with a view to a resumption of war or merely the creation of a balance of power.

As a treaty would cut the Calais garrison drastically and remove the need for keeping the seas, possibly Warwick was selfishly seeking to perpetuate his appointments and maximize their value by obstructing peace. Certainly his activities forced the government to spend more on defence and postponed indefinitely its financial recovery. The Yorkists damaged England’s diplomatic standing abroad, firstly by sending out ambiguous messages to her neighbours and secondly by scuppering the king’s initiatives. Apparently it was at this stage that they struck up understandings abroad that helped them through the crises of 1459–61.

Henry VI’s peace policy had been unpopular in the 1430s and 1440s, and doubtless there still remained a climate of opinion in England committed to the Hundred Years War as late as 1458. Hence the English made their first tentative approaches under cover of existing negotiations about border disputes in Calais. Warwick himself remained until May 1458 in London preparing the fleet for another summer of action: another reason for the French to wish to come to terms. Maybe he also attended the jousts between the king’s and queen’s men by the Tower and at Greenwich that followed the Loveday, at which Henry Duke of Somerset and Lord Rivers’s son Anthony Wydeville distinguished themselves. Certainly Warwick was among those who on 9 May stood bail for his uncle Fauconberg, who had been imprisoned for some unknown matter – perhaps arising from the various commissions against piracy? – and was now released on condition that he appeared in chancery in October: when Fauconberg appeared, the case was dismissed. The other sureties were Warwick’s brother Thomas, Buckingham and Bourchier. Warwick left London on 9 May, marching his retinue through the City at the king’s request to overawe those citizens and lawyers who were tempted to resume their recent riots. This was en route for Canterbury, where he arrived in time for vespers on the 10th, on the way to Calais. From Canterbury he was in company with Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury.85

Earl and bishop were the highest-ranking of twenty-two ambassadors nominated on 14 May to discuss infringements of the truce with Burgundy. They comprised Warwick, his two brothers, Viscount Bourchier and his brother and a son, and several doctors of law. The composition suggests that the Yorkists had a hand in their selection. On 27 May Philip the Good commissioned a similarly prestigious embassy headed by the Count of Estampes, the bishop of Toul, and the marshal of Burgundy, who arrived soon after Warwick’s victory over the Spaniards. They too seem unduly prestigious for dealing with routine border infractions. A secret letter from Duke Philip to Warwick implies that other issues were also to be raised. Probably it was at this time that Bishop Beauchamp spoke off the record to Morice Doulcereau, agent of Pierre de Brezé on behalf of Queen Margaret. He asked Doulcereau to get De Brezé to ask King Charles to resume diplomatic contacts with a view to a ‘bonne paix’: a treaty with France, he apparently said, was even preferable to one with Burgundy, in whom the queen no longer had any confidence. French and Burgundian responses to these overtures were sufficiently promising for the appointment of further ambassadors to treat with France and Burgundy on 29 August 1458.86

By the autumn of 1458 Warwick’s naval depredations had put the government under considerable pressure. It took time for Spanish and Genoese complaints to their governments to produce representations to Henry VI, but the Hanse were quicker. On 31 July Rivers, Kyriel, doctors of law and others were commissioned to hold an inquiry into Warwick’s battle with the friendly Hanse at Rochester on 9 August.87 They can hardly have found in his favour, yet the Hanse obtained no satisfaction. Perhaps it was in response to Warwick’s aggression that a further French raid by land and sea on the pattern of Sandwich was expected in September 1458 and afterwards. If so, Warwick’s conduct ran directly counter to government policy. The king had intended to return to the North, by which probably the Midlands was meant, but a range of issues kept him near to London. It also prevented Waynflete, who was also bishop of Winchester, from visiting Hampshire to see good rule there, to attend to his own business, and for a holiday. The lords were told to remain in the south ‘to thentent that yf any grete and sodayn cause falle that the lords shall mowe hastily be assembled and take such direcc[i]on of addresse therinne as shal be for the seurtee wele and hono[u]r of the kinge and his Reaume’. Another great council that was summoned on 26 August to Westminster on 11 October had a rather specialized membership that points to military and diplomatic business: though less than half the bishops and lay magnates were summoned, York, Salisbury, Warwick and Sir John Wenlock were included. The summons speaks of matters ‘as concerne specially oure honeure & worship, the welfare of this oure lande and subgittes’. The issues that touched the government on 7 September, the chancellor wrote, were the anticipated French attack, treasonable collusion suspected at Southampton, continued friction between the citizens and men of law in London, and ‘the matier concernyng the Jannayes [Genoese]’ and ‘the takyng of the Shippes of lubyck [Lubeck]’ as causes for the change in plan.88

Warwick’s maritime exploits were thus a matter of official concern. It was certainly damaging to the king’s ‘honeure & worship’ that his ships were attacking neutral and friendly shipping and it was surely intolerable that Warwick was determining foreign relations in this way. It was also in blatant contravention of his indenture of appointment as keeper of the seas. Probably Warwick did not intend responding to a summons to what was likely to be a disciplinary hearing. Still at Calais on 23 September, he was at his new house at Collyweston in Northamptonshire on 7 October, whence he wrote to York to ask for the services of his servant Walter Blount as marshal of Calais in succession to Mulsho, who had just died. Whilst decidedly reluctant, for he had uses for Blount himself, York agreed to second him to Warwick for one year only. That was in a letter of 17 October dated at Montgomery, so York was also missing the great council.89 From Northamptonshire Warwick journeyed to Yorkshire, perhaps to meet his parents and to inquire into the keeping of the marches, of which he was still warden, at a time of unstable relations with the Scots. It was there shortly before 30 October that the king’s servant William Say reached him with letters of privy seal from the king ‘for divers special causes and matters in the same letters contained that concern the said lord king and council’. What was probably a further summons to the great council was presumably ignored since soon before 6 November John Moody, another royal messenger, served further letters of privy seal on him.90 Warwick apparently responded, for it was most probably on 9 November when leaving a council session that he was embroiled in a fight in Westminster Hall that nearly cost him his life; an alternative date soon after Candlemas (2 February 1459) does not fit. Escaping by water in his barge, presumably to Greyfriars, he proceeded the same day to Warwick, and then, with the king’s permission, returned to Calais. He thus avoided being held to account for his captaincy of Calais and keeping of the seas.

This was an important episode that made a big impression on Warwick. He repeatedly harked back to it and the fact that nobody was punished. Henceforward he distrusted the court and became irreconcilable. His experience may have prevented the events of the next summer from ending peacefully. All the chronicles present the same version of events. It was one of Warwick’s retainers who struck the first blow, against a royal servant: itself an offence against the king, in the verge of whose household it occurred, and against the central courts that sat in the hall. The dispute escalated alarmingly: as cooks thronged from the royal kitchens armed with spits and pestles. Warwick’s meinie was hard-pressed and suffered serious casualties. He required the intervention of other lords at the council to help him hack his way to his barge. Warwick regarded it as a deliberate assassination attempt, which at first sight seems unlikely: the menial status and improvised weaponry of his opponents militates against it, though it indicates that hostility was running high towards him in the royal household. However Friar Brackley later wanted Warwick reminding of the role in the fight ‘at Westminster wharf’ of Sir Thomas Tuddenham: formerly Suffolk’s notorious agent in East Anglia, now a noted courtier and keeper of the great wardrobe, and shortly to be treasurer of the household. If Tuddenham was involved, Warwick had justice in his sinister slant on events. As Warwick’s man started it, the queen was justified in blaming Warwick and wanting him punished, but Henry would not allow it.91 In the alienation of the earl from the court, this was a decisive moment.

Meanwhile informal negotiations were under way with Burgundy and France. The English ambassadors for what was still a low-level mission were Sir John Wenlock and Louis Galet from Calais, two of the lesser members of the May embassy. As her former chamberlain, Wenlock evidently still enjoyed the queen’s confidence; after St Albans, however, he had been York’s choice as Speaker and his conduct on this mission shows him to be committed to the Yorkists. Wenlock and Galet visited the Burgundian court and reached an understanding with the duchess. Evidently they proposed matches between Prince Edward, York’s son and Somerset to the daughters of Charles the Bold, the Dukes of Bourbon and Guelders. Next they went under a safe conduct of 31 October delivered by Doulcereau and presumably procured by De Brezé, who was one of the French negotiators. Peace was agreed to be desirable, the marriages to be an appropriate means, and a truce was a necessary preliminary. Before proceeding further Charles wished to see conditions favourable to a final peace and ambassadors with enough powers. What made a ‘paix finale’ was likely to prove a sticking point. Modern historians have varyingly interpreted Charles’s response as promising or evasion. Certainly it invited more formal negotiations through a more high-powered embassy.

France and Burgundy were unhappy to commit themselves to such an informal embassy and were uncertain whether it really represented the wishes of both the government and the Yorkist lords. They wanted assurances that any agreements were deliverable. Charles despatched his herald Maine to establish the real situation; probably it is his report to which we are indebted. Their suspicions were justified by Wenlock’s subsequent behaviour. Returning to Calais, he supplied the Burgundians with a transcript of his understanding with the French, stated that he would inform them in advance of Maine king-at-arms’s findings, and added that the French were more eager than the English for an agreement to forestall any hostile intervention by the English in the event of war with Burgundy. He urged Burgundy to keep hold of the dauphin: an action that was sure to prevent a
rapprochement
with France. Evidently Wenlock was currying favour with the Burgundians to prevent any reconciliation between them and France. That this information was then transmitted to Charles VII the following spring must have undermined Anglo-French relations.92 Not that this would have upset Wenlock, had he known, for on his return he reported to King Henry that the French were ready to attack; hence the appointment of new commissions of array for the counties from Cornwall to Lincolnshire on 15 February; hence also preparations on 7–10 March for Warwick’s fleet to put to sea.93