Warwick the Kingmaker (41 page)

One major difference in 1460 was that the Church was on the Yorkists’ side and gave them the moral initiative. Warwick had foreseen the potential value of such backing. He had prepared the ground carefully, by cultivating and then enrolling the papal legate on their side. Bishop Coppini was a lightweight, a cleric of little judgement and much self-importance, who allowed himself to become embroiled in English politics and foolishly took sides. As early as March 1460 he had met with Warwick, presumably at Calais, had been impressed by him, and acted on his advice. On 25 June, on the eve of their invasion, the Yorkist lords had written to him at length in Latin. They had recited the injustices to which York and themselves had been subjected and had besought his justice and intercession. They were about to invade England not to damage, but to promote the honour and glory of the king. They swore to God Almighty and to Coppini as legate that they were loyal, faithful and devoted both to the king and to the Holy See and promised that they would do their uttermost for the faith, for the Church, and for the defence of Christendom against the Turks. They assured him of York’s compliance. They ended by urging him to accompany them.121

If not strictly truthful – none of them ever showed any serious intent in becoming crusaders! – the letter struck the right note. Coppini accompanied or followed the earls to England and to London, where he was on 3 July. He was rumoured (probably unjustly) to have offered remission of sins to the Yorkists and excommunicated supporters of Queen Margaret. He was induced on 4 July at London to write at length to Henry VI in their support. After exhorting the Yorkists to peace and obedience, so he reported, ‘they gave me a written pledge that they were disposed to devotion and obedience to your Majesty and to do all in their power for the conservation and augmentation of your honour and the good of your realm’. The Yorkists wanted an audience and ‘to be received into their former state and favour’, from which they claimed to have been removed by the craft of their opponents. At their request and to spare bloodshed, Coppini had crossed the Channel with them. They were now willing to do whatever he proposed for the good of king and kingdom and in particular

certain things contained in documents under their own seals and oaths, which they handed over, and which I am confident your Serenity would approve after viewing them with a tranquil and open mind, as they tend to the honour and glory of your lordship, the public exaltation of the realm, and the honour and advantage of princes and lords.

This sounds more concrete than the Yorkist manifestos. To complete his partisan commitment to the Yorkist cause, Coppini reported how his work had been impeded by ‘some who professed themselves devoted to your Majesty and are not’. He even accepted as reasonable the Yorkist claims that they must come armed to any audience!122 What a gift Coppini was to Warwick! How potentially useful he was when dealing with a king so easily influenced and as religious-minded as Henry VI! And how actually useful the legate was to be in Warwick’s dealings with the English Church.

The Verses on the Yorkist Lords
culminate in an appeal to Christ himself that the Yorkist lords persist in their intent ‘To the pleasaunce of God and the welfare of vs alle’.123 The Canterbury verses, which contain numerous scriptural and liturgical allusions and Latin tags, ask Jesus himself to restore York, who is compared to Job, and end three verses with the Latin refrain ‘Glory, Laud and Honour to you Christ, Redeemer, King’!124 The new manifesto, like that of 1459, makes frequent reference to God, invokes him and the saints as witnesses, presents a model of a Christian prince and twice judges evils as contrary to ‘Goddys and mannys lawe’. The first clause laments ‘the grete oppressyon, extorsion, robry, murther, and other vyolencys doone to Goddys churche, and to his mynystres therof, ayens Goddys and mannes law’. It is addressed not just to the commons, but to Archbishop Bourchier, primate of all England and dioc-esan bishop of much of Kent.125 On arriving at Canterbury, the Yorkist lords entered the feretory of the cathedral and removed the cross of St Thomas (Becket) of Canterbury, the most revered of saints throughout England and especially in Kent. It was borne before the rebels like the banner of St Cuthbert in northern England. Proceeding to St Paul’s Cathedral in the company of Coppini on Saturday 5 July, the Yorkists found the recipient of their manifesto Archbishop Bourchier, the kinsman and sympathizer of the Yorkist peers, presiding over a meeting of the convocation of Canterbury. Convocation contained several sympathetic bishops and was also at odds with the regime that had allowed the clergy to be molested by secular courts, the ‘oppressyons’ cited in the Yorkist manifesto. With ‘alle the convocation and innumerable people standing about’, Warwick was permitted to put the partisan Yorkist case. As in 1452 and 1455, this time on the cross of Canterbury and in the presence of convocation, the Yorkist lords solemnly swore ‘that they had [n]euer bore vntrue feythe and lygeaunce to the kinges person, wyllyng no more hurt to hym than to theyr own persone’. Also that same day Coppini declared that he had with him papal bulls requesting the restoration of the Yorkist lords, the excommunication of their opponents, and the absolution of Yorkist sympathizers from any punishment or blame.126

The Yorkists took Coppini and the bishops with them to Northampton. Coppini claimed to be authorized to mediate for peace. Bishop Beauchamp’s efforts at mediation were rejected by Buckingham as partisan. Not surprisingly, two bishops were embarrassed and joined the king; others had been with him throughout. Coppini committed himself further:

[He] raised the standard of the Church of Rome and, on the ground that they were to do battle against the enemies of the Faith, he granted plenary remission of sins to those who were to fight on the side of the Earl of Warwick. He likewise pronounced anathema on their enemies, exhibiting before the camp an Apostolic letter which was believed to contain this formula though in reality its contents were quite different...[He also] forbade burial to those who died in battle.127

The battle won, as we have seen, the sacraments and processions of the Church sanctioned the Yorkist victory. ‘If God be with vs, who is vs a-gayne?’, demanded the poet. Henry VI is made to give thanks to God and St Thomas.

Blessed be God in trinite,

Ffadir & Son & holygoste,

Whiche kepithe his servauntes in aduersite,

& wold not suffre theyme to be lose.

As thou art lord of mightes moste,

Saue the king & his ryalte,

And illumyn him with the holygoste,

His reme to set in perfyt charite. Amen.128

The Yorkists were fulfilling God’s wishes. Divine authority was invoked in support of Henry VI himself and the restoration of domestic peace. The text chosen for the chancellor’s opening sermon to parliament hinted at the remedy of ecclesiastical grievances.

Loyalty remained a central theme. In 1459 the Yorkists’ protestations of loyalty may have inhibited them. In 1460 such considerations were not allowed to hold them back. Nobody taking the Yorkist side could have expected them to achieve their objectives without violence. The Yorkist lords regarded themselves as loyal and rejected the sentence against them. How dare anyone presume to make such charges against princes of their blood? How could they be traitors? So runs the argument of the Yorkist apologist of the
Somnium Vigilantis
. Were they not lords of ‘olde ancetrie of gret myght and strengt’?129 This note of incredulity and indeed much else emerges in William Paston’s famous description of Lord Rivers’s uncomfortable interview with his captors at Calais in January 1460:

there my lord of Salesbury reheted hym, callyng hym knaves son that he schuld be so rude to calle hym and these other lordys traytours, for they schull be found the Kyngys treue liege men whan he schuld be found a traytour &c. And my lord of Warrewyk reheted hym and seyd that his fader was but a squyer and broute up wyth King Herry the vte, and sethen hymself made by maryage and also made lord, and that it was not his parte to have swyche langage of lordys beyng of the Kyngys blood. And my lord of Marche rehetyd hym jn lyke wyse, and Ser Antony [Wydeville] was reheted for his langage of all iij lordys jn lyke wyse.130

The Yorkists’ lengthy pedigrees and royal descent were far superior to those merely associated relatively recently with Henry VI,
created
– we would say of merit! – rather than born into the peerage, and married into the European aristocracy. They were not just ingenuous in claiming that their attainder in 1459 was the craft of their enemies, which we know not to be true. They were not accusing evil councillors merely because they could not legitimately attack the king without committing treason. It had to be so. Men of our lineage could not be traitors. The ‘weye of feete’ when they took it was not treasonable, but was compatible with the public good and did not break their oaths of allegiance.

Hence those who stood against them were the traitors. It was not possible to have an honest difference of political opinion or to believe their opponents loyal and well-meaning, if perhaps mistaken. Critics, opponents, rivals were all traitors. When the Irish parliament recognized York as lieutenant, it threatened with attainder those who opposed him. Accordingly York executed William Overy, now representative of the Earl of Wiltshire, whom King Henry had just appointed lieutenant of Ireland in York’s lieu and who was therefore rightfully the king’s representative.131 So, too, at Calais, Warwick executed members of the garrison who had deserted him and later Mountford too.132 They were traitors to him and therefore to the crown. At Northampton, like St Albans but unlike Ludford, the Yorkists did not hold back from attacking when the royal banner was displayed. Those killed, whom they regarded as their particular enemies, were surely those whom they most wished to eliminate. Several were slain, unnecessarily, in their tents. The garrison of the Tower were judicially murdered as traitors although they had certainly been fighting for the king. In 1460, in short, no holds were barred. Those who stood in the way of the Yorkists were traitors and killed, both as an example to others and to ensure that they could cause no further trouble. Terror was an important element in this Yorkist coup. No wonder that Wiltshire fled abroad. Fearful of sharing the fates of Moleyns and Aiscough, two bishops murdered by the populace in 1450, Waynflete surrendered the great seal on 7 July. That same day he, Bishop Bothe, and the Bishop of Hereford secured general pardons from the king.133 Royal pardons and holy orders were no protection against the mob. Indeed Hereford was imprisoned in Warwick Castle. Warwick was a far more ruthless politician than his uncle of York. Had he been king at the Coventry great council of 1459, rebels such as the Yorkist lords would not have escaped his grasp and would have received no last chance!

The notion of loyalty that the Yorkist lords subscribed to allowed them almost a free hand in what they did. However, it was genuine enough. They were consistent in their respect to the office of the king. Those summoned to their support were

doyng alwey the dewte of ligeaunce in oure persone to oure souuerayne lorde, to hys estate, prerogatyf, and preemynence, and to thassuerte of hys most noble persone vnto we haue euer be and wylle be as trew as any of his subgettes alyve.134

At Calais, in their manifestos, at St Paul’s, before the battle, immediately afterwards, and on procession into London the Yorkists stressed that they had ever been loyal and still were. Their commitment was repeatedly confirmed by oaths sworn as publicly as possible and sanctioned by the Church. It was King Henry who presided at the opening of the new parliament. Their respect related both to the office and the person of the king himself. If Henry was malleable and as easily manipulated when in their hands as by his erstwhile favourites, yet he was not personally at fault: ‘swiche ys himself a[s] noble, as vertous, as ryghtewys, and blyssed of dysposicione, as eny prince erthely...[and] nother assentyng ne knowyng’ what was done in his name.135 Similarly Warwick’s manifesto of the previous year had observed that ‘our soveraigne lorde of his blessed conversacion ys of his owne noble disposicion as gracieuxle aplied to the seid commone wele and to the reformyng of these premisses as ene prince cristen’.136 Does not this go far beyond exculpating the king and blaming others? Is not the use of the word ‘blessed’ in both manifestos remarkable? Were not the Yorkist lords on both occasions paying tribute to King Henry’s very special piety, to the saintly character dwelt on by his acquaintance John Blacman and identifiable as a model of the new devotional piety?137 It is evidence that Henry’s saintliness and goodness were already accepted even by his regime’s critics during his first reign. Charges of evil governance could not be laid against a man who was so conspicuously good. It was not just the law of treason that placed him above criticism. This need not prevent the Yorkists taking power. The familiar image of the realm as body politic features in the Latin refrain of the Canterbury ballad: ‘The head of all is weary and the heart of all deserving’.138 The Northampton verses make Henry admit that the ‘curre Dogges’ made him act as he did although they sought to do him mischief.139 If the king was weary and easily led, should not the Yorkist lords rule on his behalf? Did not such propaganda pave the way for a third, enduring, protectorate? It was also incompatible with Henry’s deposition and York’s succession.

Undoubtedly the Yorkists resented their treatment in 1459. They considered their conduct to have been justifiable and loyal. No more in 1460 than on previous occasions did they adopt a defensive tone, seek to rebut charges against themselves and thus inadvertently give them currency. Instead they took the offensive, presenting a positive vision and blackening others. It was this message that mobilized the public opinion that secured them victory. The ideology of reform was a potent appeal to popular opinion combined with reassurance that nothing revo-lutionary was intended. The Yorkists appealed to accepted notions of good governance and denounced obvious evils to which all could subscribe. They combined a long-term view – the notoriety of the ills besetting England and the incorrigibility of the king’s evil councillors – with more immediate novelties that refreshed the more hackneyed grievances. That the message was effective mattered more than its truth. They were short on solutions: there is no proof of any. Whilst appealing to the public good, they sought primarily to recover both the possessions that they had lost in 1459
and
the political ascendancy that they had so briefly enjoyed in 1454–6. The Neville regime benefited the Nevilles most. Their professions of allegiance enabled loyal critics to join them and made it difficult for mere loyalists to oppose them. How could one object to the good of king
and
commonwealth?