Gardiner Samuel Rawson
A Student's History of England, v. 1: B.C. 55-A.D. 1509

CHAPTER XXII.
THE YORKIST KINGS.
EDWARD IV., 1461—1483. EDWARD V., 1483. RICHARD III., 1483—1485

LEADING DATES

Coronation of Edward IV. 1461

Restoration of Henry VI. 1470

Edward IV. recovers the crown—Battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury 1471

Edward V. 1483

Richard III. deposes Edward V. 1483

Richard III. killed at Bosworth 1485

1. Edward IV. and the House of Commons. 1461.—On June 29, 1461, Edward IV. was crowned, and created his two brothers, George and Richard, Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester. His first Parliament declared the three Lancastrian kings to have been usurpers, and Henry VI., his wife, his son, and his chief supporters, to be traitors. At the end of the session Edward thanked the Commons for their support, and assured them of his resolution to protect them at the hazard of his own life. It was the first time that a king had addressed the Commons, and his doing so was a sign that a new era had begun, in which the wishes of the middle class in town and country were to prevail over those of the great nobles. It did not follow that the House of Commons would take the control of the government into its own hands, as it does at the present day. For a long time the election of the members had been carried out under pressure from the local nobility. If the great men in a county resolved that certain persons should be returned as members, those who came to the place of election in support of others would be driven off, and perhaps beaten or wounded. Consequently each House of Commons had hitherto represented the dominant party, Lancastrian or Yorkist, as the case might be. Before there could be a House of Commons capable of governing, the interference of the nobles with elections would have to be brought to an end, and it was only by a strong king that their power could be overthrown. The strengthening of the kingship was the only road to future constitutional progress.

Edward IV.: from an original painting belonging to the Society of Antiquaries.

2. Loss of the Mediæval Ideals.—Before the end of the 15th century the English people had lost all the ideals of the middle ages. The attempt of Henry V. to revive the old ecclesiastical feeling had broken down through the race for material power opened by his French wars, and through the savagery of the wars of the Roses. The new religious feeling of Wycliffe and the nobler Lollards had perished with Sir John Oldcastle from the same causes. Neither the Church nor the opponents of the Church had any longer a sway over men's hearts. The clergy continued to perform their part in the services of the Church not indeed without belief, but without the spiritual fervour which influences the lives of men. The chivalry of the middle ages was as dead as its religion. Men spoke of women as coarsely as they spoke of their cattle. Human nature indeed could not be entirely crushed. John Paston's wife (see p. 321), for instance, was quaintly affectionate. "I would," she once wrote to her husband, "ye were at home, if it were for your ease … now liever than a gown, though it were of scarlet." But the system of wardship (see p. 116) made marriages a matter of bargain and sale. "For very need," wrote a certain Stephen Scrope, "I was fain to sell a little daughter I have for much less than I should." When Scrope was old he wished to marry Paston's young sister, and the girl was willing to take him if she were sure that his land was not burdened with debt. She would be glad enough to escape from home. Her mother kept her in close confinement and beat her once or twice every week, and sometimes twice a day, so that her head was broken in two or three places. This low and material view of domestic life had led to an equally low and material view of political life, and the cruelty which stained the wars of the Roses was but the outcome of a state of society in which no man cared much for anything except his own greatness and enjoyment. The ideal which shaped itself in the minds of the men of the middle class was a king acting as a kind of chief constable, who, by keeping great men in order, would allow their inferiors to make money in peace.

3. Fresh Efforts of the Lancastrians. 1462—1465.—Edward IV. only very partially responded to this demand. He was swift in action when a crisis came, and was cruel in his revenge, but he was lustful and indolent when the crisis was passed, and he had no statesmanlike abilities to lay the foundations of a powerful government. The wars were not ended by his victory at Towton. In 1462 Queen Margaret reappeared in the North, and it was not till 1464 that Warwick's brother, Lord Montague, thoroughly defeated her forces at Hedgeley Moor and Hexham; for which victories he was rewarded by Edward with the earldom of Northumberland, which had been forfeited by the Lancastrian head of the House of Percy. Montague's victory was marked by the usual butcheries; the Duke of Somerset, a son of the duke who had been slain at St. Albans, being amongst those who perished on the scaffold. In 1465 Henry himself was taken prisoner and lodged in the Tower.

4. Edward's Marriage. 1464.—Whilst these battles were being fought Edward was lingering in the South courting the young widow of Sir John Grey, usually known by her maiden name as Elizabeth Woodville. His marriage to her gave offence to his noble supporters, who disdained to acknowledge a queen of birth so undistinguished; and their ill-will was increased when they found that Edward distributed amongst his wife's kindred estates and preferments which they had hoped to gain for themselves. The queen's father became Earl Rivers and Lord Constable, and her brothers and sisters were enriched by marriages with noble wards of the Crown. One of her brothers, a youth of twenty, was married to the old Duchess of Norfolk, who was over eighty.

5. Estrangement of Warwick. 1465—1468.—No doubt there was as much of policy as of affection in the slight shown by Edward to the Yorkist nobility. Warwick—the King-maker, as he was called—had special cause for ill-humour. He had expected to be a King-ruler as well as a King-maker, and he took grave offence when he found Edward slipping away from his control. It seemed as if Edward had the settled purpose of raising up a new nobility to counterbalance the old. In 1467 Warwick's brother, the Archbishop of York, was deprived of the chancellorship. In foreign politics, too, Edward and Warwick disagreed. Warwick had taken up the old policy of the Beauforts, and was anxious for an alliance with the astute Louis XI., who had in 1461 succeeded his father, Charles VII., as king of France. Edward, perhaps with some thought passing through his head of establishing his throne by following in the steps of Henry V., declared for an alliance with Burgundy. In 1467 Warwick was allowed to go to France as an ambassador, whilst Edward was entertaining Burgundian ambassadors in England. In the same year Charles the Rash succeeded his father, Philip the Good (see p. 306), as Duke of Burgundy, and in 1468 married Edward's sister, Margaret. The Duke of Burgundy, the rival of the king of France, was the lord of the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands, and his friendship brought with it that peaceful intercourse with the manufacturing towns of Flanders which it was always the object of English policy to secure.

6. Warwick's Alliance with Clarence. 1469—1470.—Warwick, disgusted with Edward, found an ally in Edward's brother, Clarence, who, like Warwick, was jealous of the Woodvilles. Warwick had no son, and his two daughters, Isabel and Anne, would one day share his vast estates between them. Warwick gave Isabel in marriage to Clarence, and encouraged him to think that it might be possible to seat him—in days when everything seemed possible to the strong—on Edward's throne. Edward had by this time lost much of his popularity. His extravagant and luxurious life made men doubt whether anything had been gained by substituting him for Henry, and in 1469 and 1470 there were risings fomented by Warwick. In the latter year Edward, with the help of his cannon, the importance of which in battles was now great, struck such a panic into his enemies at a battle near Stamford that the place of action came to be known as Lose-coat Field, from the haste with which the fugitives stripped themselves of their armour to make their flight the easier. Warwick and Clarence fled across the sea. Warwick was governor of Calais, but his own officer there refused to admit him, and he was forced to take refuge in France.

A fifteenth-century ship: from Harl. MS. 2278.

7. The Restoration of Henry VI. 1470.—Warwick knew that he had no chance of recovering power without the support of the Lancastrian party, and, disagreeable as it was to him, he allowed Louis XI. to reconcile him to Queen Margaret, the wife of that Henry VI., of whom he had been the bitterest enemy. Louis, who dreaded Edward's alliance with the Duke of Burgundy, did everything to support Edward's foes, and sent Warwick off to England, where he was subsequently to be joined by the queen. Edward, who was in his most careless mood, was foolish enough to trust Warwick's brother, Montague, from whom he had taken away, not only his new earldom of Northumberland to restore it to the head of the Percies (see p. 331), but all the lands connected with it, and had thought to compensate him with the mere marquisate of Montague, unaccompanied by any estate wherewith to support the dignity of his rank. Montague turned against him, and Edward, fearing for his life, fled to Holland. Warwick became master of England, and this time the King-maker drew Henry from the Tower and placed him once more on the throne, imbecile as he now was.

8. Edward IV. recovers the Throne. 1471.—In the spring of 1471 Edward was back in England, landing at Ravenspur, where Henry IV. had landed in 1399. Like Henry IV., he lyingly declared that he had come merely to claim his duchy and estates. Like Henry IV., too, he found a supporter in an Earl of Northumberland, who was this time the Percy who, Lancastrian as he was, had been restored by Edward to his earldom at the expense of Montague. Clarence, too—false, fleeting, perjured Clarence, as Shakspere truly calls him—had offered to betray Warwick. Edward gathered a sufficient force to march unassailed to London, where he was enthusiastically received. Taking with him the unfortunate Henry he won a complete victory at Barnet. The battle was fought in a dense fog, and was decided by a panic caused amongst Warwick's men through the firing of one of their divisions into another. Warwick and Montague were among the slain. By this time Margaret had landed with a fresh army at Weymouth. Edward caught her and her army at Tewkesbury, where he inflicted on her a crushing defeat. Her son, Edward Prince of Wales, was either slain in the battle, or more probably murdered after the fight was over; and the Duke of Somerset, the brother of the duke who had been executed after the battle of Hexham (see p. 331), the last male heir of the House of Beaufort, as well as others, who had taken refuge in the abbey, were afterwards put to death, though Edward had solemnly promised them their lives. On the night after Edward's return to London Henry VI. ended his life in the Tower. There can be no reasonable doubt that he was murdered, and that, too, by Edward's directions.

9. Edward IV. prepares for War with France. 1471—1474.—Edward IV. was now all powerful. He had no competitor to fear. No descendant of Henry IV. remained alive. Of the Beauforts, the descendants of John of Gaunt by Catherine Swynford (see p. 282), the male line had perished, and the only representative was young Henry, Earl of Richmond, whose mother, the Lady Margaret, was the daughter of the first Duke of Somerset, and the cousin of the two dukes who had been executed after the battles of Hexham and Tewkesbury.³² His father, Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who died before his birth, was the son of a Welsh gentleman of no great mark, who had had the luck to marry Catherine of France, the widow of Henry V. The young Richmond was, however, an exile, and, as he was only fourteen years of age when Edward was restored, no serious danger was as yet to be apprehended from that side. Moreover, the slaughter amongst both the Yorkist and the Lancastrian nobility had, for the time, put an end to all danger of a rising. Edward was, therefore, at liberty to carry out his own foreign policy. He obtained grants from Parliament to enable him, in alliance with Charles of Burgundy, to make war against Louis XI. The grants were insufficient, and he supplemented them by a newly invented system of benevolences, which were nominally free gifts made to him by the well-to-do, but which were in reality exactions, because those from whom they were required dared not refuse to pay. The system raised little general ill will, partly because the small owners of property who were relieved from taxation were not touched by the benevolences, and partly because the end which Edward had put to the civil war made his government welcome. In some cases his personal charm counted for something. One old lady whom he asked for ten pounds replied that for the sake of his handsome face she would give him twenty. He kissed her and she at once made it forty.

10. The Invasion of France. 1475.—In 1475 Edward invaded France. If he could have secured the steady support of the Duke of Burgundy he might have accomplished something, but the Duke's dominions were too scattered to enable him to have a settled policy. He was sometimes led to attack the king of France, because he had interests as a French vassal; whilst at other times he threw all his strength into projects for encroachments in Germany, because he had also interests as a vassal of the Emperor. When Edward landed Charles was anxious to carry on war in Germany, and would give no help to Edward in France. Louis XI., who preferred a victory of diplomacy to one of force, wheedled Edward into a seven years' truce by a grant of 75,000 crowns, together with a yearly pension of 50,000, and by a promise to marry the Dauphin Charles to Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of the king of England. Louis also made presents to Edward's chief followers, and was delighted when the English army turned its back on France. In consequence of this understanding Queen Margaret recovered her liberty.

11. Fall and Death of Clarence. 1476—1478.—Soon after Edward's return he became suspicious of his brother Clarence, who took upon himself to interfere with the course of justice. In 1477 the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Rash, was slain at Nancy by the Swiss, leaving only a daughter, Mary. Ducal Burgundy was at once seized by Louis, as forfeited for want of male heirs, but Franche Comté, or the county of Burgundy, was a part of the Empire, and therefore beyond his reach; and this latter district, together with the provinces of the Netherlands, formed a dower splendid enough to attract suitors for Mary's hand. Amongst these was Clarence,³³ now a widower. Edward, who had no wish to see his brother an independent sovereign, forbade him to proceed with his wooing. Other actions of Clarence were displeasing to the king, and when Parliament met, 1478, Edward with his own mouth accused his brother of treason. Clarence was condemned to death, and perished secretly in the Tower, being, according to rumour, drowned in a butt of malmsey.

12. The Last Years of Edward IV. 1478—1483.—The remainder of Edward's life was spent in quiet, as far as domestic affairs were concerned. In foreign affairs he met with a grave disappointment. Mary of Burgundy had found a husband in Maximilian, archduke of Austria, the son of the Emperor Frederick III. In 1482 she died, leaving two children, Philip and Margaret. The men of Ghent set Maximilian at naught, and, combining with Louis, forced Maximilian in the treaty of Arras to promise the hand of Margaret to the Dauphin, and the cession of some Netherlandish territory to France. Edward died on April 9, 1483, and it has been said that the treaty of Arras, which extended French influence in the Netherlands, brought about his death. It is more reasonable to attribute it to the dissoluteness of his life.

13. Edward V. and the Duke of Gloucester. 1483.—Edward IV. left two sons. The elder, a boy of twelve, was now Edward V., and his younger brother, Richard, was Duke of York.³⁴ The only grown-up man of the family was the youngest brother of Edward IV., Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Gloucester had shown himself during his brother's reign to be possessed of the qualities which fit a man to fulfil the duties of a high position. He was not only a good soldier and an able commander, but, unlike his brother Clarence, was entirely faithful to Edward, though he showed his independence by refusing to take part in Edward's treaty with Louis of France. He had a rare power of winning popular sympathy, and was most liked in Yorkshire, where he was best known. He had, however, grown up in a cruel and unscrupulous age, and had no more hesitation in clearing his way by slaughter than had Edward IV. or Margaret of Anjou. Though absolute proof is wanting, there is strong reason to believe that he took part in cutting down Prince Edward after the battle of Tewkesbury, and that he executed his brother's orders in providing for the murder of Henry VI. in the Tower. He made no remonstrance against, though he took no part in, the death of Clarence, with whom he was on bad terms, because Clarence claimed the whole of the estates of the King-maker, whose eldest daughter Isabel he had married; whereas Gloucester, having married the younger daughter Anne, the widow of the slaughtered son of Henry VI. put in a claim to half. Gloucester was now to be tried as he had never been tried before, his brother having appointed him by will to be the guardian of his young nephew and of the kingdom. If the authority thus conferred upon him met with general acceptance, he would probably make an excellent ruler. If it were questioned he would strike out, and show no mercy. In those hard days every man of high position must be either hammer or anvil, and Richard was resolved that he would not be the anvil.

14. Fall of the Queen's Relations. 1483.—The young king was at Ludlow, and rode up towards London, guarded by Earl Rivers, his uncle on his mother's side, and by his half-brother, Sir Richard Grey. Another half-brother, the Marquis of Dorset, was lieutenant of the Tower.³⁵ Gloucester had strong reasons for believing that the Greys intended to keep the young king in their hands and, having him crowned at once, so as to put an end to his own guardianship, to make themselves masters of the kingdom. He therefore struck the first blow. Accompanied by his friend and supporter, the Duke of Buckingham, he overtook the cavalcade, and sent Rivers and Grey prisoners to Pontefract. The queen-mother at once took refuge in the sanctuary at Westminster, whence no one could remove her without violating the privileges of the Church.

Large ship and boat of the fifteenth century. The mainsail of the ship has the Beauchamp arms, and the streamer the bear and ragged staff. From the 'Life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick,' by John Rous; drawn about 1485.

15. Execution of Lord Hastings.—The young king arrived in London on May 4. The Council acknowledged Gloucester as Protector, and removed Edward to the Tower, which in those days was a place of safety rather than a prison. Dorset, however, had equipped a fleet, and Gloucester was afraid lest a fresh attempt might be made by the queen's party to overthrow him. His fears were increased because Lord Hastings, the leading member of the Council, who had taken his part against the Woodvilles, now turned against him and began to intrigue with the queen's supporters. Coming into the council chamber on June 13, he laid bare his left arm, which had been withered from his birth, and declared that the mischief was the effect of witchcraft, and that the witches were the queen and Jane Shore, who had been one of the many mistresses of Edward IV., and was now the mistress of Hastings. Hastings admitted that the queen and Jane Shore were worthy of punishment if they were guilty. "What!" cried Gloucester, "dost thou serve me with ifs and with ands? I tell thee they have done it, and that I will make good on thy body, traitor." Gloucester struck his fist on the table. Armed men rushed in, dragged Hastings out, and cut off his head on a log of wood. Jane Shore was compelled to do public penance in a white sheet. Of the causes of Hastings' desertion of Gloucester it is impossible to speak with certainty. It is a probable conjecture that he had discovered that Gloucester entertained the thought of making himself more than Protector. Young Edward's coronation would make the boy capable, formally at least, of exercising royal power, and as it was known that the boy loved his mother's relations, it was almost certain that he would place the Woodvilles in power. Now that Gloucester had imprisoned Rivers and Grey, it was certain that the first thing done by the Woodvilles, if they got a chance, would be to send Gloucester to the scaffold, and Gloucester was not the man patiently to allow himself to be crushed. It is ridiculous to speak of Gloucester as an accomplished dissembler. The story of witchcraft served its purpose, but it was the stupid lie of a man who had not hitherto been accustomed to lying.

16. Deposition of Edward V. 1483.—The execution of Hastings was promptly followed by the execution of Rivers and Grey. Dorset saved himself by escaping beyond sea. By threats Gloucester got the Duke of York into his hands, and lodged him with his brother in the Tower. He was now in a temper which would stop at no atrocity. He put up a Dr. Shaw to preach a sermon against Edward's claim to the throne. In those days if a man and woman made a contract of marriage neither of the contracting parties could marry another, though no actual marriage had taken place. Shaw declared that Edward IV. had promised marriage to one of his mistresses before he met Elizabeth Woodville, and that therefore, his marriage with Elizabeth being invalid, all his children by her were illegitimate, and Gloucester was the true heir to the throne. Further, Shaw declared that Gloucester was the only legitimate son of the Duke of York, both Edward IV. and Clarence being the sons of their mother by some other man. That Richard should have authorised so base an attack upon his mother's honour shows the depth of infamy to which he had now sunk. At first it seemed as if he had lowered himself to no purpose. The hearers of the sermon, instead of shouting, "God save King Richard!" held their peace. At a meeting in the City the Duke of Buckingham told the same story as had been told by Shaw, and there the servants of the two dukes shouted for 'King Richard,' and their voice was taken as the voice of the City. On June 25 Parliament declared Gloucester to be the lawful heir, and on July 6 he was crowned as Richard III. The Woodvilles were not popular, and the bloodshed with which Richard had maintained himself against them was readily condoned.

Richard III.: from an original painting belonging to the Society of Antiquaries.

17. Buckingham's Rebellion. 1483.—Richard's enemies were chiefly to be found amongst the nobility. No nobleman could feel his life secure if he crossed Richard's path. The first to revolt was Buckingham, who had played the part of a king-maker, and who was disappointed because Richard did not reward him by conceding his claim to estates so vast that if he possessed them he would have been master of England. Buckingham, who was descended from Edward III. through his youngest son, the Duke of Gloucester, at first thought of challenging a right to the throne for himself, but afterwards determined to support the claim of the Earl of Richmond, the Tudor heir of the House of Lancaster (see p. 334). He was skilfully led from one step to another by John Morton, Bishop of Ely, one of the ablest statesmen of the day. Richmond was to sail from Brittany, where he was in exile, and Buckingham was to raise forces in Wales, where the Welsh Tudors were popular, whilst other counties were to rise simultaneously. The rebellion came to nothing. Heavy rains caused a flood of the Severn, and Buckingham, in Shropshire, was cut off from his army in Wales. Buckingham was betrayed to Richard, and on November 2 was beheaded at Salisbury.

18. Murder of the Princes. 1483.—At some time in the summer or autumn the princes in the Tower ceased to live. There had been movements in their favour in some counties, and there can be no reasonable doubt that Richard had them secretly killed. It was only by degrees that the truth leaked out. Wherever it was believed it roused indignation. Murders there had been in plenty, but the murdered as yet had been grown men. To butcher children was reserved for Richard alone.

19. Richard's Government. 1484—1485.—As long as the last tale of murder was still regarded as doubtful, Richard retained his popularity. In a Parliament which met in January 1484 he enacted good laws, amongst which was one declaring benevolences illegal. In the summer he was welcomed as he moved about, yet he knew that danger threatened. Richmond was preparing invasion and the hollow friendship of the English nobility was not to be trusted. In vain Richard scattered gifts in profusion amongst them. They took the gifts and hoped for deliverance. The popular goodwill grew cooler, and in the winter Richard, needing money, and not venturing to summon another Parliament, raised a forced loan. A loan not being a gift, he did not technically break the statute against benevolences though practically he set it at naught. Domestic misfortunes came to add to Richard's political troubles. His only son, Edward, died in 1484. His wife, Anne, died in 1485. Richard was now eager, if he had not been eager before, to marry his niece, Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Edward IV. This monstrous proposal was scouted by his own supporters, and he had reluctantly to abandon the scheme. If there could be queens in England, Elizabeth was on hereditary principles the heiress of the throne, unless, indeed, Richard's argument against her mother's marriage (see p. 340) was to be accepted. Richmond was naturally as anxious as Richard could be to win her hand, and his promise to marry her was the condition on which he obtained the support of those Yorkists who were Richard's enemies.

20. Richard Defeated and Slain at Bosworth. 1485.—In August 1485 Richmond landed at Milford Haven. As he marched on he was joined by considerable numbers, but on August 22 he found Richard waiting for him near Bosworth, with a host far larger than his own. Richard, however, could not count on the fidelity of his own commanders. Lord Stanley, who had married Richmond's widowed mother, the Lady Margaret (see p. 334), together with his brother, Sir William Stanley, were secretly in accord with Richmond, though they had placed themselves on Richard's side. When the battle began Stanley openly joined Richmond, whilst the Earl of Northumberland who was also nominally on Richard's side withdrew his forces and stood aloof. Knowing that defeat was certain, Richard, with the crown on his head, rushed into the thick of the fight and met a soldier's death. After the battle the fallen crown was discovered on a bush, and placed by Stanley, amidst shouts of 'King Henry!' on Richmond's head.