While the Woodvilles were supreme, and while Edward was under their influence disheartening the ancient barons of England, and alienating the great noble to whom he owed the proudest crown in Christendom, the imprudent king did not ingratiate himself with the multitude by any display of respect for those rights and liberties to maintain which Warwick had won Northampton and Towton. Indeed, the government was disfigured by acts of undisguised tyranny; and torture, albeit known to be illegal in England, was freely used, as during the Lancastrian rule, to extort evidence. Even the laws of the first Edward and his great minister, Robert de Burnel, were in danger of going as much out of fashion as the chain armor in which Roger Bigod and Humphrey Bohun charged at Lewes and Evesham.
Edward's first victim was William Walker. This man kept a tavern in Cheapside, known as "The Crown," and there a club, composed of young men, had been in the habit of meeting. These fell under the suspicion of being Lancastrians, and were supposed to be plotting a restoration. No evidence to that effect existed; but, unfortunately, the host, being one day in a jocular mood, while talking to his son, who was a boy, said, "Tom, if thou behavest thyself, I'll make thee heir to the crown." Every body knew that Walker's joke alluded to his sign; yet, when the words were reported, he was arrested, and, as if in mockery of common sense, indicted for imagining and compassing the death of the king. The prisoner pleaded his innocence of any evil intention, but his protestations were of no avail. He was found guilty, in defiance of justice, and hanged, in defiance of mercy.
The next case, that of a poor cobbler, if not so utterly unjust, was equally impolitic and still more cruel. Margaret of Anjou was, at that time, using every effort to regain her influence in England, and many persons, supposed to possess letters from the exiled queen, were tortured and put to death on that suspicion. Of these the cobbler was one, and one of the most severely punished. Having been apprehended on the charge of aiding Margaret to correspond with her partisans in England, he was tortured to death with red-hot pincers.
Even when the sufferers were Lancastrians, the barbarity of such proceedings could not fail to make the flesh creep and the blood curdle; but the case became still more iniquitous when government laid hands on men attached to the house of York; when the Woodvilles, who had themselves been Lancastrians, singled out as victims stanch partisans of the White Rose.
Sir Thomas Cooke was one of the most reputable citizens of London, and, in the second year of Edward's reign, had fulfilled the highest municipal functions. Unfortunately for him, also, he had the reputation of being so wealthy as to tempt plunder. Earl Rivers and the Duchess of Bedford appear to have thought so; and exerted their influence with the king to have the ex-mayor arrested on a charge of treason, and committed to the Tower.
It appears that, in an evil hour for Cooke, a man named Hawkins had called on him and requested the loan of a thousand marks, on good security; but Sir Thomas said he should, in the first place, like to know for whom the money was, and, in the second, for what purpose it was intended. Hawkins frankly stated it was for the use of Queen Margaret; and Cooke thereupon declined to lend a penny. Hawkins went away, and the matter rested for some time. Sir Thomas was not, however, destined to escape; for Hawkins, having been taken to the Tower and put to the brake, called "the Duke of Exeter's daughter," confessed so much in regard to himself that he was put to death; and at the same time, under the influence of excessive pain, stated that Cooke had lent the money to Margaret of Anjou.
The Woodvilles, having obtained such evidence against their destined victim, seized upon Cooke's house in London, ejecting his lady and servants, and, at the same time, took possession of Giddy Hall, his seat in Essex, where he had fish-ponds, and a park full of deer, and household furniture of great value. After thus appropriating the estate of the city knight, they determined that, for form's sake, he should have a trial; and accordingly a commission, of which Earl Rivers was a member, was appointed to sit at Guildhall. It would seem that the Woodvilles, meanwhile, had no apprehension of the result being unfavorable to their interests; but, unfortunately for their scheme of appropriation, the commission included two men who loved justice and hated iniquity. These were Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, and Sir John Markham, Chief Justice of England.
Markham was of a family of lawyers, whose progenitors, though scarcely wealthier than yeomen, had held their land from time immemorial, and been entitled to carry coat armor. Having been early called to the bar, and successful in his profession, he became a puisne judge of the court of king's bench; and having strongly supported the claims of the house of York, and greatly contributed, by his abilities and learning, to the triumph of the White Rose, he succeeded Fortescue as chief justice. But, though zealous for the hereditary right of the house of York, Markham was neither a minion nor a tool of its members; and, though he could not but be aware what the court expected, he was incapable of doing any thing to forfeit the public respect which he enjoyed as "The Upright Judge." When, therefore, the evidence against Cooke had been taken, and the whole case heard, the chief justice ruled that the offense was not treason, but, at the most, "Misprision of Treason," and directed the jury so to find it.
The lands of Sir Thomas Cooke were saved, and the Woodvilles, angry as wild beasts deprived of their prey, vowed vengeance on the chief justice. Accordingly Earl Rivers and his duchess pressed Edward to dismiss the unaccommodating functionary; and Edward swore that Markham should never sit on the bench again. Markham, submitting with a dignity becoming his high character, carried his integrity into retirement; and Sir Thomas Cooke was set free after he had paid an enormous fine.
Every man of intelligence must now have seen that the Woodvilles would embroil Edward with the nation. While the king was, under their influence, perpetrating such enormities as caused grave discontent, he was aroused to a sense of insecurity by formidable commotions in the north. For the origin of these, the master and brethren of the Hospital of St. Leonards appear to have been responsible. The right of levying a thrave of corn from every plow in the country for the relief of the poor had, it seems, been granted to the hospital by one of the Anglo-Saxon kings; but the rural population complained that the revenue was not expended for charitable purposes, but employed by the master and brethren for their private advantage. After long complaining, the people of the country refused to pay, and, in retaliation, their goods were distrained and their persons imprisoned. At length, in 1469, finding they could get no redress, the recusants took up arms, and, under a captain named Robert Hulderne, they put the officers of the hospital to the sword, and, to the number of fifteen thousand, marched, in hostile array, to the gates of York.