Warwick the Kingmaker (54 page)

9.2 RISING TENSIONS 1467–9

To change the chancellor usually had few repercussions for either politics or policy. The archbishop’s dismissal symbolized the end of the Nevilles’ dominance of government, marked a change in the direction of Edward’s regime, and signalled a decisive change in foreign policy. All three were blows for Warwick. Coming at a time when he was negotiating abroad, they were a humiliation. Thanks to pseudo-Worcestre, we know of a chain of earlier events ‘to the great secret displeasure of the earl of Warwick’; clearly there were counterparts for the king, who took this opportunity also to resume lands from both earl and archbishop.28 Not much, but enough to indicate that he was master, a warning to them to toe the party line. Far from stilling factional strife within the government, his actions heightened tension, for neither Neville brother accepted their exclusion or the king’s authority.

We lack the contemporary testimony to chart this escalation that exists for the previous decade. As in the 1450s, there evidently were interchanges of letters and schedules of charges. Instead we have the laconic notes of the chronicler pseudo-Worcestre, the correspondence and comments of the French king, and a very few hard facts.

On returning to England to find his brother and his own diplomatic efforts so decisively rejected, Warwick was obliged to hang around for six weeks in London, Windsor and Canterbury until the high-level French embassy that he had brought with him could embark empty-handed from Sandwich in mid-August 1467. From thence he retired to his Yorkshire estates, where given time, perhaps, he could have reconciled himself to the new and unpalatable situation. Time, however, was not allowed to him, and only two years later his relations with the king had degenerated to the verge of civil war.

Even after Edward had committed himself, Warwick still advocated a pro-French foreign policy. News of a meeting between King Louis and Duke Charles in January 1468, which threatened to thwart Edward’s policy, was said to be the best possible news for him.29 He refused to be a guarantor of Margaret of York’s dowry. Those against the French alliance, notably the Wydevilles, were regarded as enemies. Other events inflamed the situation. When the king learnt in the autumn of the earl’s secret plans to marry his eldest daughter to his brother of Clarence, he was understandably annoyed. To veto it and stop the papal dispensation was nevertheless an extreme step, that struck at the legitimate aspirations of all parties. We do not know Edward’s reasons. If the king thought higher for his brother, it was offensive to Warwick; if he wanted Clarence as a diplomatic pawn, it was offensive to the duke; and if he feared to strengthen the earl, his action served to make him into the threat that he wished to dispel. The resumption of some lands of the earl and the archbishop, a reminder of royal power, created a legitimate grievance; especially if also resumed were the Channel Isles, part of the inheritance from Duke Henry, which Edward tactlessly bestowed on Scales in 1468.30 Again, it may have been merely a cruel joke on 18 September to send to Archbishop Neville papal notification of the cardinal’s hat for his counterpart at Canterbury that he had sought for himself, but it was ill-timed and misdirected. The earl was at Warwick on 25 September 1467, when he retained Robert Cuny esquire for life, and absented himself from the great council of Kingston upon Thames on 1 October at which Princess Margaret engaged herself to Charles the Bold. Tension between king and earl explains why, when in October Lord Herbert captured a Lancastrian in Wales who implicated Warwick and maliciously sent him to Edward, the king took the charge seriously and summoned Warwick from Middleham to answer the allegation in person. It also explains why, sensing an attempt to destroy him, the earl refused to come even when promised a safe conduct. Realizing in time how perilously events were escalating, Edward wisely forwarded the accuser to Sheriff Hutton to the earl, who exculpated himself without difficulty.31 On 12 December the king signed Warwick’s warrant of repayment for expenses of £1,573 13
s
. 4
d
. for his two embassies, cross-Channel shipping, and conveyance of the French ambassadors from London to the coast.32

Unfortunately, the relaxation of tension was brief indeed. Warwick was not directly involved in the murder of Roger Vernon in Derbyshire, the latest reprisal in a lengthy feud, but he was indirectly as the Vernons’ lord, as ally of Clarence, Shrewsbury and Mountjoy against Henry Lord Grey of Codnor and the Vernons’ other enemies. Edward had to intervene.33 Another summons to the earl to come to Coventry despatched about Epiphany (6 January 1468) met with a brusque refusal, ‘tout court’, from the earl and his council. He could not come whilst his enemies, the Wydevilles, Herbert and Audley, were at court. So wrote the Franco-Scottish emissary William Monypenny, Sieur de Concressault, to King Louis on 16 January 1468. Warwick was behind the sacking of Rivers’s house at the Mote, Maidstone, the poaching of his deer and the pillaging of the contents, and behind a popular movement in the provinces, which Monypenny located in ‘Suffolchier’ and attributed to one Robin, who assured the earl of their support when required. The earl himself withdrew northwards, so Monypenny wrote, to consult with his brother Northumberland with a view to defending himself militarily against a royal strike. There was widespread hostility to the king’s advisers and favourites and extensive support for Warwick.34 In March 1468 the earl’s progress was accompanied by cries of ‘À Warwick! À Warwick!’35 Perhaps it was at this stage that, according to Warkworth, the earl was recruiting retainers to make himself stronger.36

Although Monypenny may have misinterpreted events at a distance, this is unlikely. Why else would King Edward have rewarded Archbishop Neville by returning his resumed properties when he brought about a
rapprochement
? By mediation of friends, the archbishop and Rivers met at Nottingham, as a result of which the former escorted Warwick to Coventry where he was formerly reconciled with Herbert, Stafford and Audley, though not yet Rivers or Scales.37 ‘And in this mayers tyme’, reports the
Great Chronicle
, ‘many murmurous talys Ran in the Cite atwene therle of warwyk & the Quenys blood’.38 Probably his brother John reacted strongly against rebellion and both Warwick’s brothers pulled him back from the brink. It was on 2 April that Warwick appointed his brother-in-law Hastings as his steward in Leicestershire, Rutland and Northamptonshire; he had need of the intercession of the king’s chamberlain. Northumberland was with him at Warwick Castle on 3 May.39 Outwardly, at least, he was reconciled with the king. He was in London on 10 and 18 June and escorted Margaret of York on her wedding journey as far as Margate on 1 July, returning to London to try traitors, find in favour of the claim to petercorn of St Leonard’s Hospital at York, and, with his brothers, rule against the Hanse and order the seizure of their ships. As Ross remarks, there is plenty of evidence of the Nevilles at court. It was in the king’s chamber in the autumn that Warwick and the archbishop had a furious row with the Duke of Norfolk.40 Warwick’s known movements reveal him at Walden in Essex on 16 September, at Warwick about Michaelmas, at Collyweston on 30 October, at Waltham Abbey with Clarence and Shrewsbury finalizing the duke’s household ordinance on 9 December, and at Warwick on the 16th.41 On 20 December the two Neville earls, Sir John Howard, and one George Willerby leased all mines of silver, gold and lead north of Trent for forty years and on 24 April 1469 the earl secured the necessary mortmain licences for the Beauchamp Chapel, Warwick.42

These are evidence of renewed favour towards the Nevilles, but not of their return to dominance. Their hopes were disappointed. Hopes that the archbishop would resume his chancellorship were dashed.43 The king’s foreign policy prevailed, though the earl continued to object and obstruct in practice. Warwick and Clarence kept machinating for a papal dispensation. ‘And yett thei were acorded diverse tymes’, wrote Warkworth with hindsight, ‘but thei nevere loffyd togedere aftere’.44 Yet Warwick’s brother John was different. Now earl of Northumberland, he was happy with his lot, loyal and quick to crush rebellion. In the spring of 1469, it appears, Edward agreed in principle to the marriage of John’s son George Neville to Princess Elizabeth:45 a match that would have bound him yet more closely to the crown, offered a splendid future to young George, and met one of Warwick’s grievances. It was not Edward’s intention, of course, that he himself would bear no sons and that Elizabeth of York would be his successor.

It was the prerogative of a king to decide his foreign policy. By June 1467 Edward already clearly had pro-Burgundian and anti-French preferences, which enjoyed the support of his Wydeville in-laws. He proceeded to conclude a marriage alliance between his sister Margaret and Charles the Bold, who was the most eligible widower in Europe. There was already a treaty of amity, which was supplemented, and other treaties were contracted of amity with Brittany, Denmark and Castile; others were sought with Aragon and even Armagnac.46 Such alliances indicate the international recognition and respectability of the Yorkist dynasty now secure on the throne. To preserve the independence of Burgundy and Brittany and to prevent complete French dominance of the Channel coast were policies of which modern historians have generally approved. Edward’s intention, however, was aggressive. Louis was to be encircled by his enemies, as Edward sought to reconstruct and reinforce the momentary coalition of the Public Weal. That he included in his treaty with Brittany provision for the transfer to himself of conquered royal demesne and for other conquests to be held of him reveals him reviving English claims to the crown of France. It was for this that he had been working, he informed parliament in May 1468, perhaps with hindsight, demanding and securing taxation for an invasion from a parliament that remained strongly anti-French.47

Historians have questioned whether Edward really intended to invade: was he not seeking rather to fight through his French feudatories? Was he perhaps seeking taxation for other purposes for which it would not have been granted, such as Margaret’s dowry? If so, he deliberately misled his subjects, for whom his declared intention was unambiguous enough. Did he seek international renown, military glory, the recovery of France, to trade his French crown for territorial gains? Whichever he wanted, he seriously miscalculated, as Warwick was to point out.

Edward’s policies had obvious disadvantages. To secure the Burgundian alliance, he had to suspend English statutes restricting Burgundian trade, but he was unable to persuade Charles to raise the Burgundian embargo on English cloth. For the marriage he had to provide an expensive trousseau and pay a dowry of 200,000 crowns (£41,666.66) over four years. The down payment of 50,000 crowns, a mere £10,416.22, strained his credit to the limit and was secured on parliamentary taxation; the remaining three instalments were due over the next three years. The fleet and expeditionary force commanded by Scales that he sent to Brittany in 1468 cost £18,000. Given his financial straits, still burdened by Henry VI’s debts, how could Edward finance a full-scale continental war? Moreover Edward renounced not only the benefits of peace with his powerful neighbour, the marriage of his sister to the brother-in-law of the French king for which no dowry was payable, but also marriages for the other royal dukes, an alternative commercial treaty, a pension of 8,000 marks, a share of the Burgundian Netherlands, and the reference of his claims to Acquitaine and Normandy to papal arbitration.48 Of course, such promises to prevent an Anglo-Burgundian alliance were unlikely to be fulfilled, but outright rejection had immediate and dangerous repercussions.

Louis was alarmed. He was impelled to destabilize Edward, by despatching Jasper Tudor to North Wales and by fomenting Lancastrian conspiracy. Edward took such threats seriously, perhaps too seriously, both at home and when a non-existent invasion from Harfleur was supposedly threatened. Louis was stimulated to neutralize the other players. Far from a circle of steel, Edward’s alliances proved weaker than he apparently supposed, certainly weaker than in 1465. His international partners had more limited objectives in mind than putting an Englishman on the throne of France. Louis extended his truce with Burgundy, removed his brother from the duchy of Normandy and placated him with more distant Guienne, knocked out Britanny, and made concessions to Burgundy. Ironically the treaty of Peronne forced on Louis on 14 October 1468 gave Charles the Bold what he wanted and removed Burgundy as an effective ally for Edward. The date for invasion was repeatedly put back: not in 1468, nor in 1469. And Edward, bereft of effective allies, found himself isolated, and anxious to treat.

Warwick recognized all this. He had a clearer appreciation of the realities of North European power politics. He realized how weak was England in relation to the great power that was France and how limited was the commitment of Edward’s potential allies. Treaties with Denmark, Naples and Castile were of little military use. However popular an anti-French policy was, he realized that there was no hope, in the short term, of making good the English claim to France. Friendly relations with England’s most powerful neighbour were desirable. Englishmen disliked foreigners. There was as much hostility to Flemings as to Frenchmen, Lombards and Scots. Whether Warwick was ready at this stage to ally with France in an aggressive war, which would surely also have been unpopular, is less certain. Meantime in pursuit of his alternative policy, Warwick continued his independent correspondence with King Louis, maintained contacts with those with access to Edward’s secrets, and passed these on to Louis. Thus he assured Louis that England would not prevent his brother from being ousted from Normandy.49 He also pressed his case: he declined to guarantee half Margaret’s dowry as Edward requested.50

Warwick’s continued opposition, therefore, can be argued to have been on principle and policy, on which he had preferable alternatives to offer. He was consistent. However, there was much more to his conduct than this.