21
In September 1450, the duke of York made an unexpected trip home from Ireland. The reason for York’s trip to England is not entirely clear but most likely he had heard of Cade’s Rebellion and decided he needed to return to England to help Henry get control of his kingdom. He had also no doubt heard about the death of Suffolk and wanted to take his place as Henry’s chief advisor.1 However, York’s arrival in England wasn’t reassurance to Henry, it instead caused panic among his councillors. They distrusted York and feared the impetus for his trip was to wrestle the throne from Henry, especially after the Cade manifesto made references to Duke Richard being left out of the governance of England.
Upon hearing of Richard’s sailing, King Henry and his councillors took a defensive stance, putting the port towns along northwestern England on high alert and ordering them to delay York’s disembarkation as long as possible. When York landed in September 1450, he was turned away from Beaumaris in Wales by the king’s officers, greatly confusing Richard because he believed himself to be in good favour with the king. Richard’s suspicions were aroused by Henry’s hostile actions so he headed towards the safety of his homelands where he would gather a force of his most loyal men to accompany him to London.
On the way to London, Richard sent a letter to Henry pledging his loyalty to the king and complaining of his treatment at Beaumaris. He also took the opportunity to accuse ‘certain persons’ of plotting to bring him down. When the king responded, he put York in his place, politely telling him to butt out: ‘When the work requires it, or it is necessary, I will call upon your assistance.’2 But Richard, was nowhere near backing down. In fact, Henry’s response only served to inflame his passion on the matter. When Richard arrived in London on 27 September 1450, he went directly to Westminster Abbey to speak with Henry but was forbidden to enter the king’s presence. York would not be deterred. He forced his way into the king’s chambers and pleaded his case, insisting that he was loyal to the king and that his only reason for returning to England was to help restore good governance to the realm. York’s speech evidently worked because by the end of 1450, the king allowed him to move against his councillors by submitting a formal petition of complaint to parliament naming the councillors he believed were corrupting the king, namely Somerset. The result was Somerset’s impeachment and banishment from the kingdom, however, Henry did not enforce the punishment and Somerset remained in England.
Throughout 1451, York and Somerset continually antagonised each other, trading barbs that grew more hostile and aggressive with each passing month. It was in this year that the two men became open enemies. The duke of Somerset was determined to take revenge on York for causing his impeachment and began spreading rumours about York’s ulterior motives, causing Richard to write yet another letter to Henry pledging his allegiance. Later that month, Somerset’s men attacked York’s chamberlain, Sir William Oldhall, within the walls of St Martin’s church in London, which was considered particularly sinful. Richard at this point had had enough and began distributing letters to Shrewsbury and neighbouring towns lamenting the loss of France, the lack of justice in the kingdom, and laying blame for all of England’s woes squarely on Somerset’s shoulders. In his letters, Richard asked his fellow Englishmen to join him at Ludlow to array and then march to London to force a confrontation with the king.
By mid-February 1452 York had raised several thousand men who led in a march to London.3 Negotiations between the two parties occurred in the first few days of March and York had only one demand: arrest Somerset and remove him from the king’s presence permanently. Not unlike before, Henry agreed to York’s demand in the moment, but then failed to enforce the agreed punishment for Somerset. After the negotiations had been concluded, York disbanded his army and travelled to Blackheath on the southeast outskirts of London to meet with the king personally, relieved that they had come to an amicable conclusion. But when York entered Henry’s tent, he was shocked to see Somerset there by the king’s side as if nothing had happened. Supposedly when the queen received word of what the negotiators had agreed to, she immediately cancelled the order to arrest Somerset and restored him to power.4 A shocked York was then taken into royal custody and forced to march back to London at the head of King Henry’s army. He was publicly humiliated by being required to take a very public pledge of fealty at St Paul’s Cathedral promising that he would be loyal to Henry and would not raise an army without the king’s approval. As soon as Henry released him, York retreated to his castle at Ludlow to lick his wounds and think about his next steps.
With York temporarily out of the way, King Henry turned his attention to the security of the throne for the Lancastrians. Since he and the queen were still childless, he began preparing his half-brothers Edmund and Jasper Tudor to be his heirs but then miraculously, in the spring of 1453, Queen Margaret of Anjou found out she was finally pregnant after eight years of marriage. A royal heir would change everything. Not only did the pregnancy bring the king and queen great joy, it was also a tidy way to get the Yorkists out of the line of royal succession.
The hope was short-lived, though, as devastating news came from France. On 17 July 17 1453, the English royal army was utterly destroyed by France at the battle of Castillon, giving the French control of the entirety of Gascony.5 This was the last of the English-held territories in France and the loss was a huge blow to everyone in England, both nobles and commoners alike. Thousands upon thousands of Englishmen had given their lives or lost family members in the fight over France and it turned out to be all for nothing. France was lost and the Hundred Years’ War was over.
King Henry had been staying at his hunting lodge in Clarendon when he news of the disaster in France reached him. Upon hearing of the loss, the king suffered a complete mental collapse. He basically became catatonic; he could not move his body, nor could he communicate in any way. He was in a sort of daze or stupor that lasted an entire eighteen months. The exact diagnosis of his condition is unknown but it is quite possible that an already depressed Henry was shocked into a major depressive episode upon hearing of the final loss in France and he essentially checked out, both mentally and physically.6
Henry was still mentally incapacitated when Queen Margaret gave birth to their first child, a son named Edward, born on 13 October 1453. Sadly, when the queen presented the baby to Henry, the king had no reaction whatsoever. This was a problem because kings were required to recognise children as their own in order to be considered an official heir.7 The lack of King Henry’s acknowledgment of Edward as his son mean that York was still the de facto heir to the throne.
As Margaret and Henry’s fortunes seemed to be falling, York’s were indeed rising. He was accepted back into politics and came to London in November 1453 for a meeting of the Great Council. Wisely, he did not come with a large retinue, but he did come with an agenda: to oust Somerset and take what he felt was his rightful place as the king’s closest advisor. To achieve this goal he recruited one of his closest allies, the duke of Norfolk, to give an impassioned speech to the royal council in which he accused Somerset of overstepping his authority in royal matters and also put the blame for the crushing loss of France squarely on Somerset’s shoulders. Norfolk was a dynamic speaker and his efforts were successful. Two days later Somerset was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London where he would reside for the next sixteen months.8 The pendulum of power was clearly swinging in York’s direction after this seemingly easy victory over his nemesis.
With Somerset locked away and King Henry unable to rule, only Queen Margaret remained to protect the interests of the House of Lancaster. With York gaining more momentum by the day, Margaret decided to make a bold power grab before it was too late. In early February 1454, she introduced a bill of five articles to parliament in which she petitioned to be the regent of England, giving her complete control of the government. Her bill was met by stunned silence as the audacity of the move sunk in that a woman, no less a French woman, wanted complete control of the kingdom as if she were a king. Without alienating her too much, parliament politely declined her request.
For many months Queen Margaret and the king’s close attendants managed to keep the true nature of the king’s illness a secret but they knew it wouldn’t be possible to hide forever. As soon as the truth came out, they anticipated a strong challenge on behalf of York and his allies, and that’s exactly what they got. On 23 March 1454, a group of York’s allies including three earls, three lords, three bishops, and two viscounts visited King Henry at Windsor Castle. They required his input in the appointment of a new chancellor and archbishop of Canterbury after John Kemp’s death but they were appalled to see King Henry in such a sorry state, unable to understand what they were saying and definitely unable to respond.9 They went back to parliament and reported that Henry was unable to perform his duties. With the king so obviously incapacitated, parliament had no choice but to appoint a protector to govern England. The obvious choice was York, and there were no other suggestions put forth. He was formally invested as Protector and Defender of the Realm on 27 March 1454. York was now the most powerful man in England.
Interestingly, when parliament appointed York to the role of protectorate, they did not say his term would end when Henry recovered. Instead, they said York would be protectorate until Prince Edward came of age. Parliament clearly had little hope of the king’s recovery. This was a perfect spot for York as he would essentially have control of the kingdom for the next fifteen years until Prince Edward was old enough to rule on his own.
Nine months into York’s protectorate, the pendulum of fortune suddenly swung back in favour of the Lancastrians. On Christmas Day 1454, King Henry inexplicably woke up from his stupor with no memory of the past eighteen months. A grateful Queen Margaret presented their son whom this time was formally recognised by his father. Upon meeting his son King Henry ‘held up his hands and thanked God’.10 Margaret wasted no time filling him in on everything that had happened over the past eighteen months and the two set about undoing the work of York. They immediately released their closest ally Somerset from the Tower of London and formally pardoned him, much to the chagrin of the Yorkists. On 9 February 1455, York’s post of protectorate, was officially dissolved and shortly thereafter his allies whom he had appointed to the most powerful positions in England were also released from their posts and Henry’s men were restored.
Adding insult to injury, the king revoked the title of captain of Calais from York and granted it to Somerset. This show of favour towards Somerset and against York greatly offended Richard who had shown himself to be a much more capable leader than Somerset had ever been, both in France and in England. But York was not a man to quietly retreat like a dog with his tail between his legs. Instead York and his ally Salisbury retreated to their castles, began calling men to arms, and planned out their next moves.
A few months after York’s protectorate ended, he and his allies were invited to attend a meeting of the Great Council on 25 May 1455 at Leicester which was in the heart of Lancastrian territory. York remembered not so long ago when Henry’s brother Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, was disgracefully arrested and imprisoned upon his arrival at parliament. York feared this too could also be his fate and that the king was trying to entrap him. So instead, the duke and his allies, the earls of Salisbury and Warwick, decided their best move would be to intercept Henry before he made it to Leicester. Richard Neville, the earl of Warwick, was the son of Salisbury and the nephew of Richard of York. Due to a very advantageous marriage, he inherited vast wealth and lands from his wife’s side of the family, making him the preeminent noble in the north. His involvement with the duke of York and Edward would later earn him the nickname of ‘the Kingmaker’.
The king’s scouts brought word to Somerset that York was on the move with a large army but what they got wrong was York’s direction. Somerset believed York’s army was heading to Leicester to force a confrontation at the upcoming council meeting, but York was really heading towards London to intercept King Henry before he made it to Leicester. Somerset sent out an array of arms and gathered as many nobles as he could to reinforce the royal army which he led out of London, along with King Henry, on 21 May 1455. They barely made it out of the city before receiving distressing news: York’s army was a mere fifteen kilometres away, much closer than they had ever imagined.11 Somerset marched the royal army ten kilometres further towards the town of St Albans and found York’s army already encamped there. King Henry whole-heartedly believed that York would negotiate a resolution and that this confrontation would not lead to violence. In fact, he believed it so much that he and his men did not put on their armor before arraying themselves within the town streets of St. Albans. Negotiations between the two sides went back and forth but made no progress. The king flatly refused to get rid of Somerset and so York ordered his army into formation.
At around 1.00am on 22 May 1455, the first battle of the Wars of the Roses commenced with a Yorkist assault against the king’s forces within the town of St Albans. Due to the locale, it was more of a street skirmish than a traditional medieval pitched battle which usually took place in a wide-open field. The king’s army was reported to be between 2,500 to 3,000 men strong while York’s army was said to be much larger, approximately 5,000 men.12 At first, Somerset’s barricades worked to keep the Yorkists out of the town, but it didn’t take long for Warwick and his men to break through and overwhelm the unprepared royal army. Many of Somerset’s men fled the bloodshed rather than stand with him and be slaughtered.
The First Battle of St Albans was the shortest battle of the Wars of the Roses, lasting altogether less than one hour.13 Many of the king’s closest nobles were killed that day, including Somerset who was specifically targeted for death by York and his commanders. King Henry’s life was spared and after the battle ended, York and his allies approached him peacefully. Together they kneeled before him, pledged allegiance, and swore that they meant him no harm. They promised that their only goal was to rid the king of the evil councillors who surrounded him. King Henry willingly gave himself over to the Yorkists and he was taken into custody. Henry was now essentially a puppet king and the Yorkists would use his name and rule the kingdom through him. Just four days after the battle of St Albans, King Henry was made to open parliament, which only a king could do, and then he was packed off to Hertford Castle to join the queen and take a back seat in the governance of his realm.
After gaining control of Henry VI’s government, York swiftly placed his allies in positions of power. His own position became even stronger just a few months later when King Henry again fell into another paralysing bout of depression.14 On 15 November 1455 York was once again named ‘Protector and Defender of the Land’. York’s second term as protectorate would be much shorter than the first, lasting only three months. In February 1456, the Lancastrian party managed to rouse King Henry just enough to come to parliament and declare York released from the role of protectorate. Then that summer, Queen Margaret moved the king’s entire court from Yorkist-popular London to Coventry in the Midlands, a traditional Lancastrian stronghold. Although King Henry is not known to have been ill during this time, he had grown increasingly passive about politics and allowed Queen Margaret to take the helm of his government. 15
Queen Margaret spent the next two years rebuilding the Lancastrian powerbase in the Midlands. By the winter of 1457, she felt sufficiently prepared to make a full-court press to win back control of the kingdom. She started the Lancastrian revival by moving the royal court back to London and calling a council meeting on behalf of her husband. By mid-February 1458, London was brimming with tension as the council members began to arrive for the meeting, all of them with large retinues of men in the hundreds. It seemed as if an armed confrontation was unavoidable, but it was surprisingly peaceful and conciliatory. After a few weeks of negotiations, York and Warwick agreed to the king’s terms of compensation for St Albans in which they would pay a large sum of money to the families of slain noblemen as well as paying for masses to be sung at St Albans in remembrance of the lost lives.16 Lastly, and most importantly, they agreed to thousands of pounds in bonds which were meant to ensure good behaviour.
The king, queen, and lords shortly thereafter celebrated the successful negotiation and newfound unity in a very public way. On 25 March 1458, what would become known as ‘Love Day’, the reconciled lords of both the Houses of Lancaster and York intermingled with the king and queen in a great procession to St Paul’s Cathedral where together they would give thanks to God for the newfound peace. Even the duke of York and Queen Margaret walked side-by-side with hands held. It was a great show for the citizens of London, one in which the leaders tried to demonstrate that all was well in government and everything was in perfect order. To the citizens watching the show, it looked a little too good to be true, and they were right.
Despite both sides agreeing to this ten-year peace deal, they were only able to tolerate each other for ten months before the fighting broke out once again. The impetus for the confrontation that broke the Love Day reconciliation was the rise of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. Since being appointed Captain of Calais in the Autumn of 1456, Warwick had done much to turn around the state of affairs in Calais. He paid the back wages owed by King Henry to the angry garrisons, reinforced its defences, and expanded its naval fleet. So great was his power that he practically ruled the English channel and on many occasions fought off foreign fleets and participated in pirate raids in which he took possession of foreign goods.17
Queen Margaret became concerned about the level of authority Warwick wielded and sought to put him in his place. She commissioned an investigation of Warwick’s alleged misdeeds in Calais and summoned him to appear before the council in November 1458 to explain himself.18 Warwick arrived in London with a large force of armed men, causing quite a disruption, including at least one brawl and one attempt on Warwick’s life. Queen Margaret revoked his role as captain of Calais and ordered his arrest, but Warwick managed to escape England before Margaret could get her hands on him. Love Day now seemed to be a distant memory as the two sides headed back down the path towards inevitable confrontation.
In late June 1459, Queen Margaret called a meeting of the Great Council in Coventry with the express intent of doling out punishment to York and his allies for opposing the king’s authority. York, Salisbury, and Warwick were not invited to the meeting. Fearing an armed retaliation from the Lancastrians, the Yorkists retreated north to Ludlow Castle and began raising troops. Whispers and rumours spread through the country that both the Yorkist and Lancastrian leaders were preparing for battle by mustering men and stockpiling weapons.
In September 1459, the Yorkists set their plans in motion. Warwick sailed from Calais to England with a force of 600 men and marched his army towards Ludlow Castle, the planned rendezvous point with his allies York, and Salisbury. Salisbury also left his castle and marched towards Ludlow with a huge armed force of about 5,000 men.19 The Yorkist allies sent oaths of allegiance to King Henry, insisting that their only aim was the good governance of his realm but Queen Margaret wasn’t buying it. She was aware that the three nobles had mustered men and were headed to Ludlow so she set out to stop them before they could join into one huge army. Salisbury’s location was the closest in proximity to the king’s army, which was at Kenilworth, so she ordered the royal army to block Salisbury’s progress. Salisbury was able to evade them at first, but on the morning of 23 September 1459, his advance guard ran into another royal army, this one led by aging military leader Lord Audley. Audley’s Lancastrian army of nearly 10,000 men barred the route of Salisbury’s Yorkist army in a farming area known as Blore Heath.20 Helplessly outnumbered, Salisbury ordered his army into a pretend retreat and when the royal soldiers started pursuing them through the woods, the Yorkists turned and cut them down as they were crossing a waterway. This turned the tide of victory in the Yorkists favour and they fought through the night until they stood victorious over the Lancastrian army in the Battle of Blore Heath. Salisbury led his victorious troops to Ludlow where they would join up with the armies of York and Warwick.
A little over two weeks later, on 12 October 1459, the combined Yorkist army faced off with the royal army fronted by King Henry himself at Ludford Bridge. The sight of the king in person seemed to give some of the Yorkists cold feet. To fight against a king in battle was certainly treasonous plus they were severely outnumbered by the royal army, perhaps as much as two to one.21 The Yorkist leaders sent several messages to Henry proclaiming their loyalty and begging him not to fight but their pleas went unanswered. The tension was too much for one Yorkist leader named Andrew Trollope. In the middle of the night under cover of darkness, he and his troops defected from the Yorkist side and joined the king’s army. At this point the Yorkist leaders realised defeat was unavoidable. To preserve their lives, they fled not only the battlefield but England entirely. The duke of York, went to Ireland with his 16-year-old son Edmund, Earl of Rutland. Warwick, Salisbury and York’s 17-year-old son Edward, Earl of March, fled to Calais.
Parliament was summoned to meet immediately to deal with the volatile situation and to dole out punishments on Yorkist rebels. On 20 November 1459, an Act of Attainder was levied against York and his allies in which they were stripped of all titles and proclaimed traitors. Furthermore, their heirs were forbidden from inheriting those lands and titles in the future. This was a devastating punishment, one that was meant to completely ruin them. In fact, this session came to be known as the ‘Parliament of Devils’ due to the ruthlessness of the sentences they passed without any sort of trial. It was meant to destroy the Yorkists once and for all, but Margaret and Henry’s councillors seriously misjudged the resolve of the leaders of the House of York.