Warwick the Kingmaker (17 page)

That was not acceptable to the king. Whilst recognizing York’s commitment to the common good, it was not appropriate to allow such power to any single individual. Instead he set up ‘a sadde and substancial counselle’ including York to handle this and other pressing matters and instructed the chancellor to summon the lords so that it could begin work straight away. What Henry expected of the council was doubtless less than York’s desires, but nevertheless the offer should have disarmed the duke. It did not. Instead it was perhaps at this time that York published his second bill, which was probably widely disseminated in London by 6 October, in an overt appeal to popular sentiment and an effort to bring pressure on the king and the new council. The king’s response was to publish the text of their exchange of letters to show that appropriate remedies were offered to York’s complaints. It presumably preceded York’s final bill which, given his known movements, must surely have been presented after his departure for East Anglia on 9 October.

York’s next bill addressed to the king and to the lords of this new council took a much more drastic line. Whereas his previous bill had attacked only those already indicted of treason (and therefore specifically excluded Somerset), this bill encompassed not only those involved in treasons, extortions and subversion of the law, but also those who had lost French conquests by treaty or in war: those ‘unlawfully embassiators and by other weyes’ behind ‘the losses of his glorious reaume of Fraunce, his commodious duchie of Normandie, his keyes of his diffensable duchie of Aungoye and his counte of Mayne and that caused his liege men to here utterest destruccion withouten reason or defence’. Without mentioning names, but to remove any doubts, he attributed such misconduct to ‘highe astates’, ‘beyng aboute the kinges personne’, and ‘broughte up of noughte’. It brought in not merely those indicted in 1450, but also councillors, ambassadors, and commanders involved in royal policy, negotiations, and warfare with France as far back as the treaty of Tours. Not merely Suffolk, Moleyns, Aiscough and Say, not merely Somerset, but current royal ministers, councillors, and officials were implicated. This time the remedy lay not with himself, but in ‘the trewe lordes of the counsele and speciali the lordes of the mighti blood roiall’ and ‘honorable knightes and juges undefouled’. The scarcely veiled implication was that there were untrue councillors and discredited knights and judges, who should be excluded. ‘Alas,’ York lamented, that the true lords of the council allowed such things to happen! The bill is highly rhetorical. It appeals to the public weal, muses philosophically on the necessity for observation of law, dwells both on the king’s oath at his coronation to keep the law and the councillors’ own oaths to offer ‘trewe counseile without feare’, and was clearly designed for a wider audience.19 This bill leaves us in no doubt that York’s objective was to root out the whole of the existing regime and to destroy its principal members: mere reform and punishment of abuses by a ‘sadde and substancial counsele’ was not enough.

Just as York had tried to coerce the king into agreement by a display of force and by enlisting public support for his second bill, so now he coerced the council – even those, perhaps, implicated in the actions he denounced – with a bill that appealed to popular support. No reply is recorded to this bill, which presumably antedated the meeting of parliament, and no known action was taken on it. Certainly it must have been unacceptable to the king and his ministers. Coercion by parliament came next. The rejection or shelving of York’s proposals led to York’s alliance with the Duke of Norfolk, who was with him at Bury St Edmunds on 15–16 October, where they agreed on candidates as knights of the shire for Suffolk. York then progressed through his estates, from East Anglia via Fotheringhay (Northants) on 17 October to Ludlow (5 November). Assemblies later indicted as treasonable were held on other properties.

York’s men had also made attacks on the servants and properties of the Duke of Somerset,20 who was to be the focus for attack in parliament. For several chroniclers in retrospect the session was dominated by the quarrel of York and Somerset. This was a quarrel that was to keep recurring until Somerset’s death in battle at St Albans. For several chroniclers and some recent historians it stemmed from differences arising from their careers in France. In particular Somerset had replaced York as commander in France at some damage to his
amour propre
and even honour.21 He had yielded to the French much more easily than York imagined he would have done and in the process had lost York valuable seigneuries that he could ill afford. Yet these grievances are absent from York’s earlier bills. It is improbable that Somerset’s arrival prompted York’s return from Ireland and York’s first three bills did not touch him. By November 1450 York had identified Somerset as the principal obstacle in his way. Maybe Henry would have conceded the demands in York’s last two bills, but for the stiffening provided by Somerset himself. If Somerset could be removed, by trial for the treasonable loss of France, or by murder, perhaps York’s drastic purge and the Commons’ demands for reform might yet be achieved? Had York identified Somerset’s military failure as the weak point on which to concentrate if the duke was to be removed? That would explain why parliament’s petition to exclude 29 named individuals from court was concerned with 28 implicated in domestic abuses and only one, Somerset, for offences committed abroad. Not ‘a clumsy composite’, the bill recognized how crucial it was for Somerset to be removed. His military failings were his weakest point. And when York dwelt on these, as he repeatedly did, sympathetic chroniclers accepted his explanation for the quarrel.

That York and Norfolk delayed their attendance at parliament until a fortnight into the session demonstrates their confidence in the critical temper of the Commons, especially with Oldhall as Speaker. York made his ceremonial entry on 23 November, followed next day by Norfolk. Both brought large and threatening retinues. The London mob was mobilized to put pressure on parliament itself. On 30 November a great shout was raised against the false traitors in Westminster Hall and vengeance was demanded against them. Next day an attempt was even made to lynch Somerset, who escaped only narrowly from Blackfriars by water. Though the credit for his escape was later attributed to York, it seems most likely that he instigated it.22 York needed him removed too much to care about the means. Shortly afterwards Somerset was confined in the Tower. Demands were made for the exclusion of those ‘mysbehaving’ about the king and for a further act of resumption. It was only reluctantly that the Commons recognized the financial necessity arising from the unsuccessful war, voting an experimental tax that inevitably raised less than was needed, and surrounded it with conditions for payment and audit that symbolized their lack of trust for the regime.

The new earl of Warwick was present at this parliament also and rode ‘thurgh the citee with a mighti people arraied for the werre’.23 As anarchy threatened, so on 3 December Warwick, Salisbury and many other noblemen accompanied the king in parading their forces nearby, which even York had to join. Salisbury condemned one rioter who was executed as a deterrent. It was three days after this parade, perhaps as reward, that Warwick was recognized as chamberlain of the exchequer.

Warwick, indeed, had attended many of the principal events of this turbulent year, always well-accompanied and always loyal. Whilst York might be proposed as the king’s heir, nobody was yet presenting him as an alternative. Where Warwick stood politically – for or against the regime – is more difficult to fathom. Indeed there are only three clues. Suffolk’s fall had resulted from his impeachment, which was only made possible by divisions within the government. Attributing a murderous attack on himself at Westminster in November 1449 by the duke’s client William Tailbois to the duke himself, Ralph Lord Cromwell initiated the attack on Suffolk. According to the chronicler pseudo-Worcestre, it was he who inspired the impeachment,24 which, with a longer perspective, encouraged Cade to revolt, York to intervene, and initiated the divisions that followed. This interpretation makes sense of Warwick’s otherwise puzzling accusation after the first battle of St Albans in 1455 that Cromwell was responsible for all the troubles.25 Warwick’s later judgement
suggests
that in 1450 his own preference was to back the government, as indeed his own interests so obviously dictated. Perhaps this is also what should also be read into the one direct reference to him, typically laconic and opaque, in the topical verse of the time:

The Bere is bound that was so wild,

Ffor he hath lost his ragged staff.26

To read ineffectiveness and lack of military force appears inappropriate. Far from leading the attack, it appears that Warwick was bound to and supported the government. Indeed, he had good cause to, when two Despenser feoffees were royal ministers (Sudeley and Beauchamp). Yet other close connections were denounced as traitors: the Despenser feoffee John Norris and the Beauchamp retainers Say, Daniel and Vampage. If Warwick and Salisbury were ever prepared to back York’s programme, as a German source suggests,27 there is no supporting evidence at this stage and nothing came of it.

4.2 THE ROYALIST REACTION 1451–3

The year 1450 ended with the ruling regime apparently in retreat on all fronts. Somerset himself was imprisoned in the Tower. The Commons were baying for his trial and for that of his allies as traitors, for the posthumous condemnation of Suffolk, and for a further resumption of their grants. So, too, with the Warwick inheritance, where Warwick’s capture of the chamberlainship sealed his victory over Somerset and his Beauchamp sisters-in-law. York calculated that pressure from his unruly retinue, the Commons, and popular unrest would force Henry to give way over Somerset just as he had over Suffolk.

York miscalculated badly. However apparently pliable and lacking in political judgement, King Henry was secure on his throne and possessed an inner strength that enabled him to ride out the storm. As early as 25 January 1451 he revoked his earlier concession to his council of some control over grants: this was to be no collective government! Henry would not discredit the peace policy that he himself had formulated, or his agents who had carried it through. He declined to surrender any power to York. He refused to dismiss Somerset, his other ministers and favourites. Whilst eventually accepting the Commons petition and removing some courtiers, he emasculated it with exceptions for peers and those customarily attending on him. York could not exploit his apparently overwhelming advantage. Whilst public opinion, carefully nurtured, remained hostile to the court and accepted York’s assessment of himself as saviour of the commonweal, from early 1451 to mid-1453 it was the king’s men who had the advantage and Somerset, not York, who held the political initiative.

The session of parliament that reconvened on 20 January 1451 was unsatisfactory for the reformers and was hamstrung by the priority that the king gave to judicial sessions in Kent: in which York had no choice, but to participate. Warwick was among those commissioned to hear and determine offences in Kent and also to try Thomas Hoo, late treasurer of Normandy, who was acquitted.28 The king rejected the bill against Suffolk. There were acquittals of Suffolk’s duchess by the Lords and of other lesser men when their cases came to trial. Royal influence was exerted to achieve these results, but no stretching of the rules could bring the king’s councillors and courtiers within the
legal
definition of treason! As one chronicler put it, nothing came of it.29 An attempt to increase York’s leverage, his nomination by Young as heir presumptive, was firmly quashed. Somerset, far from condemned, was released, appointed to commissions, conducted the king’s progress, and in April was appointed captain of Calais. By the summer, foreign ambassadors recognized him as the dominant influence in government.30

Loyal though the Nevilles had been and were to be again in 1452, the revival of the king’s party and the recovery of Somerset proved as unfortunate for them as it was for York and the cause of reform. Proud though the Nevilles were of their royal Beaufort and Lancastrian lineage, Somerset was to sever them too from the court and was to drive them into the arms of York. Neither Salisbury nor Warwick were members of King Henry’s inner circle of advisers. Each attended only two of the fifty recorded meetings of the royal council between 1450 and 1453; though even Somerset attended only twenty.31 They received no significant expressions of royal patronage between 1450 and 1453. The act of resumption that was Henry’s only genuine concession to his critics inevitably injured a family so successful in exploiting his patronage. Neither Warwick nor Salisbury secured provisos. Effective from Lady Day 1451, the act revoked all grants made since 1422, this time including the exchanges by which Salisbury had accrued royal rights and possessions in Richmondshire and the West March. His Carlisle feefarm was actually regranted to Henry Percy, Lord Poynings. Warwick lost two grants originally made to Duke Henry. He had held only the reversion of the forest of Feckenham, but the loss of the Channel Isles was more serious. He was still in possession on 18 January 1452. Potentially most serious of all was the cancellation of his custody of George Neville’s half of the Despenser inheritance.32 The Nevilles were not among the host who secured renewals of leases in advance of the sheriffs’ inquisitions or thereafter in the latter half of the year.

If these losses arose from the drive for reform rather than any malicious intent by the government, the absence of any confirmations suggests disfavour, and Somerset’s involvement in the Warwick inheritance was deliberately hostile. For the next two years Warwick was in retreat, striving to maintain his hold on those parts of his wife’s inheritances to which he no longer had the right, playing for time and ignoring successive royal mandates. Fortunately more pressing matters preoccupied his opponents until the early summer of 1453.