Richard The Chird (17 page)

in very fact King of England? Though Clarence's jealousy of Richard's favor with their elder brother was real enough, he was using it to mask his designs against the "usurping" Edward.

In the spring of 1473, the political weather in England grew tense and threatening. Clarence and the Earl of Oxford were in the thick of a new conspiracy with Louis XL While the former stirred Lancastrian hopes in a number of shires, the latter was hovering off the coasts with a small fleet. In a letter of April 16, Sir John Paston expressed the general uncertainty and suspense. "The Earl of Oxford was on Saturday at Dieppe and is purposed into Scotland with . . . twelve ships. I mistrust that work. Item, there be in London many flying tales, saying that there should be a work, and yet they wot not how." But it was to England that Oxford sailed, landing on the coast of Essex on May 28. He had only a small force and his reception was cold. When he learned that the Earl of Essex and Lords Dynham and Duras were march-ing against him, he hastily took to his ships and resumed his hovering in the Channel. "Men look after they wot not what," Paston wrote from London shortly after, "but men buy harness fast; the King's menial men and the Duke of Clarence's are many in this town." 15

While Clarence was stirring mischief this late spring, Richard came to Nottingham to consult his brother Edward on political and family business. He had realized that it was of first importance to his mission in the North that he establish with Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, a relationship which would harmonize their respective jurisdictions and encourage Percy to work loyally and happily with him. On May 12 he and the Earl appeared before the royal council at Nottingham and swore to a compact in which Northumberland recognized Richard's superior authority and Richard agreed to respect all of Percy's rights and be to him "a good and gracious lord." 16

Richard's private business concerned the Countess of Warwick. She was still immured in the sanctuary of Beaulieu Abbey; for the King had dispatched officers of the Crown to keep strict watch upon her. Why Edward, who was usually lenient enough with the wives of rebels, chose to treat the Countess so harshly

remains a mystery. Perhaps he had hoped to avoid antagonizing brother George, who had seized all her lands. When Richard now requested Edward to permit him to assume responsibility for the Countess so that she might be given a home in the North, the King was in no mood to oppose Richard's wishes for the sake of appeasing Clarence. Before the end of May, Richard had dispatched his follower Sir James Tyrell to the Countess. She promptly accepted her son-in-law's offer. "Item," Paston added to a letter of June 3 reporting the landing of Oxford, "how that the Countess of Warwick is now out of Beaulieu sanctuary, and Sir James Tyrell conveyeth her northward, men say by the King's assent, whereto some men say that the Duke of Clarence is not agreed." By this time King Edward was so wroth with Clarence, he declared openly that he was thinking of restoring to the Countess all her estates so that she might bestow them upon the Duke of Gloucester. 17

Richard had rescued his mother-in-law from virtual imprisonment not only, it seems, out of regard for his wife's happiness but because of his own compassion for her plight. When Warwick challenged the King, Richard had fought him fiercely; but now that the Nevilles were beaten and impotent, he actively befriended them. Little cause as he had to cherish the slippery George Neville, he was pleading with the King for his release. "Item," Sir John Paston jotted in the fall of 1473, "I hope by the means of the Duke of Gloucester that my Lord Archbishop shall come home." The following year, he was able to effect the Archbishop's deliverance from prison. When the Marquess of Montagu's son was stripped of his dukedom a few years later, Richard secured his wardship and brought the boy into his household. Later still, he bestowed an annuity on the Earl of Oxford's wife, who was a sister of the Kingmaker, though Oxford was his enemy. 18

Throughout the summer of 1473 Clarence's anger simmered; Oxford cruised off the coasts taking merchantmen; the King moved watchfully from place to place in the Midlands. On September 10 Richard received a commission to array the men of Yorkshire and lead them south at the King's call. 19 Twenty days

later, the Earl of Oxford with a small force seized St. Michael's Mount, sought to arouse Cornwall, and sent to the King of France for aid. Clarence's hopes blazed up. He stirred his followers and tenants, giving out that he was about to revenge himself on the Duke of Gloucester; but Edward, and others, were not deceived. Sir John Paston wrote from London that most men about the King had sent "for their harness, and it is said for certain that the Duke of Clarence maketh him big in that he can, showing as he would but deal with the Duke of Gloucester; but the King intendeth ... to be as big as they both and to be a stifler atween them. And some think that under this there should be some other thing intended and some treason conspired; so what shall fall can I not say." Even the usually cautious Sir John dared hint that Clarence's eye was upon the crown. 20

As it turned out, nothing befell. Neither Cornwall nor Louis XI responded to Oxford's call; it speedily became clear that the venturesome Earl had trapped himself on the rocky mount. By the middle of February, 1474, he was forced to surrender for pardon of his life only. Even Clarence realized that, for the time being at least, he would have to bow to brother Edward and make the best bargain he could for the Neville lands. Sir John Paston was soon recording the hope that "the two Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester should b'e set at one by the award of the King." The record of Clarence's follies has survived; his winning charm can only be guessed at. 21

Patiently Richard agreed to reopen the whole question of the division of lands between himself and George; Edward set to work to pacify his recalcitrant brother, who was all the more difficult to placate since in the preceding fall Parliament had passed an act of resumption of Crown lands, from which Richard had been exempted but which had cost Clarence the "noble demesne of Tutbuxy and several other lands." 22 Edward determined that, in order to establish the settlement between his brothers as solidly as possible, it must come into being by a bill of Parliament. In the spring of 1474 there was passed an enactment that "in like manner and form as if the . . . Countess [of Warwick] were dead," her property was to be partitioned be-

tween her coheiresses, Anne and Isabel, and their respective husbands; the sharing itself was left to the arbitrament of the King, In July Clarence's feelings were soothed by a vast grant of estates, which a like gift to Richard fell somewhat short of matching. The settlement was completed in February of 1475 when Parliament confirmed the division of Warwick's estates which Edward had already made. Richard was to keep Middleham, Sheriff Hut-ton, and Warwick's other lands in Yorkshire; Clarence, the manor of Clavering in Essex and the Earl's London mansion, le Herbert*

From this tedious strife of Clarence's making Richard had emerged with great estates and the heightened affection and trust of his royal brother, with the wife and home of his choice and a young son. But the contest had been grim and wearing. Once again he had been caught in the recurring pattern of sundered allegiance. Perhaps it was in defiance of this pattern, in a dogged clinging to the elemental defenses of his childhood, that he had chosen the motto Loyaulte me lie (Loyalty binds me). If it is primarily a pledge to King Edward, it is also a revelation of his own need. In the North, at least, he could offer, and hope to enjoy, loyalty. Middleham was his refuge as well as his home.

Scarcely had he seen the end of his difficulties with Clarence, however, than he was summoned forth from Wensleydale by his duty to the King. In the spring of 1475 he was making preparations to do battle once more at Edward's side.

Edward had been eager to placate brother George because he was about to invade the realm of France.

Edward and Louis*

, . , smooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks.

~Y/ r ING Edward had persuaded Parliament to make him large |^ grants of money. He had cajoled many of his wealthier subjects into offering him substantial contributions, wryly called "benevolences." He had made peace with Scotland and the Hanse towns, secured the good will of the Duke of Brittany, and renewed his treaty with the kingdom of Castile. The Duke of Burgundy was the eager partner of his enterprise. At the desire of his subjects, in whom the Agincourt fever still burned, and by the advice of his council, who thought that foreign war would drain off the energies that kicked up strife at home, Edward was prepared to assert Henry V's claim to the French crown, or at least to reconquer some of the provinces from which the English had been evicted a quarter of a century before.

His army was to be raised by indentures: the magnates of the kingdom contracted to supply bodies of soldiers at so much a head. The two largest contracts were those signed by the Dukes of Gloucester and Clarence, each of whom agreed to bring into the field 120 men-at-arms, including himself, and 1,000 archers. 1 When Richard's call to battle sounded across the dales and moors, the warriors of the North willingly looked to their weapons and readied their tenants. Richard's chief officers of arms, Gloucester Herald and Blanc Sanglier Pursuivant, supervised the making of banners and "cognizances"; each man of Richard's contingent would wear a badge displaying his emblem, the white boar (blanc sanglier). The origin of this heraldic sign is uncertain. It possibly derived from the honor of Windsor, with which it may have become associated through the legend of Guy of Warwick: "But first, near Windsor, I did slay/A boar of passing might and strength. . . ." On the other hand, the

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boar—in those days often spelled "bore"—may have been an anagram of Ebor(acum), York. 2

Whatever the provenience of the emblem, the white boar had proved so valiant in combat, and Richard had so established himself in the affections of Yorkshire, that men flocked to his colors. When, in May, he led his troops to Barham Downs, near Canterbury, the mustering place of the army, he had brought with him at least three hundred men more than he had indented for. King Edward was so pleased with his young brother that he presented him with the great Yorkshire castle of Skipton in Craven and added additional powers and perquisites to the office of Sheriff of Cumberland, which, in February, he had granted Richard for life. 3

With the coming of June, the host began to pour across the Channel into Calais from all the Kentish ports. Numbering some fifteen hundred men-at-arms and eleven thousand archers, supported by a great train of artillery and fifteen surgeons, it was "the finest army," says Commynes, "that ever King of England led into France." With Edward and Clarence, Richard crossed to Calais on July 4. Two days later, their sister Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, arrived to wish them well and bring them handsome presents. Richard and Clarence escorted her back to St. Omer, where they apparently remained for some days, awaiting the arrival of Margaret's erratic husband.

The fact was, instead of preparing his forces these past months for the grand assault on Louis XI, Duke Charles had marched eastward in a fit of anger to besiege the insignificant city of Neuss. Charles was not called "the Rash" for nothing. Even Commynes, who knew him intimately, could only explain this fantastic blunder ^ by suggesting that God had troubled his senses. It was not until July 14 that he appeared at Calais, and then, in place of a great army, he was accompanied only by a bodyguard. He sought to make up for his lack of troops by a burst of optimism. Edward's host was magnificent enough, he declared, to march not only through France but to the very gates of Rome. Edward had but to sweep across Normandy to Champagne and there

Charles would join him with his forces, which had just broken off the siege of Neuss to pillage the dukedom of Lorraine.*

King Edward maintained his cordiality to the Duke but ignored his grandiose suggestions. He took counsel with Richard and his other commanders. It was decided finally that since the Count of St. Pol had offered to deliver up St. Quentin, the army had best begin its campaign by establishing a base in that city. Charles proved perfectly agreeable. As Edward marshaled his great host and set out toward Doullens and Peronne, Charles rode over to St. Omer to rejoin his Duchess, and Richard, as well as a number of other English lords, went with him—perhaps it would still be possible to salvage something from the Duke's promises besides enthusiasm. Edward marched the army very slowly, feeling his way, thinking about his situation. Two nights the English spent upon the field of Agincourt; whatever martial hopes that sojourn inspired in his soldiers, Edward knew that Louis XI would never be maneuvered into such a disaster as had befallen the French sixty years before. Duke Charles was paying one of his frequent brief visits to the English army when, on August 11, it approached the walls of St. Quentin. No sooner had the first troops come into range than the guns of the town opened fire. St. Pol had turned his coat again. Word arrived, in the meanwhile, that King Louis had advanced from Beauvais to Compiegne at the head of a powerful army.

Next morning, Duke Charles rode away to resume command of his forces. Edward had lost all faith in him. The English King probably had no doubt that he could win a victory, perhaps a great victory, but without the aid of Burgundy he knew that he could not exploit it; and since he had almost run out of money and Louis had ruthlessly laid waste the countryside, it was even possible that he might not be able to recover from it.

Deciding to test Louis' desire for peace, he had some of his councilors drop a hint in the ears of a captured nobleman who was then returned to the French King. It was all that Louis needed. u Ah Holy Mary," he had cried in desperation on learning that Edward and Charles were about to descend on him,

"even now when I have given thee 1,400 crowns, thou dost not help me one whit." 5 Leaping at the opening Edward had given him, he proposed that ambassadors from both sides meet halfway between the armies., and he assured Edward that he would make him a very attractive offer for peace. The English King summoned a great council of his commanders and councilors—the Dukes of Gloucester and Clarence, Norfolk and Suffolk, the Marquess of Dorset, the Earls of Northumberland, Pembroke, and Rivers, Lords Hastings, Stanley, Howard, and others.