Warwick, the Kingmaker

by Charles Oman

THE PACIFICATION OF THE NORTH

Whatever the partisans of peace may have hoped in the winter of 1461-62, there was in reality no prospect of a general pacification so long as the indomitable Margaret of Anjou was still at liberty and free to plot against the quiet of England. The defeats of her Scotch allies in the summer of 1461 had only spurred her to fresh exertions. In the winter, while Edward's Parliament was sitting at Westminster, she was busy hatching a new scheme for simultaneous risings in various parts of England, accompanied by descents from France and Brittany aided by a Castilian fleet. Somerset and Hungerford had got some countenance from the King of France, and Margaret's own hopeful heart built on this small foundation a great scheme for the invasion of England. A Scotch raid, a rising in Wales, a descent of Bretons upon Guernsey and Jersey, and a great French landing at Sandwich, were to synchronise: "if weather and wind had served them, they should have had one hundred and twenty thousand men on foot in England upon Candlemass Day." But weather and wind were unpropitious, and the only tangible result of the plan was to cost the life of the Earl of Oxford, who had been told off to head the insurgents of the Eastern Counties. He had been taken into favour by King Edward, and we need have small pity for him when he was detected in correspondence with the Queen at the very time that he was experiencing the clemency of her rival. But it was an evil sign of the times that he and his son were executed, not after a regular trial before their peers, but by a special and unconstitutional court held by the Earl of Worcester as Constable of England. For this evil precedent Warwick must take the blame no less than Edward.

But Margaret of Anjou had not yet exhausted her energy. So soon as the storms of winter were over and Somerset returned from France without the promised succours, she resolved to set out in person to stimulate the zeal of Louis the Eleventh, and to gather help from her various relatives on the Continent. Escaping from Scotland by the Irish Sea, she rounded the Land's End and came ashore with her young son in Brittany. The Duke gave her twelve thousand crowns, and passed her on to her father Réné in Anjou. From his Court she went on to King Louis, who lay at Rouen. With him she had more success than might have been expected, though far less of course than she had hoped. Louis was able to show that he had already got together a fleet, reinforced by some Breton and Castilian vessels, in the mouth of the Seine. In return for an agreement by which Margaret promised the cession of Calais, and perhaps that of the Channel Isles, he undertook to engage frankly in the war, and to put at Margaret's disposition a force for the invasion of England. The way in which Louis chose a leader for this army was very characteristic of the man. He had in close confinement at the time a favourite of his father and an enemy of his own, Peter de Brézé, Count of Maulévrier and Seneschal of Normandy. De Brézé was a gallant knight and a skilled leader; only a few years before he had distinguished himself in the English war, and among other achievements had taken and sacked Sandwich. The King now offered him the choice of staying in prison or of taking charge of an expedition to Scotland in aid of Margaret. De Brézé accepted with alacrity the latter alternative, as much, we are told, from chivalrous desire to assist a distressed Queen as from dislike for the inside of the dungeons of Loches. Quite satisfied, apparently, at getting an enemy out of the country on a dangerous quest, Louis gave him twenty thousand livres in money, forty small vessels, and about two thousand men, and bade him take the Queen whither she would go.

While Louis and Margaret were negotiating, their English enemies had been acting with their accustomed vigour. When May came round Warwick again resumed command of the Northern Border, and marched out to finish the work that had been begun in the previous year. He was already on Scottish ground, and had taken at least one castle north of the Border, when he received a herald from the Scotch regents offering to treat for peace. By his commission, drawn up in the last year, Warwick was authorised to act as plenipotentiary in any such matter. Accordingly he sent back his army and went himself to Dumfries, where he met Mary, the Dowager Queen of Scotland, and the majority of the regents. They concluded an armistice to last till St. Bartholomew's Day, and then set to work to discuss terms of peace. The common report ran that the Scots were ready not only to give up the Lancastrian cause, but even to deliver over the person of King Henry. Moreover, there was talk of an alliance by marriage between the English King and a Scotch Princess. This new departure, mainly brought about by the Queen-Dowager's influence,[6] was not without its effect on the Lancastrian partisans, who found themselves left unsupported to resist Warwick's army, which was, during the negotiations, put under the command of his brother Montagu and set to reduce the Northumbrian fortresses. King Henry fled from the Scotch Court and took refuge in one of the castles of the Archbishop of St. Andrews, the chief member of the regency who opposed peace with England. Lord Dacre, brother of the peer who fell at Towton, surrendered himself to Montagu, and was sent to London, where King Edward received him into grace. Even Somerset himself, the chief of the party, lost heart, and began to send secret letters to Warwick to ascertain whether there was any hope of pardon for him. Meanwhile Naworth Castle was surrendered to Montagu, and the more important stronghold of Alnwick yielded itself to Lord Hastings, who had been detached to form its siege. Bamborough was given up by Sir William Tunstal, and of all the Northern fortresses only Dunstanburgh remained in Lancastrian hands, and it seemed that this place must fall ere the year was out.

Believing that the war was practically at an end, Warwick now turned south, and rode up to London to lay the Scotch proposal before the King. But he had not long left the Border when the whole aspect of affairs was once more transformed by the reappearance of Queen Margaret on the scene.

While Montagu and Warwick had been in the North, King Edward had been sorely vexed by rumours of French invasion. Seventy French and Spanish ships were roaming the Channel, and Fauconbridge, who had set out to find them with a hastily-raised fleet, came home without success. A French force had mustered in Picardy, and Queen Margaret lay all the summer at Boulogne, tampering with the garrison of Calais, who had fallen into mutiny on account of long arrears of pay. But Calais failed to revolt, Louis made no serious attempt on England, and the Queen at last grew impatient and determined to start herself for England, though she could only rely on the assistance of Peter de Brézé and his two thousand men. Setting sail early in October, she passed up the eastern coast, and landed in Northumberland, expecting that all the North Country would rise to her aid. No general insurrection followed, but Margaret's arrival was not without effect. Both Alnwick and Bamborough fell into her hands—the former by famine, for it was wholly unvictualled and could not hold out a week; the latter betrayed by the governor's brother. Nor was this all; the presence of the Queen moved the Scotch regents to break off their negotiations with England, and denounce the truce which they had so recently concluded. All that the statesmanship of Warwick and the sword of Montagu had done for England in the year 1462 was lost in the space of a week.

The moment that the unwelcome news of Margaret's advent reached London, Warwick flew to repair the disaster. Only eight days after the fall of Bamborough he was already at the head of twenty thousand men, and hastening north by forced marches. The King, ill-informed as to the exact force that had landed in Northumberland, had sent out in haste for every man that could be gathered, and followed himself with the full levy of the Southern Counties.

The nearer the Yorkists approached to the scene of action the less formidable did their task appear. The approach of winter had prevented the Scots from putting an army into the field, and the Lancastrians and their French allies had made no attempt to push out from their castles. All that they had done was to strengthen the three strongholds and fill them with provisions. In Alnwick lay Peter de Brézé's son and some of the Frenchmen, together with Lord Hungerford. Somerset, who had dropped his secret negotiations with Warwick when his mistress returned from France, held Bamborough; with him were Lord Roos and Jasper Earl of Pembroke. Sir Ralph Percy, the fighting-man of the Percy clan—for his nephew the heir of Northumberland was a minor—had made himself strong in Dunstanburgh. Meanwhile the Queen, on the approach of Warwick, had quitted her adherents and set sail for Scotland with her son and her treasure, under convoy of de Brézé and the main body of the French mercenaries. But the month was now November, the seas were rough, and off Bamborough she was caught in a storm; her vessel, with three others, was driven against the iron-bound coast, and she herself barely escaped with her life in a fishing-boat which took her into Berwick. Her treasures went to the bottom; and of her French followers four hundred were cast ashore on Holy Island, where they were forced to surrender next day to a force sent against them by Montagu.

Warwick had now arrived at Newcastle, and King Edward was but a few days' march behind him. Though the month was November, and winter campaigns, especially in the bleak and thinly-populated North, were in the fifteenth century as unusual as they were miserable, Warwick had determined to make an end of the new Lancastrian invasion before the Scots should have time to move. Luckily we have a full account of his dispositions for the simultaneous siege of the three Percy castles, from the pen of one who served on the spot.