Warwick the Kingmaker (37 page)

It was inside information that prompted Warwick to launch a combined operation against Sandwich on 15 January 1460 that was conspicuously more successful than that of De Brezé three years earlier. A force somewhat smaller than that of Rivers, allegedly 700 strong and commanded by Dynham, Wenlock and Clapham, attacked at dawn over the dunes and from the sea. Rivers, his spouse and son, and all Warwick’s former ships were carried off captive to Calais. The one exception was the unseaworthy
Grace Dieu
, which was stripped of all its equipment even including the cannons, presumably by the raiders.32 Dynham’s victory was exploited as a morale booster: once at Calais, Rivers and his son were paraded in public by the light of 160 torches and were reprimanded and humiliated as parvenus by the three Yorkist earls in a ceremony that stressed their own allegiance, royal blood and noble lineages.33

Fearful that this raid foreshadowed an immediate invasion, the crown arrayed the coastal counties and organized naval defences. In February Sir Baldwin Fulford indented to raise a naval force for three months and in March Lord Admiral Exeter was commissioned to raise another fleet. Lord Treasurer Wiltshire also provided a small squadron.34 As Warwick had now recovered the core of what had been his fleet as keeper of the seas, these commanders were obliged to impress different ships unfamiliar with naval service. Genoese carracks were hired and an unavailing bid was made for the Venetian galleys. Since the government could not finance all these squadrons adequately, they were not particularly effective. They drained Henry’s coffers and stretched his credit without achieving anything substantial. Warwick was not brought to battle nor were his operations impeded. Such efforts were also premature: by June, when Warwick invaded, Fulford’s commission had expired and Exeter’s fleet had mutinied. Besides all this, the crown was obliged to establish control in Wales and prepare for invasion from Ireland. On 20 May it expected the Yorkists to return with French support and on 23 June, when invasion was imminent, a proclamation reminded subjects that support of traitors was itself treason under the statute of 1352 and ordered them to prepare themselves for defence.35

By February 1460 Yorkist Calais was safe from any immediate threat from land and sea and its captain could be spared. York had also established himself at the head of the Irish government; Rutland was his chancellor. This was known to the Yorkists at Calais. They had even received letters from Duke Richard via the London vintner Thomas Dessford, whom they had had released from custody at Ostend.36 What use was to be made of Calais was not something to be left to correspondence. Hence it was agreed that Warwick should visit the duke ‘to take his advice how thei shold entre in-to England ageyn’: as the most naval-minded, he was the obvious choice. The Gascon Duras was apparently his ‘captain and admiral’ and Pickering went too. This was Warwick’s ‘great journey to Ireland’. Warwick was later to secure repayment of £3,580 from Edward IV that he had borrowed to spend on his ‘navyre’, particularly on this expedition. The outward journey was unchallenged and Warwick was able to seize merchant vessels as he went, which subsequently spawned chancery suits among aggrieved merchants. Thus he commandeered both the balinger
Mary
of Bristol and the
Julian
of Fowey; the latter had a safe conduct to trade with France and was left by Warwick as transport for the Duke of York. Warwick was at Waterford with York and twenty-six ships on 16 March and the next day, St Patrick’s Day, they landed and were received by the citizens with pomp and ceremony. It was during his stay that he and York determined on their next moves.37 We may safely presume that Warwick’s invasion of Kent in June and the line taken in his propaganda were decided in Ireland. We may safely deduce that they decided
not
to co-ordinate their invasions.

Warwick stayed throughout the session of the Irish parliament and returned to Calais late in May. On his return he confronted Exeter’s fleet, which was lying in wait for his return where he had to pass. Waurin tells us that Warwick, ‘who was very wise and imaginative’, always posted a carvel in the van to scout ahead of his main force. The carvel
La Toucque
duly saw Exeter’s ships, reported back to Warwick, and identified them by consultation with a fishing boat. There was time for Warwick to avoid Exeter. The earl preferred to fight. He consulted the masters of his ships, who reached the same conclusion. He encouraged his men with hopes of victory. Knowing what lay ahead, he rearranged his squadron in close formation challenging battle, as he had against the Castilians in 1458, and sailed boldly towards the larger fleet, which may have consisted of fourteen ships and 1,500 men headed by the
Grace Dieu
. Exeter was less experienced and less prepared than Warwick and his crews were of dubious value, both because unpaid and because allegedly sympathetic to Warwick. Accordingly he avoided battle, taking refuge in Dartmouth. Warwick did not attack: wisely, for he could not afford the losses; according to Waurin, because he lacked victuals; perhaps also and significantly, in the somewhat ambiguous words of Davies’s
English Chronicle
, because of Exeter’s royal blood.38 Warwick was able to continue to Calais, where he was received joyously, not least by his countess.39

The inhabitants of Calais were still plagued by the Duke of Somerset. Fearing that other loyal subjects were being suborned by the Yorkists, the government at last authorized Somerset to pardon any who submitted except Fauconberg, Dynham, Anson, Galet, Whetehill, and two others. That was on 5 June 1460 and was too late.40 Meantime a rather smaller relief force was being prepared at Sandwich by Osbert Mountford, a former member of the garrison and recently royal ambassador to Burgundy. On his return Warwick was presented with demands to root out Somerset. He persuaded the complainants that the invasion of England was a preferable option.41 Accordingly Fauconberg was launched against Sandwich on 24 June. Mountford made a stouter defence than Rivers, though with the same result. Dynham was badly wounded by a ball from a bombard. Mountford was captured and taken to Calais, where Warwick allowed his shipmen to execute him and two others.42 Sandwich was secured as bridgehead for the Yorkist invasion of the English mainland.

7.2 WARWICK’S TRIUMPH

Warwick, Salisbury and March landed at Sandwich on 26 June 1460. They declared their objective to be the remedy of the ills that beset the commonwealth and their remedy the reform of the government, in particular the removal of the king’s evil councillors, whom this time they named as Shrewsbury, Wiltshire and Beaumont; later they added Buckingham, ‘the which was hye and fat of greese’ from profiteering at royal expense. The time had come (
Tempus
ys come) for revenge, one poem ominously declared: to destroy falsehood, eradicate weeds from the corn and cut back briars from the trees. Once again they wanted an audience with the king to put their points to him.43 Initially their forces must have been small, more probably hundreds rather than the 2,000 stated by Waurin, but they expanded rapidly to perhaps 20,000 on their advance via Canterbury to London.44 The inhabitants of Kent flocked to join them, even those commissioned to resist them, including the two resident peers Bergavenny and Cobham. Lords Scales, Hungerford, and others had been deputed to hold London against them, but the corporation, proud of its autonomy, rejected their assistance and they retired to the Tower. The corporation itself was divided. There was strong support for the Yorkists among the populace. After some hesitation, the Yorkists were admitted to the City amidst scenes of popular delight. They were greeted by two Yorkist bishops, Grey of Ely and Warwick’s brother of Exeter, each with their own armed retinue, thirteen of whom were unfortunately crushed in the crowd. The Yorkist earls went in procession to St Paul’s, where the convocation of Canterbury had been sitting for some weeks. Warwick told the assembled clergy, mayor and aldermen that they had come to remedy ‘mysreule and myscheues’. They had been expelled from the king’s presence and denied an audience to refute ‘suche fals accusacions layde ayens them’. They solemnly renewed their oaths of allegiance.45

The loss of London was a grievous and unexpected blow for Henry. His strategy was defensive. For nine months since Ludford the regime had guarded against further Yorkist insurgency, which could have fallen almost anywhere. They needed to watch for invasion by York from Ireland into Wales, Lancashire, or even the south-western peninsula; against a Scottish invasion; against insurrection by the Neville affinity in Richmondshire and other parts of the North; and against threats to East Anglia and the south coast posed by both Warwick and, supposedly, the French. Those deputed to resist York were fully committed and
hors de combat
whether the duke came or not. When it was clear where Warwick was coming, on 23 June, King Henry had ordered the south-eastern shires to resist him;46 subsequently he summoned his supporters in the North to join him at Northampton. They took time to mobilize and concentrate: longer certainly than the mere fortnight that it took Warwick to proceed from the bridgehead at Sandwich to the battlefield at Northampton. He knew the importance of speed. The king’s forces took up a defensive position in a curve of the River Nene near Northampton, which they fortified with ditches, guns and obstacles that should have sufficed against direct attack. Probably they also anticipated, wrongly, that the Yorkists would be as unwilling to confront the king as in 1459.

Having taken London, they deputed Salisbury, Cobham and Wenlock to hold it and to blockade the Tower, whilst Warwick and March pressed on rapidly to the king. Warwick had the popular support and March represented York, whereas Salisbury, so far from the Neville powerhouse in the North, could expect to attract few retainers. Warwick and March took five bishops, five barons, and Viscount Bourchier. Was it the attainder of his sons after Ludford that had transformed the viscount from a Yorkist sympathizer into a companion at arms? Without more concrete evidence, their army presumably consisted of a core of Calais professionals, a few retainers, and a host of ‘naked men’; there is no evidence of many Neville or York retainers. Proceeding via St Albans and Dunstable, the Yorkists ranged their forces in front of the king on 10 July. Three times they sought an audience to explain the evils of his government and to request a remedy, initially by the medium of Bishop Beauchamp and latterly through Warwick herald. Warwick even offered to come on his own provided that his safety was guaranteed by hostages. The king’s spokesperson, again Buckingham, rejected their overtures. In contrast to similar discussions at St Albans in 1455, he no longer accepted Yorkist protestations of loyalty and realized that nothing less than complete capitulation to Yorkist demands could avert conflict. He may also have feared both that the king would be too easily persuaded by Warwick of the latter’s good intentions and that he himself would be among the evil councillors to be punished. It is hard to accept that the Yorkist ultimatum reveals a ‘patent willingness to negotiate’!47 Buckingham told Warwick herald that if the earl came, he would die. Warwick responded that he would speak to the king by 2 p.m. or die on the field.48 He had grounds for self-confidence since Grey of Ruthin on the Lancastrian side had already assured him of his intended treachery.49

The Yorkist forces were arranged in three battles commanded by Warwick and March with the veteran Fauconberg in the van. They attacked all along the line, enveloping the king’s smaller forces, which were prevented by wet conditions from using their cannon, and were helped over the barriers from the Lancastrian side by Grey of Ruthin on the royalist right wing. The battle was quickly over with perhaps only 300 slain. Before attacking, Warwick had ordered the commons to be spared and the aristocrats killed. He can have wished for the death of none more than Buckingham, Shrewsbury, Beaumont and Egremont, the ‘curre Dogges’, all of whom were slain. The king was captured.50

There is no sign that the Yorkists considered killing or deposing the king.

But the hunt [king] he [Warwick] saued from harme that day,

He thouzht neuer other in all his mynde.51

Without pausing, they modelled their conduct on the successful precedent of 1455. They wanted to legitimize their treasonable attack on the king and their defiance of his banner displayed. For that they needed to mobilize Henry’s authority on their behalf. Once again Henry was treated with the utmost outward respect. They assured him that they had not been fighting him, but merely their own malicious enemies. They were seeking only the good of the king and realm like true liegemen. At once he accepted them as such. Letters in his name issued under their aegis declare their condemnation of the previous year to be malicious and scandalous and repute the Yorkists to be loyal subjects. The day after the battle, as in 1455, the Yorkist lords took mass with the king, this time at the nearby abbey of St Mary-in-the-Meadows (Delapré Abbey). Three days were spent in Northampton, where Buckingham was honourably buried at the Greyfriars and the others at St John’s Hospital. Since Buckingham was half-brother of Bourchier, brother-in-law of Fauconberg, and uncle of Warwick and March, since Beaumont was married to Warwick and March’s aunt and Fauconberg’s sister Katherine, and since Egremont was first cousin of the two earls, some show of sorrow was
de rigueur
; maybe there was some genuine regret as well. At dawn on the fourth day they took mass and set off for London, where they arrived on 16 July. They were met with ‘myche ryalte’ by Archbishop Bourchier, the papal legate, and the Earl of Salisbury, who escorted them in procession into the City. On the precedent of 1455, the victors were again prominent: March rode beside the king and Warwick, his head bare, in front, with the king’s sword point uppermost. Again Henry was lodged in the bishop of London’s palace, Warwick at Blackfriars and March at Baynards Castle. On 17 July they proceeded solemnly through the City to St Paul’s, where they celebrated a mass in honour of Jesus.52 As after St Albans, the new regime was to be confirmed by parliament, which was summoned on 20 July.53 A third Yorkist protectorate was probably the intended outcome.