PLAYING WITH TREASON
Great ministers who have been accustomed to sway the destinies
of kingdoms, and who suddenly find themselves disgraced at their
master's caprice, have seldom been wont to sit down in resignation and
accept their fall with equanimity. Such a line of conduct requires a
self-denial and a high-flown loyalty to principle which are seldom
found in the practical statesman. If the fallen minister is well
stricken in years, and the fire has gone out of him, he may confine
himself to sermons on the ingratitude of kings. If his greatness has
been purely official, and his power entirely dependent on the authority
entrusted to him by his master, his discontent may not be dangerous.
But Warwick was now in the very prime of his life,--he was just
forty,--and he was moreover by far the most powerful subject within the
four seas. It was sheer madness in King Edward to goad such a man to
desperation by a series of deliberate insults.
This was no mere case of ordinary ingratitude. If ever one man had made
another, Richard Neville had made Edward Plantagenet. He had taken
charge of him, a raw lad of eighteen, at the moment of the disastrous
rout of Ludford, and trained him in arms and statecraft with unceasing
care. Twice had he saved the lost cause of York, in 1459 and in 1461.
He had spent five years in harness, in one long series of battles and
sieges, that his cousin might wear his crown in peace. He had compassed
sea and land in embassies that Edward might be safe from foreign as
well as from domestic foes. He had seen his father and his brother fall
by the axe and the sword in the cause of York. He had seen his mother
and his wife fugitives on the face of the earth, his castles burnt,
his manors wasted, his tenants slain, all that the son of Richard
Plantagenet might sit on the throne that was his father's due.
Warwick then might well be cut to the heart at his master's
ingratitude. It was no marvel if, after the King's last treachery to
him in the matter of the French embassy, he retired from Court and sent
a bitter answer to Edward's next summons. After the open breach there
were now two courses open to him: the first to abandon all his schemes,
and betake himself in silent bitterness to the management of his vast
estates; the second was to endeavour to win his way back to power by
the ways which medieval England knew only too well--the way which had
served Simon de Montfort, and Thomas of Lancaster, and Richard of York;
the way that had led Simon and Thomas and Richard to their bloody
graves. The first alternative was no doubt the one that the perfect
man, the ideally loyal and unselfish knight, should have chosen. But
Richard Neville was no perfect man; he was a practical statesman--"the
cleverest man of his time," says one who had observed him closely; and
his long tenure of power had made him look upon the first place in the
Council of the King as his right and due. His enemies the Woodvilles
and Herberts had driven him from his well-earned precedence by the
weapons that they could use--intrigue and misrepresentation; what more
natural than that he should repay them by the weapon that he could best
employ, the iron hand of armed force?
Hitherto the career of Warwick had been singularly straightforward and
consistent. Through thick and thin he had supported the cause of York
and never wavered in his allegiance to it. It must not be supposed that
he changed his whole policy when his quarrel with the King came to a
head. As his conduct in 1469, when his ungrateful master was in his
power, was destined to show, he had no further design than to reconquer
for himself the place in the royal Council which had been his from 1461
to 1464. Later events developed his plans further than he had himself
expected, but it is evident that at first his sole design was to clear
away the Woodvilles. The only element in his programme which threatened
to lead to deeper and more treasonable plans was his connection
with his would-be son-in-law George of Clarence. The handsome youth
who professed such a devotion to him, followed his advice with such
docility, and took his part so warmly in the quarrel with the King,
seems from the first to have obtained a place in his affections greater
than Edward had ever won. But Clarence had his ambitions; what they
were and how far they extended the Earl had not as yet discovered.
Warwick had now the will to play his master's new ministers an ill
turn; that he had also the power to do so none knew better than
himself. The lands of Neville and Montacute, Beauchamp and Despenser
united could send into the field a powerful army. Moreover, his
neighbours, in most of the counties where his influence prevailed,
had bound themselves to him by taking his livery; barons as well as
knights were eager to be of his "Privy Council," to wear his Ragged
Staff and ride in his array. The very aspect of his household seemed
to show the state of a petty king. Every one has read Hollingshead's
famous description, which tells how the little army of followers which
constituted his ordinary retinue eat six oxen daily for breakfast.
Nor was it only in the strength of his own retainers that Warwick
trusted; he knew that he himself was the most popular man in the
kingdom. Men called him ever the friend of the Commons, and "his open
kitchen persuaded the meaner sort as much as the justice of his cause."
His adversaries, on the other hand, were unmistakably disliked by
the people. The old partisans of York still looked on the Woodvilles
as Lancastrian renegades, and the grasping avarice of Rivers and his
family was stirring up popular demonstration against them even before
Warwick's breach with the King. A great mob in Kent had sacked one
of Rivers' manors and killed his deer in the autumn of 1467, and
trouble was brewing against him in other quarters. A word of summons
from Warwick would call rioters out of the ground in half the shires
of England. Already in January 1468 a French ambassador reports: "In
one county more than three hundred archers were in arms, and had made
themselves a captain named Robin, and sent to the Earl of Warwick to
know if it was time to be busy, and to say that all their neighbours
were ready. But my Lord answered, bidding them go home, for it was not
yet time to be stirring. If the time should come, he would let them
know."[10]
It was not only discontented Yorkists that had taken the news of
the quarrel between Warwick and his master as a signal for moving.
The tidings had stirred the exiled Lancastrians to a sudden burst
of activity of which we should hardly have thought them capable.
Queen Margaret borrowed ships and money from Louis, and lay in force
at Harfleur. Sir Henry Courtney, heir of the late Earl of Devon,
and Thomas Hungerford, son of the lord who fell at Hexham, tried to
raise an insurrection in the South-West; but they were caught by
Lord Stafford of Southwick and beheaded at Salisbury. As a reward
the King gave Stafford his victim's title of Earl of Devon. In Wales
the long-wandering Jasper Tudor suddenly appeared, at the head of
two thousand men, supported by a small French fleet. He took Harlech
Castle and sacked Denbigh; but a few weeks later Warwick's enemy,
Lord Herbert, fell upon him at the head of the Yorkists of the March,
routed his tumultuary army, retook Harlech, and forced him again to
seek refuge in the hills. Herbert, like Lord Stafford, was rewarded
with the title of the foe he had vanquished, and became Earl of
Pembroke. While these risings were on foot, Lancastrian emissaries were
busy all over England; but their activity only resulted in a series
of executions. Two gentlemen of the Duke of Norfolk's retinue were
beheaded for holding secret communication with the Beauforts while
they were in Flanders, following the train which escorted the Princess
Margaret at her marriage with Charles of Charolois, who had now become
Duke of Burgundy. In London more executions took place, and Sir Thomas
Cooke, late Lord Mayor, had all his goods confiscated for misprision
of treason. Two of the Lancastrian emissaries alleged, under torture,
the one, that Warwick had promised aid to the rising, the other that
Lord Wenlock, Warwick's friend and supporter, had guilty knowledge of
the scheme; but in each case the King himself acknowledged that the
accusation was frivolous--the random imagining of men on the rack,
forced to say something to save their own bones. It was not likely that
Warwick would play the game of Queen Margaret, the slayer of his father
and brother, and the instigator of attempts on his own life.
Startled by the sudden revival of Lancastrian energy, but encouraged
by the easy way in which he had mastered it, King Edward determined
to give the war-like impulses of his subjects vent by undertaking in
the next year a great expedition against France. He had the example of
Henry the Fifth before his eyes, and hoped to stifle treason at home by
foreign war. Among his preparations for leaving home was a determined
attempt to open negotiations with Warwick for a reconciliation. The
King won over the Archbishop of York to plead his cause, by restoring
to him some estates which he had seized in 1467; and about Easter
George Neville induced his brother to meet the King at Coventry.
Warwick came, but it is to be feared that he came fully resolved to
have his revenge at his own time, with his heart quite unsoftened
toward his master; yet he spoke the King fair, and even consented to be
reconciled to Lord Herbert, though he would have nothing to say to the
Woodvilles. He was also induced to join the company which escorted the
Princess Margaret to the coast, on her way to her marriage in Flanders.
After this Warwick paid a short visit to London, where he sat among
the judges who in July tried the Lancastrian conspirators of the city.
Clarence accompanied him, and sat on the same bench. He had spent the
last few months in moving the Pope to grant him a disposition to marry
Isabel Neville,[11] for they were within the prohibited degrees; but
under pressure from King Edward the Curia had delayed the consideration
of his request.
The autumn of 1468 and the spring of 1469 passed away quietly. Warwick
made no movement, for he was still perfecting his plans. He saw with
secret pleasure that the French, with whom peace would have been
made long ago if his advice had been followed, kept the King fully
employed. It must have given him peculiar gratification when his enemy
Anthony Woodville, placed at the head of a large fleet, made two most
inglorious expeditions to the French coast, and returned crestfallen
without having even seen the enemy.
Meanwhile the Earl had been quietly measuring his resources. He had
spoken to all his kinsmen, and secured the full co-operation of the
majority of them. George the Archbishop of York, Henry Neville heir to
Warwick's aged uncle Lord Latimer, Sir John Coniers of Hornby, husband
of his niece Alice Neville, his cousin Lord Fitzhugh, and Thomas "the
bastard of Fauconbridge," natural son to the deceased peer who had
fought so well at Towton, were his chief reliance. His brother John of
Montagu, the Earl of Northumberland, could not make up his mind; he did
not reveal Warwick's plans to the King, but he would not promise any
aid. William Neville of Abergavenny was now too old to be taken into
account. The rest of Warwick's uncles and brothers were by this time
dead.
By April 1469 the preparations were complete. Every district where the
name of Neville was great had been carefully prepared for trouble.
Kent, Yorkshire, and South Wales were ready for insurrection, and yet
all had been done so quietly that the King, who ever since he had
thrown off the Earl's influence had been sinking deeper and deeper into
habits of careless evil-living and debauchery, suspected nothing.
In April Warwick took his wife and daughters across to Calais,
apparently to get them out of harm's way. He himself, professing a
great wish to see his cousin Margaret, the newly-married Duchess of
Burgundy, went on to St. Omer. He there visited Duke Charles, and was
reconciled to him in spite of the evil memories of their last meeting
at Boulogne. To judge from his conduct, the Earl was bent on nothing
but a harmless tour; but, as a matter of fact, his movements were
but a blind destined to deceive King Edward. While he was feasting
at St. Omer he had sent orders over-sea for the commencement of an
insurrection. In a few days it was timed to break out. Meanwhile
Warwick returned to Calais, and lodged with Wenlock, who was in charge
of the great fortress.
His orders had had their effect. In the end of June grave riots broke
out in the neighbourhood of York. Ostensibly they were connected with
the maladministration of the estates of St. Leonard's hospital in that
city; but they were in reality political and not agrarian. Within a
few days fifteen thousand men were at the gates of York, clamorously
setting forth a string of grievances, which were evidently founded
on Cade's manifesto of 1450. Once more we hear of heavy taxation,
maladministration of the law, the alienation of the royal estates to
upstart favourites, the exclusion from the royal Councils of the great
lords of the royal blood. Once more a demand is made for the punishment
of evil counsellors, and the introduction of economy into the royal
household, and the application of the revenue to the defence of the
realm. The first leader of the rioters was Robert Huldyard, known as
Robin of Redesdale, no doubt the same Robin whom the Earl had bidden
in 1468 to keep quiet and wait the appointed time. John Neville the
Earl of Northumberland lay at York with a large body of men-at-arms,
for he was still Lieutenant of the North. Many expected that he would
join the rioters; but, either because he had not quite recognised the
insurrection to be his brother's work, or because he had resolved to
adhere loyally to Edward, Montagu surprised the world by attacking the
band which beset York. He routed its vanguard, captured Huldyard, and
had him beheaded.
But this engagement was far from checking the rising. In a week the
whole of Yorkshire, from Tees to Humber, was up, and it soon became
evident in whose interest the movement was working. New leaders
appeared. Sir John Coniers, the husband of Warwick's niece, and one
of the most influential Yorkists of the North, replaced Huldyard, and
assumed his name of Robin of Redesdale, while with him were Henry
Neville of Latimer and Lord Fitzhugh. Instead of lingering at the gates
of York, the great body of insurgents--rumour made it more than thirty
thousand strong--rolled southward into the Midlands. They were coming,
they said, to lay their grievances before the King; and in every place
that they passed they hung their articles, obviously the work of some
old political hand, on the church doors.
King Edward seems to have been taken quite unawares by this dangerous
insurrection. He had kept his eye on Warwick alone, and when Warwick
was over-sea he thought himself safe. At the end of June he had been
making a progress in Norfolk, with no force at his back save two
hundred archers, a bodyguard whom he had raised in 1468 and kept always
around him. Hearing of the stir in Yorkshire, he rode north-ward to
Nottingham, calling in such force as could be gathered by the way. As
he went, news reached him which suddenly revealed the whole scope of
the insurrection.
The moment that his brother's attention was drawn off by the Northern
rising, the Duke of Clarence had quietly slipped over to Calais, and
with him went George Neville the Archbishop of York. This looked
suspicious, and the King at once wrote to Clarence, Warwick, and the
Archbishop, bidding them all come to him without delay. Long before
his orders can have reached them, the tale of treason was out. Within
twelve hours of Clarence's arrival at Calais the long-projected
marriage between him and Isabel Neville had been celebrated, in full
defiance of the King. Warwick and Clarence kept holiday but for one
day; the marriage took place on the 11th, and by the 12th they were in
Kent with a strong party of the garrison of Calais as their escort.
The unruly Kentishmen rose in a body in Warwick's favour, as eagerly
as when they had mustered to his banner in 1460 before the battle of
Northampton. The Earl and the Duke came to Canterbury with several
thousand men at their back. There they revealed their treasonable
intent, for they published a declaration that they considered the
articles of Robin of Redesdale just and salutary, and would do
their best to bring them to the King's notice. How the King was to
be persuaded was indicated clearly enough, by a proclamation which
summoned out the whole shire of Kent to join the Earl's banner. Warwick
and his son-in-law then marched on London, which promptly threw open
its gates. The King was thus caught between two fires--the open rebels
lay to the north of him, his brother and cousin with their armed
persuasion to the south.
Even before Warwick's treason had been known, the King had recognised
the danger of the northern rising, and sent commissions of array all
over England. Two considerable forces were soon in arms in his behalf.
Herbert, the new Earl of Pembroke, raised fourteen thousand Welsh and
Marchmen at Brecon and Ludlow, and set out eastward. Stafford, the new
Earl of Devon, collected six thousand archers in the South-Western
Counties, and set out northward. The King lay at Nottingham with Lord
Hastings, Lord Mountjoy, and the Woodvilles. He seems to have had
nearly fifteen thousand men in his company; but their spirit was bad.
"Sire," said Mountjoy to him in full council of war, "no one wishes
your person ill, but it would be well to send away my Lord of Rivers
and his children when you have done conferring with them." Edward took
this advice. Rivers and John Woodville forthwith retired to Chepstow;
Scales joined his sister the Queen at Cambridge.
Meanwhile the Northern rebels were pouring south by way of Doncaster
and Derby. Their leaders Coniers and Latimer showed considerable
military skill, for by a rapid march on to Leicester they got between
the King and Lord Herbert's army. Edward, for once out-generalled, had
to follow them southward, but the Yorkshiremen were some days ahead
of him, and on July 25th reached Daventry. On the same day Herbert
and Stafford concentrated their forces at Banbury; but on their first
meeting the two new earls fell to hard words on a private quarrel, and,
although the enemy was so near, Stafford in a moment of pique drew off
his six thousand men to Deddington, ten miles away, leaving Pembroke's
fourteen thousand Welsh pikemen altogether unprovided with archery.
Next day all the chief actors in the scene were converging on the same
spot in central England--Coniers marching from Daventry on to Banbury,
Pembroke from Banbury on Daventry, with Stafford following in his
rear, while Warwick and Clarence had left London and were moving by
St. Albans on Towcester; the King, following the Yorkshiremen, was
somewhere near Northampton.
Coniers and his colleagues, to whom belong all the honours of
generalship in this campaign, once more got ahead of their opponents.
Moving rapidly on Banbury on the 26th, they found Pembroke's army
approaching them on a common named Danesmoor, near Edgecott Park,
six miles north of Banbury. The Welsh took up a position covered by
a small stream and offered battle, though they were greatly inferior
in numbers. The Northerners promptly attacked them, and though one
of their three leaders, Henry Neville of Latimer, fell in the first
onset, gained a complete victory; "by force of archery they forced the
Welsh to descend from the hill into the valley," though Herbert and
his brothers did all that brave knights could to save the battle. The
King was only a few hours' march away; indeed, his vanguard under Sir
Geoffrey Gate and Thomas Clapham actually reached the field, but both
were old officers of Warwick, and instead of falling on the rebels'
rear, proceeded to join them, and led the final attack on Herbert's
position.
Thunderstruck at the deep demoralisation among his troops which this
desertion showed, the King fell back on Olney, abandoning Northampton
to the rebels. Next day--it was July 27th--the brave Earl of Pembroke
and his brother Richard Herbert, both of whom had been taken prisoners,
were beheaded in the market-place by Coniers' command without sentence
or trial. Their blood lies without doubt on Warwick's head, for though
neither he nor Clarence was present, the rebels were obviously acting
on his orders, and if he had instructed them to keep all their
captives safe, they would never have presumed to slay them. Several
chroniclers indeed say that Warwick and Clarence had expressly doomed
Herbert for death. This slaughter was perfectly inexcusable, for
Herbert had never descended to the acts of the Woodvilles; he was an
honourable enemy, and Warwick had actually been reconciled to him only
a year before.[12] The execution of the Herberts was not the only token
of the fact that the great Earl's hand was pulling the strings all over
England. His special aversions, Rivers and John Woodville, were seized
a week later at Chepstow by a band of rioters--probably retainers from
the Despenser estates by the Severn--and forwarded to Coventry, where
they were put to death early in August. Even if Pembroke's execution
was the unauthorised work of Coniers and Fitzhugh, this slaying of the
Woodvilles must certainly have been Warwick's own deed. Stafford the
Earl of Devon, whose desertion of the Welsh had been the principal
cause of the defeat at Edgecott, fared no better than the colleague
he had betrayed. He disbanded his army and fled homeward; but at
Bridgewater he was seized by insurgents, retainers of the late Earl of
Devon whom he had beheaded a year before, and promptly put to death.
It only remains to relate King Edward's fortunes. When the news of
Edgecott fight reached his army, it disbanded for the most part, and he
was left, with no great following, at Olney, whither he had fallen back
on July 27th. Meanwhile Warwick and Clarence, marching from London on
Northampton along the Roman road, were not far off. The news of the
King's position reached their army, and George Neville the Archbishop
of York, who was with the vanguard, resolved on a daring stroke. Riding
up by night with a great body of horse he surrounded Olney; the King's
sentinels kept bad watch, and at midnight Edward was roused by the
clash of arms at his door. He found the streets full of Warwick's men,
and the Archbishop waiting in his ante-chamber. The smooth prelate
entered and requested him to rise and dress himself. "Then the King
said he would not, for he had not yet had his rest; but the Archbishop,
that false and disloyal priest, said to him a second time, 'Sire, you
must rise and come to see my brother of Warwick, nor do I think that
you can refuse me.' So the King, fearing worse might come to him, rose
and rode off to meet his cousin of Warwick."
The Earl meanwhile had passed on to Northampton, where he met the
Northern rebels on July 29th, and thanked them for the good service
they had done England. There he dismissed the Kentish levies which had
followed him from London, and moved on to Coventry escorted by the
Yorkshiremen, many of whom must have been his own tenants. At Coventry
the Archbishop, and his unwilling companion the King, overtook them.
The details of the meeting of Warwick and Clarence with their captive
master have not come down to us. But apparently Edward repaid the
Earl's guile of the past year by an equally deceptive mask of good
humour. He made no reproaches about the death of his adherents, signed
everything that was required of him, and did not attempt to escape.
The first batch of privy seals issued under Warwick's influence are
dated from Coventry on August 2nd.
The great Earl's treacherous plans had been crowned with complete
success. He had shown that half England would rise at his word; his
enemies were dead; his master was in his power. Yet he found that
his troubles were now beginning, instead of reaching their end. It
was not merely that the whole kingdom had been thrown into a state
of disturbance, and that men had commenced everywhere to settle
old quarrels with the sword--the Duke of Norfolk, for example,
was besieging the Paston's castle of Caistor, and the Commons of
Northumberland were up in arms demanding the restoration of the Percies
to their heritage. These troubles might be put down by the strong
arm of Warwick; but the problem of real difficulty was to arrange a
_modus vivendi_ with the King. Edward was no coward or weakling to be
frightened into good behaviour by a rising such as had just occurred.
How could he help resenting with all his passionate nature the violence
of which he had been the victim? His wife, too, would always be at his
side; and though natural affection was not Elizabeth Woodville's strong
point,[13] still she was far too ambitious and vindictive to pardon
the deaths of her father and brother. Warwick knew Edward well enough
to realise that for the future there could never be true confidence
between them again, and that for the rest of his life he must guard his
head well against his master's sword.
But the Earl was proud and self-reliant; he determined to face the
danger and release the King. No other alternative was before him, save,
indeed, to slay Edward and proclaim his own son-in-law, Clarence,
for King. But the memory of old days spent in Edward's cause was too
strong. Clarence, too, though he may have been willing enough to
supplant his brother, made no open proposals to extinguish him.
Edward was over a month in his cousin's hands. Part of the time he was
kept at Warwick and Coventry, but the last three weeks were spent in
the Earl's northern stronghold of Middleham. The few accounts which we
have of the time seem to show that the King was all smoothness and fair
promises; the Earl and the Archbishop, on the other hand, were careful
to make his detention as little like captivity as could be managed.
He was allowed free access to every one, and permitted to go hunting
three or four miles away from the castle in company with a handful
of the Earl's servants. Warwick at the same time gave earnest of his
adherence to the Yorkist cause by putting down two Lancastrian risings,
the one in favour of the Percies, led by Robin of Holderness, the other
raised by his own second-cousin, Sir Humphrey Neville, one of the elder
branch, who was taken and beheaded at York.
Before releasing the King, Warwick exacted a few securities from him.
The first was a general pardon to himself, Clarence, and all who had
been engaged in the rising of Robin of Redesdale. The second was a
grant to himself of the chamberlainship of South Wales, and the right
to name the governors of Caermarthen and the other South Welsh castles.
These offices had been in Herbert's hands, and the Earl had found that
they cramped his own power in Glamorganshire and the South Marches.
The third was the appointment as Treasurer of Sir John Langstrother,
the Prior of the Hospitallers of England; he was evidently chosen as
Rivers' successor, because two years before he had been elected to
his place as prior in opposition to John Woodville, whom the King had
endeavoured to foist on the order. The chancellorship, however, was
still left in the hands of Bishop Stillington, against whom no one had
a grudge; George Neville did not claim his old preferment.
By October the King was back in London, which he entered in great
state, escorted by Montagu, the Archbishop, Richard of Gloucester, and
the Earls of Essex and Arundel. "The King himself," writes one of the
Pastons that day, "hath good language of my Lords of Clarence, Warwick,
and York, saying they be his best friends; but his household have other
language, so that what shall hastily fall I can not say." No more, we
may add, could any man in England, the King and Warwick included.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 10: Letter of William Monipenny to Louis the Eleventh. He
calls it _le pays de Surfiorkshire_, a cross between Suffolk and
Yorkshire. But the latter must be meant, as Warwick had no interest in
Suffolk, and the captain is obviously Robin of Redesdale.]
[Footnote 11: Clarence's mother was Isabel's great aunt.]
[Footnote 12: It is fair to say that Herbert was universally disliked;
he was called the Spoiler of the Church and the Commons.]
[Footnote 13: As witness her dealings with Richard the Third after he
had murdered her sons.]