The Last Plantagenets (47 page)

Perhaps the best method to tell of this stormy period, without resorting to the tedium of chronological narration, will be to deal with these people and allow the story to emerge through the record of their activities.

Before going any further into the part that Henry VI played in the long years of war, a more complete picture should be given of the man.

He was a second Job, as is made evident in all the stories which have been collected about him. A prelate who acted for ten years as his confessor declared there had never been a mortal sin to be forgiven. In church he never sat at his ease or got up and paced about as royal individuals with less patience did, but knelt with bowed head throughout. He went bareheaded to chapel, even when it was necessary to go by horseback. He preferred a row of crosses on the royal crown to the customary flowers or leaves. Members of the nobility were never permitted to carry their hawks into church (a common practice, for they wanted to get out into the fields immediately), and if he saw them wearing swords or daggers, he sent orders to have the weapons removed.

His modesty and chastity were almost beyond belief in an age when
all men had mistresses and sly talk of Moll Tear-sheets monopolized male conversation. Nakedness made him angry. Once at court a nobleman brought in a woman to dance in a Christmas play. Her bosom was bare and the king went at once to his chamber, muttering, “Fy, fy, for shame!”

Although it was necessary to fight for sufficient funds to maintain the army and navy at fighting strength, he never desired money for himself. When Cardinal Beaufort left him £2000 in his will, he refused at first to accept it and only relented when he realized the money could be applied to his college endowments. On one occasion a nobleman, seeking official favors, no doubt, gave him a coverlet set with gold and encrusted with precious stones. It was too grand to give away (for it would rouse sinful pride in the recipient), but he never liked it and, moreover, never slept under it.

At the table he was abstemious and frugal, being desirous that as much food as possible should be saved for the poor. He said grace standing and there was a rule in the royal household that a certain kind of food was to be served first, one that represented the five wounds of Christ. Before this dish he would pause so long in prayerful contemplation that the appetites of his guests became sharp and impatient.

In an age that ran to every kind of extreme and sinful extravagance, he dressed simply. He wore shoes, in fact, with the round toes of a farmer and, as has already been pointed out, he regarded the absurdly turned-up toes of dress shoes as abominations of the Evil One. Except on occasions when he had to wear robes of state, he dressed in long and somber gowns with rolled hoods, in which he resembled the common men of the towns. His coats fell below his knees and were almost invariably black. To offset the vanity of his kingly robes on state occasions he always wore a hair shirt next to his skin. There is nothing on record to indicate how the beautiful queen reacted to his monkish attire. Having been raised in a poverty-stricken household, she herself liked to be arrayed in luscious silks and the voluptuous softness of velvet.

Reading in the Scriptures was a daily habit with the king. “Forsooth and forsooth!” and “By St. John!” were his only expletives. He could never be roused to profanity, even by a stampede of pack horses on a night march or the blowing over of the royal tent by heavy winds.

On the grim occasion when he rode to London from the defeat at St. Albans, he stopped the cavalcade of triumphant Yorkists in which he rode to protest the sight in Cripplegate of a man’s quarter displayed on the end of a pike. When told that the victim of dismemberment had been convicted as a traitor to him, he ordered the decaying flesh to be taken down at once and buried. Seemingly this was his first contact with the way in which the parts of convicted traitors were distributed
about the kingdom as a favor. It must have been that he paid no heed to the heads which rotted over London Bridge. He said on this occasion, “I will not have any Christian man so cruelly handled.”

No attention was paid to him on such points. Heads were chopped off and bodies were mutilated after every battle or brush of the Wars of the Roses. He strove to assert his views at times. Once he took it on himself to send a mounted messenger at the last moment with pardons for four noblemen who had been condemned to barbarous death; and there was much angry stamping of heels in the chancellery offices because of it. He even forgave a man who plunged through his guards and wounded him in the neck. Punishment was contrary to his nature and to the end of his days he shuddered at the deaths men died for breaking the laws and bewailed that he was not permitted to interfere.

It will be seen from this that he was gentle almost beyond belief and unfitted for the part in the furious struggle imposed upon him by the accident of birth. Not that he objected to being a king (when has any ruler honestly desired to be relieved of office?), for he often defended his right to the throne with a solemn and stilted insistence. “My father was born a king,” he would declare, “and possessed the crown all his life. His father, my grandfather, was king before him. I, as a boy, crowned almost in my cradle, was accepted as king by the whole realm, and have worn the crown for nearly forty years.”

No, the gentle Henry did not desire to relinquish his high office. He clung to it through defeat and distress and even when he wandered as a fugitive, hungry and ragged, in the woods and caves of the north.

After some years of hollow peace, Henry displayed in 1459 an unexpected burst of energy and met the Yorkist forces at Ludlow. By issuing at once an offer of clemency to anyone in arms against him, he split the opposing forces. Their leaders had to scatter, Richard of York going to Ireland. Warwick refused to be deprived of his governorship of Calais and in the following year he came back with a daring which clearly marked him as a great leader. He was greeted by eager enlistments in the south and east of England. Marching north with this new army, he defeated the royal forces at Northampton and again captured the king in his tent. As York was still in Ireland, Warwick did not take any decisive steps and allowed Henry to enter London in state, he himself marching in front of the king and carrying the sword of state.

Following in eager haste, Richard of York began his ride to London to make his belated claim to the throne. He saw to it first that his wife was released from the custody of her sister, the Duchess of Buckingham, where she had been held in unsympathetic severity. Richard’s horizon
had now widened and he entered the capital with 500 mounted men, riding under banners with the arms of England and trumpeters blowing loudly. He went straight to the royal palace at Westminster and broke open the door of the king’s apartments. Hearing this forcible entry and the tumult in the halls behind, Henry quietly offered his chambers to his cousin and withdrew to the less imposing quarters belonging to the absent consort.

As Parliament had convened, York lost no time in facing the members. He walked to the empty throne and placed a hand on one of the arms as though to take possession. Then, in a moment fatal to himself and his claims, he paused and looked about him. The members, and in particular the lords and bishops, were watching him under dark and unfriendly brows. He failed to detect any responsive or encouraging gleam in the packed room, and so he hesitated.

Archbishop Bourchier rose from his seat. “My lord duke,” he asked, “do you desire to see the king?”

Richard replied in passionate tones, “I know no one in the kingdom who ought not rather to wait on me!”

But the vital moment had passed. York did no more than state his intention of claiming the throne. On October 16 he presented his case, outlining his descent from Edward III and claiming the action of Henry IV, who had taken possession of the throne, to be illegal. There followed some days of talk, the duke’s claim being presented first to the king for his comments. Finally the lords got their courage up to the point of telling the claimant that his right “could not be defeated” but that they had sworn allegiance to Henry and could not now take any action to dethrone him.

The outcome of all this convening and arguing and dodging of issues was a decision to allow Henry to retain the throne for the balance of his life. Richard of York was to be appointed protector and was to succeed to the throne on the king’s death. York accepted this arrangement.

Henry agreed humbly enough, but Margaret, who was with her son in Wales, was furiously opposed to thus depriving the young prince of his rights. She cut off all communication with her husband and began with grim determination to raise another army. Undoubtedly Henry knew of her activities but he made no effort to escape from London and join her. He seems to have become fascinated by the Earl of Warwick, who was so different from himself, possessing in such superlative degree the tough will and the unshakable resolution of the born leader. The deep and compelling eyes of the young earl won the easily swayed predilections of the king. They even shared their Christmas dinner together
in the bishop’s palace at St. Paul’s, in mutual comfort and good spirits.

But Margaret was now riding a high horse. She no longer had to defer to the sweet acquiescences of the peace-loving Henry but made her own decisions, which were inevitably selfish as well as sharp and severe. Her call for assistance had aroused the latent Lancastrian sentiment and armed forces came to her assistance from all parts of the country.

A tendency to turn coats, which would become general later and play a great part in succeeding phases of the struggle, made itself evident at this point. Richard of York sent Lord Neville, a brother of the Earl of Westmorland, to put down the levies which the queen was recruiting in Wales. The latter promptly took his forces over to the queen’s banner, and the north country began to blaze with Lancastrian activities. York parted from his wife and family and rode north to face the uprising.

He discovered quickly that he had underestimated the movement which the queen had succeeded in stirring up. The Earl of Northumberland and Lord Clifford had put the Red Rose on their helmets. The young Duke of Somerset, thirsting to avenge his father’s death, and the Earl of Devonshire had marched from the west to join the queen. York should have waited for reinforcements but he seems to have acquired by this time a firm belief in his star. He attacked the marching columns of the Duke of Somerset and, to his deep chagrin, was thrown off with heavy losses. As a result of this setback, he found it advisable to retire into his castle of Sandal. The Lancastrian forces closed in from all directions.

York was advised by his friends to wait until help could reach him from London, but he refused to listen. He declared that he had never been “caged like a bird.” And so he led his devoted followers out to face the heavy forces arrayed against him. The struggle which ensued is called in history the Battle of Wakefield. It resulted inevitably in the defeat of the Yorkists and the deaths of the duke himself, his second son, and his great friend, the Earl of Salisbury.

The exultation of the victors was carried to the extent of cutting off the duke’s head from his sadly mutilated body and raising it on the point of a pike above the gates of York, with a crown of paper on his brow.

The crowning humiliation of Henry’s life followed his wife’s victory in the north. Warwick, outwardly his good friend, hastily assembled his forces and marched out of London to give battle to the queen, supremely confident that he would roll up the Lancastrian lines and end the war.
Henry was taken along and was even induced to arm himself for the approaching conflict. In the second Battle of St. Albans which followed, Queen Margaret was given credit for bold and original tactics. The victory she won was complete and the Yorkists melted away before her. Henry was left, still in shining armor, to face his triumphant and contemptuous mate.

It was almost impossible to quarrel with Henry and so it may be assumed that the brilliant blue eyes of the queen finally softened at the sight of his humility. He was allowed to bless and confer knighthood on his son, a rite which he undertook with affectionate eagerness. But she could not bring herself to acknowledge the promise of immunity which Henry had given to two Yorkshire knights remaining behind to guard him, Lord Bonville and Sir Thomas Kyriel. Her temper rose at the sight of them and she took a step which revealed the real depth of her animosity. She put them on trial and appointed her son to preside. “Fair son,” she asked, “what death shall these knights die?” The boy expressed his opinion that their heads should be cut off. The king, his eyes filled with tears, entreated mercy for them, but no heed was paid to him. The two men were executed.

By this time the queen seems to have become unbalanced. She was ready to agree to any terms to gain the aid of France and Scotland, even when the sacrifice of English interests was involved. Pierre de Brézé, the seneschal of Normandy, who had been sent over with troops to assist her, and who seems to have been devoted to her at first, and even personally enamored, finally became disillusioned. He wrote a letter to the King of France in which he said: “If those with her knew her intentions, and what she has done, they would join themselves with the other party and put her to death.”

It is said that Margaret did not march into London after her brilliant success in the second Battle of St. Albans because her army was made up of undisciplined levies and mercenaries from the continent and she feared to turn them loose on the wealthy capital city. That was not the real reason. She knew how ill the Londoners felt about her and did not want to deepen the animosity. She contented herself, therefore, with sending demands for money and supplies for her army. She had been right about the sentiment of London. Her emissaries were not allowed inside the gates. The lord mayor, with an eye to the main chance perhaps, loaded some wagons with food and military supplies to be sent to her. The citizens promptly seized the carts and divided up the contents themselves.