20
Once Berwick was theirs, the Scots saw no further advantage to be gained from the Lancastrian exiles, and lost interest in their cause. Mary of Gueldres was finding it expensive to support them, and by the summer of 1461 it was obvious to Queen Margaret that the faction-ridden Scottish court was unlikely to offer her any financial aid. All she could expect was the goodwill of individuals such as the Earl of Angus, who offered her men in return for the promise of a dukedom in England. Her best hope now, she realised, lay in appealing to Charles VII of France for assistance.
In July, the Queen dispatched Somerset and two other envoys, Lord Hungerford and Sir Robert Whittingham, to the French court to ask for men, ships and a loan of 20,000 crowns. She also employed Pierre de Brézé to request a further loan of 80,000 crowns and another fleet to enable the Lancastrians to conquer the Channel Islands and so make a bridgehead to England. ‘If the Queen’s intentions were discovered,’ wrote Brézé, ‘her friends would unite with her enemies to kill her.’ Charles agreed that Brézé could assemble ships and men for the projected invasion, and with French help the Lancastrians did occupy Jersey that year, though it was later recaptured by the Yorkists.
By invoking foreign aid from England’s traditional enemies, although it was indeed the only realistic option open to her, Margaret made the Lancastrian cause doubly unpopular in England and provided the Yorkists with splendid propaganda material. Her actions changed the course of the Wars of the Roses, which as a result now became dependent upon the tortuous diplomacy and shifting alliances of late fifteenth-century European politics. Her involvement of foreign princes in the conflict gave them the opportunity to subvert the common weal of England by playing off one faction against the other there and inciting rebellion.
Before Somerset, Hungerford and Whittingham could gain an audience, Charles VII died on 22 July and was succeeded by his son Louis XI. This was seemingly bad news for the Queen, because Louis hated his mother’s family, the House of Anjou, and manifested this almost at once by placing Hungerford and Whittingham under house arrest at Dieppe, while Somerset found himself a prisoner in the Castle of Arques.
Louis had hitherto been friendly towards the Yorkists, and news of his accession was greeted with some relief at Edward IV’s court as fears of a French invasion receded. But this euphoria was short-lived. During the 1460s international politics were dominated by the rivalry between France and its vassal state, Burgundy; both France and Burgundy wanted the friendship of England, but France, although more powerful, was England’s traditional enemy, while the Low Countries, ruled by Burgundy, were the chief market for English wool.
Louis’s main ambition was to conquer the duchy of Burgundy, as well as that of Brittany, and absorb them into the kingdom of France. He both resented and feared the power of Burgundy, and was therefore determined to prevent Edward IV from forming a defensive alliance with Duke Philip. Louis would, with reason, come to be known as the ‘Universal Spider’, because his web of political intrigue encompassed the whole of Europe, and his portraits show a man of uninspiring appearance, with an over-long, hooked nose, a mouth on which sat an expression of perpetual disdain, a double chin, and heavy-lidded, wary eyes.
Edward IV was in a strong position, and knew it. He was a bachelor, free to make a marriage alliance with either France or Burgundy. It was now a question of waiting to see who could offer the most advantageous terms.
On 30 August, Lord Hungerford wrote to Queen Margaret from Dieppe, sending three copies of his letter by different routes, informing her that he and Whittingham had been summoned to see King Louis. ‘Madam, fear not, but be of good comfort,’ he wrote, ‘and beware ye venture not your person by sea till ye have other word from us.’ Yet, to their surprise, the envoys found Louis prepared to be very friendly towards them and their mistress, the reason being that it now suited his purpose to see England divided by civil war. He had decided on an aggressive policy against Burgundy and did not want Edward IV to unite with Philip against him. He therefore told Hungerford and Whittingham that he would support the Queen in her attempts to subvert the north of England. This was good news indeed, for the King of France was a powerful ally. From now on Margaret’s chief desire would be to meet with him and conclude a formal Franco-Lancastrian alliance.
Meanwhile, King Edward’s spies had intercepted one of Hungerford’s letters, which proved to him that Margaret was intriguing with the French. From this time onwards he and his government would live with the ever-present fear of invasion. Believing that this would centre on the north, the King sent Warwick to capture the great Northumbrian stronghold of Alnwick, seat of the Earl of Northumberland who had fallen at Towton and would soon be posthumously attainted. Northumberland’s younger brother, Sir Ralph Percy, had submitted to Edward and was now entrusted with the safe-keeping of the defensive royal castle of Dunstanburgh on the Northumbrian coast. In September, Warwick took not only Alnwick Castle but also Bamburgh Castle. The chief strongholds of Northumbria were now in Yorkist hands.
King Edward entrusted the task of crushing the rebellious Lancastrians in Wales to his lieutenants Lord Ferrers and Sir William Herbert, the latter of whom had been created Lord Herbert of Raglan, Chepstow and Gower in July. Their first objective was to take Pembroke Castle, which surrendered on 30 September. When Herbert took possession he found four-year-old Henry Tudor living in the castle with his mother and her second husband, Henry Stafford. Herbert bought Henry’s wardship for £1000 and removed him from his mother’s care and into his own household. The boy spent much of the next nine years at the luxuriously appointed Raglan Castle where Herbert, although a rough and often violent man, proved a surprisingly good guardian, providing the boy with an excellent education and planning to marry him to his daughter, Maud Herbert.
By 4 October only two Welsh castles remained in enemy hands – Carreg Cennen in Dyfed, which fell to the Yorkists in 1462, and the mighty fortress of Harlech.
It was Edward IV’s intention that Herbert should replace Jasper Tudor, who had now fled via Ireland to Scotland, as the King’s representative in south Wales. This was no easy job, for there were many who lamented the departure of Jasper and resented the presence of Herbert. Moreover, during the campaign Herbert had again fallen out with Warwick, this time over who should have possession of the lordship of Newport, a dispute which rapidly turned into a major and long-lasting feud fuelled by Warwick’s jealousy of Herbert’s status in Wales. Warwick had long cherished dreams of building a power base in the principality, and now Herbert stood in his way.
The first Parliament of Edward’s reign met in November in the Painted Chamber of the Palace of Westminster. Addressing the Speaker the King proclaimed his ‘right and title unto the Crown’, and thanked Almighty God that his house was restored to it, promising to be ‘as good and gracious a sovereign lord as ever was any of my noble progenitors’. On 1 November, he created his brother Richard Duke of Gloucester and sent the boy to live in Warwick’s household at Middleham to be educated with the sons of other peers, as befitted his rank. On the same day Edward raised Lord Fauconberg to be Earl of Kent.
Both King and Parliament were anxious to re-establish the moral, political and legal authority of Parliament, and there was a high turnout of magnates. The Lord Chancellor announced that the practices of livery and maintenance*7 would be banned by law from now on. On the King’s command, a comprehensive programme of legal reform was to be launched. To enable the authorities to restore law and order, all subjects were urged to bring murderers and thieves to justice, while those who had been pardoned of earliercrimes would face the severest penalties if they re-offended. Commissioners were sent into all parts of the realm to ensure that the law was being enforced fairly, and, predictably, this resulted in the courts convicting a record number of offenders. Justice was truly being seen to be done.
On 4 November, Acts of Attainder were passed against 150 Lancastrians, including ‘the usurper’ Henry VI, Margaret, ‘late called Queen of England’, Edward, who is referred to as her son, not Henry’s, Somerset, Exeter, Devon, Wiltshire, Northumberland, Fortescue, Beaumont, Roos, Clifford, Hungerford, Welles, Neville, Dacre and Trollope. Many of these were dead and beyond human retribution, in which case their relatives would suffer confiscation of all their property, but all were thus declared traitors to their liege lord Edward IV. The confiscation of so much Lancastrian property meant that Edward could reward his supporters well, and there followed a large-scale redistribution of lands, titles, offices and estates among the Yorkist hierarchy. The duchy of Lancaster was also declared forfeit to the Crown, in whose hands it has remained ever since, and all true subjects were forbidden, on pain of death, to communicate with the former king and queen.
Lord Clifford’s widow, Margaret Bromflete, went in great fear that the King’s vengeance would extend to her seven-year-old son, Henry, the dispossessed heir. Fortunately, one of her former nursery maids at Skipton Castle had recently married a shepherd and gone to live at Londesbrough, where Lady Clifford’s family had an estate, and this woman now agreed to take Henry into her home and bring him up as her own. When the King’s officers came to Skipton, Lady Clifford told them that she had sent the boy and his younger brother to the safety of the Low Countries, where they were being educated. Her story was believed, but she was nevertheless evicted from Skipton and went to live with her father at Londesbrough, where she at least had the consolation of being able to see her son.
Another boy who was deprived of his title by Parliament was Henry Tudor, whose earldom of Richmond was given to the King’s brother Clarence. As for the attainted Duke of Exeter, he had gone into exile on the Continent, where Commines saw him ‘walking barefooted, begging his livelihood from house to house’.
Other Lancastrian supporters chose to remain in England and work for the restoration of Henry VI. Early in 1462, John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford, whose line could be traced back to the time of the Conqueror, was in communication with the exiled royal family in Scotland. Oxford was one of the Queen’s chief agents in England and the head of a group of conspirators who were planning a Lancastrian invasion and the overthrow of Edward IV. Unfortunately for the Earl his courier was a Yorkist double-agent, who took his letters straight to the King. They revealed that Oxford, having learned that Edward was planning to march north to deal with the Lancastrian rebels, intended to follow him with a bigger force, pretending he had come to offer assistance, although, when the time was ripe, he would attack and kill him. Somerset, then in Bruges, would return to England, while Henry VI would lead an army of Scots over the border and Jasper Tudor would invade the south coast from Brittany.
On 23 February Oxford was tried by Tiptoft and convicted of treason, along with his son Aubrey and other conspirators, including Sir Thomas Tuddenham: all were sentenced to death. Oxford’s sufferings were intense: he was disembowelled, then castrated, and finally, still conscious, burned alive. Edward IV permitted his second son, John, to inherit his father’s earldom, and married him to Warwick’s sister, Margaret Neville, to keep him loyal, but despite this John de Vere remained true to his father’s ideals and stayed a staunch Lancastrian to the end of his days.
Queen Margaret was preparing to visit Louis XI, and her expectations of him were high, especially after she learned that he had been actively involved in Oxford’s conspiracy. She was appalled, therefore, to learn from her agents in France that Somerset had been boasting to Louis about the mutual love between himself and the Queen. When Somerset returned to Scotland, Margaret’s displeasure was all too evident and relations between them were strained for a time. She was also disappointed that none of her envoys had managed to obtain anything other than verbal support from Louis. Nevertheless Edward IV believed that Somerset’s arrival in Scotland presaged a Lancastrian invasion, and had decided to take preventive action by putting diplomatic pressure on Mary of Gueldres to abandon the exiles. He even offered her marriage, though Mary was non-committal and the plan was dropped.
Margaret knew she must meet Louis face to face and solicit his help, and early in April 1462 she embarked for France at Kirkcudbright in a French ship, taking with her the Prince and Sir John Fortescue. On Good Friday, 16 April, they landed in Brittany, where the Queen was warmly welcomed by Duke Francis II, who presented her with a gift of 12,000 crowns. Awaiting her also was Jasper Tudor, who had learned of her coming and ridden to join her. The Duke told her that King Louis was away in the south of France, so she travelled on to Angers without delay. Here she was reunited with her father, King René. Both were impoverished, and René had to borrow 8000 florins to finance ‘the great and sumptuous expense of her coming’. Nor was he able to offer his daughter any help, for all of his slender resources were being eaten up by a costly and unnecessary war with Aragon. At the end of two weeks, Margaret bade him farewell, and set off to meet King Louis.
In May, to show Mary of Gueldres that Edward meant business, Warwick led an army across the border and seized a Scottish castle. The ploy worked. Later that month, Mary met the Earl at Carlisle and signed a truce to last until 24 August. Warwick believed this might lead to a more permanent peace that would effectively close Scotland to the Lancastrians.
Queen Margaret, after trailing the French court for several weeks, finally caught up with it at Amboise. When she was admitted to the King’s presence, she stunned everyone present by prostrating herself at Louis’s feet and making an emotional plea that he should help her husband regain his throne. Louis appeared unmoved. By a show of lack of interest, he meant to force the Queen to an arrangement favourable to himself. ‘I assure you,’ he wrote to one of his ministers, ‘I foresee good winnings.’
After his mother, Queen Marie, and King René had put pressure on him, Louis granted Margaret another interview and told her that if she would agree to surrender Calais to him he would lend her 20,000 francs with which to finance an invasion of England. But Margaret at first demurred, saying that she dared not alienate the English further by surrendering Calais. Louis conceded the point, and in June, as a favour to the Queen, he released Pierre de Brézé from the prison where he had been confined for some minor offence. On the 13th Louis saw Margaret again and offered her, in return for Calais, 2000 men under Brézé, 20,000 francs in ready cash, and the authority to muster men in Normandy. Margaret capitulated. On 28 June, on Henry VI’s behalf, she signed a treaty of peace with France, providing for a hundred-year truce and barring all Englishmen from entering France unless they were certified true subjects of King Henry. Both countries compacted not to enter into alliances with each other’s enemies or rebellious subjects. On the same day Louis handed over the promised 20,000 francs, and Margaret undertook to surrender Calais within a year or pay him the sum of 40,000 francs.
After the treaty was signed, the Queen went to Rouen to recruit men, while Louis sent his ships to harry the English coast. Brézé had already raised a force of between 800 and 2000 soldiers and mercenaries. When news of the agreement between Louis and Margaret filtered through to England, she was called a traitor for offering to hand Calais back to the French, and King Edward dispatched seventy ships to harry the French coast and intercept any fleet that might be sailing thence to Scotland or England. In July, he appointed Fauconberg, his most distinguished veteran, Admiral of England.
In October 1462, in anticipation of a Lancastrian invasion from France, Sir Richard Tunstall, a champion of the Queen, successfully plotted to wrest Bamburgh Castle from its constable, his brother William, and installed a Lancastrian garrison. On the 19th, Queen Margaret, Prince Edward, Pierre de Brézé and 2000 men sailed from Honfleur in Normandy in a dozen ships and made for the coast of Northumberland. The Yorkist garrison at Tynemouth prevented them from landing and fired cannon at them. Their ships were then scattered in a violent storm and some were lost. When the sea was calm again they sailed further up the coast and landed near Alnwick, where they received a warning that Warwick was approaching with an army of 40,000 men. This was enough to make most of the mercenaries abandon the Queen and flee to the ships for safety, leaving Margaret, Brézé and the Prince standing disconsolately on the shore watching their fleet retreating out to sea. Eventually they found a fisherman who agreed to take them further along the coast, but another storm blew up and his boat broke up on the rocks at Bamburgh while such provisions, baggage and weapons as they had with them were washed overboard and they themselves barely escaped with their lives.
The Queen expected loyal Lancastrians to rally to her at Bamburgh, but those who might have joined her were dismayed to find she had brought barely a soldier with her and deemed it safer to remain neutral. Undaunted, the Queen reinforced Tunstall’s garrison at Bamburgh with French troops who had sailed up the coast and rejoined her, marched on to Dunstanburgh Castle and took it, and went from there to Alnwick Castle, to which her remaining soldiers laid siege. Lacking provisions, it capitulated almost at once, and soon afterwards, Warkworth Castle also fell to the Lancastrians. With these strongholds in her hands, the Queen was now in virtual possession of Northumberland, but still very few Englishmen joined her cause, and many of the locals resented the French garrisons. Margaret ordered that each castle be stocked with sufficient provisions to withstand a siege, then travelled north to Berwick, where she found Henry VI, Somerset, Exeter, Pembroke, Roos, Hungerford and Morton waiting for her.
Mary of Gueldres was not pleased to be asked for yet more aid and gave only a pittance to help finance this latest venture. Leaving the Prince at Berwick, the King and Queen then set out to invade England, accompanied only by their retinue and Margaret’s 800 remaining men.
On 30 October news of the invasion reached London by fast courier. This new threat stretched the King’s resources, and he was obliged to levy heavy taxes and borrow money from London merchants in order to meet the costs of raising an army. He then sent out commissioners to the south and west to array men, arranged for shipments of provisions to be sent to Newcastle, and Warwick was dispatched north with orders to lay siege to Berwick. Early in November King Edward marched his army north to confront the invaders; with him marched thirty-one peers – a record for the period – including some who had recently transferred their allegiance to the Yorkists.
News that Edward was coming at the head of an army was soon conveyed to Queen Margaret. She now placed Somerset in command of the garrison at Bamburgh Castle, supported by Roos, Pembroke and Sir Ralph Percy, who had recently turned traitor to the King. Her army, meanwhile, was causing havoc, her soldiers descending on the priories at Hexham and Durham and demanding funds for her use. When Edward IV arrived in Durham he was confronted by an angry prior demanding repayment of 400 marks which the Queen had forced him to lend her, while the Prior of Hexham was writing to anyone who might be sympathetic, including Warwick’s sister, complaining about the money the Queen had made him give her ‘through dread and fear’.
On 13 November, having received reports of the size of the Yorkist host, and knowing her small force was nowhere near equal to it, Margaret ‘brake her field and fled’ with Henry VI, Pierre de Brézé and over 400 soldiers from Bamburgh in a small caravel, with as much luggage as it would hold, hoping that a French ship would rescue them. As they neared Holy Island, wrote a London chronicler, ‘There came upon them such a tempest that she was fain to leave the caravel and take a fisher’s boat, and so went a-land to Berwick, and the said caravel and goods were drowned.’ Four hundred of her men were stranded on Holy Island, and were obliged to surrender to two local Yorkists, when some were taken prisoner and others, not so lucky, were put to the sword as an example to others. When Edward learned of Margaret’s flight, he decided to pursue her, but before he could do so he was struck down by a virulent attack of measles and confined to bed at Durham.
Warwick had meanwhile captured Warkworth Castle and made it his headquarters. He now laid siege to Bamburgh Castle, which occupied a wonderful strategic position, standing sentinel over the rocky Northumbrian coast. The Lancastrian garrison under Somerset held out for as long as possible, while Warwick sent messages promising Somerset a generous pension if he would surrender. In return, Somerset demanded that Sir Ralph Percy be granted custody of Bamburgh after he handed it over, that the lords withhim would be restored to their estates and the lives of the garrison would be spared. Warwick agreed to these demands, and on Christmas Eve Somerset gave up the keys of the castle to him. Inside, Warwick found Margaret’s provisions and personal effects, which he sent to King Edward. Somerset now formally pledged his allegiance to Edward IV, and rode off to assist Warwick at the siege of Alnwick, Warwick having sent a force to reduce that castle and another to Dunstanburgh.
Edward had for some time cherished notions of winning over Somerset, and had therefore been prepared to be more than conciliatory, knowing that the defection of one of their staunchest adherents would be a sickening blow to his enemies. Somerset’s desertion of the Lancastrians may have been prompted by the desire for personal gain or by rivalry with Brézé for the Queen’s favour; certainly relations between himself and Margaret had been strained of late.
Conducting a siege in midwinter posed almost as many problems for the besiegers as for the besieged. Food was in short supply and weather conditions were miserable. At Alnwick, according to the chronicler Warkworth, the soldiers were soon complaining that ‘they had [to] lie there so long and were grieved with cold and rain, so that they had no courage to fight’. Nevertheless, by the feast of the Epiphany, 6 January 1463, Alnwick and Dunstanburgh had surrendered to the Yorkists, and Pembroke, unwilling to reach any compromise with Edward IV, returned to Scotland.
The surrender of these Northumbrian castles effectively ended the campaign, and the King withdrew his army south, leaving Warwick to guard the border, a task he undertook with commendable energy and efficiency. ‘King Edward now possessed the whole of England, except a castle in north Wales called Harlech,’ observed Warkworth.
With Margaret in Scotland, the King now decided to prevent her from obtaining any further support from the French by sending an embassy to negotiate a treaty of friendship, or a truce at the least, with Louis XI. When the Queen heard of his intention, she made it her aim to sabotage any attempt by Edward to win Louis over and to persuade the French king to provide further aid for her own cause.
After the Northumbrian castles had fallen, Margaret’s French and Scottish mercenaries had followed her north to Scotland, where they regrouped, and just before Lent 1463, with the Queen and Brézé at their head, they marched across the River Tweed into Northumberland. Sir Ralph Percy, the untrustworthy captain of Bamburgh, allowed the Queen’s French mercenaries into the castle, and thereby enabled the Lancastrians to take it for Henry VI. Percy was also captain of Dunstanburgh Castle, and as soon as the garrison saw the Queen approaching it also surrendered, while on 1 May, thanks to the treachery of Sir Ralph Grey, Alnwick Castle opened its gates to the invaders. Later that month Margaret, Henry VI and Brézé took up residence in Bamburgh, making it their headquarters. With control of the Northumbrian fortresses restored to her, Margaret was now nominally in command of much of the north, though the local population were less than enthusiastic in their support. They were sickened by constant strife and internecine warfare, and the benefits of two years of Edward’s rule were beginning to manifest themselves. In London, however, the government and citizens were horrified at the swift success of the Lancastrian invasion, and the King sent Warwick north again, commanding that ‘the great rebellious Harry and Margaret should not pass away by water’. On 1 June Warwick’s brother Montague was made Warden of the Eastern March of the border.
Meanwhile Parliament, at the King’s wish, had reversed the attainder on Somerset, restoring his titles and estates to him. Edward himself was making a point of cultivating Somerset’s friendship and accorded him a place of honour at court, hunting and feasting with him and taking him with him on his travels around the kingdom. ‘The King made much of him, insomuch that he lodged with the King in his own bed many nights’, and tournaments were held in his honour. For a time it seemed as if Edward had succeeded in making the Duke forget those whom he had betrayed.
Early in June, suspecting that Louis XI was going over to the Yorkists, Margaret of Anjou appealed to Philip of Burgundy for aid; she had learned that a peace conference between England, France and Burgundy was due to take place on 24 June at St Omer, and was worried in case Philip signed a truce or alliance with England and France that would leave her politically isolated and without the support of a European ally. On the day the conference began, Philip sent her a token gift of 1000 crowns, which greatly encouraged her; she did not realise, however, that it was a sop to keep her quiet and – hopefully – away from St Omer.
During the conference Edward IV and Louis XI, through their envoys, concluded a truce and agreed that they would not succour each other’s enemies, which effectively closed France to the Lancastrian exiles. Margaret was now desperate to cross the Channel and see Philip face to face, to pre-empt him from entering into any agreement with France or England. Although they had never been friends, Philip now represented her last hope.
Warwick was hoping to consolidate the new amity between Edward and Louis by negotiating his master’s marriage to a French princess. Louis’s own daughter was too young, and he offered instead Bona of Savoy, sister of his queen, Charlotte, while Philip, fearing that such an alliance posed a threat to Burgundy, countered the offer by offering Edward one of his nieces. Edward did not respond to either, though he was inclined towards friendship with France.
In June, Lord Montague repelled a Lancastrian attack on Newcastle, and ships from France, laden with supplies for the Queen, were intercepted by sailors loyal to the King. This was a blow to Margaret as Louis was not now likely to replace what had been lost. At that time the Lancastrians were besieging Norham Castle, which stood on the banks of the Tweed and was owned by the Bishop of Durham. They were assisted by the Scots, who stood to gain more advantage from the capture of the castle than the Lancastrians, but the Queen wanted Scottish aid and had no choice but to be accommodating. The siege lasted eighteen days until Warwick arrived and, with the help of Montague and a force of local people, put both Scots and Lancastrians to flight.
The Queen and her party, hotly pursued by their enemies, fell back on Bamburgh. During their flight, one of the most famous and romanticised episodes of the Wars of the Roses took place. Many modern historians dismiss it as mere legend, but the fact remains that the chronicler Georges Chastellain heard it from the Queen herself later in the year.
On the road, the Queen and her son were separated from the rest; suddenly, a gang of robbers sprang from nearby bushes, seized her baggage, pulled off her jewellery, then dragged her with brutal violence and menacing threats before their leader. He grabbed her by her robe, wielding a drawn sword in readiness to cut her throat, threatening her with indignities and tortures, whereupon she threw herself on her knees and, with clasped hands, wept and cried for mercy, imploring him to have pity on her and not to mangle or disfigure her body and so prevent it from being recognised after death. For, she said, ‘I am the daughter and wife of a king, and was in past time recognised by yourselves as your queen. Wherefore if you now stain your hands with my blood, your cruelty will be held in abhorrence by all men in all ages.’
Her words wrought a curious change in the man. Perhaps he had been a Lancastrian soldier and had once fought for her. Now he fell on his knees before her and swore to die rather than harm or forsake her or the Prince. He told her he was known as Black Jack, and led them by a secret route to a cave beside a stream in Deepden Woods, which is still to be seen and still known as the ‘Queen’s Cave’. Here they sheltered for two days until Brézé and his squire, Barville, who had been searching for the Queen and Prince, found them. After bidding farewell to Black Jack and pardoning him for the offences he had committed, the Queen and Brézé rode to Carlisle and thence across the Scottish border to Kirkcudbright.
While she was there, an English spy called Cork devised a plan to kidnap her and take her to Edward IV. He paid his men well, and one night they laid hands on Brézé and Barville and forced them into a small rowing boat, where they were bound and gagged. After that, it was an easy matter to capture the unguarded Queen and her son, drag them on board and put to sea. There they remained all night, but in the light of dawn the Queen recognised Brézé and surreptitiously helped him to loosen his bonds. Freed, he was able to knock Cork senseless and seize the oars. For some hours the boat was tossed in the choppy waters of the Solway Firth before being beached at Kirkcudbright Bay, a wild and desolate place. Brézé carried the Queen ashore and laid her down on the sand to recuperate, while Barville joined them with the Prince. When they had recovered they all walked to a nearby hamlet and begged shelter. Brézé sent Barville to Edinburgh – a hundred miles away – to enlist the help of Queen Mary. He came back with a message that Mary would see Margaret, but only in private, and that the betrothal between the Prince and Margaret Stewart had been broken at Burgundy’s request. Perplexed and angry, Margaret made her own way to Edinburgh, but could not prevail upon the embarrassed Scottish government to change its mind. All the Regent would do was help her return to her friends in Northumberland.
Margaret was now in desperate straits, being so poor that she was obliged to borrow a groat from a Scottish archer to make an offering on the feast day of her patron saint, St Margaret. As she made her way back with Brézé towards Bamburgh, she met up with her husband and son, but their food supplies quickly ran out and, according to Chastellain, they ‘were reduced to such abject misery and destitution that for five days they had but one herring between the three and not more bread than would have sufficed a day’s nourishment’.
Meanwhile the activities of the Lancastrians in the north had rebounded on Somerset, who had in no way been involved. There were many at court who resented his appointment as captain of the garrison at Newcastle, and who could not forget the support givento the Lancastrians by himself and his family, and in late July the King sent him away from court for his own safety; the Duke appears to have gone to one of the royal castles in Wales.
Margaret of Anjou was now determined to make a personal plea to Burgundy for help, especially after July 1463, when she learned that Warwick was marching north with a great host, and knew she had no hope of holding out against him. After bidding farewell to Henry VI at Bamburgh, promising that she would be back in the spring with a new army, the Queen sailed with Brézé, Exeter, Fortescue, Morton and 200 men in four fishing vessels, while Henry then made his way to Berwick.
On 31 July, after enduring violent gales lasting twelve hours, the Queen’s vessels were obliged to put in at Sluys in Flanders because they were too damaged to sail further. Margaret was destitute, having no money, no royal robes, and no possessions of value – they had been sold to finance her military ventures. All she had to wear was the short red gown that she stood up in, cut to the knee like a peasant woman’s. Her retinue was reduced to just seven women attired as poorly as their mistress. She was totally dependent on Brézé for money and food, even though he himself was in extreme poverty, having spent all he had – 50,000 crowns – on serving her.
Margaret was trusting in an out-of-date safe-conduct issued by Philip years before to guarantee her safe passage through his territories, yet her welcome in Sluys was frosty. The people were loyal to their duke and they remembered that this woman had been his mortal enemy in the days of her prosperity, and made many ‘savage comments’ on her misfortunes. It was, wrote Chastellain, ‘a piteous thing truly to see, this high princess so cast down and laid low in much great danger, dying of hunger and hardship because she was forced to throw herself on the mercy of the one in all the world most set against her’. Yet, despite her lack of resources and the hostility of the Flemings, the Queen was resolved to see Philip and sabotage the peace conference at St Omer. She was full of hope that her plight would move Philip to succour her,
As soon as she came on shore, Margaret sent a messenger to the Duke to request an audience, saying she came ‘in humility and poverty to seek of his greatness a refuge for herself and her child, which she trusted he was too proud to deny her’. Philip was sympathetic, but he was also anxious to conclude a treaty of friendship with Edward IV and so preserve the trade links between England and Burgundy, and did not want the Lancastrian queen embarrassing him in front of the English envoys. He therefore played for time, pleading sickness, while hoping that she would go away, then sent to say he had gone on pilgrimage to Our Lady of Boulogne and, as English-owned Calais was nearby, it was too dangerous for her to join him. Margaret told his messenger, ‘I will go in quest of him, whether it imperil me or not. Were my cousin of Burgundy to go to the end of the world, I would follow him.’
The messenger hurried back to Philip and told him that nothing on earth could deflect the Queen from her purpose and ‘see him she would’. Philip said he would see her if he had to, at Boulogne – no doubt he hoped that the English might capture her on the way. Then his chivalry and good manners prevailed and he sent a message informing Margaret that he would meet her at St Pol. By the time he got there the English ambassadors would have departed.
When the meeting took place, previous differences were glossed over by a veneer of courtesy. The Duke told the Queen that she was welcome in Burgundy and that he was sorry for her misfortunes, but he did not commit himself further than to say that in his dealings with Edward IV he would have an eye to her interests. After he left St Pol he sent Margaret 2000 gold crowns and a diamond ring, a hundred crowns for Brézé and a hundred crowns each for the Queen’s ladies. In September he sent his sister, the Duchess of Bourbon, and her daughter, who was married to Margaret’s brother John of Calabria, to be companions for the Queen. A warm friendship sprang up between the two women, and Margaret told the Duchess that no parallel to her adventures could be found in books, recounting in detail the sufferings she had endured. The Duchess observed that, if a book were to be written on the troubles of royal ladies, Margaret would be found to excel them all in calamity.
In September Margaret went to Bruges, where she was royally entertained by Philip’s son Charles, Count of Charolais. At a banquet given in her honour, the Queen, whose royal dignity and manners had not been impaired by her penury, indicated that Charolais should use the fingerbowl before herself and the Prince. But he, following the example of his father, who always insisted on paying due reverence to crowned heads, absolutely refused to come forward, saying that the son of a duke ought not to wash with the son of a king. The affair almost provoked a diplomatic incident. The Burgundian court, where great attention was paid to matters of etiquette, was a-buzz with consternation in case some offence had been given, and messengers were even sent to the Duke to ask his advice on the question of precedence. He agreed that Charles had acted properly and preserved the honour of Burgundy.
Margaret met the chronicler Georges Chastellain in Bruges and at his request recounted her adventures, which he related in detail in his chronicle. His imagination was stirred by her beauty and her misfortunes, and he was grieved to hear her say that she had several times thought of killing herself, ‘but happily the fear of God, and His restraining grace, had preserved her from so deadly a sin’.
Enriched with a gift of 12,000 crowns from Philip, Margaret rode on to Nancy to see her father, King René. Realising the hopelessness of her cause and knowing that it would be dangerous for her to return to Scotland, he persuaded her to remain in France for the present, and lent her his castle of Koeur-la-Petite in the duchy of Bar. Here she set up a small court of exiles, who included Sir John Fortescue, Dr John Morton, Sir Robert Whittingham, and George Ashby, her clerk of the signet. René allocated her 6000 crowns a year, but this did not cover her expenses and for most of her exile she lived on or near the breadline. This drove her to pay long visits to various relatives, including her grandmother, Yolande of Aragon, her brother, John of Calabria, and her aunt, the Dowager Queen Marie of France at Amboise. From time to time she went to Paris to try to revive King Louis’s interest in her cause, but in vain. She also tried to enlist the support of the Emperor Frederick III, the King of Portugal and Charles of Charolais, but met with no better success.
All her hopes for the future rested on her ten-year-old son. She was now able to devote some time to his education, and appointed Fortescue his chief tutor. Fortescue wrote a treatise on the laws of England – De Laudibus legum Angliae – for the boy, and schooled him well, probably with the help of George Ashby. Edward flourished under his guidance and doubtless benefited from this more settled existence. His mother taught him courtesy and social skills, and he received the customary military training considered mandatory for a boy of his rank from the men of her household.
Early in December 1463, King Edward’s prolonged negotiations with the Scots bore fruit in the form of a truce, one of the conditions of which was that James III undertook not to give any further help to the Lancastrians. This caused the Scots no heart-searching, for they believed by now that Henry VI’s cause was irrevocably lost. On 8 December, Henry VI crossed the border with his small court and again took up residence at Bamburgh Castle, where for the next few months he would rule what remained of his kingdom – the Northumbrian castles.
For some time Somerset had suffered mounting frustration at King Edward’s failure to pay him the pension promised a year earlier. He may also have felt guilty about abandoning Henry VI. In December 1463 he finally deserted Edward IV, riding from Wales to Newcastle, having sent ahead to instruct his men there to open the gates. In an inn near Durham he was recognised and, being awakened in the dead of night by footsteps outside his room, he was obliged to escape via the window wearing only his shirt and no shoes. Meanwhile, the Yorkist garrison at Newcastle had learned of his coming and put his retainers to flight. The Duke was therefore obliged to leave England and make his way to Margaret of Anjou’s court at Bar, where he begged her forgiveness for his disloyalty and the Queen, glad to have him at her side once more, readily made her peace with him.
Edward IV was bitterly hurt by Somerset’s defection, especially after he had shown the Duke such friendship. Worse still, Somerset’s desertion heralded a new Lancastrian conspiracy against the King, for in Wales, Pembroke was doing his best to rouse the people in support of Henry VI, and during the early months of 1464 the deposed king’s supporters were very active in the north. Somerset and Sir Ralph Percy were stirring the commons to rebellion, and a raiding party from Alnwick ventured into Yorkist territory and seized Skipton Castle in Yorkshire. Henry VI rode south as far as Lancashire to raise support, and before long the Lancastrians had sufficient strength to launch successful raids against the castles at Bywell, Langley and Hexham. There were minor risings in support of Henry VI in East Anglia, Gloucestershire, Cheshire, Lancashire, Staffordshire and Wales, but all were suppressed by King Edward with ruthless thoroughness. Sir William Tailboys was found hiding in a coalmine near Newcastle with 3000 marks, which had been destined as pay for Lancastrian troops, but were now seized by Lord Montague’s men and distributed among them.
Queen Margaret was at this time trying to interest the Duke of Brittany in supporting the Lancastrian cause. Pembroke persuaded him to give ships and men for an invasion of Wales, and was allowed to gather his fleet at St Malo, whence he sailed in March, under the command of Alain de la Motte, Vice-Admiral of Brittany. But news of the suppression of the Lancastrian risings in England made Pembroke turn back, and the projected invasion of Wales never took place.
Nevertheless, information wrung out of captured Lancastrian agents convinced the government that something important was afoot. On 1 April the renowned Humphrey Neville of Brancepeth, ignoring his pardon from King Edward, rode to Bamburgh and offered Henry VI his sword. Despite the setbacks he had received in recent weeks, Henry was in an optimistic mood, believing that his restoration was imminent.
Warwick had advised King Edward that the only way to establish order in the north was to convert the truce with the Scots into a permanent peace. The Scots were willing to parley, and in April the King sent Montague north to escort their envoys to York. But Somerset, Roos, Hungerford, Humphrey Neville, Sir Ralph Grey and Sir Ralph Percy set a trap for him, concealing eight men with spears and bows in a wood near Newcastle to prevent him from reaching the envoys at Norham. Montague had been warned and neatly avoided the ambush, pressing on only to find Somerset and his companions with 500 men-at-arms confronting him on Hedgeley Moor between Morpeth and Wooler on 25 April. A brief but fierce battle took place. Roos and Hungerford, realising that their side was losing, withdrew from the mêlée, but Sir Ralph Percy fought on to the end, when he was mortally wounded and died in the field alongside most of his men. His death was a serious blow to the Lancastrian cause: many north countrymen had supported it out of loyalty to him.
The battle ended with Montague scattering Somerset’s army. Afterwards, he rode on to Norham, collected the Scottish envoys and escorted them to York, where a fifteen-year truce was agreed upon. Somerset and his remaining companions had meanwhile rejoined Henry VI in Tynedale, where they sat fast and planned their next strategy.