A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

and rise of the Woodvilles.

But the King had a weakness of character which destroyed his fine position. He was a slave to his passions; and now, regardless of all prudence, though various royal matches were suggested, especially one with Bona of Savoy, the sister of the French Queen, he was carried away by his admiration for Elizabeth Woodville, the daughter of Jacquetta, the Duchess Dowager of Bedford, and Richard Woodville, Lord Rivers, and the widow of Sir John Grey, a strong Lancastrian partisan. On the 29th of September, in spite of the opposition which he could not but have expected, the King was publicly married in the chapel at Reading. Had not the King recognised the weakness of the nobility, caused by the slaughters of the late wars, he would scarcely have ventured on a marriage so much beneath him. As it was, the few great nobles who remained were deeply hurt, and Edward found himself obliged to make the best of his plebeian marriage. An unusually ostentatious and solemn coronation was held, and an air of aristocracy given to the ceremony by the presence of his wife’s relative, John of Luxembourg. His other measures for the same purpose were not so well judged. The marriage might have been pardoned had it not brought with it the elevation of the whole of the Queen’s family, whom the King thought it necessary to raise in social rank. Her father was made an Earl, and given in succession the offices of Constable and Treasurer, and this at the expense of the nobles who were then holding those places. Her brother Anthony, a man of great accomplishments, was given the daughter, inheritance, and titles of Lord Scales. Another brother, John, at the age of twenty, was married, it is to be presumed, chiefly for interested reasons, to the old Duchess of Norfolk, who was nearly eighty. Her five sisters found husbands among the noblest of the Yorkist party.[97]

Power of the Nevilles.

Their French policy. Burgundian policy of Edward. 1467.

The displeasure of the Nevilles did not, however, at first show itself, and Warwick stood godfather to the young Princess Elizabeth. Their position indeed was still one of enormous influence; George, the youngest brother, was Chancellor and Archbishop of York; to his third brother, John of Montague, had been given the property and title of the Percies, and he was now Earl of Northumberland; and Warwick, Warden of the Western Marches of Scotland, and in the receipt of public income said to amount to 80,000 crowns, was the most popular man in the country. He lived with an ostentatious splendour, which threw all his rivals into the background.[98] Nevertheless the marriage, and the formation of the new nobility consequent on it, began to divide England into new parties; on the one side, such as were left of the old nobility; on the other, the new. It was plain that the Nevilles, pledged though they were to the Yorkist side, would sooner or later side with their order against the King and his new friends. A still more important cause of quarrel existed in the difference between their foreign policy and that of the King. The House of Burgundy and Louis XI. of France were constant rivals; and while Warwick and the Nevilles inclined towards a French alliance, thus deserting the old policy of the Yorkists, Edward, seeing the advantages he would reap in a mercantile point of view, lent a willing ear to the advances of Charles, known afterwards as Charles the Bold of Burgundy, who was now demanding his sister Margaret as his wife. As a contingent advantage he knew that he would find in the Burgundian Prince a ready acknowledgment of his title to the crown of France, which he still had some thought of making good. On the return of Warwick from a friendly embassy to France, he found an alliance with Burgundy already concluded. The Count de la Roche, the natural brother of Charles, had appeared in England on the pretext of fighting a chivalrous duel with Anthony, Lord Scales; and had apparently arranged the marriage between Charles and Margaret which was consummated early in the following year. It would seem that this had been done contrary to the will of the Nevilles; for just before the arrival of De la Roche, at the opening of Parliament, Warwick was absent, and the King had suddenly deprived the Archbishop of York of his chancellorship, which he had given to the Bishop of Bath and Wells.

Defection of the Nevilles.

Popular risings inspired by them. 1469.

With these causes of quarrel, Warwick and the Nevilles fell back into their old position of opposition to the Crown; and more completely to reproduce the often-repeated state of English politics, succeeded in securing a Plantagenet Prince as their nominal leader. The Duke of Clarence, Edward’s brother, was induced, in spite of the King’s prohibition, to go to Calais, and there marry Isabella, Warwick’s daughter. This ominous union soon produced fruits. The lower orders—those orders that are below the burgher class—cared but little for the name of the ruler; it was much the same to them whether Lancastrian or Yorkist was on the throne, their interests were confined to evils which pressed upon themselves. They were therefore ready instruments in the hands of the opposition. And upon a quarrel upon some Church dues, the men of the northern counties rose under a popular leader, Robert Hilyard, commonly called Robin of Redesdale. The insurgents soon found nobler leaders. Lords Latimer and Fitz-Hugh, relations of Warwick, and Sir John Coniers appeared at their head, and with 60,000 men marched southward, declaring that Warwick alone could save the country, complaining that the money wrung from the people was squandered upon the Queen’s relatives, and demanding the dismissal of the new counsellors, such as Herbert, Stafford, and Audley. At the same time, Warwick and his brothers promised the men of Kent that they would appear at their head to make demands similar to those of the northern insurgents. Herbert, who had just beaten Jasper Tudor with the last remnant of the Lancastrians in Wales, and received his title of Earl of Pembroke, and Humphrey Stafford, who had been made Earl of Devonshire, advanced against the rebels; but quarrelling between themselves, they were defeated, and Pembroke beheaded, while shortly after, Rivers and Sir John Woodville, the Queen’s father and brother, were captured and met the same fate. It was sufficiently plain that Warwick had instigated this rebellion. The destruction of his chief enemies made his power for the time paramount. He even kept Edward for a short period prisoner in his castle of Middleham. But his disapprobation of the Government had not yet gone so far as to make him wish for a return of the Lancastrians. And when that party again raised its standard in the North, he felt himself unable to cope with it without the King’s assistance, and therefore released him. A complete pardon was granted to the Nevilles, and apparent harmony again reigned.

Clarence’s weakness drives the Nevilles to the Lancastrians.

Wells’ rebellion. 1470.