Warwick the Kingmaker (59 page)

What were Warwick’s intentions after these setbacks? Doubtless they were the same as a decade before, the obvious precedent, when Calais had been the impregnable base where he had awaited the right moment. Piracy kept his men occupied and raised their spirits, kept them supplied, and provided the rewards they expected. It was a reversion to his youth when his maritime exploits had made his name internationally feared. If piracy was a necessity at this juncture, it was also a short-term expedient. His fleet alone was not going to win back what he had lost. Few if any were great ships of the forecastle. Without Calais, he had no base, without which no ships could survive for long. That could only be provided by Ireland or France. Clarence was lieutenant of Ireland, which was under consideration as a refuge on 18 April,19 but was rejected. France was more promising: in the event, Normandy was to fill the role of Calais in 1459–60. In 1470 France was at peace with England and Burgundy. Warwick’s future depended on changing that. Therefore he needed to exploit his one asset, seapower, in the exercise of which he had no rival, to secure what he did want: restoration to his lands and influence in England and even the overthrow of Edward IV.

Warwick’s maritime exploits exerted military, political and diplomatic pressure on the three principal northern states: England, France and Burgundy. He forced King Edward to keep his own fleet in being at considerable cost and might have forced him to treat, though actually Edward obdurately declined to negotiate from strength. He provoked Edward’s ally Charles the Bold, whose subjects suffered most from his depredations. Charles considered his brother-in-law was dangerously underestimating Warwick. When Edward sought to reinforce Calais in July, which the incumbent garrisons prevented, and appointed Rivers as governor over Wenlock’s head (11 June), it was Charles who intervened, granting a pension to Wenlock and securing oaths of allegiance from him and the garrison. Charles appreciated that Calais was not really secure, realized Warwick’s potential for destabilizing relations with France, and recognized the continuing threat that he posed to Edward.20 Hence he raised a fleet which he despatched against Warwick and exerted diplomatic pressure on France. Piracy was Warwick’s route to break the amity between Burgundy and France, which had to be done if he was to return to England. Always unfriendly towards Charles the Bold and committed in the long term to his destruction, it was Louis XI alone who could shelter Warwick from storms and the Burgundian fleet and mobilize the resources necessary for a new invasion of England. By taking refuge in France, Warwick offered alluring possibilities to Louis, who harboured him, and thus raised the tensions between France and Burgundy. It was as an instrument against Burgundy that Louis backed Warwick’s invasion of England.

Perhaps Warwick saw and planned this far ahead during the three weeks between his embarkation from England and arrival in France. We cannot easily tell, since we have only the largely retrospective observations of contemporaries from which to deduce. What is clear from the moment that he arrived in France is that he perceived the need to cajole, persuade and even coerce Louis if he was to obtain what he wanted. There were three preliminary objectives to be achieved. First of all, Warwick must be allowed to remain in France; he must be neither expelled nor surrendered; nor must he be merely harboured in internal exile as Queen Margaret of Anjou had been. Secondly, he needed Louis to commit himself to a full-scale invasion of England. Warwick was looking at reconquest, not mere revictualling and despatch as an irritant against England like so many puny Lancastrian flotillas in the past and like Oxford in 1472–3. That meant that he must resist being secreted where he was less embarrassing to Louis, that Louis must receive him in public, that tensions with Burgundy must be fanned, and that adequate resources must be extracted from the French. And thirdly, since Louis was no charity, Warwick needed to demonstrate that he was worth backing and had better prospects of success than before. That was where his alliance with the Lancastrians fitted in, an alliance of ‘alluring possibilities’ that appealed to the universal spider that was Louis XI. Warwick achieved all these ends and Louis too fulfilled his wildest dreams, yet it was not the most harmonious of alliances. Obstacles posed by Louis himself were amongst the most important to be overcome.

Louis’s jubilation on 3 April at Warwick’s rumoured victory21 understandably gave way to disappointment and a lack of confidence in the earl. Nevertheless, albeit unwillingly, Louis allowed Warwick to stay at Honfleur, rather than expelling him at once, as Duke Charles demanded as early as 5 May. Warwick’s depredations on Burgundian shipping had shown him to be Charles’s enemy and hence Louis’s too; to harbour him was to breach the treaty of Peronne. So, too, the duke wrote to the Parlement of Paris, to bring extra pressure on Louis, and followed it up with numerous further protests throughout the summer. By their deeds and words Warwick and Clarence declared themselves to be his enemies, the duke wrote on 25 May, noting that despite Louis’s promises three Burgundian ships remained to be returned. Other French notables objected, such as Queen Elizabeth Wydeville’s uncle the count of St Pol, who was also constable of France. So moreover did Duke Francis II of Brittany, who had agreed a treaty of mutual assistance with Burgundy only on 19 April and whom Louis feared the most. Chastellain was not alone in denouncing the exiles as ancient enemies of France, plunderers without shame, traitors, cowards and without honour.22

Anticipating this reaction, Louis had told Warwick right at the start (12 May) that he could not receive him. Warwick must remove himself from Burgundian eyes, to the Channel Isles, where he had been lord, whence he could visit Cherbourg or Granvelle on the Cotentin peninsula under pretence of revictualling. A secret meeting with Louis could then be arranged. Warwick declined to entertain this dangerous proposal, which would have reduced his nuisance value and political leverage and removed him also from Louis’s vision. He stayed where he was. By 19 May Louis had, reluctantly, conceded that point, but still wanted the fugitives to move to other ports. Some of the ships and men did indeed move to Barfleur in the Cotentin on 29 June, when the admiral of France himself was about to go there to oversee arrangements. This may have been when the English fleet was required elsewhere to counter a Hanseatic threat, but en route ten vessels were nevertheless lost. By 8 July Warwick himself was at nearby Valognes, where his wife and daughters were lodged. Following his stay at Angers on 24 July/4 August with Louis and Margaret, the earl remained continuously in the Cotentin, at Carentan, Valognes and Barfleur, until he sailed from La Hogue on 9 September.23 At Honfleur there remained at least some ships, certainly including that of the admiral of France.

Louis found Warwick’s presence embarrassing and wanted it to be a purely temporary interlude. As early as 17 May, so the Milanese ambassador reported, Louis was urging Warwick ‘by every means in his power’ to embark for England. He had sent offers of warships and troops. ‘Accordingly it is believed that he will return soon.’...24 Many of Louis’s letters to his principal agent Jean de Bourré Sieur Duplessis press the necessity for Warwick’s speedy departure. Thus on 22 June he asked Bourré to put it to Warwick gently, as in his own interests. How could it be? To this Warwick presumably responded that he could not go until he had agreed the treaty with Queen Margaret and seen their offspring married, since on 3 July, when they were expected to meet at Le Mans, Louis thought that this would remove any justification for further delays. Louis saw Warwick’s reply as a pretext, which it may have become in part. Originally Warwick had planned to be in England by early August and was eventually prepared to manage without Margaret if no agreement could be reached, but he also wanted to prepare an expedition capable of conquering England whereas Louis, as he confided to Bourré on 22 June, saw it as a distraction for Edward.25 Why waste money, time and foreign policy on something that was going to fail?

Warwick’s very presence committed Louis more than he wished. The king did receive the Countess of Warwick and her daughters and was genuinely concerned about their safety. He was also obliged to deploy his own forces, two great ships, and build fortifications to protect the earl’s squadron.26 From the start Warwick used the Seine as a base for further piracy: the Bastard of Fauconberg seized a further fifteen or sixteen Dutch ships; even a carvel of the admiral of France, one of Louis’s intermediaries, was used on 23 May to cries of ‘À Warwick! À Warwick!’ to raid the Burgundian base at Sluys, where yet another ship was destroyed.27 Though Louis did have some ships handed back and offered compensation for others, he was apparently powerless to prevent further seizures or the sale of the prizes and their cargoes in France.28 Not surprisingly, since the aim was to inflame Franco-Burgundian relations. Such provocation caused Duke Charles on 11 June to mobilize a large multi-national fleet including 6,000 troops commanded by the Lords Veere and Gruthuyse. After meeting up with Rivers’s own English squadron, it raided Harfleur on 2 July and subsequently St Vaast-la-Hogue, destroying several vessels, before anchoring first to blockade the Seine and then, from 29 August, Barfleur. There were English and Burgundian land-ings, on one occasion repelled by francs archers, to the war-cry ‘Vive Bourgogne et Roi Edward!’29 The reprisals Warwick had unleashed were apparently more than he could cope with without Louis’s support; it is striking that unlike 1460 no raids were launched on the English coast! The ships that he had captured, though numerous, were probably small and/or mercantile rather than military and poorly provided with cannon, and his fellow exiles and Fauconberg’s shipmen especially after casualties must have been stretched to crew them all. Charles had also seized all French goods within his dominions, it was reported on 20 July, when Louis intended not to reciprocate. Louis was trying to restrain Warwick’s corsairs, whilst simultaneously preparing himself for war with Burgundy.30 The king found himself propelled willy-nilly towards the war that Warwick wanted and which, only two months earlier, had been thought to be highly improbable. Gradually, however, it was the effective prosecution of such a war in the event of Warwick’s success that became Louis’s prime objective.

Another reason why Louis had wanted peace was allegedly because he had no money. He did not want to spend much on Warwick, but he allegedly promised 50,000 crowns (£10,416.66) about 17 May and
The Maner and Guyding
speaks of 66,000.31 Whilst there are many references to payments, it is not clear whether they came out of this sum, though ultimately he was to spend much more, certainly more than he wished. Louis’s surviving correspondence to Bourré stresses his determination to restrict payments and to curb what he regarded as Warwick’s importunate demands, if necessary by such cheap stratagems as moving further away and lying about how much cash he had with him. Ironically Louis’s prevarications may have delayed Warwick’s departure and increased his costs. The requests that are recorded, however, seem reasonable and relate to expenses actually incurred, for artillery, horses, ships or pay. A largely illegible muster roll lists an impressive number of names. Warwick had 190 brigandines, 80 bows and 300 quivers at Rouen and another 400 bows and 1,000 quivers at Paris on 13 August. The receiver-general of Normandy supplied 200 lances and 2,000 crossbow cords and conveyed them from Rouen to Harfleur at a total cost of £68 18
s
. 4
d
. tournois. Warwick’s requests from the Cotentin were supported by Louis’s own officers, such as Tanguy de Chastel, who were on the spot and saw the need. They knew the king’s concern to save money, but Warwick’s seamen would mutiny, desert and certainly not fight if they were not paid. Warwick wrote briskly but persuasively to Bourré. He tried to speed payment by sending quittances in advance.32 Remember that logistics were Warwick’s forte. He was determined that the fleet should be properly equipped and manned and so, at Louis’s expense and despite his wishes, it seems to have been.
The Maner
and Guyding
speaks of 2,000 francs archers, but apart from the two great ships of the admiral and vice-admiral of France which accompanied the invasion, there is no other evidence to suggest that it was other than a purely English force.

Similarly on 12 May Louis could not meet Warwick openly, though he would meet him secretly at Mont St Michel on pilgrimage. By the 19th he was prepared to receive him at Vaujous near Tours, still secretly.33 When Warwick and Clarence did visit him at Amboise on 8 June, their reception could not have been more public and welcoming. Not only did Louis send notables to meet them, advancing a distance towards them and introducing his queen, but he had lengthy discussions with them, visited them daily in their chambers, fêted and entertained them. On 12 June they departed to their ships. Warwick was still at Honfleur on 29 June.34 The earl’s subsequent stay with the king on 24 July/4 August at Angers was just as public. Warwick forced the king to make his commitment to the earl, the Lancastrian alliance and the invasion as binding as was possible for such a slippery schemer. Louis’s international standing was involved and hence, too, inevitably his purse.

The alliance between Warwick and the Lancastrians was already envisaged on 12 May, when Louis reported that he had already sent for Queen Margaret and her son, the topic evidently broached, and on 17 May it was expected that the prince would accompany Warwick to England.35 Probably it had been suggested by the earl, who certainly made no objections. Louis was enthusiastic, though still prepared for Warwick to go before any agreement was concluded. The notion had been floated several times before by the Lancastrians and was supported by them now. Perhaps this was what Margaret and her son Prince Edward had in mind in the letter they wrote from St Mihiel in Bar on 1 May in the light of Warwick’s flight to the Hanseatic League at Lubeck seeking support against their mutual enemy King Edward IV. A memorandum in favour by Margaret’s chancellor Fortescue arguing that the treaty be cemented by marrying her son Edward of Lancaster to Anne Neville may be their contribution to the treaty. The match is first mentioned on 2 June.36 What Margaret had to offer was principally legitimacy – the legitimacy that Warwick and Clarence had so conspicuously lacked and which they placed first in their new proclamation. Henry VI was an anointed king of nearly fifty years’ standing and the succession was assured by his son. The support of the Lancastrian exiles, though significant, and of Lancastrians in England, though important, was perhaps secondary. How many still remained after countless executions and a decade of Yorkist rule? Hence Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, half-brother of King Henry and still a power in Wales, was to sail with Warwick and was joined in his proclamation. What Warwick offered, of course, was his reputation, direction, experience, contacts, popularity, and the participation of his retainers and allies in England. And Louis as the third party possessed the resources to carry it through.