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Edward IV had other preoccupations at this time. He had fallen in love with a most unlikely – and unsuitable – partner. Elizabeth Wydville, the eldest daughter of Earl Rivers, was twenty-seven; she was four years Edward’s senior and a widow. Her husband, Sir John Grey of Groby, had been killed fighting for the Lancastrians at St Albans, leaving her with two small sons, Thomas and Richard. The elder boy had inherited the manor of Bradgate in Leicestershire from his father, and there Elizabeth had been living.
Elizabeth had once been one of Queen Margaret’s ladies-in-waiting, which firmly placed her in the wrong camp to start with. She was of medium height, with a good figure, and she was beautiful, having long gilt-blonde hair and an alluring smile. Edward was oblivious to the fact that she was also calculating, ambitious, devious, greedy, ruthless and arrogant.
By 1464, his subjects were concerned that he had been ‘so long without any wife, and were afeared that he had not been chaste in his living’, according to ‘Gregory’. He had not been chaste, but this was one woman who was not prepared to fall into bed with him and then be discarded. Whatever ruses he employed, she foiled them all and held out for marriage. Yet she was a commoner, and no king of England had married a common subject since before 1066.
Before long, Edward became obsessed with Elizabeth’s cool beauty. Many lurid tales were told of his courtship, even one that, as he tried to rape her, she seized a dagger and made as if to kill herself, crying that she knew herself unworthy to be a queen but valued her honour more than her life. ‘Now take heed what love may do,’ wrote ‘Gregory’, ‘for love will not cast no fault nor peril in nothing.’ Edward’s proposal of marriage was a triumph for the ambitious Elizabeth, for love rarely figured in the unions of kings. Mancini observed that in his choice of wife the King was ‘governed by lust’. His decision to marry this commoner from a Lancastrian family was an impulsive one and was unlikely to have resulted from a plan to build up a new faction at court to counterbalance the power of the Nevilles. That came later.
The Wydvilles were an old Northamptonshire family, said to be descended from a Norman called William de Wydville, and Elizabeth’s father and grandfather had been loyal servants of successive Lancastrian kings. Lord Rivers had started his career as a country squire, but had improved his social standing and caused a tremendous scandal by marrying Bedford’s widow, Jacquetta of Luxembourg. After their marriage they became known as the handsomest couple in England and produced fourteen children. In the reign of Henry VI Rivers had allied himself with Suffolk and the Beauforts, and he also had connections with the influential Bourchier and Ferrers families. The family seat was at Grafton in Northamptonshire.
Rivers and his eldest son Anthony were cultivated men of many talents and were respected abroad as knights of valour, Anthony especially excelling as a jouster. Mancini describes Anthony as ‘a kind, serious and just man. Whatever his prosperity he injured nobody, though benefiting many.’ Pious and even ascetic, he loved learning, and his treatise The Dictes and Sayings of the Philosophers was the first book to be printed by William Caxton.
For all this, Elizabeth was not a suitable bride for a king whose marriage was a matter of national importance, and in choosing her Edward IV showed appalling political judgement and irresponsibility. By marrying her he gained no financial or political advantage, and threw away the chance of making an advantageous foreign alliance. That he was aware of the unsuitability of the match is proved by the fact that he arranged for his wedding to take place in the strictest secrecy.
At the end of April 1464 the King was riding north to deal with the Lancastrian rebels. On the way he stopped at Stony Stratford, near Northampton, where he ordered the sheriffs of sixteen counties to have all men between sixteen and sixty ‘defensibly arrayed’ and ready to join him at a moment’s notice. Then, before dawn on 1 May, he rode secretly to Grafton, pretending he was going hunting. There, early in the morning, he was married to Elizabeth Wydville in a small chapel called the Hermitage, tucked away in the nearby woods. Recent excavations there have revealed tiles bearing white roses and the heraldic shield of the Wydvilles. The only witnesses were the unknown priest, Elizabeth’s mother, the Duchess of Bedford, two gentlemen, and a young man who helped the priest to sing. After the ceremony Edward and his bride went to bed to consummate their marriage, but then he had to return to Stony Stratford. That night he came back again, and his new wife was secretly smuggled into his bedchamber by her mother. He stayed for four days, ostensibly receiving routine hospitality from Lord Rivers and the Duchess, although at night, again with Jacquetta’s connivance, Elizabeth came to his bed. Before long, this idyll had to end, and by 10 May Edward had ridden to meet his forces at Leicester.
In the three weeks since his defeat at Hedgeley Moor, Somerset had regrouped his army and recruited more men in the north. He then marched south, determined to restore Henry VI, who was then staying at Bywell Castle. But Montague, who was marching to meet this new threat, had at least twice and possibly as many as eight times more men – Warkworth claims he had 10,000, although modern historians estimate perhaps 4000 to the Lancastrians’ 500 – and was ably supported by Lords Greystoke and Willoughby.
The two armies came face to face on 15 May at Hexham, south of the River Tyne. Somerset’s men encamped in a large meadow enclosed on three sides by a river and steep, wooded hillsides. The Duke believed this to be a good defensive position, but in fact it was to prove a deadly bottleneck, as Montague’s men, coming upon them suddenly, blocked the only exit and charged headlong into the meadow. Somerset’s army panicked at the sight, and fell into disarray. Many scrambled up the hillsides and fled into the woods; they later had no choice but to surrender. Those who stood their ground and stayed to confront the enemy were cut down mercilessly or taken prisoner. Somerset himself was captured, and his army annihilated, thus effectively crushing Lancastrian resistance in the north for good.
The Yorkists spent the next few days hunting down the Lancastrian lords who had fled the field. Immediately after the battle, in accordance with the King’s wishes, Montague ordered the execution of Somerset and other captured peers. The Duke was beheaded and his remains interred in Hexham Abbey. He had never married, and left only a bastard son, Charles Somerset, who became the ancestor of the dukes of Beaufort. Somerset’s brother, 25-year-old Edmund Beaufort, styled himself Duke of Somerset after the Duke’s death, but was not formally confirmed in the title and spent the next few years in Burgundy, fighting as a mercenary for Duke Philip.
On 17 May Roos, Hungerford and three others were beheaded at Newcastle. The next day Montague rode south to Middleham Castle, where he ordered the executions of Sir Philip Wentworth and three Lancastrian squires. Sir Thomas Finderne and Sir Edmund Fish met the same fate in York, while others captured at Hexham were tried and convicted of treason in a court presided over by the Constable of England, the sadistic John Tiptoft. All were put to death, and Sir William Tailboys followed them to the scaffold a few weeks later.
Henry VI had narrowly avoided being captured by the Yorkists after Hexham. Enemy soldiers were already on their way to Bywell Castle when a messenger brought news of the Lancastrian defeat, and the King made such a precipitate departure that he left behind his helmet, surmounted with a crown, his sword, his cap of estate, armour and other valuables. One chronicler observed with irony that ‘King Henry was the best horseman of the day, for he fled so fast that no one could overtake him.’
Thereafter he remained a fugitive for over a year, hiding in safe houses in Lancashire, Yorkshire and the Lake District. It is impossible to make a chronology of his movements, for few are known – unlike his wife’s, his adventures are poorly documented. His only companion was his chamberlain, Sir Richard Tunstall. At one time, they disguised themselves as monks and stayed in a monastery in Yorkshire, and they are also said to have hidden at Bolton Hall near Sawley in the West Riding, where a well is named after them, and it is claimed Henry left behind a boot, a glove and a spoon, which are now in the Liverpool Museum; however, since none of these predates the sixteenth century, the tale of his lodging there may be spurious.
In gratitude for his services, Edward gave Montague the earldom of Northumberland and granted him most of the ancestral lands of the Percies. Alnwick Castle, however, was still occupied by the Lancastrians, but on 23 June Warwick appeared before it with an army and demanded its surrender. The garrison agreed, on condition their lives were spared, and Alnwick fell to the Nevilles.
The capitulation of Dunstanburgh and Norham followed in late May, then there remained only Bamburgh, in which Sir Ralph Grey, Humphrey Neville of Brancepeth and others had barricaded themselves after Hexham. Warwick’s army arrived there on 25 May and sent Chester Herald to proclaim a free pardon for the garrison if it surrendered. Grey was exempt from this, however, because he had turned his coat too often. King Edward did not want the castle damaged by artillery, and Warwick warned Grey that every shot fired by his great iron guns, ‘Newcastle’ and ‘London’, that caused such damage, would be paid for by the head of one of the defenders. Grey still refused to open the gates, so Warwick resorted to bombarding the castle with his own guns. Great chunks of masonry crashed into the sea below, while shot from a brass cannon called ‘Dijon’ demolished Grey’s room and he was knocked unconscious by falling stonework and left by his men for dead. Very soon the walls were breached and the victorious Yorkists surged in and occupied the castle. Neville and the garrison were allowed to go free, but Grey, in a daze, was taken prisoner and brought south to stand trial before the notorious Tiptoft, who had him beheaded.
The fall of Bamburgh deprived the Lancastrians of their last power base in the north. There now remained just one bastion of enemy resistance and that was Harlech Castle in Wales, which had been providing safe asylum for Lancastrian refugees since 1461. ‘This castle is so strong that men said that it was impossible to get it,’ wrote ‘Gregory’. In the autumn of 1464 Edward IV appointed Lord Herbert constable of Harlech Castle, charging him to take it for the Yorkists and allocating him funds of £2000 for the purpose. Herbert began a prolonged siege, but still the enemy remained unharmed behind Harlech’s forbidding walls, confident that Pembroke would come to their relief. This part of north-west Wales had remained largely Lancastrian in sympathy, and Pembroke was a local hero. In their songs the bards anticipated his return, when he would restore Henry VI and trounce the Yorkists. In fact, Pembroke was in the north of England and would soon go abroad to canvass the support of the princes of Europe. Nevertheless, Herbert was going to have a long wait.
The cost of suppressing Lancastrian resistance had been exorbitantly high and Edward’s subjects were deeply resentful of the heavy taxation he had imposed upon them, and unhappy when he debased the coinage, believing it would cause ‘great harm to the common people’. The promised golden age had still to arrive.
For almost a year now Warwick had been negotiating with Louis XI for the marriage of King Edward to Bona of Savoy. Warwick believed that a firm alliance between England and France, sealed by a royal marriage, was the only way to prevent the slippery King of France from a future show of friendship towards the Lancastrians, while Louis, for his part, wanted to consolidate the truce of St Omer with such an alliance. Warwick was due to go to St Omer in October for another peace conference, and hoped to conclude the negotiations then.
Burgundy naturally did not wish such an alliance to take place; he wanted Edward to join in a defensive compact with himself against France which would also boost trade between the duchy and England. Edward by now was inclined to favour Burgundy, but just then he was doing his best to negotiate the lifting of Burgundian restrictions on English imports and wished to play for time. Knowing that his marriage was a powerful bargaining counter, he had prevaricated for months, but of late, of course, there had been another, compelling reason for stalling. He knew, however, that his secret could not remain a secret for much longer.
During the summer of 1464 Edward’s envoy, Lord Wenlock, had visited Louis at Hesdin and been presented to a splendidly attired Bona, with whom he was very impressed. Louis offered Wenlock a huge reward if he could persuade Edward to agree to the marriage, and Warwick added his own pleas, having no desire for an alliance with Burgundy, who had shown no inclination to honour and reward him as Louis had. Warwick was, in truth, in thrall to Louis, who had flattered and beguiled him, calling him ‘cousin’ and promising to make him a sovereign prince with his own European duchy.
On 4 September, a great council of the magnates assembled at Reading. Warwick spent the next few days putting tremendous pressure on the King to conclude the marriage alliance with France, and Edward knew he could prevaricate no longer. On 14 September he dropped his bombshell in the council, announcing that he was in fact married and had been for four months. The magnates, stunned and horrified to learn the identity of their new queen, did not attempt to hide their disapproval, telling the King candidly ‘that she was not his match, however good and fair she might be, and he must know well that she was no wife for a prince such as himself’. Most peers regarded the Wydvilles as upstarts and viewed with distaste the prospect of their inevitable promotion.
The marriage caused not only scandal but political disruption. ‘Not only did he alienate the nobles,’ wrote Mancini, ‘but he offended most bitterly’ his mother and brothers, and Clarence ‘vented his wrath conspicuously by his bitter and public denunciation of Elizabeth’s obscure family’. Some nobles said they ‘would not stoop to show regal honour in accordance with her exalted rank’, and many members of the King’s household were ‘bitterly offended’ by his choice of bride. Die-hard Yorkists were angered that he had married a woman whose father, brother and husband had fought for Henry VI. Above all, the magnates, and Warwick in particular, were furious that Edward had taken such a momentous step without consulting them, and were angry at having been presented with afait accompli. Louis XI, on being informed of the marriage, expressed the hope that Warwick would mount a rebellion against Edward. In fact, the long-term effect of the marriage would be to create a fatal disunity among the Yorkists, which would have serious consequences for the dynasty.
Even before he learned of the King’s marriage, Warwick had been growing dissatisfied. He had power and enormous wealth, yet the King cramped his style by obstinately, and to an increasing degree, asserting his own will in matters of state. Warwick had beenfrustrated in his attempts to extend his landed interests into Wales, and had expended a great deal of time and energy on negotiations for the marriage with Bona of Savoy. Now he had been made to look a fool. What alienated him most was Edward’s failure to take him into his confidence.
As soon as he found out what Edward had done, Warwick wrote to several of his friends abroad. Only one letter survives, to King Louis, telling him that the Earl and the King were on bad terms, having almost certainly had some heated confrontation. But Louis soon heard that the rift had been patched over. However angry Warwick might have been, he still had hopes of concluding a treaty of friendship between Edward and Louis.
After Warwick had made his peace with Edward and their former amity was restored, at least on the surface, his position seemed unaltered. He was still the King’s chief counsellor and the most powerful man in the kingdom. But Edward’s marriage was symptomatic of his determination to act independently of Warwick and form his own policies. As the years passed and the Wydvilles rose to eminence, they could only be Warwick’s rivals, and his authority gradually declined, forcing him to pay lip service to policies he deplored. Wrote Warkworth: ‘The rift between them grew greater and greater.’ The chief reason for Warwick’s alienation was not so much the Wydville marriage but disagreement over foreign policy. He still had high personal hopes of King Louis, but Edward was unwavering in his determination to befriend Burgundy, and therefore Warwick’s ambitions were constantly thwarted.
For the moment, however, he swallowed his gall and pretended that all was as it had been. On Michaelmas Day Elizabeth Wydville was escorted into Reading Abbey by Clarence and Warwick and presented to the magnates and the people as their sovereign lady and queen. The assembly knelt and honoured her, and a week of celebrations followed.
The new queen was aware of what people thought of her and was careful to insist on the most elaborate ceremonial whenever she appeared in public to emphasise her royal status. Even her brother Anthony had to kneel when addressing her. Like her husband, she followed the courtly fashions set by Burgundy, yet her household was not so extravagantly wasteful as Margaret of Anjou’s and was better administered. Her jointure of 4000 marks a year was less than that allocated to Margaret, but she lived within her means. Edward gave her Greenwich Palace, which had formerly belonged to Margaret, and a London house called Ormond’s Inn in Knightrider Street, just beyond the city walls at Smithfield. In 1465, the King ordered that her predecessor’s arms be removed from Queen’s College, Cambridge, and replaced by his wife’s.
Elizabeth knew well how to manipulate her husband, and used her considerable influence over him to obtain favours and promotion for her family and friends, much to the disgust of the older nobility. Important posts in the Queen’s household were filled by her Wydville and Bourchier relatives. Mancini says ‘she attracted to her party many strangers and introduced them to court, so that they alone should manage the private business of the Crown, give or sell offices, and finally rule the King himself. The Wydvilles, a grasping, rapacious clan, quickly became a power in the land, but they were also a liability. Their influence at court was soon immense, ‘to the exaltation of the Queen’, but also to ‘the displeasure of the whole realm’. Mancini says that the Wydvilles were ‘certainly detested by the nobles because they were advanced beyond those who excelled them in breeding and wisdom’. Above all, this new faction was actively hostile to the Nevilles, whose power over the King they resented. Warwick himself was determined never to play a subordinate role to the Wydvilles, while they naturally came in time to oppose the French alliance so desired by Warwick, and supported the King’s attempts to forge a friendship with Burgundy. This led inevitably to a rift between Edward and Warwick, whose friendship never recovered from the blow dealt it by the King’s ill-advised marriage. Wydville opposition on matters of foreign policy threatened Warwick’s personal ambitions, which were closely linked with the successful outcome of negotiations for a French alliance, and created dangerous tensions at court. The resurgence of rival factions there boded ill for the future of the House of York.
To the ‘secret displeasure’ of Warwick and other magnates, Edward advanced the Wydvilles by lucrative promotions and advantageous marriages. Overnight Lord Rivers found himself one of the most important men at court. His heir, Anthony, was already provided for by virtue of his marriage to the heiress of the late Lord Scales, whose title Anthony now bore. The younger sons, Lionel and Edward, were made Bishop of Salisbury and Admiral of the Fleet respectively. The first of the Wydville marriage alliances was made in September 1464, when the Queen’s sister Margaret was betrothed to Thomas, Lord Maltravers, son and heir of the Earl of Arundel, and in January 1465, Elizabeth’s nineteen-year-old brother John made a ‘diabolical marriage’ with the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, ‘a slip of a girl’ of sixty-seven. Around February 1466, the King arranged for Katherine Wydville, the Queen’s sister, to marry the Lancastrian Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, whose wardship had been given to the Queen. Young Buckingham, still a minor, ‘scorned to wed’ the girl ‘on account of her humble origins’, but had no choice in the matter.
Other marriages of the Queen’s sisters followed. Anne married William, Viscount Bourchier, the King’s cousin; Eleanor married Lord Grey de Ruthin, whose father had recently been created Earl of Kent in place of the deceased Fauconberg; Mary married William, son and heir of Lord Herbert, the King bestowing upon the bridegroom the barony of Dunster, which Warwick himself had claimed as heir to the Montagues; Jacquetta married Lord Strange, and Martha married Sir John Bromley.
In the spring of 1466, Edward created his wife’s father Earl Rivers and made him Treasurer of England, thereby offending Warwick, whose uncle, Lord Mountjoy, had been dismissed from the post to make way for Rivers. Matters were made worse in October that year, when the Queen’s son, Thomas Grey, was married to Anne Holland, daughter of the Duke of Exeter by the King’s sister, Anne Plantagenet. This marriage infuriated Warwick more than any of the others, because the King had paid the Duchess of Exeter 4000 marks to break a previous alliance between Anne and the son of Warwick’s brother, Northumberland. It seemed that the Queen had deliberately set out to slight Warwick.
Most nobles dared not risk the King’s displeasure by refusing to allow the Wydvilles to mate with their children; indeed, they were obliged to turn down all other offers. This meant that most of the eligible heirs to the peerage were removed from the marriage market, and this angered Warwick because he had two daughters as yet unspoken for. It may have been to mollify Warwick that the King promoted his brother George Neville to the archbishopric of York in September 1464.
One thing that the King could not bestow on the Wydvilles was popularity, which they never acquired. The mass advancement of the Queen’s family drew adverse comment everywhere. Not only the nobles complained but also the common people, whose senseof fitness was outraged. Even Edward’s court jester dared to joke, in his presence, that ‘the Rivers run so high that it is impossible to get through them!’
With the King married, Warwick could no longer consolidate the proposed French alliance with a marriage treaty. But Louis did not let that prevent him from continuing to negotiate with Warwick to bring their two countries closer together. Edward had recently made friendly approaches to Burgundy and Brittany, with regard to forming alliances with them, and Louis had no intention of letting that happen. Warwick continued to put pressure on Edward to agree to what both he and Louis wanted, while Edward refused to commit himself.
The teeth qf the Lancastrians might have been drawn, but there were still those who cherished hopes of a restoration. Late in 1464 the Earl of Ormonde went to Portugal to see if the King of Portugal, a descendant of John of Gaunt, would be interested in helping Henry VI. Soon Ormonde was writing to Queen Margaret at Bar to say that the King had told him he would be pleased to assist, but these proved to be empty words. Fortescue wrote back to the Earl that they were all ‘in great poverty, but yet the Queen sustaineth us in meat and drink, so we beeth not in extreme necessity’. King René’s subjects in Bar constantly urged him to give more succour to his daughter, and ballads were written about her plight, but René was too impoverished himself to offer Margaret more than he had already assigned to her.
She still had friends in England, and had been gratified to hear from them of Warwick’s displeasure at King Edward’s marriage. At the same time, her contacts at the French court, less well informed, told her that war between Edward and Warwick was imminent. Delighted with this apparent turn of events, Margaret again appealed to Louis for aid to recover her husband’s kingdom. ‘Look how proudly she writes!’ commented Louis, amused at the imperious tone of her letter. But he would not help her; he even took Brézé from her, summoning him to do military service in the war against Burgundy. Margaret never saw Brézé again, for in 1465 he was killed at the Battle of Montlhery and she lost her finest champion.
On Whitsunday 1465, Elizabeth Wydville was crowned by Archbishop Bourchier in Westminster Abbey amidst lavish celebrations. Warwick was not present, having been sent on an embassy to Burgundy. Thanks to Edward’s procrastination and determination to befriend Philip, his hopes of a French alliance were fading fast, and by the end of that year, England’s relations with France would be very strained indeed.
By July 1465, Henry VI had spent a year moving from safe house to safe house in the north, relying on the loyalty of Lancastrian partisans for shelter and protection from the Yorkist agents who were looking for him. In that month, he and the faithful Tunstall, who had been joined by Thomas Manning, formerly Keeper of the Signet Seal, were guests of Sir Richard Tempest at Waddington Hall in Lancashire, not far from the Yorkshire border. Tempest considered himself honoured to be able to shelter the man he regarded as his rightful sovereign, but his brother John, who lived nearby and often visited, was not at all sympathetic to the Lancastrian cause, and so it was decided that the King’s true identity should remain a secret. This would be easily accomplished, as John Tempest had never seen the King. But another guest in the house, a ‘black monk of Abingdon’, had, and he had no compunction about doing what he felt was his duty. He went to John Tempest’s house and told him that his brother’s guest was in fact Henry VI.
John was at first unsure as to what he should do. He had no wish to lead an armed raid on his brother’s house, yet as a loyal subject of Edward IV he could not let Henry slip through his fingers. At length, on 13 July, he took with him two neighbours, Thomas Talbot and his cousin John, and with a handful of men rode to Waddington Hall, where the family and their guests were at dinner. John challenged Henry VI to reveal his true identity, and made as if he would drag him from his seat, but Tunstall jumped up, unsheathed his sword, and sprang to Henry’s defence. A brief but violent struggle followed in which Tunstall broke John Tempest’s arm. Tunstall then grabbed Henry by the hand and slashed his way through John’s men-at-arms, aiming to escape from the house into nearby Clitherow Forest. But no sooner had he and the King reached the trees than John’s men had mounted their waiting horses and were riding them down. The King, Tunstall, Manning and others who had followed them ran on into the forest and downhill to the River Ribble, but at four o’clock that afternoon were all caught by their pursuers just as they were attempting to ford it near Bungerly Hippingstones.*8
Edward IV was at Canterbury with the Queen when, on 18 July, he was informed by a monk – the ‘black monk of Abingdon’ perhaps – of Henry’s capture. At once he had the news proclaimed and ordered that a service of thanksgiving be held in the cathedral.
Henry was brought south under guard and delivered at Islington to Warwick, who was waiting to escort him into London. On the 24th, the deposed King rode into the capital on a small horse, without spurs, with his legs ignominiously bound with leather thongs to his stirrups, a rope round his body lashing him to the saddle, and a straw hat on his head. As he rode through the streets, along Cheapside and Cornhill, then through Newgate, crowds gathered to see him, shouting derisory remarks and even pelting him with rubbish and stones. One shouted obscenities about Queen Margaret, accusing her of being ‘shameless with her body’. At length, the mournful procession arrived at the Tower, where Henry was to be confined.
Loyal Yorkists, such as Robert Ratcliffe, were appointed his gaolers and were allocated £3 a week for his maintenance. At all times there were two squires and two yeomen of the Crown and their men guarding him. Lancastrian chroniclers allege that Henry was not well treated during his imprisonment, but although he may not have been kept very clean or allowed many changes of clothing, his keepers were fairly accommodating, treating him with respect and allowing him certain comforts, such as the services of a chaplain who came to say the holy offices each day for him and permitting him to receive visitors: Warkworth says that ‘anybody was allowed to come and speak to him’. Yet this brought its own disadvantages. One visitor, whose name is not recorded, attacked Henry with a dagger and wounded him in the neck. Predictably, Henry forgave him, although he did administer a mild reproof, telling him he did ‘foully to smite a king anointed so’. Another tactless visitor asked the prisoner how he could justify having ruled as a usurper for so long, but Henry stood up for his cause, and told him, ‘My help cometh of God, who preserveth them that are true at heart.’
Yet despite these comforts and privileges – King Edward even sent him wine from his own cellar – Henry seems to have withdrawn into himself during his imprisonment. He spent much of his time reading or at prayer, but there were occasions when he was forced to face the reality of his defeat and imprisonment and would gasp with shame, or burst into tears and lament his lot, asking what sin he had committed to deserve to be thus locked up. Generally, however, he bore his confinement with fortitude and patience.
The news of her husband’s capture came as a blow to Queen Margaret and ruined her hopes of a Lancastrian restoration, for even if she persuaded Louis XI or Duke Philip to finance an invasion force, Edward held Henry hostage for her good behaviour in a virtually impregnable prison, and she could not risk his life.
On 28 September 1465 George Neville was enthroned as Archbishop of York, but the failure of the King and Queen to attend the ceremony gave rise to speculation about a fresh rift between Edward and Warwick. By January 1466 Warwick was growing desperate about his future relations with King Louis. Edward could not be made to see sense about a French alliance and was moving ever closer to Burgundy; Philip’s ambassadors had recently arrived to discuss a marriage between Edward’s sister, Margaret of York, and Philip’s heir, Charles, Count of Charolais. Warwick knew that Louis would soon hear of this, if he had not already done so, and he wanted the French king to think that his influence with Edward was such that he could turn him away from Burgundy and persuade him to restore friendly relations with France. He therefore forged a letter from Edward to Louis, promising that England had no intention of invading France or hindering him in any way from suppressing rebellion in the duchy of Normandy, which Louis had just wrested from his brother – something that Edward, just then, would never have agreed to. In fact, sending such a letter was an act of treason, but Warwick was beyond caring; he knew also that Edward’s negotiations with Burgundy were not so far advanced that war against France was an imminent possibility.
Unaware of Warwick’s duplicity, Edward went to his castle of Fotheringhay, where, on 30 January, he, his heavily pregnant queen, his mother, and a large gathering of relatives and friends, gathered in the collegiate church for the solemn reinterment of the bodies of the Duke of York and the Earl of Rutland, which had lain for five years in humble graves at Pontefract and had now been brought in a long and stately procession from Yorkshire. Both were laid to rest in the choir, near the tomb of Edward, Duke of York, who had fallen at Agincourt. In 1495, Duchess Cecily, at her own request, was buried beside her husband, and a century later Elizabeth I commissioned and paid for a classically inspired monument to York’s memory which may still be seen today.
Afterwards, the King and Queen returned to Westminster, where Elizabeth retired to her chamber to await the birth of her first child. Edward was hoping that it would be a son, to ensure the continuance of his dynasty and the succession, and his wife’s physician, Dr Domenico Serigo, had assured him that it would be a boy. Men, even doctors, were by custom forbidden to enter the Queen’s apartments during her confinement, but Dr Serigo was determined to be the first to tell the King that he had a son and so hopefully gain a reward. He haunted the corridors leading to the Queen’s rooms and eventually, on 11 February 1466, managed to gain entry to the antechamber to the room where Elizabeth was in labour. When he heard the cry of a newborn baby he called out to ask ‘what the Queen had’, at which one of her ladies called back, ‘Whatsoever the Queen’s Grace hath here within, sure it is that a fool standeth there without!’ The baby was a girl, and the doctor made a hasty departure without seeing the King.
Edward rewarded his wife with a jewelled ornament costing £125 to mark the birth of ‘our most dear daughter’, who was christened Elizabeth by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Warwick was chosen as godfather, and the baby’s grandmothers, the Duchesses of York and Bedford, were her godmothers.
Queen Elizabeth was afterwards churched at a dignified service in Westminster Abbey, to which she was escorted by two dukes and attended by her mother and sixty ladies of high rank. Afterwards she hosted a sumptuous banquet in the palace. Leo, Lord of Rozmital, the Queen of Bohemia’s brother, was a guest, and dined at the King’s table with Warwick, who represented his sovereign, custom decreeing that it was not proper for the King to attend his wife’s churching. There were so many guests that the feast was laid out in four great chambers. Warwick escorted Rozmital through each of these, pausing to see his reaction to such magnificence. His guest’s attendants, including the diarist Gabriel Tetzel, were allowed to stand in the corner of the Queen’s room and watch her eat.
This was the most luxurious of the chambers, hung with colourful tapestries. Elizabeth sat alone at the high table in a golden chair throughout the banquet, which lasted three hours, during which time neither she nor her guests spoke a single word and her ladies-in-waiting, all of noble birth, were obliged to remain on their knees before her. Even her mother had to kneel when she wished to address the Queen. After the banquet there was dancing, as Elizabeth looked on. The courtly reverence paid to her, observed Tetzel, ‘was such as I have never seen anywhere’. The day ended with a performance of the King’s choristers, who sang beautifully: the Yorkist court was renowned for its music.
To foreign visitors, Warwick appeared as powerful as ever. They were amazed at his wealth and influence, and even more at his lavish and now legendary hospitality. Acting as host to the Lord of Rozmital and his suite, he served them a banquet with sixty courses.
On 15 April, the Earl, on Edward’s orders, was in Calais to meet Charolais and discuss the proposed Burgundian alliance. Warwick did not trouble to hide his hostility to the plan and made it clear that he was determined to conclude an alliance with France come what may. The meeting was hardly a success.
Soon afterwards Warwick and Louis met at Calais and signed a two-year truce, under which Louis again promised not to support Margaret of Anjou, and Edward undertook not to help Burgundy or Brittany against the French. Louis also agreed to find a French husband for Margaret of York and provide her with a dowry. Edward had allowed the truce as a sop to Warwick, but had no intention of keeping to its terms and, indeed, broke them shortly afterwards by sending a safe-conduct to Francis II of Brittany’s envoys, enabling them to come to England. Edward was determined to assert his own authority in this matter: the English might resent Burgundy, but they loathed the French, having never forgiven or forgotten the humiliations they had suffered at their hands at the end of the Hundred Years War.
In October 1466, Edward IV and Philip of Burgundy reached a private agreement that they would sign a treaty of friendship. The terms remained to be negotiated. Queen Margaret, learning that an Anglo-Burgundian alliance was imminent, and knowing how hard Warwick had worked for a French alliance, deduced how disillusioned and frustrated the Earl must feel. She knew that Louis too had wanted friendship with the English. If Warwick could be persuaded to abandon his Yorkist affinities and throw in his lot with the Lancastrians, then Louis might consider funding a Lancastrian invasion of England, for he had great respect for Warwick, and the Earl had the ability to make a success of the venture.
Swallowing her pride, for Warwick had been among the worst of her enemies, Margaret sent a messenger secretly into England to sound him out. But, near Harlech, the man was apprehended by Herbert’s men, who searched him and found the Queen’s letter. He was then sent to London under armed escort, where, under torture, he revealed that the Queen had indeed sought a rapprochement with Warwick. Edward himself questioned Warwick about it, but the latter denied that he had ever had any dealings with ‘the foreign woman’.
Margaret’s hopes were thus disappointed, but she knew it would not be long now before her son was able to take up the banner of Lancaster on his own behalf: certainly he was eager to do so, taking after his mother rather than his father. He had grown up surrounded by intrigue and the horrors of war, and had been exposed to Margaret’s prejudices from an early age. The Milanese ambassador in France reported that the Prince, ‘though only thirteen years of age, talks of nothing else but cutting off heads or making war, as if he had everything in his hands or was the god of battle’. In a few more years, when this boy came to maturity, Edward IV would not sit safely on his throne, but Margaret would seemingly have to rest content until then.
Early in 1467, thwarted of various marriage alliances he had been considering for his daughters, Warwick hit upon one that would outshine them all. As the greatest heiresses in England Isabel and Anne must make brilliant marriages: who better to mate with them, then, than the King’s two brothers, Clarence and Gloucester? Clarence could have Isabel and Gloucester Anne.
It was true that Burgundy had already offered Clarence the hand of his granddaughter, Charolais’s heiress, Mary, but Edward IV was not enthusiastic because Mary would one day inherit Burgundy and her husband would become its sovereign duke. Edward did not want his brother gaining such power on the Continent, nor did he want him embroiled in European politics, fearing that it would bode ill for England. The truth was that Edward did not trust Clarence.
George Plantagenet was now seventeen, a tall, blond, handsome youth who carried himself like the king he wished to be. He could be witty and charming when he chose, but was of weak character, unstable, impressionable, changeable and easily led. His jealousy of his brother had long been apparent, and was now eating into him like a cancer, for he was intensely ambitious. Although he had been generously endowed by Edward with lands, especially in the West Country, and had a great household of his own staffed by 300 servants and maintained at a cost of £4000 a year, he was dissatisfied, for it was power that he craved, and Edward had so far denied him that, being aware of his weaknesses.
When Warwick put it to him that he should marry Isabel, Clarence was quick to realise the benefits of such a union. But he was unable to keep the plan a secret, as Warwick had enjoined, and soon, word reached the King of the matter and caused him to be greatly perturbed. He did not want his brothers allied by marriage to Warwick, nor did he want them squabbling over Warwick’s inheritance in the event of the Earl’s death. It was true that these marriages would bring that inheritance to the House of York, but that might also mean Warwick intriguing against him in order to make one of his daughters queen, or inciting his brothers to treason.
Edward summoned Clarence and Gloucester and demanded to know the truth. Clarence said he knew nothing about such a marriage, although he thought ‘it would not be a bad match’. At this, the King ‘waxed wrath’ and sent them from his presence, firmlyforbidding Clarence even to contemplate a union with Warwick’s daughter. Warwick had more than enough power as it was, without extending his influence through marriage with the royal house. Besides, Edward saw this as a plot to counterbalance the power of the Wydvilles.
As a result of Edward’s actions, there was ‘secret displeasure’ between him and Warwick, and the King suspected that the Earl and Clarence might defy him and go ahead with the marriage anyway. He therefore instructed his agents in Rome to do all in their power to prevent the Pope from issuing a dispensation for it, the parties being within the forbidden degrees of affinity.
In June 1467, Philip of Burgundy’s natural son, Antoine, Bastard of Burgundy, arrived in England, ostensibly to meet Anthony Wydville, Lord Scales, in the lists – for both were renowned throughout Europe as unparalleled jousters – but also to discuss the proposed Anglo-Burgundian alliance with the King. One of the chief topics for discussion was the marriage between Charolais and Margaret of York. ‘If this takes place,’ commented the Milanese ambassador to France, ‘they [the French] have talked of treating with the Earl of Warwick to restore King Henry in England, and the ambassador of the old Queen of England is already here.’
An English alliance with Burgundy would of course release Louis from his undertaking not to aid the Lancastrians, and he himself was well aware that a Lancastrian invasion would prevent Edward from joining Burgundy in a war against France. He was still toying with the idea of approaching Warwick when, in February 1467, Margaret of Anjou’s brother, John of Calabria, begged him not to do so, saying that Warwick had always been her enemy and the cause of Henry VI’s fall from power. ‘His Majesty would do better to help his sister to recover her kingdom than to favour the Earl of Warwick.’ Louis asked what security the Lancastrians could give: would they offer the Prince as hostage? But neither Calabria nor Margaret was prepared to agree to such terms. Louis ignored Calabria’s advice and continued to scheme to bring Warwick and Margaret together. The major obstacle to this was obviously going to be persuading both parties to be reconciled. Margaret had regretted her earlier abortive approach to Warwick because she could not rid herself of her bitter memories of the Earl, and had reverted to her former opinion that he was her husband’s arch-enemy and a traitor of the worst kind. Warwick, in turn, was known to hold Margaret responsible for the deaths of his father, brother, uncle and cousin. It was not going to be easy bringing them together, especially since Margaret was now declaring that she wanted nothing to do with Warwick. Louis, however, was not a man to give up easily.
On 3 June, Archbishop Neville, the Lord Chancellor, did not appear in Parliament, and sent his servant to say he was ill. The ‘illness’ seems to have stemmed from his displeasure at the warm welcome and lavish entertainments laid on for the Bastard of Burgundy. Edward did not trust George Neville, and with good reason, for he had just discovered that the Archbishop – without asking his permission, as was customary – was working on the Pope with a view to obtaining a cardinal’s hat for himself and a dispensation for his niece Isabel to marry Clarence, in spite of Edward’s embargo on the match. On the 8th, therefore, the King removed Neville from the post of Chancellor and replaced him with Robert Stillington, Bishop of Bath and Wells. There is no doubt thathe did this to show the Nevilles that he was capable of curbing their power and ambitions.
A week later Philip of Burgundy, who had been ailing for some time, died, and was succeeded by his son, who became known as Charles the Bold. News of the Duke’s death prompted the precipitate departure from England of the Bastard of Burgundy and all his suite. Soon afterwards, a French embassy arrived in London and was accorded a warm reception by the King. Edward was keeping his options open, just in case the new Duke of Burgundy did not agree to favourable enough terms for the proposed treaty. However, despite being handsomely entertained by the King at Windsor, the French envoys left without having extracted from him any more than a vague promise to dispatch an embassy to France at some time in the future.
Thanks to Edward’s diplomacy, the terms of the proposed alliance with Burgundy were so advantageous to England that even Warwick had no choice but to agree to it. Privately, however, he was still calculating, even now, how best to sabotage the alliance and persuade Edward to turn to Louis instead for friendship; in June he had met with the French king at Rouen to discuss how best to do this, but on his return he found his brother dismissed from the chancellorship and the King cold in his manner towards himself and his family.
Warwick burned with resentment. Warkworth says he ‘took on as many knights, squires and gentlemen as he could to swell his forces, [while] the King did all he could to reduce the Earl’s power. They were brought together several times, but they never again found pleasure in each other’s company.’ On one occasion, when Warwick went to the King at Westminster to ask if he would receive Louis’s envoys to discuss an alliance, Edward refused to acknowledge his presence; instead, he gazed around the room. Warwick stalked out, hot with anger. The next day he brought the ambassadors with him into the King’s presence, the Queen and her kinsfolk being there. Again, Edward ignored Warwick, and the Frenchmen were much offended. As they left with Warwick in his barge, the Earl cried in agitation, ‘Have you not seen what traitors there are about the King’s person?’ One of the envoys tried to calm him down, saying, ‘My lord, I pray you grow not hot, for some day you shall be avenged.’ Warwick retorted, ‘Know that those very traitors were the men that had my brother displaced from the office of Chancellor!’ It was obvious to him that the Wydvilles now had the upper hand and that Edward was siding with them against him. Croyland states that he had continued to show himself friendly to the Queen and her kindred until he found that, contrary to his wishes, they were using their utmost endeavours to promote the Burgundian alliance, which was concluded in November that year. Desired not only by the King and the Wydvilles, but also by the London merchants who would profit by it, the alliance was in the interests of the nation’s prosperity and appealed to patriotic sentiment, which was against an alliance with France.
Warwick felt he had no choice now but to throw in his lot with Louis. If Louis could offer him more than Edward he would take it, for he was not prepared to play a subordinate role to the Wydvilles and from now on would rarely attend the court if the Queen’s kindred were there. ‘From this moment the feud betwixt these rival families was settled, deadly and never terminated until it had completed the ruin of all parties.’