Then followed in November the Parliament of Coventry, and the attainder of the Duke of York and all his party. The queen and her friends at last had it all their own way, at least in England. It was otherwise doubtless in Ireland, where the Duke of York remained for nearly a twelvemonth after his flight from Ludlow. It was otherwise too at Calais, where Warwick was all-powerful, and whither discontented Yorkists began to flock from England. It was otherwise, moreover, at sea, where the same Warwick still retained the command of the fleet, and could not be dispossessed, except on parchment. On parchment, however, he was presently superseded in both of his important offices. The Duke of Exeter was intrusted with the keeping of the sea, which even at the time of the great reconciliation of parties he had been displeased that Warwick was allowed to retain.[182.2] The young Duke of Somerset was appointed Captain of Calais, but was unable to take possession of his post. Accompanied by Lord Roos and Lord Audley, and fortified by the king’s letters-patent, he crossed the sea, but was refused admittance into the town. Apparently he had put off too long before going [183] over,[183.1] and he found the three earls in possession of the place before him; so that he was obliged to land at a place called Scales’ Cliff and go to Guisnes.[183.2] But a worse humiliation still awaited him on landing; for of the very sailors that had brought him over, a number conveyed their ships into Calais harbour, offered their services to the Earl of Warwick, and placed in his hands as prisoners certain persons who had taken part against him. They were shortly after beheaded in Calais.[183.3]
It would seem, in short, that ever since his great naval victory in 1458, Warwick was so highly popular with all the sailors of England, that it was quite as hopeless for the Duke of Exeter to contest his supremacy at sea as for Somerset to think of winning Calais out of his hands. Friends still came flocking over from England to join the three earls at Calais; A.D. 1460. and though in London in the February following nine men were hanged, drawn, and beheaded for attempting to do so,[183.4] the cause of the Yorkists remained as popular as ever. In vain were letters written to foreign parts, ‘that no relief be ministered to the traitor who kept Calais.’[183.5] In vain the Duke of Somerset at Guisnes endeavoured to contest his right to the government of that important town. All that Somerset could do was to waste his strength in fruitless skirmishes, until on St. George’s Day he suffered such a severe defeat and loss of men at Newnham Bridge, that he was at length forced to abandon all idea of dispossessing the Earl of Warwick.[183.6]
Not only were the three earls secure in their position at Calais, but there was every reason to believe that they had a large amount of sympathy in Kent, and would meet with a very cordial reception whenever they crossed the sea. To [184] avert the danger of any such attempt, and also, it would appear, with some design of reinforcing the Duke of Somerset at Guisnes, Lord Rivers and his son Sir Anthony Wydevile were sent to Sandwich about the beginning of the year, with a body of 400 men. Besides the command of the town, they were commissioned to take possession of certain ships which belonged to the Earl of Warwick, and lay quietly at anchor in the harbour.[184.1] Lord Rivers at Sandwich. But the issue of their exploit was such as to provoke universal ridicule. ‘As to tidings here,’ wrote Botoner from London to John Berney at Caister, ‘I send some offhand, written to you and others, how the Lord Rivers, Sir Anthony his son, and others have won Calais by a feeble assault at Sandwich made by John Denham, Esq., with the number of 800 men, on Tuesday between four and five o’clock in the morning.’[184.2]
The exact mode in which Rivers and his son ‘won Calais’ seems to have been described in a separate paper. The truth was that a small force under the command of John Denham (or Dynham) was despatched across the sea by Warwick, and landing at Sandwich during the night, contrived not only to seize the ships in the harbour, but even to surprise the earl and his son in their beds, and bring them over as prisoners to the other side of the Channel.[184.3] The victors did not fail to turn the incident to account by exhibiting as much contempt as possible for their unfortunate prisoners. ‘My Lord Rivers,’ writes William Paston, ‘was brought to Calais, and before the lords with eight score torches, and there my lord of Salisbury rated him, calling him knave’s son, that he should be so rude to call him and those other lords traitors; for they should be found the king’s true liegemen when he should be found a traitor. And my Lord of Warwick rated him and said that his father was but a squire, and brought up with King Henry V., and since made himself by marriage, and also made a lord; and that it was not his part to have such language of lords, being of the king’s blood. And my Lord of March rated him in like wise. And Sir Anthony was rated for his [185] language of all the three lords in like wise.’[185.1] It must have been a curious reflection to the Earl of March when in after years, as King Edward IV., he married the daughter of this same Lord Rivers, that he had taken part in this vituperation of his future father-in-law!
By and by it became sufficiently evident that unless he was considerably reinforced, the Duke of Somerset could do no good at Guisnes. Instead of attempting to maintain a footing beside Calais, the queen’s Government would have enough to do to keep the rebels out of England. The capture of Rivers had excited the most serious alarm, and the landing of Warwick himself upon the eastern coast was looked upon as not improbable.[185.2] A new force of 500 men was accordingly sent to Sandwich under the command of one Osbert Mountford or Mundeford,[185.3] an old officer of Calais. His instructions were to go from Sandwich to Guisnes, either in aid of the Duke of Somerset, as intimated in Worcester’s Annals, or, according to another contemporary authority,[185.4] to bring him over to England. But while he waited for a wind to sail, John Dynham again crossed the sea, attacked the force under the command of Mundeford, and after a little skirmishing, in which he himself was wounded, succeeded in carrying him off to Calais, as he had before done Lord Rivers. Mundeford’s treatment, however, was not so lenient as that of the more noble captive. On the 25th of June he was beheaded at the Tower of Rysebank, which stood near the town, on the opposite side of the harbour.[185.5]
Meanwhile the Earl of Warwick did not remain at Calais. He scoured the seas with his fleet and sailed into Ireland. Sir Baldwin Fulford, a knight of Devonshire, promised the king, on pain of losing his head, to destroy Warwick’s fleet; [186] but having exhausted the sum of 1000 marks which was allowed him for his expenses, he returned home without having attained his object.[186.1] On the 16th of March, Warwick having met with the Duke of York in Ireland, the two noblemen entered the harbour of Waterford with a fleet of six-and-twenty ships well manned; and on the following day, being St. Patrick’s Day, they landed and were ceremoniously received by the mayor and burgesses.[186.2] Warwick seems to have remained in Ireland more than two months, concerting with the Duke of York plans for future action. About Whitsunday, which in this year fell on the 1st of June, his fleet was observed by the Duke of Exeter off the coast of Cornwall, on its return to Calais. Exeter’s squadron was superior in strength, and an engagement might have been expected; but the duke was not sure that he could trust his own sailors, and he allowed the earl to pass unmolested.[186.3]
The Legate Coppini.
About this time there arrived at Calais a papal nuncio, by name Francesco Coppini, Bishop of Terni, returning from England to Rome. He had been sent by the new pope, Pius II., the ablest that had for a long time filled the pontifical chair, to urge Henry to send an ambassador to a congress at Mantua, in which measures were to be concerted for the union and defence of Christendom against the Turks. This was in the beginning of the preceding year,[186.4] and, as he himself states, he remained nearly a year and a half in England.[186.5] But the incapacity of the king, and the dissensions that prevailed among the lords, rendered his mission a total failure. Henry, indeed, who was never wanting in reverence for the Holy See, named a certain number of bishops and lords to go upon this mission, but they one and all refused. He accordingly sent two priests of little name, with an informal commission to excuse a greater embassy. England was thus discredited at the papal court, and the nuncio, finding his mission fruitless, at last crossed the sea to return home. At Calais, however, [187] he was persuaded by Warwick to remain. The earl himself was about to return to England, and if the legate would come back in his company he might use the influence of his sacred office to heal the wounds of a divided kingdom.[187.1]
The nuncio had doubtless seen enough of the deplorable condition of England to be convinced that peace was impossible, so long as the lords most fit to govern were banished and proclaimed rebels by the queen and her favourites.[187.2] He was, moreover, furnished with powers, by which—the main object of his mission being the union of Christendom—he was authorised to make some efforts to compose the dissensions of England.[187.3] But he certainly overstrained them, and allowed himself to become a partisan. Flattered by the attentions shown him by Warwick, he acceded to his suggestion, and when, on the 26th of June,[187.4] the day after Mundeford was beheaded at Calais, the confederate lords crossed the Channel, the nuncio was in their company, bearing the standard of the Church. Archbishop Bourchier, too, met them at Sandwich, where they landed, with a great multitude of people; and with his cross borne before him, the Primate of England conducted the three earls and their followers, who increased in number as they went along, until they reached the capital. After a very brief opposition on the part of some of the citizens, the city opened its gates to them. They entered London on the 2nd of July.[187.5]
The Earls of March, Warwick, and Salisbury.