The War of the Roses (3 page)

Logically, raising funds would need a Parliament, on a wider basis than the carefully-controlled and partisan one that met in February 1447, with the resulting danger of demands for reform of abuses. There would be a danger to the monopoly of power and patronage by Suffolk and the Beauforts, and their allies such as Lord Fiennes–either Humphrey or, once he was dead, York could be expected to demand more influence and patronage (if not Suffolk's instant dismissal) in return for any co-operation. Disputed offices and lands would have to be returned to Suffolk's opponents in the localities–which would build up the ‘client-base' of men he feared.

It is probable that York's enemies actively blackened his name to the timid King, building him up as a potential rebel. Denied access to court after his return in 1445, York was left to brood in what amounted to disgrace despite the supposed honour of his command in Ireland–with his political allies denied lands or office, which mattered a great deal to a proud magnate in an era when a lord was supposed to secure patronage for his clients. This obviously increased the risks of a ‘backlash' from the affronted Duke, as it had done for similarly alienated royal magnates Duke Thomas of Gloucester and Henry of Bolingbroke towards Richard II with the 1387 revolt. Suffolk (and after his return from Normandy on its loss in 1450 Edmund Beaufort) had the political experience and skill to appreciate this if the naïve King did not. It would seem that the lust of the Suffolk clique, allied to the Beauforts, for monopolizing office and land-grants in the 1440s added to the King's fear of Humphrey and York as potential rebels to repeat the disastrous political confrontation of the 1380s. But would York have been feared by the King anyway, without the use of his name made by the Cade rebels in 1450? Was he, as presumed rival heir, an inevitable target for Somerset (or the Queen)? Or was this the ‘turning-point' for his reputation? The French disaster from 1448–50, for which Suffolk was publicly blamed, added humiliation to political frustration and rising disorder and produced a massive explosion of public hatred in the risings of winter 1449–50 (many, significantly, in areas of court favourites' political dominance).

Demands were made in 1450 that Henry replace these men with the group of senior lords of royal blood who were unjustly denied influence, headed by the Dukes of York, Buckingham (descendant of Edward III's youngest son), and Norfolk and Exeter (descendants of Edward I's youngest sons).
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This was similar to the charges of favouritism that could be levelled at Edward II and Richard II (and to a degree against Henry III), none of whom were to be remembered as saintly simpletons not responsible for the chaos their favouritism unleashed. In their cases, it was their victims–Simon de Montfort in 1265, Thomas of Lancaster in 1322, and the Earl of Arundel in 1397–who acquired a popular ‘cult' as ‘martyrs'. Henry's mental breakdown thus did his subsequent and posthumous reputation a lot of good, though it helped that he could never be plausibly charged with unsavoury homosexual practices as were Edward and Richard. He could even be suggested as a possible saint by his nephew Henry VII once he had been dead for two decades and memories of his incompetence were fading; arguably the continuance of political faction after his overthrow in 1461, leading to his successor's removal in 1470, aided his reputation by showing that national unity had not returned under his replacement after his deposition (as it did, after a few years' serious turbulence, after 1327 and 1399). As suggested above, Henry VII also promoted the idea that his uncle had not been personally responsible for the disasters of the 1450s as he sought to have him canonized.

(i) The opportunities offered by the King's madness. The road to St Albans, 1452–5

T
he onset of the King's mysterious mental collapse in early August 1453 was completely unexpected and caused a radical reversal of politics, rather than being an ‘inevitable' follow-up to his problems in the late 1440s. He had given no previous sign of serious ill-health, as opposed to being rash, extravagant, unmilitary, and easily manipulated by his advisers. Despite the evidence of scurrilous public remarks about his being weak-minded, there had been no serious attempt to depose him after the overseas humiliations and poor domestic government of the late 1440s. Indeed, the nebulous ‘Mortimer' claims during the Cade revolt and hints that York was the rightful king were subsequently denounced in terms of outrage–in reasonably representative meetings of Lords and Commons after 1450. One MP in 1451–York's ex-attorney Yonge–had formally proposed York as heir. York had been abroad then–but it was logical for his foes to think he had approved, and York's tenants had been involved in rioting.
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The loss of Normandy and Aquitaine in 1450–2 was met by a determined effort on the part of the political elite to regain them, rather than just a search for a scapegoat–and in any case Suffolk's violent death had served to satisfy the latter demand though it probably also emboldened would-be anti-court vigilantes. In 1452 the veteran royal commander Shrewsbury led an expedition to regain Bordeaux, and the subsequent Parliament at Reading (March 1453) made massive financial grants to the King for a ‘follow-up' expedition of 20,000 archers. Tonnage and poundage were granted to Henry for life, only the second such grant since 1399. The archers–England's best military weapon against the numerically superior French–were to be given four months' notice to assemble at the ports and then be paid for six months' service overseas.
²
This would enable an Agincourt-size expedition, and Henry was expected to lead it in person–as hoped for in the
Book of Noblesse
by his general Sir John Fastolf's secretary, William Worcester.
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Despite Henry's past failure to fight or to pay an expedition adequately, there was evident goodwill among the political ‘nation' for a new beginning and a major effort to reverse recent disasters. Many MPs can perhaps be written off as ‘trusties' carefully selected by pro-court patrons, as there were complaints about the Commons being full of Royal Household men; the same cannot be said of the peers, almost all of whom attended.
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If Henry had led his nobles to war, would it have rallied malcontents behind the King as in 1415–or shown his lack of leadership skills?

At this point, it was York, not Henry or Somerset, who seemed politically isolated. He had behaved–with some excuse–like a man under threat of destruction by his ill-wishers at court in early 1452, issuing a belligerent manifesto from his headquarters at Ludlow Castle on 9 January claiming that the King's mistrust was due to the influence of his enemies and then summoning his supporters to join him in a march on London. He complained that his advice to Henry at an interview at Westminster on 6 October 1450 to do justice on those accused of misrule by the Commons (i.e. York's enemies, headed by Somerset) had been ignored to the resultant damage of the realm, and that he was to be accused of treason and his family disinherited.
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When he sent these letters and then marched on London in February he was aware of Henry's refusal to back down, which the royal letters patent of 17 February calling on all loyal subjects to rally to the King in arms confirmed.
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He was thus guilty of fully intentional defiance of his sovereign by armed intimidation on this occasion, though the subsequent royalist claim in 1459 that he had previously forced his way into Henry's presence past his guards at Westminster in September 1450 cannot be proven.
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Luckily for the King, York's supporters at their rendezvous on Dartford Heath (10–20,000?) were outnumbered by Henry's, by three to one according to Abbot Wheathampstead of St Albans.
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He had to submit to coming to the King's camp, where he vainly presented a list of charges against Somerset to Henry,
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and a few days later swore an oath of allegiance to him at St Paul's Cathedral and promised never again to raise an army against the King.
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So far, York had been the aggressor, though some of his charges against Somerset (over the attack on Fougères, which provoked Charles VII's final invasion and the surrender of Rouen) were based on truth.

It was, however, symptomatic that there was no politic generosity towards York by the supposedly holy King. He had used a progress through York's Marcher lands in 1452 not to display forgiveness to his errant subjects but hold judicial tribunals for ex-rebels and require miscreants to appear before him wearing halters to beg pardon–not even staying with York when he visited the Duke's principal residence at Ludlow, an evident snub.
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He also endeavoured to hand over a disputed part of the Despenser inheritance in Glamorgan from York's nephew and ally, the (Neville) Earl of Warwick who held it by fully legal warship, to rival claimant Somerset. Warwick was refusing to obey and holding onto the disputed castles, while in the north another armed magnate dispute saw his relation Sir John Neville fighting the pro-Beaufort Percy cadet, Lord Egremont.
¹²
It was while on progress in the West Country, rather than preparing for his promised expedition, that Henry suffered his mental collapse. His recent official references to his wife's uncle Charles VII had been unusually bitter, suggesting that the King was in a belligerent and vengeful mood towards France, and the royal ally Cardinal Kemp (a 1440s peacemaker) vigorously denounced French cunning and treachery in the 1440s as he issued official prayers for military success.
¹³
A planned expedition for 1453–4 thus seems genuine, rather than an excuse to raise an army to attack the Duke of York. Possibly, if Henry's health had not declined he would have been resentful enough at his French uncle's duplicity to lead a campaign in Normandy in 1454, though his character and total lack of martial ability would indicate that he would have had to rely heavily on his senior commanders–including York? Any such expedition would have been a blow to his future hagiography as a holy peacemaker, as played up by Shakespeare in his plays, but as of 1453 he had no reputation as a would-be saint and it is logical that he would have seen his ‘betrayal' by the French as justifying the war. The shock of actually witnessing battle in person at St Albans in 1455 may have given him another mental breakdown, but is no indication that this would have happened in a stressful situation if he was leading his army in France. A sudden shock while on ‘active service' had, however, driven his grandfather Charles VI of France insane in 1392, so it cannot be ruled out.
¹⁴

If Henry genuinely intended to lead an expedition there was no sign of its imminence as he suffered his sudden illness in Wiltshire, and his collapse paralyzed the government–which depended ultimately on personal leadership by the sovereign. The timetable of events was such that Shrewsbury's defeat and death at Castillon and the second loss of Bordeaux meant that any expedition would now have to reconquer the city again–but this was perfectly feasible with such a large army. The King's illness may have prevented a campaign to reconquer Aquitaine in 1454, presumably led by the experienced Somerset as the latter's faction (and apparently the Queen) irrevocably distrusted York. The government and the well-armed peers would then have been concentrating on France not on civil strife, and the sense of national unity in a 1415-style patriotic war have reacted to Henry's benefit. But there must still be a possibility that the rising tide of Neville vs Percy armed clashes in Yorkshire (with a pitched inter-family battle at Heworth on 24 August) would have distracted Somerset into a domestic expedition of revenge against his faction's enemies.

The King's first mental collapse in 1453 led to him spending months in a catatonic state, unable to speak or move and being kept in seclusion away from the London area (mostly at Clarendon near Salisbury, where the illness began in August 1453). At the time, shock at the news of the final English defeat in Aquitaine at Castillon was supposed to be the likeliest cause.
¹⁵
Losing the last of his ancestral Continental possessions but for Calais was a profound humiliation, and could have stimulated a depressive stupor. The main symptoms of his illness were complete loss of awareness and movement –by contrast, his maternal grandfather Charles VI's mental illness had involved delusions and bouts of violence.
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As the next legal adult heir, York assumed the regency as ‘King's Lieutenant' to open the next Parliament by request of the Council as it became apparent that feuding great lords (particularly in the north) were taking advantage of the lapse in personal royal rule to wage private war. Rather than seeking reconciliation with his foes and broadening his support as the government was paralyzed, he was still issuing bitter complaints about Somerset.
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Ironically, the birth of a son to Henry and Margaret in the interim, in October, meant that York was no longer heir apparent and so would not take the throne if Henry died–which may have induced his fearful enemies, led by Somerset, to go along with granting him regency powers. To make matters worse, Archbishop and Lord Chancellor Kemp died on 22 March so there was no official licensed to operate the Great Seal and legalize administrative measures–and the catatonic Henry could not appoint or approve a successor. York had not endeared himself to Parliament by his vindictive arrest of its Speaker, Thomas Thorpe, a personal foe, but there was no other option but to grant him the power to run the government if chaos was to be avoided. On the 27th he was named as ‘Protector' of the realm–like Duke Humphrey, military leader and first among equals on the Council but not Regent.
¹⁸

York led the Council–minus the arrested Somerset–until Henry was demonstrably capable again in early 1455. His monopoly of power meant the inevitable dismissal of his rivals from office to secure control for his nominees, but he made no attempt to come to an agreement with Somerset and used his power to place the latter in the Tower.
¹⁹
This escalated the already toxic distrust of Beauforts and allies for the York faction, and once Henry regained his senses they arranged the dismissal of York's appointees (led by his brother-in-law the Lord Chancellor, the Earl of Salisbury) and a formal absolution of Somerset from all charges.
²⁰
Somerset's ally Exeter, who had been arrested by York in summer 1454 for assembling an armed force in Yorkshire and claiming that he should be both Duke of Lancaster (as a descendant of Elizabeth, the daughter of John ‘of Gaunt') and the rightful Protector during Henry's incapacity, was released from custody and the accusations made against him declared groundless.
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This was legally dubious, as Exeter had been defying the legally appointed Protector by armed revolt and so was as guilty as York had been in 1452. Exeter was a close ally of the Percies, and had been disputing the inheritance of some of Elizabeth of Lancaster's estates with the pro-York Lord Cromwell, whose daughter was married to Salisbury's son.
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York and Somerset were bound over to keep the peace until their disputes were to be resolved in June.
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The Duke's withdrawal from court under threat of prosecution returned matters to the uneasy stand-off of 1452, with York unable to answer summonses to court for fear of arrest and execution. In spring 1455 the court faction arranged alleged ‘arbitration' of the York/Somerset dispute, which was expected to come down heavily in Somerset's favour and legalize punitive measures to ruin York's power. This was to be dealt with by a ‘Great Council' (dominated by the Beaufort faction) at Leicester–well away from turbulent London, which could riot in York's favour–on 21 May.
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The royal entourage of Household and armed court nobles set out with its army for the meeting, and York decided to intercept it en route and prevent himself being punished. As shown by the outcome, if he could not secure ‘justice' from the King (which would entail removal of his enemies from court) he intended to fight to regain physical control of the sovereign. Not since 1387 had a group of alienated major subjects decided on this course, and not since Simon de Montfort's revolt in 1264 had a king been attacked in person. The lesser and slower military preparations than in 1452
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may reflect Henry's personal confidence that York would keep to his 1452 oath not to attack him in arms again, and it is possible that the court's decision to leave London and advance on the Midlands implies fear of anti-court rioting in London as in 1450. The court was again to concentrate on the Midlands, not London, in the ‘royalist' faction's period of predominance after 1456. Staying in London would have been unlikely to alter the course of events to York's detriment, as holding out in the Tower against an arriving insurgent army had not been an option for similarly embattled Richard II in 1387. The King's worst miscalculation was probably to pardon both Somerset and Exeter, which renewed the impression that he was an unjust tool of a faction and so boosted York's support. Notably, official letters to York, Salisbury and the latter's son Warwick ordering them to disband almost all their followers or be treated as traitors–the likely precursor to a ‘showdown'–were not prepared until 19 May, two days before the King's departure from London.
²⁶
This would suggest that he or his ‘minders' were not expecting an imminent attack; instead York and his allies were already at Royston and their reply to the orders could be sent back on the 20th and received by the King at Kilburn on the morning of the 21st as he marched north.
²⁷
They demanded that the Chancellor, Archbishop Bourchier (another royal cousin), excommunicate Somerset and Exeter and summon a more representative, i.e. pro-York, assembly than the one that was due to meet at Leicester. But the royal army moved on, and early next morning received supposed assurances of their opponents' goodwill and desire to ‘protect' Henry from his ‘evil counsellors' from York's confessor and envoy, William Willeflete.
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The option of returning to London once they knew York's proximity on the 21st was not followed; nor was the option of halting at Watford when Willeflete arrived daring York to attack.