Warwick the Kingmaker (32 page)

The great council of January 1459 was ended by the arrest of the Duke of Exeter for striking a lawyer in Westminster Hall.94 Another was summoned for 2 April to hear appeals for a crusade from a Byzantine knight and from the papal nuncio for a delegation to the General Council of the Church at Mantua. ‘And it has been remarked how very few of the lords were at the court of the said king’, observed a continental diplomat. An air of consensus and contentment with the government, illustrated by the ballad
On the Ship or Poop
, enticed few lords to attend. Hence the nuncio actually made his address at Coventry, to which the king withdrew on 23 May, and the impressive English delegation was commissioned only in July following another great council known to have met at Coventry after midsummer.95

The diplomatic report that is our best source at this stage is summarizing the situation as it appeared in February or perhaps as late as April 1459. Maine herald, the probable author, was still in England angling for safe conducts on 16 March. The report reveals that Exeter’s disruption of the assembly was fortunate for Warwick, as it was notorious that he would otherwise have been relieved of the captaincy of Calais. Perhaps Warwick’s own ships made him indispensable as keeper of the seas, in which role, shorn of his independent base, he would be easier to control and discipline? Warwick reportedly said that he would serve out the remaining six years of his contract and declared, somewhat implausibly, that he would rather give up his lands in England than the captaincy!96 The young Warwick was apparently prone to such impetuous statements: others were made about Alençon in 1455, Cromwell in 1456, and at Towton in 1461!
Davies’ Chronicle
states that a privy seal letter of dismissal was sent to the earl, who rejected it, stating incorrectly that he had been appointed by parliament and, also wrongly, that he could only be removed by it. Perhaps significantly on 26 January 1459 Master Richard Fisher, Warwick’s secretary, took the precaution of registering the earl’s indenture as keeper of the seas in the exchequer.97 Neither of Warwick’s reported responses could have been made to the king in person or to the great council in session without leading to the earl’s arrest. It therefore seems that he did not attend either of the great councils early in 1459 and remained instead in Calais. He was certainly there on 2 April. How could the court oust from a fortress
overseas
the man who controlled the seas?

Had the government been aware of the diplomatic shenanigans of the Yorkist lords, they would have incurred the gravest displeasure, but there is nothing concrete to suggest that they came to official notice. They were not mentioned among the charges later laid against them. Warwick’s piracy the previous year seems to have lost him royal confidence and his refusal to surrender Calais constituted rebellion. If modern historians have recently been convinced by a report that Sir Thomas Harrington committed himself to Salisbury and York on 1 November 1458, they have been too bold. The information comes from a declaration of trust cited in an inheritance dispute after 1485 relating to an enfeoffment in a different year: hardly a reliable source.98 The event is more credible than the date. The Yorkists did not renege on the Loveday: they made the first annual payment of £45 towards their victims’ chantry at St Albans Abbey by 11 February. That same day Warwick secured new assignments for bad tallies of £40 3
s
. 7
d
., in March royal commissioners were preparing his fleet, and even on 22 June he and his father were assigned £9 5
s
. as wardens of the West March. These are not ‘measures which amounted to a deliberate harrying of the lords’, nor a cause for a definitive rupture. We know the queen was not seeking their destruction.99 The real root of the break is hinted at in a letter of 7 March from Salisbury to John Bromley, Prior of Arbury, traditionally dated to 1455, but actually attributable to 1459.

The letter relates to a time when Salisbury was in London, the queen was at such a distance that communication was by post, and when the prior was intermediary. Since Arbury is an extremely small priory to the north of Coventry, that suggests that the queen was at Kenilworth, Coventry, or thereabouts. York and Warwick were not immediately to hand. And the royal council, of which Salisbury was conspicuously not a member, was also in London. This does not fit 1453, 1454, 1455, 1456, 1457 or 1458, but does fit 1459. Salisbury was out of favour with the queen and had been trying to redeem himself with the prior as intermediary. His most recent assurances had been well received by her. Moreover, Salisbury reported, she had written to the lords of the council in pursuit of ‘rest and unitee’ and on terms that pleased him and would please also ‘al thos whoome the matiere of the said blessed lettres touchen’...Were they his associates or his enemies? Even as one source of disagreement dissolved, the prior had informed him of new charges by those of ‘ryght hie estates’ against him, York, and Warwick. We do not know what these were. If true, they were to their ‘grete rebuke’ and probably treasonable, since Salisbury hastily denied that ‘I never ymagined, thought, ore saied eny suche matere or eny thing like therunto in my dayes’. He did not believe that York or Warwick had either, but doubtless they would deny it themselves. The letter ends by asking the prior to deny the charges on his behalf and assuring him of his own patronage.100

What new charge had suddenly been made against all three lords? Was it their dabblings in foreign policy? Had they been among those suggesting that Prince Edward was a bastard? Had they been planning a further coup? We cannot tell. There are no indictments and nothing in the 1459 act of attainder casts any direct light. However, all three lords are again linked. Most probably Salisbury’s rebuttal was unsuccessful. Evidently he left London before the crusader’s reception and was probably in the North when he made his will on 10 May.Some uprising was presumably feared on 26 April, when several East Anglian squires were summoned by privy seals to Leicester on 10 May with as many men as they could make defensibly arrayed prepared for two months service. And on 7 May 3,000 bowstaves and sheaves of arrows were ordered to the Tower ‘considering the enemies on every side approaching us, as well upon the sea
as upon the land
’. Whilst that could allude to the anticipated French invasion or the Scottish assault on Roxburgh, it implies that the enemy were co-operating with English traitors. Most probably it relates to fears of another insurrection by the Yorkist lords in England and from Calais that prefigured what actually happened in September. If so, it did not immediately materialize. There is no direct evidence that anything actually happened. No uprising was alleged by the Lancastrians in the
Somnium
Vigilantis
or the 1459 act of attainder. Salisbury’s will, far from prefiguring a treasonable rebellion, presumed a peaceful death and an heir eligible to succeed him.101

About 23 May 1459 Henry VI returned to the Midlands and convened another great council at Coventry soon after midsummer (24 June). As usual, many lords were probably absent beside Archbishop Bourchier, York, Warwick and Salisbury, the Bishops of Ely (William Grey) and Exeter (George Neville), the Earl of Arundel and Viscount Bourchier; yet, according to
Benet’s Chronicle
, all these were indicted by the counsel of the queen ‘at Coventry’. Apart from the Yorkist lords themselves, the two Bourchiers, and Warwick’s brother George, both Grey and Arundel had strong Yorkist connections, the bishop as York’s kinsman and appointee and Arundel as husband to Warwick’s sister Joan. The implication is that they did not attend because they knew they would be charged with something. They were charged; it does not follow from
Benet’s Chronicle
that they were yet convicted. No formal action against them, such as summonses or arrests, are recorded in the royal records, but then the council and privy seal records and issue rolls all fail us at this point. Most probably, in the light of the Yorkists’ complaints to the king in September, aspersions were cast on their allegiance, charges were made regarding earlier events that were covered by earlier pardons much as in the 1459 attainder itself, and articles now lost were laid against them, perhaps for trial at a later council.

These deductions make sense of comments below later attributed by Abbot Whetehamstede to Warwick. They are also compatible with a great council at Coventry discussed in the 1459 act of attainder; regrettably the relevant passage is undated and states firmly (in apparent contradiction of
Benet’s Chronicle
) that York and Warwick were present. Benet can however be read as implying that they were present, perhaps later, perhaps in response to the letter (summons?) sent to Warwick at Calais on 7 July mentioned on the issue rolls.102 In the chronological sequence of charges against York, this one follows the Loveday of March 1458, after which the June 1459 assembly is the only Coventry great council. The passage cannot relate to earlier sessions at Coventry in spring 1457, since Warwick was absent, nor that of autumn 1456, when York departed on good terms with the king and it was Buckingham who was himself aggrieved at the dismissal from office of his Bourchier half-brothers.103 In the session described in the attainder Buckingham was York’s prime accuser and the Bourchiers themselves were accused. On 20 July 1459 at Coventry livery of dower worth up to £600 a year was granted to Buckingham’s second son Henry and the latter’s new wife Margaret Beaufort Dowager-Countess of Richmond.104 It was not until 25 July that the Mantua delegation was commissioned. June/July 1459 thus appears the most probable date. Our source for this event is no more precise than the 1459 attainder’s treatment of the Dartford and St Albans episodes, which can each refer to only one occasion, and expects them to be as familiar to its audience as those other occasions. The great council produced two formal acts that were originally appended to the 1459 act, but which have since been lost.

The scene opens with ‘dyvers rehercels by your Chaunceller of Englond in youre moost high presence made to the seid Duc of York’ in person. Next

The Duc of Buckingham, on the bihalf of the Lordes Temporell, reherced full notably to make the seid Duc of York to understonde of what demean-yng he had bene, and lete hym witte that he had no thyng to lene to, sauf oonly your Grace, as more playnly is conteyned in an Acte therof made.

This was a formal process that resulted in a formal act of the great council. It sounds as though Lord Chancellor Waynflete laid charges against York (and indeed Warwick) for the Lords to judge, that York was convicted, and that Buckingham, perhaps as steward of England, pronounced the verdict. The king, always over-merciful, remitted the sentence. Next Buckingham and the Lords begged the king on their knees not to show any more clemency to York, but instead that

seyng the grete Jupartie for youre moost noble persone, and also the Lordes so often charged, and inquietyng so often the grete parte of your Realme, that it shuld not lyke You to shewe the seid Duc of York, nor noon other herafter, [your] grace, if they attempted eftsones to do the contrary to youre Roiall estate, or inquietyng of youre Realme and the Lordes therof, but to be punyshed after their deserte, and have as they deserved, aswell for the suerte of You, Soverayne Lord, as the generall suertee of all youre Lordes and people.

To which the king replied ‘that Ye wuld so doo’. The message was clear: no clemency for new offences. The words ‘so often’ reveal that York was charged with the whole series of his coups. The articles sound like a preview of the 1459 act of attainder itself. That what precipitated the charges was a further attempted coup is suggested by a second enactment against the ‘weye of feete’. Any lord feeling himself aggrieved should henceforth complain to the king and seek redress through the courts and ‘noon otherwise’...

Remember that York’s oath at St Paul’s after his insurrection at Dartford had specifically outlawed ‘the weye of feete’. It was the same oath that he was required to take again,
John Vale’s Book
records, because it was still appropriate.105 York swore on the Bible to observe the act and signed it. Warwick, who was also present, ‘swore and signed the same Acte’. He also took another oath and offered surety that he signed with his own hand and sealed with his seal: probably a bond for good behaviour quite possibly secured by sureties from third parties. That Warwick subscribed and took the oath indicates that he was also covered by the charges: at this point the act of attainder was concerned only with York. Salisbury may have been occupied with the Scots in the North, where the king despatched messages both in May and July.

The Coventry assembly was a very public humiliation for the Yorkist lords, whose coups d’état, which they still regarded as loyal demonstrations, were labelled as treason not only by their peers, but also by their king. They were given one more last chance. Because they were pardoned and had submitted they were allowed to go free and retain their appointments, such as Warwick’s captaincy of Calais. They withdrew, York to Ludlow, Salisbury to Middleham, and Warwick to Calais. Even Henry’s mercy proved misplaced, for the Yorkists resented their treatment, were aggrieved that past matters covered by royal pardons had been raked up against them again, and rejected the verdict. They perjured themselves even as they swore their oaths, as they doubtless considered under duress, and planned at once on a further resort to force.

From this point there are two different interpretations of events, each partisan and propagandist. The Lancastrian version is that stated in the tract called the
Somnium Vigilantis
and the act of attainder later that same year. It presents the Yorkists as deliberate conspirators and traitors. Having withdrawn to their estates, they planned a rapid advance from Calais by Warwick to take the king by surprise at Kenilworth. They could then ‘sodenly have fulfilled their traiterous entent’, which was the destruction of the king, royal family, and those lords prepared to die for the king. To what end?