16
In June 1460 Lord Fauconberg, Sir John Dynham, and Sir John Wenlock crossed from Calais and occupied Sandwich, where they installed a large garrison and, with the willing assistance of the townsfolk, established a bridgehead for Warwick. Fauconberg also took Osbert Mountfort – still awaiting a fair wind – prisoner. The way was now clear for a Yorkist invasion of England.
On 26 June, Warwick, Salisbury and March landed at Sandwich with 2000 men. The Queen had sent ships to Calais to prevent them from sailing out of the harbour, but her sailors had mutinied and the Yorkist ships had passed unmolested. The Lancastrian government had long anticipated an invasion, but their preparations to counteract it proved inadequate; even Buckingham, who was constable of Dover Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports, was absent from the area on the day the invaders landed, and seems to have taken few – if any – defensive measures.
Warwick knew the risks he was taking. His lands and the main spheres of his influence lay to the north and west, and before he could reach them he had to take London. Nor could he be certain of support from the magnates. But Warwick was held in much affection in south-east England. ‘If aught come to my lord of Warwick but good, farewell ye, farewell I, and all our friends, for this land were utterly undone,’ wrote a friend of the Pastons at this time. Hours after Warwick landed in Kent, Lords Cobham and Bergavenny rode to join him as he marched on Canterbury, as did numerous men of lesser rank.
On landing at Sandwich, Warwick had sent messengers to the other Cinque Ports, asking for assistance in the form of armed men and stressing that he came to remove the evil counsellors about the King. The mayor of Rye, receiving his message, cautiously sent to see if the mayor of Winchelsea was going to comply. Apparently the answer was yes, for both men led contingents from their towns to join the Yorkists. Archbishop Bourchier, who had hitherto acted as mediator between the opposing sides, was now heartily sickened of the Queen’s misrule and was urging the men of Kent to rally to Warwick’s banner, which they did in large numbers.
The Yorkist lords made their way that day to Canterbury. The Council had appointed three of its citizens to lead the defence of the city against the invaders, but the people of Canterbury were overwhelmingly Yorkist in sympathy and at dawn on the 27th these men met with the Yorkist lords at St Martin’s Church, outside the walls, and agreed to surrender the keys of the city to them. Canterbury then joyfully opened its gates and afforded the invaders a warm welcome.
After Warwick, Salisbury and March had offered at the shrine of Becket and received the blessing of the Archbishop of Canterbury – who agreed to ride with them – they pressed on through Rochester and Dartford towards London, recruiting as they went. In their train was the papal legate, Francesco dei Coppini, Bishop of Terni. During the previous spring, Coppini had been sent to England by Pope Pius II to effect a reconciliation between the rival factions and ‘quieten the people’, so that England could provide him with men for a new crusade against the Turks. The Queen had not been interested in Coppini’s offer to mediate, guessing that his sympathies lay with the Yorkists. This was true, but only because the Lancastrians had rebuffed him. The legate dearly wanted a cardinal’s hat, and if his mission was successful he might obtain one. If he helped the Yorkists to power they might reward him by supporting the crusade. Coppini had with him ‘papal bulls stating that the Pope had excommunicated Wiltshire, Shrewsbury and Beaumont and all others who had opposed the Duke [of York]’. His open support of the Yorkists swayed the opinions of several English bishops, who felt that they should follow the Pope’s lead.
News of the invasion had reached London, and the mayor, aldermen and Common Council met to debate what they should do. At length they dispatched a messenger to warn the Yorkist lords that they would not be allowed to enter the capital. Warwick, however, had many supporters in London; merchants who had suffered as a result of the government’s concessions to foreign traders were especially anxious to further his cause, and through their influence the Lord Mayor was persuaded to rescind his order. He may also have been swayed by the proximity and activities of several lords in or near the city – Bourchier, Bergavenny, Clinton, Say and Scrope – who were preparing to join Warwick. At the end of June the Yorkist lords were informed that they could enter London provided their soldiers behaved themselves.
As the Yorkist army approached, prominent Lancastrians who were in the city, the Lords Hungerford, de Vesci, Lovell, de la Warre, the Earl of Kendal and the Duchess of Exeter, took refuge in the Tower of London, which was under the command of Lord Scales, a veteran of the French wars who deplored the decision of the city authorities to let in the Yorkists.
On 2 July, the gates of London were thrown open and the Yorkist lords rode into the city with a vast band of armed men. Estimates of their numbers vary between 20,000 and 60,000; the real figure, based on the evidence of Whethamstead and the London chroniclers, is likely to have been around 40,000, and at least 500 of them were on horseback. As the army began its progress across London Bridge, crowds of Londoners surged forward in welcome and two men were trampled to death. Lord Scales fired guns from the Tower, and during the next few days he would continue to do so, burning and hurting men, women and children in the streets but causing no harm to the enemy.
The first thing that the Yorkist earls did was to order the removal of the rotting heads of their supporters from London Bridge. On 3 July they addressed the Convocation of Canterbury at St Paul’s Cathedral, emphasising the misrule of the Queen’s party and reciting ‘the cause of their coming into the land, how they had been put forth from the King’s presence with great violence, so that they might never excuse themselves of the accusations laid against them’. They swore on oath on the Cross of Canterbury that they intended nothing contrary to the estate of King Henry, declaring that they wished only to lay their case before him in person and protest their innocence; they were, they said, prepared to die for their cause. But Coppini, in a letter to Pius II, wrote that, despite the strictures of Holy Church and his own role as an angel of peace, Warwick, Salisbury and March appeared ready to resort to armed force rather than peaceful negotiations in order to have their way.
On the 4th Coppini himself addressed Convocation, reading out a letter from the Pope to Henry VI, summarising and pleading York’s case. The letter was afterwards presented to the King along with one from the legate, commanding Henry, on peril of his soul, to consent to the Yorkist demands.
The Yorkist lords were determined that this time they would gain control of the King and oust the court party for good. On the 5th Lord Fauconberg left London at the head of 10,000 men for the north. The Lancastrians were still anticipating that York would invade from Ireland and were therefore reluctant to move south to defend London, in case he raised Wales and the north behind them. Warwick and March soon followed Fauconberg north, leaving Salisbury, Cobham, Wenlock and 2000 men in London to lay siege to the Tower and hold the capital. In their train were the Archbishop of Canterbury, the bishops of Ely, Exeter, Rochester, Lincoln and Salisbury, the papal legate Coppini and the Prior of the Hospital of St John at Clerkenwell. They made first for St Albans, and then for Dunstable. Wet weather had made the roads virtually impassable, yet still men came to join them.
The King’s commanders urged him to seek refuge in the Isle of Ely in the then almost impenetrable Fens, but the Yorkists somehow learned of this plan and moved their army to Ware, ready to intercept the royal army before it could evade them. There was no sign of it: Henry had in fact ignored his captains’ advice and remained in Coventry, where the Queen had gathered a large army, and he now planned to march on Northampton. As he bade farewell to his wife and child, he kissed the Prince and commanded Margaret, for her safety, not to join him unless she received from him a secret token known only to themselves. When the army left, Margaret rode with the Prince to Eccleshall Castle to await events.
The royal army encamped in a meadow outside Northampton, between the village of Hardingstone and Delapré Abbey. Here, the men dug deep ditches around the whole encampment, made a defensive palisade of sharp stakes, and blocked the road from London with cannon. Then the commanders drew the men up in battle order. They were not in the best strategic position because the nearby River Nene, then in flood due to two days of constant heavy rain, was not fordable and offered no means of escape in the event of a rout.
The commander-in-chief of the royal army, Buckingham, was probably anxious to get any battle over and done with as quickly as possible so that he could march on to London, relieve Lord Scales at the Tower and drive the Yorkists out of the capital. It was also imperative that Warwick and March be dealt with before they could be joined by York and Salisbury. Buckingham, however, certainly underestimated the military abilities of Warwick and the inexperienced March.
By Tuesday 10 July Warwick’s army had arrived in Northampton. He now strove to avoid engaging the King in battle by sending the Bishop of Salisbury and Coppini to Henry with a request that he hear the grievances of the Yorkist lords. Henry refused, despite the added pleas of Archbishop Bourchier, and Buckingham accused the bishops of hypocrisy, brusquely advising the King to pay no heed to them. As far as he was concerned, the royal army was in an unassailable position and the King need not pander to traitors. A battle was now inevitable.
At mid-day the rain began again, rapidly turning the Lancastrian camp into a quagmire. Far from being unassailable, the royal army, which probably comprised 20,000 men, was only half the size of Warwick’s force, and some expected reinforcements did not arrive in time to see action. Warwick was in command of the main battle of the Yorkist army; March, bearing aloft his father’s banner, led the vanguard, ably supported by Lord Scrope, and Fauconberg was in charge of the rearguard. For the first time the Yorkists had mustered a substantial number of magnates – Bourchier, Bergavenny, Audley, Say, and possibly Clinton and Stanley were all present in the field, while most of the foot soldiers were from Kent, Sussex and Essex.
The royal vanguard was commanded by Lord Grey de Ruthin, a wealthy local landowner who had courted royal favour in the Coventry parliament and promptly ridden at the head of his retainers to obey the King’s summons to arms. Prior to the battle, however, March received a secret message from Lord Grey that he would change sides and fight for the Yorkists if they would back him in a property dispute with Lord Fanhope. Grey may also have been offered inducements by Warwick, such as the promise of future highoffice in a Yorkist government, for he did indeed become Treasurer of England in 1463.
At two o’clock in the afternoon, watched by Coppini and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Warwick ordered his trumpeters to sound the call to battle, and the two armies advanced on each other, with the three Yorkist battles attacking the enemy simultaneously on different sides of the royal barricades. Warwick had ordered his men not to capture any magnates but to kill them, and not to lay violent hands on the King or the ordinary soldiers, especially those wearing the black ragged staff of Lord Grey’s men.
March’s advance across the Nene marshes was met with a deadly series of volleys from the archers in the Lancastrian centre, which caused many casualties. Despite this, they waded onwards through thick, viscous mud towards the royal entrenchment; the weather conditions were in fact so atrocious that Buckingham’s cannon were soon lying deep in water and were rendered useless, while many of the royal cavalry were forced to dismount and fight on foot.
As the Yorkists approached the royal defences, Lord Grey signalled, and his men began to burst through the barricades in order to join them and assist them over the stockade, thus enabling them successfully to breach the Lancastrian entrenchment. This heralded the end of the battle, which lasted only half an hour and did not involve much in the way of hand-to-hand fighting. Seeing that the day was lost, many Lancastrian soldiers panicked and made desperate attempts to cross the swollen River Nene; few made it to the other side. The chronicler ‘Gregory’ relates the tale of Sir William Lucy, who lived near the battlefield and heard the desultory gunfire. He quickly hastened to the King’s aid, but when he got there the rout was in progress. Alas for Sir William – John Stafford, a relation of Buckingham’s, saw him coming. John had been conducting an illicit affair with Lucy’s wife and now, in the chaos and confusion, seized his opportunity to murder his rival, an act typical of the lawlessness and self-interest of the times.
The Battle of Northampton ended in a resounding victory for the Yorkists, which was attributed to the fighting skills of ‘the true commons of Kent’, but was also due largely to the treachery of Lord Grey. About 3-400 men lay dead on the field, Lancastrian lossesbeing heaviest. Buckingham, one of the mainstays of their cause, was among them. His son had predeceased him, and he was succeeded as second duke of Buckingham by his grandson, seven-year-old Henry Stafford. John, Viscount Beaumont, Constable of England, former steward to the Queen and one of her loyalest supporters, had also been killed, along with the Earl of Shrewsbury and Lord Egremont, who had been cut down by Warwick’s Kentishmen outside the King’s tent. Many Lancastrian casualties had drowned in the River Nene near Sandyford Mill. The dead were buried in nearby Delapré Abbey, which still stands, although much of its fabric dates from later periods. Yorkist losses were light. Today, little remains of the battlefield site, which is occupied by the Avon Cosmetics Company.
As the battle ended, Henry Mountfort, a Yorkist archer, captured the King and confined him to his tent. When it was clear that the day was theirs, Warwick, March and Fauconberg found him there alone, ‘as a man born and predestinate to trouble, misery and calamity’. The three lords fell on their knees and craved the King’s forgiveness for having taken up arms against him, emphasising that their only motive had been the desire to establish stable and just government, and assuring him of their continuing loyalty. Then March, who had not as yet sworn fealty to his sovereign, knelt and did him homage. For all their subservience, however, the Yorkist lords now had the King in their custody. Later that day they conducted him in procession to Delapré Abbey and thence to Northampton. Meanwhile, Wiltshire and many other prominent Lancastrians had gone into hiding.
Queen Margaret had spent anxious days at Eccleshall Castle, awaiting news. When it came, it could not have been worse: the battle lost, many of her supporters dead or fled, and the King in the hands of the Yorkists, who would now control not only the sovereign but the government and the administrative departments of state. However, with the Queen and her son still at large, the Yorkists would have no scope for complacency.
Some Lancastrian prisoners taken in the battle, including the Lords Hungerford and Lovell, gave their captors the slip and rode to join the Queen, but others, including Lord de la Warre and the Earl of Kendal, transferred their loyalties to the Yorkists. Margaret decided it would be prudent to leave Eccleshall, and fled with her son and a few attendants through Cheshire to Wales. Near Malpas Castle, one of her servants, John Cleger, robbed her of her treasure and jewellery, and even threatened to kill her and the Prince, at which some of her retinue deserted her. However, as Cleger was rifling through her baggage, the Queen and her son managed to escape with the help of her remaining attendants and a courageous fourteen-year-old boy, John Coombe of Annesbury, with whom she and the Prince rode pillion to Jasper Tudor at Harlech Castle. Here she met with a warm welcome and was presented with many gifts. Her brother-in-law ‘greatly comforted’ her, ‘for she had need thereof’, though he was aware that he would not be able to shelter her for long.
Jasper was in control of York’s castle of Denbigh, and he suggested that the Queen move there. ‘Gregory’ says she left Harlech by stealth ‘for she durst abide in no place but in private’ because ‘counterfeit tokens were sent unto her, as though they had come from her most dread lord the King, but it was not of his sending, but forged things, for they that brought the tokens were of the King’s house, and bade her beware that she gave no credence thereto, for the lords would fain had her unto London, for they knew well that all the workings that were done grew by her, for she was more wittier than the King’.
Giving out that she had gone to France to raise troops, Margaret went to Denbigh, where she was soon joined by Exeter and other prominent Lancastrians. On their advice, she now wrote to Somerset, Devon and other adherents, asking them to raise an army in the north and wait upon her at Hull. On 9 August, along with other royalist constables of Yorkist castles in Wales, Pembroke was ordered by the Yorkist Council to surrender Denbigh to York’s deputy, Edward Bourchier. He refused, continuing to recruit Welshmen for the Queen and for the Prince of Wales, ‘the hope of the British Isles’, and York never regained his former supremacy in Wales.
In London, meanwhile, Salisbury, Cobham and the city’s militia had besieged Lord Scales in the Tower, placing bombards and ‘great ordnance’ on the far side of the Thames and ‘crazing the walls in divers places’. On 16 July, the King, escorted by the Yorkist earls, entered the City with a great retinue and was lodged in the bishop’s palace, while Londoners ‘gave Almighty God great thanks and praise’ for the Yorkist victory. After nearly three weeks, Scales was ready to surrender. He was running out of food and had no hope of receiving any reinforcements; he had also given way to the panic-stricken pleas of the noble ladies who had sought refuge in the Tower. On the night after the surrender, Scales tried to escape by boat to the sanctuary at Westminster Abbey, but the London boatmen surrounded his vessel, dragged him out and murdered him, casting his bloody corpse, ‘naked as a worm’, on to the steps of the Priory of St Mary Overie in Southwark.
Queen Margaret had now left Denbigh and sailed from Wales around the coast to Berwick, intending to seek refuge in Scotland, where James II, whose mother had been a Beaufort, was a friend to the Lancastrians. The Scottish queen, Mary of Gueldres, advised of Margaret’s coming, sent an envoy, Duncan Dundas, to escort her to Dumfries, where she and her son were warmly received. They were then lodged at Lincluden Abbey as guests of Queen Mary, and royally entertained there.
However, Scotland was just then in mourning because of the untimely death of its king, blown up by an exploding cannon while successfully besieging Yorkist sympathisers at Roxburgh. At the time of Margaret’s arrival the regents were in Edinburgh for the late King’s burial and the coronation of James III. James II’s friendly relations with the House of Lancaster were to be maintained, however, by his widow and by the Bishop of St Andrews, who both headed the newly-formed regency council.
From Lincluden, Margaret wrote to Mary of Gueldres, begging for sanctuary and assistance against her enemies. Mary responded sympathetically and soon afterwards arrived at Lincluden with the young king to comfort Margaret and reassure her that help would be forthcoming. The two queens stayed at the abbey for twelve days, discussing what form that help would take. At length, Mary agreed to provide men and loan money for a campaign against the Yorkists on condition that Margaret surrendered the town of Berwick to the Scots. Margaret, having no understanding of the horror with which her husband’s subjects would view this almost casual cession of one of the most fought-over border towns to their enemy, readily agreed. Mary then assigned the earls of Douglas and Angus to muster their retainers and accompany Margaret back into England. Such was the courage of the Queen that both these hardened warlords came to respect her; they were also gratified to hear her promise that there would be handsome booty for the taking in the prosperous south of England, so long as there was no pillaging and plundering north of the River Trent.
While these preparations for war were being completed, Mary invited Margaret to remain in Scotland, staying at Falkland Palace and other royal residences until she was ready to march into England.
York had in the past made several unsuccessful attempts to assume the role of chief counsellor to the King, to which he felt his birth and position as premier magnate of the realm entitled him. Now, after the success of the Yorkist lords’ invasion, memories of previous short-lived triumphs convinced him that the only way to establish firm government and himself in power was to assert his right to the throne, thus reviving the long-dormant Mortimer claim.
By 1460, after long years of suffering the misrule caused by Henry VI’s ineptitude, the English were beginning to question the right of the House of Lancaster to occupy the throne, and were showing signs of taking the claim of the Mortimers, vested in York, seriously. The whole issue of dynastic right would now be thrown open for public discussion and speculation. A Yorkist genealogy, prepared for propaganda purposes and now in the British Library, depicts Henry IV slicing through Richard II’s line of descent with a sword, while an Old Testament prophet foretells of vengeance being visited upon Henry’s descendants. Such seeds of propaganda fell on fertile ground in 1460.
York was descended from Edward III’s second son through two females, Philippa of Clarence and Anne Mortimer, which made him Edward’s heir general. Henry VI, descended in the male line from Edward’s fourth son, was his heir male. Nowadays the question of legitimate right would be decided without question in favour of York. If, for example, the present Prince of Wales had an only daughter, and his brother Prince Andrew a son, the descendants of Prince Charles’s daughter would inherit the throne as descendants of the Queen’s eldest son. In the fifteenth century the law of primogeniture was never so strictly defined. Lord Chief Justice Fortescue put forward a hypothetical case in which a king ‘has a daughter and a brother; the daughter has a son. The king dies without a son. Does the kingdom descend to the daughter, or to her son, or to the king’s brother?’ Fortescue concluded that the king’s brother should succeed him because the woman is subject to the man. A woman, he declared, was not fit to rule or transmit a claim. Adam was superior to Eve because he was able to teach her the moral virtues of prudence, courage and temperance, and man was to woman as the soul to the body. When it came to the question of who should have the crown of England, however, Fortescue played it safe and suggested that the Pope should be asked to decide the issue.
York was not concerned with such legal niceties. He had had enough. His ineffective cousin must stand aside for the man who was determined and able to restore good government and rid the realm of corrupt advisers – Richard Plantagenet.
York, however, having failed to take into account the fact that hitherto few lords had actually supported him even in his quest for reform, did not now stop to consult with any of his followers or allies, nor did he try to cultivate sufficient support to back up his claim. He believed that right alone would be enough to win him the crown.
On 8 September 1460 York returned from Ireland and landed in north Wales, near Chester. From here he marched south to Ludlow and thence to Hereford. His duchess had been freed from house arrest after the Battle of Northampton, since when she had been living at Baynard’s Castle with her younger children, awaiting her lord’s return. As soon as York landed he sent a message asking Cecily to meet him at Hereford as soon as possible, which she did, travelling in a chariot, or litter, hung with blue velvet and drawn by four pairs of fine horses.
York had timed his return so that he would be in London when Parliament met in early October. He made no attempt to conceal the fact that he had come to assert his claim to the throne, and proceeded to the capital with as much state and ceremony as if he were already king. At Abingdon, he summoned trumpeters and had them issued with banners displaying the royal arms of England undifferenced – the sovereign’s arms. And thus he came to London.
Somerset, meanwhile, had finally given up trying to wrest Calais from Warwick’s garrison, and had recently been obliged to surrender Guisnes to the Earl’s men. Towards the end of September he too returned to England, and took up residence at Corfe Castle in Dorset.
Parliament assembled in Westminster Hall on 7 October. The King attended the opening ceremony but thereafter remained in the Queen’s apartments in the palace. In this Parliament Lord Bourchier was made Treasurer of England and Warwick’s brother, George Neville, Bishop of Exeter, was rewarded for his recent support by being appointed Chancellor. At that time he was about twenty-seven years old, a clever, cultivated opportunist who was not at all suited to his episcopal role, for he loved luxurious living and political intrigue. He was a great patron of scholars, corresponded with famous men of letters in other parts of Europe and amassed a respectable library of rare manuscripts. Chastellain describes him as a ‘stately and eloquent man’.
On the 10th, York rode into London at the head of a great retinue, preceded by his trumpeters, whose banners astonished those who beheld them, and by his sword of state, borne upright before him. Gone was his former restraint and caution. His arrogant and dignified bearing proclaimed to all what his intentions were, and it was noted that from now on he would act ‘more like a king than a duke’. Abbot Whethamstead accused him of the sin of pride.
In this manner he came to Westminster Hall, where Parliament was sitting. Dismounting at the door, and with his sword still carried before him, he strode through the assembled throng to the dais at the far end, on which stood the empty throne beneath a canopy of estate. Then, after bowing to the Lords, he placed his hand firmly on the throne, symbolically laying claim to it. As he did so, the Lords and Commons alike ‘ran together and looked’ incredulously. Then York turned to face them, expecting cheers of acclamation.Instead there was an embarrassed silence.
Nonplussed, he moved away from the throne, plainly furious. Nevertheless he announced undeterred that he ‘challenged and claimed the realm of England as heir of King Richard II, proposing without any delay to be crowned on All Hallows Day following’ – 1 November. The Archbishop of Canterbury cautiously suggested he obtain an audience of the King to discuss his claim, but this stirred York to anger. ‘I know of no one in the realm who would not more fitly come to me than I to him,’ he declared.
Nevertheless he marched out of the hall and made his way to the royal apartments where the King, having heard the commotion, had retired to an inner chamber. York was intent on seeing him, and coming to the door of the chamber he thrust aside the guards and burst in. Henry faced him calmly, but stood by his right to occupy the throne of his forefathers.
The reaction of most noblemen to York’s astonishing act was one of profound dismay. How could they be expected to uphold his claim when they had all taken an oath of allegiance to Henry VI? That Henry should have inspired such loyalty after decades of misrule is testimony to the mystical power of the institution of monarchy at that time – perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the Wars of the Roses – and also the personal esteem in which Henry was held for his many virtues. Equally remarkable is the fact that Henry VI failed to capitalise on such support. Powerful magnates had not hesitated to depose Richard II – but Richard’s tyranny had threatened their jealously-guarded privileges. Under Henry VI, many magnates had prospered.
Even Warwick and Salisbury were shocked and angered by York’s behaviour. They had supported him in his calls for reform and in his attempts to gain power for himself, but this time they felt he had gone too far, and without even consulting them. Nor did they feel able to support his claim, for – in common with most magnates – they saw no reason why Henry VI, England’s acknowledged and anointed king for the past thirty-eight years, should be deposed.
Warwick and his brother, Thomas Neville, wasted no time in going to York’s lodging at Westminster to remonstrate with him. Men-at-arms filled the room, and Warwick saw the Duke at the far side, his elbow resting on a sideboard. Warwick was furious and told York so, and why, using ‘hard words’. Young Rutland then came in and, seeing the Earl castigating his father, said, ‘Fair Sir, be not angry, for you know that we have the true right to the crown, and that my lord and father here must have it.’
March, who was also present, could see that Warwick was in no mood for such talk, and realised that so powerful an ally must not be offended. ‘Brother,’ he said, ‘vex no man, for all shall be well.’ Warwick, controlling his anger, turned away from York and Rutland, and made a great show of speaking only to March.
Although the magnates quickly made it clear to York that they stood by their oaths of allegiance to Henry VI, he was determined to force the issue. On 16 October, sitting on the throne in Westminster Hall, he formally claimed the crown of England by right of inheritance and then submitted to the Lords in Parliament a genealogy showing his descent from Henry III. The Lords displayed few signs of approval and asked him why he had not put forward his claim before. He answered, ‘Though right for a time rest and be put to silence, yet it rotteth not, nor shall it perish.’
Next day, the Lords respectfully asked the King for his views on the matter, and he asked them to draw up a list of objections to York’s claim. The Lords then laid the matter before the justices, the serjeants-at-law and the royal attorneys, but all were extremely reluctant to express an opinion as to whether York’s claim was valid or not, saying that it was not within their competence to do so, but was a matter for the King and York to determine between them. In fact, it was such a high matter that it was above the law and beyond their learning, and they referred it back to a higher legal authority – the Lords in Parliament.
There then followed much debate and poring over yellowing genealogies, statutes and precedents. The Lords warned York that the matter was proving difficult to determine, the stumbling block being their oaths of allegiance to Henry VI and their recent oath recognising Prince Edward as the future king. They pointed out that York had also sworn these same oaths and referred him to ‘great and notable Acts of Parliament which be sufficient and reasonable to be laid against [his] title’. These Acts, they argued, recognised Henry’s title, and should be relied upon as the ultimate authority on the matter.
York answered that the oaths made to Henry VI by the peers were invalid because the nature and purpose of an oath was to confirm the truth, and the truth was that he was the rightful king, not Henry, and the Lords ought to help him claim what was rightfully his. God’s law, he said, governed inheritance, and that took precedence over all other laws.
Thomas Thorpe, Speaker of the Commons, later had some scathing words to say in Parliament about York’s claim. But even though York was not yet king, he still wielded great power, and Thorpe soon found himself incarcerated in London’s Fleet Prison, accused by York of trespass and theft. For this he was found guilty and fined, provoking protests in the Commons. It was to no avail, and the members had no choice but to elect another Speaker.
At length, the Lords grudgingly concluded that York did indeed have a better right to the crown than Henry VI, but by a majority of only five they decided that a change of dynasty was unthinkable at this stage. The Lords were now forced to a compromise, not so much because York had the better claim, but because they knew he had the power to make them acknowledge it.
On 31 October it was announced that the King and York were reconciled, and the next day, in St Paul’s Cathedral, ‘the King wore his crown and led a procession of dukes, earls and lords, as a symbol of concord’. Parliament now resolved that King Henry ‘should enjoy the throne of England for as long as he should live’, Prince Edward should be disinherited, and York should be proclaimed heir apparent and succeed to the throne on Henry’s death. This was not the best compromise that York could have expected, and it reflected the Lords’ antipathy towards him, for he was after all ten years older than the King and likely, in the natural course of things, to predecease him.
On 24 October an Act of Settlement – the ‘Act of Accord’, as it became known – was drawn up, enshrining the new order of succession in law. Four days later, Henry VI, under pressure from the few magnates who were present in Parliament – the rest having deemed it politic to stay away – agreed to its terms, and the Act became law. The King at once sent a message to the Queen, commanding her to bring the Prince to London, and warning that if she failed to do so she would be denounced as a rebel.
Now that the dynastic issue had been raised, the Wars of the Roses changed course. No longer were they primarily a struggle for supremacy between York and the Queen’s party; instead, from now on they would be a struggle for the throne itself, with reform of the government second in importance. The unleashing of the dynastic dispute would have far-reaching consequences for the royal succession over the next twenty-five years and beyond, weakening the concept of legitimate title and fostering the ambitions of those whose might was greater than their right. From now on, also, the outcome of every battle would be regarded as an indication of God’s approval of the claim of the victor.
In late October Parliament reversed the attainders against York and his followers, and restored to them their titles, lands and goods. On 8 November York was proclaimed heir apparent to the throne and Protector of England. All the lords spiritual and temporal swore allegiance to him as the King’s heir, and he in turn swore allegiance to Henry and the lords, saying that for his part he would abide by all the conventions and compacts that had been agreed.
York now ruled England in the name of the King. He might reasonably have thought he was in an invincible position, but once again he would find that he was mistaken.
The Act of Accord provoked a furious political storm. The Queen had marched south with her Scottish recruits, who were reinforced as they went by large numbers of men from Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire. Many of the northern lords who joined her army cared little for the political issues at stake but were motivated rather by self-interest and the possibilities of plundering the prosperous and envied south. Meanwhile, Somerset and Devon were coming up from the south-west with a large force of gentlemen, knights and soldiers, marching via Bath and Coventry to York. Then Margaret learned that Lords Clifford, Roos, Greystoke, Neville and Latimer were on their way to join her.
When, at Hull, she received the news that Parliament had dispossessed her son of his inheritance, she was furious, and instantly stepped up her recruiting campaign, gathering an army of 15,000 men at Pontefract Castle, and placing them under the command of Somerset, Northumberland and Devon. By the time the army reached York, it numbered about 20,000. That the Queen had raised such an army so late in the year, when the campaigning season had long finished, is a tribute to her tenacity and energy, and also testimony to her fierce determination to protect her son’s interests. What was more, the Queen had mustered her force so swiftly and stealthily that it was some time before York realised what was happening.
At York, Margaret made a formal public protest against the Act of Accord and challenged York to settle the issue of the succession by force of arms. She then summoned a council of war and informed the lords of her intention to march on London and deliver the King from the hands of his enemies. Those magnates who had not endorsed the Act shared her anger, and many more flocked to take up arms on her behalf.
Late in November, the Lancastrian army began to advance southwards from York. As they marched through Yorkshire the Queen took great pleasure in allowing her soldiers to sack the homes of tenants of York and Salisbury. They also raided York’s castle at Sandal, where it was noticed by the superstitious that no herons had nested in the adjacent park that year.
As soon as York found out what Margaret was doing, he organised a fresh propaganda campaign which was calculated to instil fear of the Queen’s savage northern hordes into the southerners, and began preparations to march north to deal with this new threat. The Queen and Prince had written to the Common Council of the city of London, requesting monetary and military aid, but their requests had been ignored. York, however, was granted a loan of 500 marks to finance his campaign. He was also in control of the royal arsenal of weapons in the Tower, and commandeered several guns to take north with him.
York and Salisbury, at the head of about 5-6000 men, rode out of London on 9 December, cheered on by waving crowds lining the streets and leaving Warwick behind to maintain order in the capital. They marched north via Nottingham, recruiting on the way. Many of their scouts, or ‘aforeriders’, however, were killed in a skirmish with Somerset’s men at Worksop, and at the same time Lancastrian scouts discovered that York’s army was vastly inferior to their own.
York made for his castle of Sandal, two miles west of Wakefield, because, says Whethamstead, he desired to be among his own people and enjoy a comfortable lodging at Christmas. He also deemed his presence in the area necessary because his tenants had suffered harassment by local Lancastrian lords. Built in the reign of Edward II, Sandal Castle was a mighty fortress occupying an imposing position, though today it is a crumbling, roofless ruin. York arrived on the 21st and set his men to digging trenches around the castle and positioning their guns at strategic points around the walls, thus putting himself – theoretically at least – in a good defensive position should the Lancastrians attack. His plan was to await March’s arrival from Shrewsbury with reinforcements before engaging with the enemy, and he settled down with his men to celebrate Christmas.
Somerset and Northumberland would have liked to besiege York in Sandal Castle, and in any case planned to prevent any fresh supplies from reaching him there. However, since they lacked the resources with which to conduct a siege, they decided that York must somehow be lured out of the castle and made to fight before March arrived. The Lancastrians certainly had the greater army, about 20,000 men to York’s 12,000 at most, and they had also a substantial number of magnates, including Exeter, Somerset, Devon, Northumberland and Clifford. York had not a single peer in his army, apart from the ever-loyal Salisbury. While the Queen’s captains included the experienced Sir Baldwin Fulford and Sir John Grey, who was husband to Lord Rivers’s daughter, Elizabeth Wydville, one of York’s captains of foot was a mere London mercer, John Harrow, who had served under Salisbury at the siege of the Tower in July. And although Lord Neville responded to York’s summons, riding to Sandal with 8000 men, he then deserted to the Lancastrians. Even after this, York still underestimated the strength of his opponents.
By the end of December the Duke was in an increasingly precarious situation, though his captains believed that if he stayed in the castle until reinforcements arrived he would have nothing to fear. Discipline among his men was lax; many were allowed to go out foraging, thus broadcasting to the enemy that food supplies were running low, and his scouts were incompetent, failing to discover what the Lancastrians were planning. Sir Davy Hall, grandfather of the Tudor chronicler Edward Hall, advised York not to let his men out but to ‘keep within his castle’, but the Duke replied, ‘Wouldst thou that I, for dread of a scolding woman, whose only weapons are her tongue and her nails, should shut my gates? Then all men might of me wonder and report to my dishonour, that a woman hath made me a dastard, whom no man could ever yet prove a coward!’
During the Christmas holidays, Somerset rode over to parley with York, and it was agreed that a state of truce would prevail until after the Feast of the Epiphany on 6 January; the royal commanders, however, had no intention of keeping it. For three days running they sent a herald with instructions to provoke York by insults into taking the offensive. The herald publicly sneered at the Duke’s ‘want of courage in suffering himself to be tamely braved by a woman’. On the 29th the Lancastrians selected 400 men, disguised them as Yorkist reinforcements, and sent them to join the garrison at Sandal. The deception worked.
It is not known for certain why York left the safety of Sandal Castle on 30 December. It was commonly believed at the time that fast-depleting provisions forced him to send out a foraging party to get more food. These men either attacked the waiting Lancastrians and were quickly driven back inside the castle, or were attacked by them. Another theory is that a band of reinforcements under Andrew Trollope, who had joined the royal army the night before, were also masquerading as Yorkist soldiers by parading in Warwick’s livery; York, seeing them approaching the castle at dawn, either came out to meet them or, seeing through their disguises, decided to sally forth and take the offensive.
Whatever happened, the centre of the Lancastrian army, under Somerset, now advanced to a position near the castle and waited to engage in battle. At the same time, the right and left flanks of that army, commanded by Wiltshire and Roos, concealed themselvesin the woodland on either side of the entrance to York’s fortress. York obviously had no idea that the enemy was so near at hand, and in such strength, waiting to ambush him and his men. Nor did he listen to the repeated advice of his captains, who were still urging him to await reinforcements. Unsuspecting, he and Salisbury rode out at the head of their men across the drawbridge and cantered down the hill to the open fields south of the River Calder, an area known as Wakefield Green. With them rode York’s seventeen-year-old son, Rutland. The waiting Lancastrian centre charged to meet them and there was a tremendous clash between the two armies, with the Yorkists fighting fiercely and bravely, believing they had the upper hand. But Somerset had been advised on strategy by Trollope, to devastating effect. As soon as the Yorkists had issued forth from the castle, he and his second-in-command, Lord Clifford, had sent orders to Wiltshire to take the castle, and to Lord Roos, telling him to block York’s line of retreat. Suddenly, the two Lancastrian flanks emerged from the woods and descended on York’s men, surrounding them on three sides ‘like a fish in a net or a deer in a buckstall’. The Yorkists discovered that they were hopelessly outnumbered, but by then it was too late. Many were slaughtered, and the rest hastened to lay down their arms and surrender. York was pulled from his mount and killed in the midst of the fighting.
As the young Earl of Rutland left the field, accompanied by his tutor, Sir Robert Aspsall, Lord Clifford rode up and demanded to know who he was. Aspsall stupidly cried, ‘Spare him, for he is a king’s son, and good may come to you!’
‘Whose son is this?’ demanded Clifford, suspiciously, and then, without waiting to be told, for he had guessed the answer, drove his dagger into Rutland’s heart, shouting, ‘By God’s blood, thy father slew mine! So will I slay the accursed blood of York!’
Later writers embroidered the story of Rutland’s end, claiming that he tried to seek refuge in the house of a poor woman of Wakefield, but was followed there and dragged outside by Clifford’s men. The woman is said to have shut her door as the boy beat frantically upon it, screaming to be readmitted as he was stabbed. The Tudor antiquarian, John Leland, claimed that the murder took place by Wakefield Bridge, and there is indeed a chapel that was once endowed by Rutland’s brother Edward on that bridge; it dates, however, from 1357, so cannot have been built to commemorate the Earl’s death. The site of the murder is more likely to have been the Park Street end of Kirkgate in Wakefield, because a cross was erected there to Rutland’s memory.
Benet states that about a thousand men were killed in the battle; at least half of York’s men who had ridden out of the castle with him were either killed or wounded. It was said that the wide expanse of Wakefield Green was covered with corpses. Salisbury’s son, Sir Thomas Neville, was among them, as were Sir Thomas Parr, Sir Edward Bourchier and the London mercer John Harrow, men who were the backbone of York’s affinity.
During the night after the battle Salisbury was captured by one of Trollope’s men and taken to Pontefract Castle, where he was held prisoner. He bribed his gaoler to set him free, but as he was preparing to leave the castle, ‘the common people of the country, which loved him not, took him out of the castle by violence, and smote off his head’. His death left Warwick the richest magnate in the realm, for he now added to his Beauchamp inheritance his father’s intensive concentration of lands and power in the north, along with the earldom of Salisbury and the castles of Middleham and Sheriff Hutton, which would become Warwick’s favourite residences in the years to come. Warwick now owned double the amount of land that any subject of an English king had ever owned before him, and was an enemy to be truly feared.
After the battle, some soldiers had retrieved York’s body, propped it up against an ant-heap, and crowned it with a garland of reeds. They then pretended to bow to it, crying. ‘Hail, king without a kingdom!’ Lord Clifford ordered that the corpse be decapitated and the head impaled on a lance, along with that of Rutland, and when this had been done a paper crown was placed on York’s head. His kinsfolk never forgave Clifford for his treatment of the bodies of York and Rutland, and vowed that they would not rest until their deaths had been revenged.
Tudor chroniclers, such as Hall and Holinshed, later asserted that Clifford took the heads of the three Yorkist lords to York and presented them to the Queen, saying ‘Madam, your war is done. Here is your king’s ransom.’ She is said to have blenched at the sight, then laughed nervously, and to have slapped York’s face, before ordering that the heads be placed on pikes above the Micklegate Bar, the main entrance to the city, ‘so that York shall overlook the town of York’, and that two empty pikes be placed next to them, ready for the heads of March and Warwick, ‘which she intended should soon keep them company’. Although the heads of York, Salisbury and Rutland were indeed exhibited above the Micklegate Bar, their bodies having been quietly buried at Pontefract, there is no truth in this story. Margaret was not in York at the time, and had in fact returned to Edinburgh as a guest of the Queen of Scotland, staying there throughout late December, when the battle was fought. Only after she received news of the victory did she hasten south – clad in robes given her by Queen Mary, a long black gown and a black bonnet with a silver plume, and riding a silver jennet – to rejoin her army in Yorkshire.
Few magnates mourned York’s death. He had not been a man to inspire affection among his peers. But the common people, whose champion he had professed to be, grieved for his passing. He was nominally succeeded as Duke of York by his son, March, who now became, at the age of eighteen, the premier English magnate. Henry VI, however, refused to acknowledge his right to succeed his father, nor would he allow him to bear the title Earl of Chester, as he was entitled to do as heir to the throne under the terms of the Act of Accord.
Some time after the battle a memorial to York’s memory was set up by the road leading from Sandal to Wakefield, about 400 yards from the castle. This cross appears to have been dismantled in the 1640s. The present monument to the fallen was set up in 1897 in the grounds of Manygates School, and is adorned with a carving of York based on a now-vanished stone effigy that once stood on the Welsh Bridge at Shrewsbury. The site of the battle is now covered by modern houses and industrial units, but from time to time bones, swords, pieces of armour, spurs and other items have been dug up by local people.
After Wakefield, the battles of the Wars of the Roses were to become bloodier and the commanders more ruthless. Up to that time strenuous efforts had been made by both sides to avoid military confrontations. That era was past, and it was now tacitly accepted that major disputes could only be settled by violence.
On 2 January 1461 Warwick, in London, heard the news of York’s defeat and death. March was still celebrating Christmas at Shrewsbury when a messenger came with the dreadful tidings, and he was ‘wonderfully amazed’ with grief. Spurred on by his determination to avenge his father’s death and his brother’s murder, the new Duke speedily raised an army, recruiting mainly in the Marcher shires and assembling his men at Wigmore and Ludlow. With him were Sir William Herbert and his brother Richard, Sir Walter Devereux, Roger Vaughan of Tretower, and other men of York’s local affinity. York himself was dead, but his claim to the throne had passed to his son, who had every intention of enforcing it. And as the executed Salisbury had supported York, so his son, Warwick, would continue to support York’s heir.