Warwick the Kingmaker (23 page)

However widespread the support for York’s appointment and however representative the council, York found few magnates prepared to commit themselves and fewer yet on whom he could depend. Norfolk and Cromwell were both inactive: perhaps we should take more seriously the duke’s ‘inffirmytye withe the wiche he is manye tymes vexed’ as explanation for his inconvenient absences at key moments? Devon was a violent liability. None of these attended many council meetings or were added to commissions of the peace like York and the two Neville earls. Warwick, hitherto JP only for Warwickshire, joined another twelve commissions: for Worcestershire and Staffordshire on 22 April 1454, Gloucestershire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire and (as befitted the marcher warden) Cumberland and Westmorland on 21–29 May, the West Riding of Yorkshire on 1 June and North Riding on 11 July, for Northamptonshire on 4 December, and Herefordshire on 19 February 1455.25 This does not mean that Warwick had political designs on all these areas, as has sometimes been suggested from a single county perspective.26 Far from it. Henceforth he could participate in their affairs, if he so wished and had the time, for he visited few of these counties and apparently attended no sessions. He rendered his provincial services principally through commissions of oyer and terminer.

However much the composition of the council assuaged the hostility of queen and court, it does not mean that the new regime could do as it wished. York was not able to destroy Somerset, as he had hoped. This was not because of a failure to bring him to trial, nor because Norfolk failed to prosecute his case. It does seem likely that the duke avoided bringing the case to parliament, which he could not control, and instead took it to successive great councils. The principal evidence here is a petition by Norfolk himself which comes from a late stage in proceedings. Norfolk had presented his articles, which focused on the loss of Lancastrian France, and Somerset had been arrested (23 November 1453). Somerset had answered the charges and offered evidence in support, which his accuser rejected as ‘falseness and lesynges’, and Norfolk had made his replication, which proved his case to his own satisfaction and those ‘knowyng how justice owyth to be ministred’. The judgement that he requested of the Lords had not however materialized, ‘whereoff y am so hevy that y may no lenger beere it’. Some peers thought exception should be made due to Somerset’s lineage, which Norfolk saw as an excuse (‘dissimulacion’), and detracted from the deterrent value of justice to future offenders; others, he thought, hoped to be bribed by Somerset; yet others considered that the charges ‘ben but cases of trespass’ not treason; and yet more argued the case for general reconciliation – ‘univer-sell peas’ – not vengeance. There was no consensus in his favour to destroy a royal duke who had been the king’s favourite and who had been exonerated several times by the king himself. This stage most likely occurred in July, for surely the second issue – whether the offences constituted treason – justified York’s suggestion that it be referred to the judges. On 18 July York had to plead inadequate attendance to prevent Somerset from being released on bail.

Following the departure for York of himself and Warwick, those remaining relieved Northumberland of the judicial proceedings that the duke himself had gone to continue! Though amazed by this conclusion, Norfolk apparently recognized that he could not secure an acceptable verdict under English law. Changing his tack, therefore, and citing foreign parallels, he asked that Somerset should be tried for his French offences under French law, that commissions of inquiry be held into the evidence, and that his original appeal should be enacted. Should his case again fail to prevail, he asked for a patent of discharge and threatened to make the failure of justice known. This, surely, was at the great council of 28 October, at which he was ordered to present (surely re-present?) his charges, the last occasion when it could have been heard, and resulted in neither Somerset’s conviction nor Norfolk’s discharge nor its exemplification. Again poorly attended, the trial was put off.27 If the charges themselves related to service in France, York’s main aim, as in 1450, was to destroy the principal obstacle in his way.

Nor did the protectorate achieve instant acceptance from the governed. York spent his whole protectorate struggling to secure the practical implementation of his captaincy of Calais, without success. The garrison mutinied for their pay and much effort was spent finding the funds to satisfy them. Somerset’s lieutenants, lords Welles and Rivers, remained in possession and the duke continued to be excluded. The leading gentry in Derbyshire denounced Walter Blount as a traitor and sacked his house at Elvaston in May; perhaps this was because Blount was associated with the royal household; more probably he was already allied to York and hence to ‘the illegitimate accroachment of royal power by a partisan faction’.28

More seriously yet, York’s son-in-law Exeter – probably the protector’s hopeful if unrealistic rival – thought himself more properly protector. Reading between the formulaic and partisan lines of indictments, Exeter apparently distinguished between the government and the duchy of Lancaster, to which he felt as next heir he should be custodian; not those without such claims.29 There was a problem of respect and recognition for the protectorate, that King Henry himself with all his personal inadequacies had never experienced. This was aggravated by the factional nature of the regime. There was no place on the council for Exeter and Somerset, York’s defeated rivals. Salisbury as chancellor was ever-present, but, in the context of the Percy–Neville feud, not Northumberland, Poynings, Egremont or Clifford. Warwick was there, but not his Beauchamp and Despenser rivals. Cromwell, one party in the Ampthill dispute, was there; Exeter was not. Council membership thus threatened to reverse the old division between ins and outs and harden it by identifying the protectorate with one faction in the principal feuds and by shutting out the others. So did the protector’s own policy of enforcement.

York was appointed on 28 March. Perhaps it was not long afterwards that the protector, chancellor, treasurer, primate and Viscount Bourchier imposed a settlement on the Mountford dispute. York’s son-in-law and enemy Exeter had made extensive military preparations in the far corners of the land by 8 May, when York commanded him to report his reasons and future intentions for decision by the council.30 There was concern about disorders in Derbyshire and the North by 10–11 May, when the council wrote stern summonses to Exeter, Northumberland, Egremont and leading gentry.31 All were ignored: so much for the new statute threatening such offenders with forfeiture! Quite what was intended by Exeter and Egremont is uncertain, though large forces were assembled at York and Spofforth and marched to Skipton (28 May) towards Lancashire, for their preparations were disrupted by York’s rapid and decisive action: ‘and hearing of the approach of the Duke of York they fled.’ Assemblies in Lancashire were suppressed and others dispersed. Perhaps the lesser rebels were unwilling to resist royal authority and thus make themselves into traitors. Exeter had taken sanctuary at Westminster by 8 June, whence he was removed on 23 July to Salisbury’s custody at Pontefract; Egremont disappeared. Between 15 and 26 June York and Warwick sat in judgement at York on the Percy–Neville feud and Exeter’s rebellion, taking a systematically anti-Percy line. Unlike sessions after Dartford, which sought to minimize a genuine rebellion, indictments in this case sought to maximize the offence. York and Warwick had moved on by 1 July to Derby to hold sessions on the Derbyshire disturbances.32

Meantime the great officers Salisbury and Worcester conducted affairs in London, including the early stages of a great council. York and Warwick arrived late and left early. Back at York for sessions on 3 August, Warwick was at Middleham on the 20th, probably with his father, who carried the great seal with him to Middleham, Sheriff Hutton and Barnard Castle throughout August and September.33 Both presumably returned to Westminster for York’s great council in late October. Both were present on 13 November to approve a new ordinance for the royal household.34

Whatever else York’s campaign in the North achieved, it did not bring peace. The sessions if anything inflamed the Percies. Chancellor and councillors were alarmed by the disturbances. The climax was another skirmish about 1 November, when Egremont was captured by Warwick’s younger brothers at Stamford Bridge near York. Arraigned at York on 4 November, he was sentenced to punitive damages to the Nevilles that he could never hope to pay.35 As Cromwell had recovered Ampthill once again and Warwick the exchequer chamberlainship, all the feuds had been settled in favour of York’s allies. Justice, as always, was less important than order.

5.2 THE FIRST BATTLE OF ST ALBANS 1455

York was protector during the pleasure of a king who, at his appointment, could express neither pleasure nor any other sentiment. The king’s malady proved not to be permanent. He recovered his faculties in the winter of 1454–5 and no longer required a protector. Having signed his last recorded council minute on 30 December, York left office in late January, probably unwillingly. Why else should he have insisted that more than the king’s will was needed to terminate his second protectorate? Somerset may have been freed on 20 January and the removal of Exeter from Pontefract to Wallingford was ordered on 3 February. The strict conditions including exclusion from the royal presence that were attached to Somerset’s formal release on bail on 5 February were relaxed at another great council at Greenwich on 4 March. Somerset reported that he had been imprisoned for a year and ten weeks ‘without any reasonable Ground or laweful Processe’ and declared his willingness to ‘Answer and do all thyng that a trewe Knight owith to do according to Law and Knighthood’: an invitation to trial by battle that neither York nor Norfolk took up! To this the king responded by recognizing ‘his true and feithfull liegeaunce’, ‘willing it were known and understood that he so taketh him’. Henry intended this to be the last word on the subject. Henceforth York, who was present, could not legitimately charge Somerset with treason. Somerset was restored as captain of Calais and apparently resumed his central role in royal decision-making.36 Any remaining issues between him and York were again regarded as private and were to be settled by arbitration by 20 June. Both dukes promised under bonds of 20,000 marks (£13,666.33) to keep the peace towards each other pending the award.37 Salisbury was replaced as chancellor on 7 March by Archbishop Bourchier and Worcester as treasurer by Wiltshire on the 16th. Cromwell ceased to be chamberlain of the household about the same time.

Historians have been highly critical of Henry’s actions in these months, which threatened York and his Neville allies with ruin. To deprive Salisbury of the constableship of Portchester was victimization. The acquittal of Somerset was a ‘rebuff’ and gave ‘the direct lie’ to Norfolk. It was in any case unwise. A neutral figure like Buckingham should have been preferred as principal councillor. Henry was indecisive, ambivalent, dilatory and lethargic. His actions forced the Yorkists into a pre-emptive strike: they pointed the way directly to the first battle of St Albans.38

These judgements are unfair on Henry VI. Perhaps he was ungrateful to York for his services whilst he himself was incapacitated. An adult king needed no protector and was entitled to rule. He must have been astonished to find incarcerated the two dukes most closely related to the royal house. He was bound to reiterate his earlier satisfaction with Somerset’s loyalty. Decisions that overturned his own were bound to be abrogated and officials who disobeyed him were liable to dismissal. Neither York, who
may
have resigned because of the release of Somerset, nor Salisbury, who
may
have left because of that of Exeter, could legitimately thwart the king’s will. Moreover the king’s rapid intervention in Somerset’s case and his determination to settle any remaining issues contrast favourably with Somerset’s lengthy imprisonment and repeated adjournments during York’s protectorate. Remember that Norfolk had found no consensus among the Lords against Somerset. As he did not attend the crucial meetings affecting Somerset, his continued objections and rejection of the king’s decision were decidedly unreasonable. It was one of the essential functions of a king to impose peace on his greatest subjects. Henry’s decisions were measured and moderate. He acted not of his own arbitrary will, but with an impressive display of public consultation and consent, meeting a series of great councils at Westminster on 4 February, at Greenwich on 4 March, perhaps another at Westminster on 14–18 February, to which the Yorkist lords allegedly were not invited, and, prospectively, a fuller assembly with county representatives at Leicester on 21 May.

Historians have attached great significance to the Leicester venue as one where Henry VI was stronger than York and have seen his choice as anticipating his withdrawal from London to the Midlands from 1456. Admittedly Leicester was a centre of the Lancastrian estates, but Henry was already partial to locations outside London (e.g. Reading) and especially in the Midlands, where Leicester and Coventry had already hosted great councils and parliamentary sessions. If the Leicester great council was to feature the final settlement of York with Somerset on the declaration of the arbitration award, it was not likely to repeat York’s public humiliation at Dartford, still less his destruction. We know better of arbitration than that. A formal public reconciliation like the Loveday of 1458 was far more likely. In return for the dismissal of his charges against Somerset, York would be protected from punishment, vengeance and damages to Somerset for his sufferings over the past eighteen months.

York may possibly have believed the language of common profit that he uttered in 1455, but it was new to the Nevilles, whose reasons for originally joining him and for remaining with him were essentially personal. It was not the public good that prompted the duke and earls to obstruct Henry’s full resumption of power and the release of the two dukes. York wanted government for himself. It is doubtful whether any other substitute for Somerset could have satisfied him: subsequent favourites were also opposed. The two Neville earls had committed themselves more than any other magnates to the protectorate and stood to lose most, not least because they had exploited their opportunities to their personal advantage and the disadvantage of others. They could not withdraw from politics without repercussions. They saw the two Lancastrian dukes as their enemies and had given them good cause to become such. If Exeter was not important in any area significant to the Nevilles, his allies the Percies were. Any reinvestigation of the Percy–Neville feud was bound to be less favourable to the Nevilles than the judicial sessions of the previous year. Somerset could reasonably be expected in time to reopen both the Beauchamp and Despenser disputes. They had grounds for concern, but not alarm. They were wrong to reject the king’s decisions and to reopen issues yet again that he had closed. They were even more blameworthy in resorting to force, particularly to force against the king, which transgressed the fundamental rules of political behaviour and constituted treason. And they also deliberately rejected the ties of kinship that bound them to their cousin the king, the brothers, brothers-in-law, uncles, nephews and cousins at court.