"THE STOUT EARL" AND "THE FOREIGN WOMAN."
It was the spring of 1470 when Warwick left the shores of England,
accompanied by the Duke of Clarence, by the Countess of Warwick, and by
her two daughters. The king-maker sailed toward Calais, of which, since
1455, he had been captain-general. At Calais Warwick expected welcome
and safety. Such, indeed, had been his influence in the city in former
days that his dismissal by the Lancastrian king had proved an idle
ceremony; and, moreover, he relied with confidence on the fidelity of
Lord Vauclerc, a Gascon, whom, years before, he had left as his deputy
in the government.
Warwick was doomed to disappointment. News of the earl's rupture with
the king had preceded him to Calais; and, as his ships approached
the city of refuge, Vauclerc, far from according to his patron the
anticipated welcome, ordered the artillery of the fort to be pointed
against the fleet. This was not the worst. While the exiles, somewhat
perplexed, lay before Calais, the Duchess of Clarence became a mother;
and the earl appealed to the governor's humanity to admit her into the
city. But Vauclerc resolutely refused to countenance Edward's enemies,
and the Gascon was with no slight difficulty persuaded to send on board
two flagons of wine. Even the privilege of baptism in the city, which
stood as a monument of the Continental triumphs of the Plantagenets,
was refused to the infant destined to be the last male heir of that
illustrious race.
Vauclerc, however, gave the earl information by no means valueless,
in the shape of a warning that on putting to sea he must beware where
he landed, as the myrmidons of Burgundy were on the watch to seize
him. At the same time, he took occasion secretly to send an apology
to Warwick, and to represent his conduct as being entirely guided by
zeal for the earl's safety. "Calais," said he, "is ill-supplied with
provisions; the garrison can not be depended on; the inhabitants,
who live by the English commerce, will certainly take part with the
established government; and the city is in no condition to resist
England on one side and Burgundy on the other. It is better, therefore,
that I should seem to declare for Edward, and keep the fortress in my
power till it is safe to deliver it to you." Warwick was not, probably,
in a very credulous mood; but he took Vauclerc's explanation for what
it was worth, ordered the anchors to be hauled up, and, having defied
Burgundy's enmity by seizing some Flemish ships that lay off Calais,
sailed toward the coast of Normandy.
King Edward, on hearing of Vauclerc's refusal to admit Warwick,
expressed himself highly pleased with the deputy-governor,
and manifested his approval by sending the Gascon a patent
as Captain-general of Calais. Burgundy, not to be behind his
brother-in-law, dispatched Philip de Comines to announce to Vauclerc
that he should have a pension of a thousand crowns for life, and to
keep him true to his principles. Vauclerc must have laughed in his
sleeve at all this. "Never man," says Sir Richard Baker, "was better
paid for one act of dissembling."
Meanwhile, Warwick landed at Harfleur, where his reception was all
that could have been wished. The governor welcomed the exiles with
every token of respect, escorted the ladies to Valognes, and hastened
to communicate Warwick's arrival to the king. Louis exhibited the most
unbounded confidence in the earl's fortunes. Indeed, so confident in
the king-maker's alliance was the crafty monarch, that he prepared
to brave the united enmity of Edward of England and Charles of
Burgundy. Without delay he invited the great exile to court; and,
as Warwick and Clarence--whom Warwick then intended to place on the
English throne--rode toward Amboise, their journey excited the utmost
curiosity. Every where the inhabitants were eager to see "The Stout
Earl;" and Jacques Bonnehomme came from his cabin to gaze on the man
who made and unmade kings, and who, unlike the nobles of France, took
pride in befriending the people in peace and sparing them in war.
At Amboise Warwick met with a reception which must have been gratifying
to his pride. Louis was profuse of compliments and lavish of promises.
The French king, however, took occasion to suggest to Warwick the
expediency of finding some more adequate instrument than Clarence
wherewith to work out his projects; and the English earl, bent on
avenging England's injuries and his own, listened with patience, even
when Louis proposed an alliance with Lancaster.
Ere this Margaret was on the alert. When, in the autumn of 1469,
the exiled queen learned that the house of York was divided against
itself, and that the king and the king-maker were mortal foes, she
left her retreat at Verdun, and, with her son, repaired to the French
king at Tours. Thither, to renew their adhesion to the Red Rose,
came, among other Lancastrians, Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, who
had been wandering over Europe like a vagabond, and Henry Holland,
Duke of Exeter, and Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, with his
brother John, who, since the rout of Hexham, had been lurking in
Flanders, concealing their names and quality, and suffering all
those inconveniences that arise from the ill-assorted union of
pride and poverty. A man bearing a nobler name, and gifted with a
higher intellect than Tudors, Hollands, or Beauforts, now joined the
Lancastrian exiles. It was John De Vere, Earl of Oxford.
At the beginning of the contentions of York and Lancaster, the De Veres
naturally took part against the misleaders of the monk-monarch, and as
late, at least, as 1455, John, twelfth Earl of Oxford, was a friend
of the duke. Oxford, however, was not prepared for a transfer of the
crown; and when the dispute assumed the form of a dynastic war, he
took the losing side, and in 1461 was beheaded on Tower Hill, with his
eldest son, Aubrey. At the time of the old earl's execution, his second
son, John, was twenty-three; and, being husband of Margaret Neville,
the sister of Warwick, he was allowed to remain undisturbed in England,
to bear the title of Oxford, and, without taking any part in politics,
to maintain feudal state at Wyvenhoe and Castle Hedlingham. Oxford,
however, was "linked in the closest friendship with Warwick;" and when
the Yorkist king shook off the influence of "The Stout Earl," England
was no longer a place of safety for the chief of the De Veres. In 1470
Oxford followed his great brother-in-law to France, hoping, perhaps,
to mediate between Warwick and the Lancastrian queen who had ever hated
the earl as her mightiest foe.
At this period Margaret of Anjou had seen forty summers, and,
doubtless, felt somewhat less strongly than in earlier days the
ambition which had animated her before Wakefield and Hexham. But the
Prince of Wales was now in his eighteenth year, and, inspired by
maternal love, she was ready, in order to regain the crown for him, to
brave new dangers and endure fresh hardships.
Young Edward was, indeed, a prince on whom a mother might well look
with pride. Every thing had been done to make him worthy of the throne
he had been born to inherit. Fortescue had instructed the royal boy in
the duties necessary for his enacting the part of "a patriot king;"
and, while engaged in studies so grave, the prince had not neglected
those accomplishments essential to his rank. Ere leaving Verdun he had
become a handsome and interesting youth. His bearing was chivalrous;
his manner graceful; his countenance of almost feminine beauty, shaded
with fair hair, and lighted up with a blue eye that sparkled with valor
and intelligence. Such, arrayed in the short purple jacket trimmed with
ermine, the badge of St. George on his breast, and a single ostrich
feather--his cognizance as Prince of Wales--in his high cap, was the
heir of Lancaster, whom Margaret of Anjou presented to the devoted
adherents of the Red Rose, who, having lost every thing else, came to
the French court to place their swords at his disposal.
Louis was now in his element; and to reconcile the Yorkist earl and the
Lancastrian queen, he exerted all his powers of political intrigue. His
task, indeed, was not easy. Warwick had accused Margaret of plotting
against his life, and murdering his father. Margaret had charged
Warwick--whom she hated more bitterly even than she had hated the Duke
of York--with depriving her of a crown, and destroying her reputation.
The earl's wish, in the event of deposing Edward, still was to place
Clarence on the throne; and, even since quarreling with the Yorkist
king, he had taken part against the Lancastrians. The queen was, on
her part, utterly averse to friendship with her ancient adversary.
"My wounds," she exclaimed, "must bleed till doomsday, when to GOD'S
justice I will appeal for vengeance!"
Most men would have regarded the case as desperate. But Louis viewed
it in another light. Between the queen and the earl, indeed, there
was a wide gulph, in which ran the blood of slaughtered friends and
kinsmen; but one sentiment the queen without a crown and the earl
without an earldom had in common--an intense antipathy to Edward of
York. Moreover, the Prince of Wales had, on some festive occasion, seen
Anne Neville, the earl's daughter, and the sight had inspired him with
one of those romantic attachments which call into action the tenderest
sympathies and the noblest aspirations. A fear that Margaret and
Warwick would never consent to a union might have daunted young Edward,
but Louis had seen more of the world. He knew that Warwick could hardly
see the prince without being covetous to have him as a son-in-law; and
he knew that Margaret would be prompted by the ambition of a queen, and
the tenderness of a mother, to recover by compromise the crown which
she had been unable to gain by force. In one important respect the
mind of Louis was made up--that, on all points, he would intrigue and
negotiate with an eye to his own profit.
Louis had correctly calculated the effect of circumstances on those
with whom he had to deal. The earl, being flesh and blood, could not
resist the prospect of a throne for his daughter, and indicated his
readiness to make peace. Margaret was not quite so reasonable; but, at
length, she yielded so far as to agree to a meeting with the man whom
she had accused of piercing her heart with wounds that could never be
healed.
Accordingly, a conference was appointed; and in June, 1470, Warwick, in
the Castle of Amboise, met the queen, from the brow of whose husband
he had torn the English crown, and the prince, the illegitimacy of
whose birth he had proclaimed at Paul's Cross. Now, however, the earl
was prepared to give his hand in friendship to one, and his daughter
as wife to the other. He offered to restore Henry of Windsor, if
Margaret would consent to unite the Prince of Wales to Anne Neville.
Margaret, however, felt the sharpness of the sacrifice, and, after some
hesitation, asked for time to consider the proposal.
Ere the time expired, the queen's aversion to the match was
strengthened. She showed Louis a letter from England, in which the
hand of Edward's daughter, Elizabeth, then recognized as heiress to
the crown, was offered to her son. "Is not that," she asked, "a more
profitable party? And if it be necessary to forgive, is it not more
queenly to treat with Edward than with a twofold rebel?" Louis, who
was bent on business, did not relish such talk as this. To Margaret
he became so cool, that she could hardly help seeing he would have
thought little of throwing her interests overboard. To Warwick he was
all kindness, declaring that he cared far more for the earl than he did
either for Margaret or her son, and even giving an assurance that he
would aid Warwick to conquer England for any one he chose.
Margaret perceived that it was no time for exhibitions of vindictive
feeling; and, with undisguised reluctance, she consented to the match.
After thus sacrificing her long-cherished prejudices, the exiled queen
proceeded to Angers, on a visit to the Countess of Warwick and to Anne
Neville, at that time in her sixteenth year. Preparations were then
made for the marriage which was to cement the new alliance, and, in
July, the daughter of "The Stout Earl" was solemnly espoused to the son
of "The Foreign Woman."
About this time there arrived at Calais an English lady of quality,
who stated that she was on her way to join the Duchess of Clarence.
Vauclerc, believing that she brought overtures of peace from Edward
to Warwick, and feeling a strong interest in the reconciliation of
the king and the earl, allowed her to pass, and she found her way
to Angers, where the marriage was then being celebrated. The errand
of this lady was not quite so amiable as Vauclerc had supposed. On
arriving at Angers, she revealed herself to Clarence as having been
sent by his brothers to tempt him to betray Warwick--to implore him, at
all events, not to aid in the subversion of their father's house.
Clarence was just in the state of mind to be worked upon by a skillful
diplomatist; and the female embassador executed her mission with a
craft that Louis might have envied. The duke, so long as he had simply
been taking part in a feud between Warwick and the Woodvilles, was all
zeal for the earl, and not without hope that he himself might profit
by the strife; but no sooner did the weak prince find himself engaged
with the adherents of the Red Rose in a contest to substitute the heir
of the house of Lancaster for the chief of the house of York, than he
began to pause and ponder. At this stage the lady of quality appeared
at Angers, and managed her part of the business with the requisite
dexterity; in fact, Clarence declared that he was not so great an enemy
to his brother as was supposed, and he promised, significantly, to
prove that such was the case when he reached England. The lady departed
from Angers, and returned to Edward's court with a full assurance that
her mission would produce important results.
The bridal of the prince and Anne Neville having been celebrated,
Warwick and Oxford prepared to return to England. Fortune, with fickle
smile, cheered the king-maker's enterprise. Every thing was promising;
for the English people, since Warwick had been exiled to a foreign
strand, complained that England without "The Stout Earl" was like a
world without a sun; and day after day came messengers to tell that
thousands of men were ready to take up arms in his cause whenever he
set foot on his native soil.
Delay was not to be thought of under such circumstances. The earl did
not lose any time. With Pembroke and Clarence, and Oxford and George
De Vere, Oxford's brother, he went on board the fleet that lay at
Harfleur. The French coast was not, indeed, clear; for Burgundy had
fitted out a fleet, which blockaded Harfleur and the mouth of the
Seine. But even the elements favored Warwick at this crisis of his
career. A storm arising dispersed the duke's fleet; and, next morning,
the weather being fine, the earl and the Lancastrians gave their
sails to the wind, and, confident of bringing their enterprise to a
successful issue, left behind them the coast of Normandy.