Warwick the Kingmaker (33 page)

In so moche that by Robert Radclif, oon of the felauship of the seid Duc of York, and Erles of Warrewyk and Salesbury, it was confessed at his dying, that both the Coroune of Englond and Duchie of Lancastre they wold have translated at their wille and pleasure.106

York was after the throne. He failed because their actions were anticipated, the king himself turned out against them and attracted a larger force, and because their followers would not fight the king once they knew that this was what they were doing.

There is no Lancastrian version of events dating from the time of the rebellion itself. We know nothing directly of the king’s proclamations, overtures, or responses to Yorkist correspondence, which does not mean, as some historians have suggested, that such utterances were not made. In the longer term, then and later, the Yorkists won the propaganda war. We have lost most of this Yorkist literature. We still have the manifesto issued by Warwick as he advanced from Calais to London, a letter in
Davies’ Chronicle
that the Yorkist lords in Ludlow sent to the king in Leominster which refers to earlier exchanges, and a record of their response in Whetehamstede’s
Register
to a royal offer of pardon. Their version also colours almost all the chronicles, which apply it not merely to this crisis, but use it as framework for events since 1456. The Yorkists presented themselves as loyal subjects, the king’s ‘loveres’, who sought to clear their names against unjust accusations and to reform the government for the common good. They sought an audience with the king to explain themselves and came in force to protect themselves since none of his pardons nor safe conducts could guarantee their safety. Instead they were attacked by malicious enemies who kept the truth from the king and hoped for a share of the Yorkists’ forfeited property. If any violence ensued, it was not the fault of them, but their enemies. Much of this is reminiscent of earlier Yorkist coups, on which this one was evidently modelled, which does not mean that it was not what they themselves believed. Most chroniclers swallowed it.

6.4 ROUT

The Yorkist uprising occurred in September, but with three such distant bases as Calais, Middleham and Ludlow it required considerable prior co-ordination. Allegedly there was plotting in London on 4 July by Sir William Oldhall and Thomas Vaughan, York’s retainers, by Warwick’s mother at Middleham on 1 August, and by the bailiff of Bawtry later the same month.107 The manifesto issued by Warwick discloses a plan that required agreement considerably antedating both his arrival in London about 20 September and the battle of Blore Heath (23 September). The Lancastrians had good grounds for declaring the plot to have been precogitated long before. Probably it was at the Coventry great council itself and certainly not long after that the Yorkist lords decided to resort once again to arms. Once again their stated objective was an audience to put their case to the king: a captive king. This was a euphemism for another coup d’état that placed them in control of the administration.

The manifesto justifies the uprising. Although unattributed, it is couched in the first person plural (‘wee’), and thus speaks for all three Yorkist lords. That it is unsigned and anticipated help from ‘lordis of like disposicion’ indicates their confidence in the support of some other peers. Once again it was a loyal protestation on behalf of the king’s ‘loveres’ that claimed the moral high ground by promoting the interests of commonwealth and king. It appealed five times to God’s authority: to his laws, his knowledge, grace and mercy. There was no preamble to a comprehensive indictment of the regime under five heads, of which the fifth was that the king did not know how bad things were. It was therefore feasible and justifiable to draw them forcibly to his attention. ‘Seying these mischefes so parelous’, the authors intend ‘with lordis of like disposicion’ to seek an audience with the king ‘as lowly as we canne’ to inform him of the real situation and to obtain remedies for mischiefs, punishment of those responsible according to their deserts, and good government for his ‘loveres’. England’s trade, law and order, wealth, prosperity and international standing would thereby be restored to their former levels. Whilst offering their services ‘aboute the kinges most noble persone and ther to be assistente yif it be his pleasir’, the Yorkists promised not to take on the rule themselves nor to act for their own profit or private revenge. It was the king on ‘thadvice of the grete lordes of his blood’ whom they envisaged actually undertaking the reforms.

Nobody, surely, could object to such a programme, for England was certainly in a parlous state, the manifesto explains, and hence was not respected by her neighbours. The law was not properly observed, all kinds of crimes being committed, condoned and left unpunished. In particular insufficient regard was paid to the king’s person, laws and commandments, ‘to his presence, in his counsele, ne to the lordes spirituelx or temporelx in his counseill, ne to his iuges or officeres in his lawe setting inexecucion of the same et cetera’. Surely here Warwick was referring directly to the attack on him at the great council at Westminster the previous autumn? Henry was so impoverished that he could not maintain his estate even by resorting to ‘unlefull meanes deceyvably and ageinste all Goddis lawe’ that either hurt merchants – for example, by not paying debts and by selling exemptions from customs – or the poor from whom foodstuffs were requisitioned without payment. This was no fault of the king himself, who was as graciously concerned for the common weal as any Christian monarch, but of his covetous councillors, of the ‘uttireste malice ageins such as God knowithe beene the verreye loveres of the said common wele’.108

This manifesto is shorter and less substantial than those of earlier years and overlaps little in content. Here are no denunciations of treason, nothing about Duke Humphrey or the loss of France, which were all out of date. No evil councillors are named. No solutions are proposed. It is deliberately unfair to the government in its denunciation of contemporary problems. If crime was a problem, so it had been throughout the reign; if aristocratic feuding was at fault, all such feuds had been stilled; and anyway the Yorkists were as responsible as any. Far from aristocratic feuds escalating, each in turn was terminated, admittedly not always justly, and none remained in progress when civil war broke out. If the king’s finances were notoriously parlous, this was no longer because of his extravagance, for his household had been curtailed and there had been an effective resumption of his grants, but because he had insufficient money to meet his commitments. The debts of the Hundred Years War remained unpaid and unpayable. Richard II’s income approaching £120,000 had dwindled to a third by the late 1450s. The most regular source of income, the customs, was appropriated to defence – to Calais, to the keeping of the seas, and to the defence of the marches towards Scotland – and some at least of his limited landed resources were similarly applied. And yet they did not suffice. The Yorkists knew this: Warwick after all, as captain of Calais, keeper of the seas, and joint-warden of the West March, was receiving much of what royal revenues there were. What else was there for the king to call on? When the Yorkists complained that Henry was ‘soo unmesurable and outerageously spoiled and robbed from his lyvelodes and possessions perteyning therunto’, they knew perfectly well that the only way resumption of royal grants could bring in more was by stretching the scope to expropriate the queen, the prince and the king’s brothers, and thus pass beyond those limits that parliament had found unacceptable in 1456. Nobody was grossly enriching themselves at the king’s expense in 1459 except, perhaps, Warwick himself.

The proposed remedies are equally disingenuous. It may be that the Yorkist lords had been denied a right of reply at the Coventry great council, but their views had long been known and heard. Whenever available, they and other great lords of the king’s blood had been summoned to the frequent great councils up to and including the three in 1459. It was the verdict of the Lords that they now rejected. Only in the last nine months had they themselves stopped attending. Their promises now to leave reform to the king and the great lords of his blood and avoid private quarrels struck the right notes, for the Yorkists had their private enemies and threats of vengeance could be expected to generate more, but they are hardly convincing. Who were these evil councillors who were to be punished? Which royal princes were to be consulted, since obviously Somerset, Exeter, the king’s half brother Pembroke, or even Buckingham were not to be included? Who was to manage the king? Given Henry’s clear opposition to them and the ‘weye of feete’ at the Coventry great council, was not there to be another protectorate or at least a further Yorkist domination of the government? Despite the accusation in the subsequent act of attainder, the Yorkist lords did not speak of deposition, only of loyalty and respect. Of course their language might have changed had they achieved a higher degree of success. If they could get an audience with the king and overawe him with their retainers, the Yorkists were confident of again securing control.

The manifesto, in short, was an exercise in publicity that used constitutionally appropriate language rather than a serious declaration of Yorkist intentions. It does not build on earlier manifestos or those aspects specifically associated in the past and future with York himself, and the topical allusions concerned Warwick most closely. It may not even have been distributed widely, for too much of it seems aimed at a specifically mercantile and London-based audience. All this suggests that it was Warwick’s first essay in manifesto-writing, prepared with the Yorkists’ agreed objectives in mind, but devised by Warwick himself. Maybe it was designed merely to get Warwick into London where the surviving copy ended up. It was meant to disarm opposition and perhaps win popular support rather than to recruit supporters. There is no specific appeal for support and Warwick’s movements were too rapid in 1459 to permit serious recruitment. The idealistic and public-spirited tone of the manifesto, in short, was merely a veneer to the insurrection of a clique. Although following so closely on the Coventry council and stimulated by it, the rebellion was not born of desperation. Had not the Yorkist lords been awarded a last chance to accept the rules of the political game and take their place among the constitutional players? Had they not been allowed to retain their great offices, their military commands, and their existing royal offices? Admittedly the Coventry verdict limited them to their legal entitlements in their various feuds and required them to accept the right of the government to rule. Both were unacceptable to them. The three Yorkist lords were determined to replace the ruling regime with themselves, to rule once again in the king’s name, and to destroy their enemies, both public and private. They hoped for support from others. But they were prepared to go it alone, to rely once again on the use of force, and to hazard everything on the gamble of another coup d’état.

Warwick crossed from Calais with a force of five hundred that included members of the Calais garrison led by Trollope and Blount, master porter and marshal of Calais. They overnighted on 20/21 September in London, probably where Wenlock and Colt joined them, and proceeded forthwith to Warwickshire. This was part of a three-pronged campaign. Salisbury was to bring the northerners. York assembled men from the Welsh marches. Warwick’s march and use of the Calais garrison was to surprise the court, so the Lancastrians later claimed.109 It seems unlikely. No march through London and the heart of the kingdom could be concealed; Henry knew of it before the earl was at hand. Moreover Warwick was later on the scene than his father. It could be that he was delayed by contrary winds, as in 1458; possibly York and Salisbury were to act first and Warwick was to catch up later; and most probably all three were to meet up somewhat later, perhaps at Worcester or at Warwick, and seize the king together. They must have counted on Warwick’s West Midlanders. Remember that they hoped for a bloodless coup, not a trial of strength or civil war. Hence Warwick brought only a select elite sufficient to overawe a king when taken by surprise. Salisbury may have been near full-strength – the Lancastrian act of attainder speaks of 5,000 men – but the Yorkist chroniclers indicate a more modest company that was outnumbered by a fragment of the royal forces at Blore Heath. We know only that Salisbury brought his sons Thomas and John, Sir John Conyers steward of Middleham, the Lancashire knight Sir Thomas Harrington, William brother of Lord Stanley, the Cumbrian squire Thomas Parre, and the Yorkshireman Sir James Pickering and Thomas Meryng of Tong.110 The Yorkists’ precise plans are obscured by effective royal countermeasures that diverted Salisbury through Cheshire, brought him prematurely to battle, and made it impossible for Warwick to recruit in his heartland, so close to Kenilworth and Coventry, or even pass through it safely. He was lucky to miss Somerset at Coleshill on 21 September. The property of such retainers as Richard Clapham and the Hugfords was plundered.111

King Henry knew in advance of Salisbury’s preparations in the North and of his progress southwards from Middleham. He therefore proceeded in force to Nottingham, which caused the earl to divert westwards, and then shadowed Salisbury through Staffordshire, driving him through Cheshire on his way to Ludlow. There, at Blore Heath near Market Drayton on the road from Newcastle-under-Lyme to Shrewsbury, Salisbury was intercepted by a somewhat larger local detachment commanded by Lords Audley and Dudley; the queen had a larger force to the north-west and the king was a little further away to the north-east. Salisbury wished to avoid fighting and parleyed. He could have withdrawn his forces or disbanded them without penalty. Since he was determined to link up with York, he had to fight. It was a fateful decision. The battle took place on 23 September. The hard-fought encounter was duly won, Audley being killed and Dudley captured. Salisbury’s own force suffered casualties: both his sons Thomas and John were wounded and sent home, but were unfortunately captured by the Lancastrians at Acton Bridge near Tarporley (Ches.) soon afterwards. Salisbury was able to continue to Ludlow to join York, who had arrayed the men of the marches including, once again, Devereux.