WARWICK CAPTAIN OF CALAIS AND ADMIRAL
It was in the four years which lay between the fight of St. Albans and
the second outbreak of the Civil War in 1459 that Warwick made his
reputation and won his popularity. Up to 1455 he had been known merely
as a capable young nobleman who followed in all things the lead of his
father Salisbury. He had not as yet been given any independent command,
nor trusted alone in any business of importance, though he was already
far beyond the age at which many personages of the fifteenth century
began to take a prominent part in politics. He was now twenty-seven
years old, eleven years older than Henry the Fifth when he took over
the government of Wales, nine years older than Edward the Fourth when
he won the fight of Mortimer's Cross. There were no signs in Warwick
of that premature development which made so many of his contemporaries
grown men at sixteen, and worn-out veterans at forty.
Unlike most of his house, Warwick had not been blessed with a large
family. Anne Beauchamp had borne him two daughters only, both of
them delicate girls who did not live to see their thirtieth year. No
male offspring was ever granted him, and it seemed evident that the
lands of Warwick and Despenser were destined to pass once more into
the female line. But the day was far distant when this was to be, and
Richard Neville's sturdy frame and constitution,--his _altitudo animi
cum paribus corporis viribus_, to quote Polidore Vergil,--promised many
a long year of vigorous manhood.
Warwick had already become a prominent figure in English politics, not
so much from the breadth of his lands or from the promise of military
prowess that he had shown at St. Albans, as from the almost universal
popularity which he enjoyed. He was far from being the haughty noble,
the Last of the Barons, whom later writers have drawn for us. His
contemporaries speak of him rather as the idol of the Commons and
the people's friend: "his words were gentle, and he was affable and
familiar with all men, and never spoke of his own advancement, but
always of the augmentation and good governance of the realm." There
never was any peer who was a better lord to his own retainers, nor was
there any who bore himself more kindly towards the Commons; hence he
won a personal popularity to which his father Salisbury never attained,
and which even his uncle of York could not rival.
As a school for a man of action there could have been no better post
than the governorship of Calais. The place had been beset by the French
ever since the loss of Normandy in 1450, and was never out of danger of
a sudden attack. Three times in the last six years considerable armies
had marched against it, and had only been turned away by unexpected
events in other quarters. Bickering with the French garrisons of
Boulogne and other neighbouring places never ended, even in times of
nominal truce. To cope with the enemy the Captain of Calais had a
garrison always insufficient in numbers, and generally in a state of
suppressed mutiny; for one of the chief symptoms of the evil rule of
Suffolk and Somerset had been the impotence of the central government
to find money for the regular war-expenses of the realm. The garrison
of Calais was perpetually in arrears of pay, and successive governors
are found complaining again and again that they were obliged to
empty their own pockets to keep the soldiers to their post. Even the
town-walls had been allowed to fall into disrepair for want of money to
mend them.
Besides his military duties the Captain of Calais had other difficult
functions. He lay on the frontier of Flanders, and a great part of
the trade between England and the dominions of the house of Burgundy
passed through his town, for Calais was the "staple" for that branch
of commerce. Hence he had to keep on good terms with the neighbouring
Burgundian governors, and also--what was far more difficult--to
endeavour to sweep the Straits of Dover clear of pirates and of French
privateers, whenever there was not an English fleet at sea. This was
no sinecure, for of late English fleets had been rarely seen, and
when they did appear had gone home without effecting anything useful.
The man who could with a light heart undertake to assume the post of
Captain of Calais must have been both able and self-confident.
Warwick held the place from August 1455 to August 1460, and combined
with it the post of "Captain to guard the Sea" from October 1457 to
September 1459. His tenure of office was in every way successful.
The garrison was brought up to its full strength, and put in good
discipline--largely, we may suspect, at the expense of the Earl's own
pocket, for after October 1456, when the Duke of York ceased to be
Protector, Warwick got little money or encouragement from England.
He raised the strength of his troops to about two thousand men, and
was then able to assume the offensive against the neighbouring French
garrisons. His greatest success was when, in the spring of the third
year of his office, he led a body of eight hundred combatants on a
daring raid as far as Étaples, forty miles down the coast of Picardy,
and took the town together with a fleet of wine-ships from the south of
France, which he put up to ransom, and so raised a sum large enough to
pay his men for some months. Falling into a disagreement also with the
Burgundian governors in Flanders, he made such havoc in the direction
of Gravelines and St. Omer that Duke Philip was obliged to strengthen
his garrisons there, and finally was glad to consent to a pacification.
The negotiations were held in Calais and came to a successful
conclusion, for a commercial treaty was concluded with Flanders as well
as a mere suspension of arms.
While Warwick lay at Calais he could not pay very frequent visits to
England, for French alarms were always abounding. In June 1456, for
example, "men said that the siege should come to Calais, for much
people had crossed the water of Somme, and great navies were on the
sea." Again, in May 1457, another threatened attack caused the Earl
to lay in great stores, for which he had to draw on Kent: "so he had
the folks of Canterbury and Sandwich before him, and thanked them
for their good hearts in victualling of Calais, and prayed them for
continuance therein." That those rumours of coming trouble were not
all vain was shown a few months later, for a Norman fleet under Peter
de Brézé threw four thousand men ashore near Sandwich in August, and
the French stormed the town from the land side, held it for a day, and
sacked it from garret to cellar. It was this disaster which England
owed to Margaret of Anjou, for she had deliberately suggested the time
and place of attack to de Brézé, in order to bring discredit on the
government of the Duke of York.
It is curious to note how the work of the day of St. Albans was undone,
without any violent shock, during the earlier years of Warwick's rule
at Calais. The Queen played her game more cautiously than usual.
First, York's protectorate was ended, on the excuse that the King,
whose mind had failed him again after St. Albans, was now himself once
more. Then, eight months later, a great Council was summoned, not at
London, where York was too popular, but at Coventry. The meeting was
packed with the men-at-arms of the Queen's adherents, and at it King
Henry dismissed the two Bourchier brothers, York's firm supporters,
from their offices of Chancellor and Treasurer, and replaced them by
the Earl of Shrewsbury, a strong adherent of the Court party, and by
Wainfleet Bishop of Winchester. It was widely believed that York, who
had come to the Council with no knowledge of the Queen's intended
_coup d'état_, would have met with an ill end if his kinsman the Duke
of Buckingham had not succeeded in aiding him to escape. Of all the
offices bestowed as the result of St. Albans fight, Warwick's post at
Calais was the only one which was not now forfeited. Probably the Queen
and her friends preferred to keep him over-sea as much as possible.
It is a good testimony to the loyalty of the Duke and his friends
that they made no stir on their eviction from office. York retired
to Wigmore, and for the next year abode quietly upon his estates.
Salisbury went to Middleham and remained in the North. Meanwhile the
country showed its discontent with the renewed rule of the Queen.
Tumultuous gatherings took place in Oxfordshire and Berkshire, and
again on the Welsh Border, although no leading Yorkist was implicated
in them. The temper of London was so discontented that the Queen would
not allow the King to approach it for a whole year.
The ascendency of the Earls of Wiltshire, Beaumont, Shrewsbury, Exeter,
and the other lords who ruled in the King's name and by the Queen's
guidance, proved as unfortunate and as unpopular as any of the other
periods during which Margaret's friends were at the helm. Men felt that
civil war was destined to break out once more, as soon as York should
be pressed too hard and find his patience at an end. Hence general joy
was felt when in January 1458 the King, taking the initiative for once,
announced that he was about to reconcile all the private grievances of
his lords, and invited York, Salisbury, and Warwick, with the rest of
their party, to attend a great Council at Westminster. They came, but
fearing some snare of the Queen's, came with a numerous following--York
with a hundred and forty horse, Salisbury with four hundred, Warwick
with six hundred men of the Calais garrison all apparelled in red
jackets emblazoned with the Beauchamp badge of the ragged staff.
There was no snare in the King's invitation, and all precautions were
taken to prevent affrays. The Yorkist lords and their retainers were
lodged within the city, while the Queen's friends, who appeared in
great force--the Earl of Northumberland alone brought three thousand
men--were provided for in the suburbs. The Mayor of London--Godfrey
Bulleyn, Anne Bulleyn's ancestor--with five thousand citizens arrayed
in arms kept the streets, to guard against brawling between the
retainers of the two parties.
The King at once set forth his purpose of a general pacification, and
found York and his friends very ready to fall in with his views. More
trouble was required to induce the sons of those who had fallen at St.
Albans--the young Somerset, Clifford, and Northumberland--to pardon
those on whose swords was their fathers' blood. But the King's untiring
efforts produced the desired result. York, Salisbury, and Warwick
promised to endow the Abbey of St. Albans with a sum of £45 a year,
to be spent in masses for the souls of the slain, and to make large
money payments to their heirs--York gave the young Duke of Somerset
and his mother five thousand marks, and Warwick made over one thousand
to the young Clifford. After this curious bargain had been made, and
a proclamation issued to the effect that both the victors and the
vanquished of St. Albans had acted as true liegemen of the King, a
solemn ceremony of reconciliation was held. The King walked in state
to St. Paul's, behind him came the Queen, led by the Duke of York;
then followed Salisbury hand in hand with Somerset, Warwick hand in
hand with the Duke of Exeter, and after them their respective adherents
two and two. The sight must have gladdened the King's kindly heart,
but no one save his own guileless self could have supposed that such a
reconciliation was final; almost the whole of his train were destined
to die by each other's hands. The Queen and Somerset were one day to
behead York and Salisbury; Warwick was destined to slay Exeter's son;
and so all down the long procession.
As one of the tokens of reconciliation, Warwick was created "Chief
Captain to guard the Sea," a post wherein centred the ambition of his
unwilling partner in the great procession, the Duke of Exeter. The
office was not one with many attractions. The royal navy comprised no
more than the _Grace Dieu_ and two or three more large carracks. When
a fleet was required, it was made up by requisitioning hastily-armed
merchant-vessels from the maritime towns. Of late years, whenever such
an array was mustered, the sailors had gone unpaid, and the command
had been entrusted to some unskilled leader from the ranks of the
Court party. England had entirely ceased to count as a naval power;
her coasts were frequently ravaged by French expeditions, such as that
which had burnt Sandwich in 1457, and pirates and privateers of all
nations swarmed in the Channel.
In his capacity as Captain of Calais, Warwick had been compelled to
learn something of the Channel, but we should never have guessed that
he had accumulated enough of the seaman's craft to make him a competent
admiral. Nevertheless, his doings during the twenty months of his
command at sea entitle him to a respectable place by the side of Blake
and Monk and our other inland-bred naval heroes. He not merely acquired
enough skill to take the charge of a fleet in one of the rough and
ready sea-fights of the day, but actually became a competent seaman.
At a pinch, as he showed a few years later, he could himself take the
tiller and pilot his ship for a considerable voyage.
The tale of Warwick's first naval venture has been most fortunately
preserved to us by the letter of an actor in it.
On Trinity Sunday (May 28th) in the morning [writes John Jernyngan]
came tidings unto my Lord of Warwick that there were twenty-eight
sail of Spaniards on the sea, whereof sixteen were great ships of
forecastle; and then my Lord went and manned five ships of forecastle
and three carvells and four pinnaces, and on the Monday we met
together before Calais at four of the clock in the morning, and fought
together till ten. And there we took six of their ships, and they slew
of our men about fourscore and hurt two hundred of us right sore. And
we slew of them about twelvescore, and hurt a five hundred of them.
It happed that at the first boarding of them we took a ship of three
hundred tons, and I was left therein and twenty-three men with me. And
they fought so sore that our men were fain to leave them. Then came
they and boarded the ship that I was in, and there was I taken, and
was prisoner with them six hours, and was delivered again in return
for their men that were taken at the first. As men say, there has not
been so great a battle upon the sea these forty winters. And, to say
sooth, we were well and truly beaten: so my Lord has sent for more
ships, and is like to fight them again in haste.
Such a hard-fought struggle against superior numbers was almost as
honorable to Warwick's courage and enterprise as a victory, and the
indomitable pluck which he displayed seems to have won the hearts
of the sailors, who were ever after, down to the day of his death,
faithful to his cause. But his later undertakings were fortunate as
well as bold.
The best known of them took place in the spring of 1458. Sweeping
the Channel with fourteen small vessels, Warwick came on five great
ships--"three great Genoese carracks, and two Spaniards far larger and
higher than the others." For two days Warwick fought a running fight
with the enemy, "hard and long, for he had no vessel that could compare
in size with theirs." Finally he took three of the carracks and put the
other two to flight. Nearly a thousand Spaniards were slain, and the
prisoners were so many that the prisons of Calais could hardly contain
them. The prizes were richly laden, and their contents were valued
at no less than £10,000. The markets of Calais and Kent were for the
moment so charged with Southern goods that a shilling bought that year
more than two would have bought the year before.
This fight naturally made Warwick popular with merchants and sailors,
but it was less liked at Westminster; for although at odds with the
King of Castile, England was not at this moment engaged in hostilities
with the Genoese, though there was a dispute in progress about the
ill-treatment of some British merchants by them. Another feat of
Warwick's, however, was to get him into worse trouble. Early in the
autumn of the same year he had an engagement in the Straits of Dover
with a great fleet of Hanseatic vessels from Lubeck, who were sailing
southward to France. From them he took five ships which he brought
into Calais. Now England had signed a commercial treaty with the Hansa
only two years before, and this engagement was a flagrant violation of
it. It led Warwick's enemies on the Continent to call him no better
than a pirate. What was his plea of justification we do not know. It
may be, as some have alleged, that he mistook the Germans at first
for Spaniards or Frenchmen. It may be that he fell out with them on
some question as to the rights of the English admiral in the narrow
seas, such as gave constant trouble in later centuries, and were the
forerunners of the famous quarrels over the "right of search" and "the
right of salute."
But about Warwick's capture of the Hanseatic vessels there was no
doubt. A month later a board was appointed, consisting of Lord Rivers,
Sir Thomas Kyrriel, and seven other members, to investigate the matter.
On November 8th Warwick came over from Calais to lay his defence before
the King and Council. Henry received him courteously enough, and there
was much sage talk about the marches of Picardy, "but the Earl could
judge well enough by the countenances of many who sat in the Council
Chamber that they bore him hatred, so that he bethought him of the
warnings that his father had lately written him about the Queen's
friends."
Next day when Warwick again came into the royal presence, the Council
had hardly begun when a great tumult arose in the court, "the noise was
heard over the whole palace, and every one was calling for Warwick."
What had happened was, that the retainers of Somerset and Wiltshire
had fallen on the Earl's attendants and were making an end of them.
Warwick ran down to see what was the matter, but the moment that he
appeared in the court he was set on by a score of armed men, and it was
only by the merest chance that he was able to cut his way down to the
water-stairs, and leap with two of his men into a boat. He escaped with
his life to the Surrey side, but his followers were not so lucky; three
were slain and many wounded.
Warwick declared that the whole business had been a deliberate plot to
murder him, and he was probably right; but the lords of the Queen's
party maintained that the affray had been a chance medley between the
two bands of retainers, and that the first blow had been struck by one
of Warwick's men. But whatever was the truth about the matter, Warwick
could not be blamed if he swore never to come to Court again without
armed men at his heels. The sequel of the quarrel shows what had really
been intended. Next day the Queen and her friends represented to the
King that the quarrel had been due to brawling on Warwick's part, and
procured an order for committing him to the Tower. Warned of this by
a secret friend in the Council, the Earl rode off in haste to Warwick
Castle, and sent to his father and the Duke of York. The three held a
conference, in which they resolved that at the next hostile move of
their enemies they would repeat the line of conduct which had been so
successful four years before--they would muster their retainers and
deliver the King by force out of the hands of the Court party.
Meanwhile Warwick retired to Calais, where he called together the
officers of the garrison, and the Mayor and aldermen, set forth to
them the attempt upon his life, and begged them to be true to him and
guard him against the machination of his enemies.
The next attack of the Queen on the followers of York was long in
coming; nine months elapsed between the affray at Westminster and the
final outbreak of Civil War.
Meanwhile [says the chronicler] the realm of England was out of all
good governance, as it had been many days before; for the King was
simple, and led by covetous counsel, and owed more than he was worth.
His debts encreased daily, but payment was there none; for all the
manors and lordships that pertained to the Crown the King had given
away, so that he had almost nought to live on. And such impositions as
were put on the people, as taxes, tallages, and 'fifteenths,' all were
spent in vain, for the King held no household and maintained no wars.
So for these misgovernances the hearts of the people were turned from
them that had the land in governance, and their blessing was turned
to cursing. The Queen and her affinity ruled the realm as they liked,
gathering riches innumerable. The officers of the realm, and specially
the Earl of Wiltshire, the Treasurer, for to enrich themselves pilled
the poor people, and disherited rightful heirs, and did many wrongs.
The Queen was sore defamed, and many said that he that was called the
Prince was not the King's son, but gotten in adultery.
The name of Wiltshire, "the best-favoured knight in the land, and the
most feared of losing his beauty," was united with that of Margaret
by many tongues, and the Queen's behaviour was certainly curious;
for instead of staying with her husband, she was continually absent
from his side, busied in all manner of political intrigues, and only
visiting King Henry when some grant or signature had to be wrung out
of him. All the summer of 1459 she was in Lancashire and Cheshire
"allying to her the knights and squires in those parts for to have
their benevolence, and held open household among them, and made her
son give a livery blazoned with a swan to all the gentlemen of the
country, trusting through their strength to make her son King; for she
was making privy means to some lords of England for to stir the King to
resign the crown to his son; but she could not bring her purpose about."
The exact details of the outbreak of the war are hard to arrange
chronologically. Writs were being sent about by the Queen in the King's
name ordering every one to be ready to assemble "with as many men as
they might, defensibly arrayed," as early as May. But no such muster
seems to have taken place, and it was not till September that a blow
was struck. In the middle of that month an army was raised in the
Midlands with which the King took the field. A summons was then sent to
Salisbury, who lay at Sherif Hoton in his northern lands, bidding him
come to London. Remembering what had happened to his son on his last
visit to the King, Salisbury went not, but took the summons, combined
with the mustering of the King's forces, as an alarm of war. Collecting
some three thousand of his Yorkshire tenants, he marched off to seek
his brother-in-law York, who was lying at Ludlow. At the same time he
sent messengers to his son at Calais, bidding him cross over at once to
join him.
Warwick, seeing that the crisis was come, took two hundred men-at-arms
and four hundred archers of the garrison of Calais, under Sir Andrew
Trollope a veteran of the French War, and crossed to Sandwich. He left
Calais, where lay his wife and his two daughters, in charge of his
uncle, William Neville Lord Fauconbridge, "a little man in stature but
a knight of great reverence." Warwick marched quietly through London,
and crossed the Midlands as far as Coleshill in Warwickshire without
meeting an enemy. There he just avoided a battle, for Somerset, with
a great force from his Wessex lands, was marching through the town
from south-west to north-east the same day that Warwick traversed it
from south-east to north-west; but as it happened they neither of them
caught any sight or heard any rumour of the other.
While Warwick was taking his way through the Midlands, decisive
events had been occurring. When the Queen, who lay at Eccleshall in
Staffordshire, heard that Salisbury was on his way to York's castle
of Ludlow, she called out all her new-made friends of the north-west
Midlands, and bade them intercept the Earl. Lord Audley their leader
was given a commission to arrest Salisbury and send him to the Tower
of London. All the knighthood of Cheshire and Shropshire came together
and joined Audley, who was soon at the head of nearly ten thousand
men. With this force he threw himself across Salisbury's path at Blore
Heath near Market Drayton on September 23rd. The old Earl refused to
listen to Audley's summons to surrender, entrenched himself on the
edge of a wood and waited to be attacked. Audley first led two cavalry
charges against the Yorkist line, and when these were beaten back by
the arrows of the northern archers, launched a great column of billmen
and dismounted knights against the enemy. After hard fighting it was
repulsed, Audley himself was slain, and the Lancastrians drew back,
"leaving dead on the field most of those notable knights and squires of
Chesshire that had taken the badge of the Swan."
In the night Salisbury drew off his men and marched round the defeated
enemy, who still lay in front of his position. A curious story is told
of his retreat by the chronicler Gregory. "Next day," he says, "the
Earl of Salisbury, if he had stayed, would have been taken, so great
were the forces that would have been brought up by the Queen, who
lay at Eccleshall only six miles from the field." But the enemy knew
nothing of Salisbury's departure, "because an Austin friar shot guns
all night in the park at the rear of the field, so that they knew not
the Earl was departed. Next morrow they found neither man nor child
in that park save the friar, and he said that it was for fear that he
abode in that park, firing the guns to keep up his heart."
Salisbury was now able to join York at Ludlow without further
molestation, and Warwick came in a few days later without having seen
an enemy. The Duke and the younger Earl called out their vassals of
the Welsh March, and their united forces soon amounted to twenty
thousand men. They made no hostile movement however, though the
Lancastrian force defeated at Blore Heath was now being joined by new
reinforcements and lay opposite them in great strength. But the Duke
and the two Earls went forward to Worcester, and there in the cathedral
took a solemn oath that they meant nothing against the King's estate
or the common weal of the realm. They charged the Prior of Worcester
and Dr. William Lynwood to lay before the King a declaration "that they
would forbear and avoid all things that might serve to the effusion of
Christian blood," and would not strike a blow except in self-defence,
being only in arms to save their own lives.
The refusal of the Yorkist lords to assume the offensive, if creditable
to their honesty, was fatal to their cause. For the next three weeks
the levies of Northern and Central England came pouring into the
Queen's camp, and the King himself, waking up for once, assumed the
command in person. A curious record in the preamble of an Act of
Parliament of this year tells us how he buckled on his armour, "and
spared not for any impediment or difficulty of way, nor intemperance
of weather, but jeopardied his royal person, and continued his labour
for thirty days, and sometimes lodged in the bare field for two
nights together, with all his host, in the cold season of the year,
not resting in the same place more than one night save only on the
Sundays." About October 12th, the King, whose army now amounted to as
many as fifty thousand men, pushed slowly forward on to Ludlow, putting
out as he went strongly-worded proclamations which stigmatised the Duke
and the Earls as traitors, and summoned their followers to disperse,
promising free pardon to all save Salisbury and the others who had
fought at Blore Heath.
York and Warwick had, of course, no intention of abandoning their
kinsman; they paid no heed to the royal proclamation, but they soon
found that their followers were far from holding it so lightly. The
Yorkists were so manifestly inferior in numbers to the enemy, less
than half their force indeed, that the men's hearts were failing
them. Their position on the Welsh Border, with the King's army cutting
them off from England, and with the Welsh in arms behind them, was
unsatisfactory, and none of the Yorkist barons had succeeded in joining
them except Lord Clinton and Lord Grey of Powis. The inaction of their
leaders had allowed them time to think over their position, and it
would appear that the news of the King's proclamation had reached them,
and the announcement of pardon worked its effect. York seems to have
recognised that the use of the royal name against him was the fatal
thing, and proceeded to spread a rumour through his camp that King
Henry was really dead. He even ordered his chaplains to celebrate the
mass for the dead in the midst of the camp. But the stratagem recoiled
on his head next day, when the truth became known, and the King was
seen, with his banner displayed at his side, leading forward in person
the van of the Lancastrian army. At nightfall on October 13th the
armies were only separated by the Teme, then in flood and covering
the fields for some way on each side of its course. The Duke set some
cannon to play upon the King's line, but the darkness or the distance
kept them from doing any hurt. This was all the fighting that was
destined to take place.
That night demoralisation set in among the Yorkist ranks. It commenced
with the veteran Trollope, who secretly led off his six hundred Calais
troops from their place in the Yorkist line and joined the enemy. Lord
Powis followed his example, and at dawn the whole army was melting
away. York bade the bridges be broken down, and began to draw off, but
nothing could keep his men together; they were dispersing with such
rapidity that he could no longer hope to fight. Accordingly he bade
those who still followed him to save themselves, and made off with his
two sons Edward and Edmund, Warwick and Salisbury, and a few devoted
retainers, to seek some place of refuge.
Thus by the Rout of Ludford all the work of Blore Heath and St. Albans
was entirely undone.