Cassell's History of England, Vol. 2 (of 8) / From the Wars of the Roses to the Great Rebellion

by Anonymous

Lady Grey made more impression than she probably intended. Edward was perfectly fascinated by her beauty and spirit. He raised her from her suppliant posture, and promised her his favour. He soon communicated to her the terms on which he would grant the restitution of her property; but he found in Elizabeth Woodville, or Grey, a very different person to those he had been accustomed to meet. She firmly refused every concession inconsistent with her honour, and the king, piqued by the resistance he encountered, became more and more enamoured.

On the 1st of May, 1464, he married her at Grafton, in the presence only of the priest, the clerk, the Duchess of Bedford, and two female attendants. Within a few days after the marriage he set out to meet the Lancastrians in the north; but the battles of Hedgeley Moor and Hexham were fought before his arrival; and on his return he became anxious to open the matter to his council, and to obtain its sanction. Accordingly, at Michaelmas, he summoned a general council of the peers at the abbey of Reading, where he announced this important event. Amongst the Peers present were Edward's brother the Duke of Clarence, and the great king-maker, Warwick. To neither of these individuals was the transaction agreeable. To Clarence it appeared too inferior a choice for the King of England, though Elizabeth Grey, by her mother's side, was of princely blood. But to Warwick there was offence in it, personal and deep. He had been commissioned by Edward to solicit for him the hand of Bona of Savoy, the sister of the Queen of France. The proposal had been accepted; the King of France had given his consent; the treaty of marriage was actually drawn; and there lacked nothing but the ratification of the terms agreed upon, and the bringing over of the princess to England. At this moment came the order to pause in the proceedings, and the mystery was soon cleared up by the confident rumour of this sudden matrimonial caprice of the king. Warwick returned in high dudgeon; from Edward he did not try to conceal it; but the time for revenge of his injured honour was not yet come; and therefore, after the royal announcement in the council, Clarence and Warwick took Elizabeth by the hand, and introduced her to the rest of the peers. A second council was held at Westminster, in December, and the income of the new queen was settled at 4,000 marks a year.

It was not to be expected that this sudden elevation of a simple knight's daughter to the throne would pass without murmuring and discontent, which was probably the more fully expressed as it was shared by the all-powerful Warwick and the king's brothers. There were busy rumours that the politic old duchess, Jacquetta, and her daughter, had practised magical arts upon the king, and administered philtres; and that, recovering from their effect, he had grievously repented, and endeavoured to free himself. But Edward's whole conduct towards the queen showed the falsity of this jealous gossip; and to make it obvious that she was of no mean parentage, he invited to the coronation her mother's brother, John of Luxembourg, with a retinue of a hundred knights and gentlemen.

But if the king had made apparent her noble birth and his continued affection for her, it became speedily as apparent that the marriage of a subject was to be followed by all its inconveniences. Elizabeth, though raised to the throne, might still be said to be on her knees, imploring the favour of the king. There was nothing which she thought too much for her numerous relations, and the king displayed a marvellous facility in complying with her requests. Her father was created Earl Rivers, and soon after the Lord Mountjoy, a partisan of the Nevilles, was removed to make way for him as Treasurer of England; and again, on the resignation of the Earl of Worcester, the office of Lord High Constable was conferred on him. That was very well for a beginning, but it was nothing to what followed; every branch of the queen's family must be aggrandised without delay. She had five sisters, and each of them was married to one of the highest noblemen in the realm: one to the Duke of Buckingham; one to the heir of the Earl of Essex; a third to the Earl of Arundel; a fourth to Lord Grey de Ruthin, who was made Earl of Kent; and the fifth to Lord William Herbert, created Earl of Huntingdon. Her brother Anthony was married to the heiress of the late Lord Scales, and endowed with her estate and title. Her younger brother John, in his twentieth year, was married to the wealthy old dowager Duchess of Norfolk, in her eightieth year; such was the shameless greed of this family. The queen's son, Thomas Grey, was married to the king's niece, the daughter and heiress of the Duke of Exeter. The Nevilles looked on all these extraordinary proceedings with ominous gloom.

Fresh cause of disunion arose between the king and Warwick. A marriage had for some time been in agitation between Margaret, the king's sister, and the Count of Charolais, son and heir of the Duke of Burgundy. The count was sprung from the house of Lancaster, and even when his father showed the most settled coolness towards Henry VI. and Margaret, had displayed a warm sympathy for them. It was a good stroke of policy, therefore, to win him over by this marriage to the reigning dynasty. But Warwick, who in his former intercourse with Burgundy in France had conceived a deep dislike to him, opposed this match, and represented one with a son of Louis XI. as far more advantageous. To Warwick's arguments was opposed the evident policy of maintaining our commercial intercourse with the Netherlands, and of possessing so efficient an ally on the borders of France against the deep and selfish schemes of Louis. But in the end Warwick prevailed. He was sent over to France to negotiate the affair with Louis. Warwick went attended with a princely train, and with all the magnificence which distinguished him at home, more like that of a great sovereign than of a subject. Louis, who never lost an opportunity of sowing jealousies amongst his enemies, even while he appeared to be honouring them, met Warwick at Rouen, attended by the queen and princesses. The inhabitants, obeying royal orders, went out and escorted Warwick into the city with banners and processions of priests, who conducted the earl to the cathedral, and then to the lodgings prepared for him at the Jacobins. There also Louis and the court took up their quarters, and for twelve days, during which the conference lasted, Louis used to visit the earl in private, passing through a side door into his apartments. With all this secret and familiar intercourse, no pains were taken to conceal its existence; and the consequence was such as the astute and mischievous Louis intended. Reports were forwarded to Edward from those whom he had placed in Warwick's train, which roused his ever uncalculating anger. He hastened to the house of Warwick's brother—the Archbishop of York and Chancellor of the kingdom—demanded the instant surrender of the seals; and, enforcing the act of resumption of Crown lands lately passed, deprived the archbishop of two manors formerly belonging to the Crown.

Warwick returned, as may be supposed, in no very good humour, but still with every prospect of success in his mission. The court of France was agreeable to the match. And on the heels of the earl came the Archbishop of Narbonne and the Bastard of Bourbon to complete the arrangements. They were prepared to offer an annual pension to Edward from Louis, and to pledge the king to submit to the Pope Edward's demand for the restoration of Normandy and Aquitaine, which should be decided within four years. But the importance of these propositions, and the evident prudence of at least appearing to listen to the terms of a monarch like that of France, had no weight with Edward, who was far more distinguished for petulance and rashness than for policy. He treated the French ambassadors with the most insulting coldness; and unceremoniously quitted the capital, leaving his ministers to deal with the ambassadors, and, in fact, to get rid of them. His resentment against Warwick made him not only thus forget the courtesy due to the envoys of a great foreign prince—conduct sure to create its own punishment,—but he gave all the more favour to the suit of the Count of Charolais from the same cause.

The count had sent over his relative, the Bastard of Burgundy, ostensibly to hold a tournament with Lord Scales, the queen's brother, but really to press forward the match with the English princess. The Duke of Burgundy dying at this juncture, all difficulties vanished. The princess was affianced to the new Duke of Burgundy.

This completed the resentment of Warwick. The open insult offered to the court of France, and the rejection of the alliance which he had effected, sunk deep into his proud mind. He retired to his castle of Middleham, in Yorkshire; and occasion was taken of his absence from court to accuse him, on the evidence of one of Queen Margaret's emissaries taken in Wales, of being a secret partisan of the Lancastrian faction. The charge failed; but Edward, resolved to mortify and humiliate the man to whom he owed his throne, affected still to believe him a secret ally of the Lancastrians, and that his own safety was threatened by him. He therefore summoned a body-guard of 200 archers, without whose attendance he never stirred abroad. He expelled the Nevilles from court, and took every means to express his dislike and suspicion of that house. On the other hand, the Nevilles repaid the hatred of the upstart family of Woodville with interest; and from this moment, whatever might be the outward seeming, the feud betwixt these rival families was settled, deadly, and never terminated till it had completed the ruin of all parties.