Though in after years much addicted to sensual pleasure, Edward IV. never lost his practical energy; he was not a man to leave unimproved his present triumphant position. He at once despatched the Duke of Norfolk to the East of England to collect an army, and with the Earl of Warwick himself hastened northward, with an army composed chiefly of Welshmen from his own possessions, and of men of Kent, the great supporters of his house. In Yorkshire he met his enemy. The passage of the river Aire was disputed at Ferry Bridge; the Yorkists, under Lord Falconbridge (a Neville), falling upon the rear of Clifford and his Lancastrians, stopped his passage, and killed that leader. On the 28th of March the armies were in presence, some eight miles from York. The battle was to be a decisive one. No quarter was to be expected on either side. The numbers engaged—of the Lancastrians, 60,000, of the Yorkists 48,000—were much larger than in most of the battles of these wars. For once the nation felt some interest in the quarrel. The change of the wind blew the snow continually in the eyes of the Lancastrians, and when the battle had raged through a great part of the night and till noon of the following day, the Yorkists had secured a complete victory. Again, the greatest names of the nobility are mentioned among the slain. Northumberland fell in the battle, Devonshire and Wiltshire were beheaded after it, and many reports speak of from 28,000 to 33,000 men left dead upon the field.[96] Henry and his Queen, with Somerset and Exeter, fled into Scotland, and purchased such assistance as that country could give in the midst of its own intestine commotions by a promise of Berwick and Carlisle. Edward now felt safe on his throne, and returned to London, where the joy was great. There, in November, he met his first Parliament, by whom the three last monarchs were declared usurpers, and the acts of their reigns annihilated, with the exception of such judicial decisions as would if repealed have thrown the country into confusion. All the great leaders of the Lancastrian party were attainted, and their property confiscated. The session closed with a personal address of thanks from the King to the Commons, an unusual occurrence, and marking the political position of the House of York.
Meanwhile, Margaret had been seeking assistance from her own country, France; but Louis, busy in his own affairs and content with the enforced neutrality of England, only gave her a small sum of money, and allowed Peter de Brezé, Seneschal of Normandy, to enlist troops for her. With these forces she succeeded in capturing the three northern fortresses of Bamborough, Dunstanburgh and Alnwick. But before the end of the year, the two first of these were recovered, and Edward was so strong, that even Somerset and Percy deserted to his side. Again, the next year, the Queen with De Brezé attempted in vain to relieve Alnwick. Her fleet was wrecked, and with difficulty she made her way back to Scotland. But, though beaten, her cause was still alive. In various parts of the country, disturbances showed themselves. The clergy missed the favour they had received from the Lancastrians; and, in the beginning of the following year, the Percies and Somerset had gone back to their own party, and renewed attempts were made upon the North of England. But Warwick’s brother Montague, at Hedgeley Moor, and again at Hexham, destroyed their forces, and both Percy and Somerset met their death. This was the second Duke of Somerset who had died in these wars. He was succeeded by his brother Edmund. A greater prize was the King, who, after hiding for some time, was captured, in 1465, in Yorkshire, and brought with all signs of indignity to London. He was there, however, properly taken care of in the Tower.
Supported by his Commons, who granted him the wool tax and tonnage and poundage for life, King Edward seemed firmly seated on the throne. He was essentially a popular king. He sat and judged on his own King’s Bench, talked familiarly with the people, and allowed the Commons to pass popular measures of finance, without regard to their want of wisdom. A revocation of grants from the Crown was made, but with exceptions which rendered it nugatory; the importation of foreign corn or foreign merchandise was forbidden. The arrangement of the staple, by which wool and cloth could be sold only at Calais, and for bullion or ready money, was re-established; and still further to uphold the current theory of the day, and to keep gold and silver in the country, strict sumptuary laws were passed. Abroad, too, all seemed peaceful. The Pope had acknowledged the new King. France was too busy to interfere. With the rest of Europe treaties of amity were set on foot; and even with Scotland a long truce was made.
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]
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.
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.
But it must have been obvious to all parties that it was but a temporary truce.[99] Had Clarence been a man of more ability, Warwick would probably have put him on the throne. Failing him, it began to be plain to the Earl that it was only by connection with the Lancastrian party that he could hope finally to triumph over his enemies the new nobility. A new insurrection broke out in Lincoln, against the oppressions of the royal tax-gatherers. The insurgents, finding themselves no better off under the new dynasty than they had been before, declared for King Henry. At their head was young Sir Robert Wells. The King, not yet aware of Warwick’s designs, under promise of pardon drew Lord Wells (Sir Robert’s father) and Sir Thomas Dymock from the sanctuary, and kept them as hostages, and intrusted Warwick and Clarence with the duty of collecting troops to repress the insurgents. They collected troops, indeed, but did not suppress the insurgents; and the King discovered that they were acting in union with Sir Robert Wells. He at once put Dymock and Wells to death, routed the insurgents near Empingham in Rutland, at a battle known by the name of “Lose Coat Field,” and turned his arms against Clarence and Warwick, who had been seeking assistance in vain from his brother-in-law Stanley in Lancashire. They did not await his coming, but rapidly fled through Devonshire to France. Sir Robert Wells, anxious to revenge his father, had driven matters on too hastily for the success of the conspiracy. Warwick had always been anxious for a French alliance, and was therefore well received by Louis, who felt that there was now but little chance of peace with England except by restoration of the Lancastrians. He therefore contrived to bring the Earl and Margaret together; and the old enemies, finding that they had in common their hatred to the new nobility and their views of foreign politics, agreed to forget their old differences, and made a treaty by which Ann Neville was to marry the Prince of Wales, upon whom the throne was settled. Failing him it was to pass to Clarence. This treaty, which put Clarence’s claims in the background, did not please him; and, utterly without principle, he at once opened negotiations with his brother, although he did not as yet openly join him.
In spite of all the warnings which he received from Burgundy, Edward remained in a condition of false security, even allowing Montague to retain his offices in England. He was absent from London in the North, when the Queen, Warwick and Clarence landed in Devonshire, issued a proclamation calling on the nation to arm, and soon found themselves surrounded by a sufficient army. So far did Edward carry his want of suspicion, that Montague, who at once declared for the Red Rose, as nearly as possible captured him at dinner in the neighbourhood of Doncaster; he had just time to escape, and fled (not without danger from a Hanseatic fleet) to Flanders. Warwick and his friends proceeded to London, drew the old King from the Tower, and re-crowned him with all ceremony. A Parliament assembled on the 26th of November. All the Acts of Edward’s reign were annulled, and a general change took place in property and offices. It marks the effect of the fusion of parties, that this revolution, unlike most of the events of this war, was almost bloodless. Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, who had rendered himself hateful by his severity as Constable, was almost the only victim.
Though on many grounds (personal hatred to Warwick, sympathy with Edward’s enmity to France, and mercantile and family reasons) the Duke of Burgundy would have been naturally attached to the House of York, this friendship was of new growth, and could not make him forget his long connection with the House of Lancaster. It was therefore with much difficulty that Edward got from him a small pecuniary assistance. With such as it was, however, he collected about 2000 men, and took, what at first sight appears, the foolhardy step of landing at Ravenspur in Yorkshire. But he knew that he had friends in his enemy’s camp. At first, declaring, in imitation of Henry IV., that he only came to claim his rights as Duke of York, he passed unmolested through Yorkshire, where Montague was. Even Warwick, who lay in the midland counties, watched his progress unmoved. He had received letters from Clarence, begging him not to stir till he joined him with reinforcements. But when Clarence took the field, it was not Warwick, but Edward to whom he went. Strong enough now again to assume the name of King of England, Edward marched to London, where the Archbishop of York had tried in vain to raise enthusiasm for the Lancastrian King. Too late, Warwick found that he had been deceived, and he also marched towards London. Edward met him with inferior forces in the neighbourhood of Barnet, and there a battle was fought, in which Warwick was entirely defeated, and himself and his brother Montague killed. Probably the great bulk of the people cared but little who was their ruler. York’s army was very small—less than 10,000 men. A series of accidents gave him the victory. The indifference of the nation, weary of the squabble, explains the rapid success of these revolutions.
Meanwhile, the day before the battle, Queen Margaret had landed at Weymouth. For the moment, the true Lancastrians were almost glad when they heard that they were rid of their new Yorkist ally. The Queen’s generals intended to march through Wales, there make a junction with Jasper Tudor, who was collecting forces, and thence move to their strongholds in the North. Edward divined their plan, and pushed rapidly across England, to secure if possible Gloucester and the valley of the Severn. The armies encountered at Tewkesbury, where the Queen had taken a strong position among the abbey buildings and the neighbouring enclosures. Again the superior skill of Edward secured the victory to his much inferior forces. The few remaining Lancastrian nobles, the Prince of Wales, Devonshire, Lord John Beaufort, and others, fell upon the field. The Duke of Somerset, the fourth and last of the Beauforts, was executed after it. Margaret and some others were taken prisoners.
There was one other danger, and then the Lancastrian party seemed destroyed for ever. The Bastard of Falconbridge suddenly appeared with a considerable fleet before London. The gallant defence of the citizens, and the arrival of assistance from the King, thwarted this last effort, and Edward returned in triumph, having proved the stability of the house of York. His arrival was immediately followed by the secret murder of King Henry, one of those dark deeds which has been attributed without much ground to Edward’s brother, Richard of Gloucester. A bloody court of justice held in Canterbury, for the punishment of the Kentish men, closed this revolution of eleven weeks. On the subsequent death of Holland, Earl of Exeter, whose body was found upon the sea in the Straits of Dover, there were but two important members of the Lancastrian party left. These were Oxford, and Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, who made good their escape to Brittany, whence Jasper’s nephew subsequently returned to England in that expedition which terminated in Bosworth field. The clergy and the lesser nobles, seeing further contest useless, made their peace with the reigning house, and received pardons, and after Parliament had re-established the Yorkist dynasty, the wars of the Roses seemed to be at an end, and England at peace.
But the house of York was now to feel that ineradicable evil which beset the Plantagenets. The princes of the family could not agree. Clarence had already occupied the position of chief of the opposition. He had already joined in the struggle between the old and new nobility as the partisan of the former party. Richard, a man of far greater ability, and of a reflective turn of mind, was in his heart inclined in the same direction. For the present, however, he saw his advantage in remaining the true and very efficient assistant of his brother Edward, by whom he had been intrusted with the government of the North. Clarence, incapable of being a great party leader, showed his disposition in lesser matters, and quarrelled with both his brothers. He had himself married Warwick’s eldest daughter, Isabella, and was anxious to appropriate all the great Warwick possessions. When Richard, therefore, determined upon marrying Anne, the younger sister, he hid the young lady, who is said to have been discovered by her lover in the dress of a servant-maid, and when he was unable to prevent the marriage, refused to divide the inheritance. A fierce quarrel was the consequence, and it required the intervention of Parliament to secure an equitable division of the property. Thus embroiled with one brother, the Duke of Clarence speedily fell out with the other. On the death of his wife in 1476, he turned his thoughts to a second marriage with Mary of Burgundy, who became, on the death of Charles the Bold at Nancy in 1477, the heiress of his vast dominions. Edward prevented the marriage. In the first place, he would have much disliked to see his brother, on whom he had not the smallest reliance, powerful in Burgundy, and again, the Queen, and the Queen’s party of the new nobility, were anxious that Mary should be married to the Earl of Rivers. The breach between the brothers was complete, and Edward, who never knew pity, only watched for an opportunity to rid himself of Clarence. The occasion chosen was trivial enough, but very characteristic of that age. A gentleman of Clarence’s household, called Burdett, had uttered some angry words against the King. He was shortly after tried for necromancy, and as in the course of the inquiry it appeared that, among other acts of magic, he had cast the King’s horoscope, he was condemned to death. With this verdict Clarence violently interfered. Edward was now able to charge him with interfering with the course of justice. He was impeached and tried before the House of Lords. The King in person was his accuser, and after a hot personal quarrel, in which the King charged him with all sorts of ungrateful acts of treason, he was condemned to death in 1478. A petition of the Commons, always at the command of Edward, removed the King’s last scruple, and Clarence disappeared privately at the Tower, drowned it is said in a butt of Malmsey wine.
These quarrels had occupied several years, but meanwhile matters of more national interest had also engaged Edward’s attention. Charles the Bold was full of vast plans for increasing his possessions, and with the Duke of Brittany alone of the peers of France, resisted the centralizing policy of Louis XI. He found no great difficulty in enlisting Edward in a coalition against that King. As early as 1472, the war had been spoken of as probable. It did not actually take place till 1475, after a treaty had been made by which Lorraine, Bar, and other districts lying between Burgundy and Flanders were to be given to the Duke, while Edward was content to stipulate for the acknowledgment of his title as King of France, and a formal coronation at Rheims. The war, begun on such feeble conditions, had a disgraceful conclusion. Money, of which Edward was very fond, was scraped together, chiefly by the personal application of the King for loans known as benevolences, and a considerable army landed in France. But Edward did not meet with the reception he had expected. Charles, whose mind was incapable of carrying out the vast schemes that it planned, was engaged in war in other parts of his dominions, and brought no help to his ally. The gates of Péronne were shut against him. St. Quentin, which Charles had told him would be given up to him by the Constable of St. Pol, opened fire upon his troops. Provisions were scantily supplied, and Louis, who well knew the character of his invader, saw his opportunity. At a private interview with the herald who brought the declaration of war, he bribed him, and won from him the hint that he might apply successfully either to Stanley or to Howard, counsellors high in Edward’s favour. He took the hint, found those Lords ready recipients of his bribes, threw Amiens open, and supplied the English army lavishly with food; and shortly persuaded Edward to arrange terms at a personal interview at Pecquigni. He was thoroughly afraid of the English soldiers, but rated them very low as diplomatists, and, as his manner was when he had great objects in view, was lavish with his money. A yearly pension, the expenses of the war, 50,000 crowns as a ransom for Margaret, and handsome bribes judiciously given to the chief members of the King’s Council, secured the withdrawal of the English army. At the same time it was arranged that the Dauphin should marry the Princess Elizabeth. It mattered little to him, having now the English King in his pay, that the English to cover their disgrace spoke of the money payments as tribute, and that Edward continued to bear the title of the King of France. Nothing can give a better view of the despicable character of that new nobility on which Edward rested, than the readiness with which they accepted the French King’s bribes.
The chief objects of Edward’s life were, to collect money to be spent in magnificent debauchery, and to secure the position of his house by great marriages for his daughters. He had thus arranged for the marriage of Elizabeth, his eldest, with the Dauphin of France; Mary was to have been married to the King of Denmark; Cicely to the eldest son of James III. of Scotland; Katherine to the son of the King of Castile; and Anne was destined for the son of Maximilian of Austria, who by his marriage with Mary of Burgundy had become the possessor of that duchy. None of these marriages took effect. The events connected with some of them fill up the remainder of the reign.
James III. of Scotland was a man much like Edward, a product of the renaissance at that time making its way in England. Addicted to art in all its forms, he had surrounded himself with artists, and ennobled members of the lower orders, and had estranged all the old nobility. At the head of the discontented party was the King’s brother, the Duke of Albany. Although James had already received some of the dowry of the English Princess, in consequence probably of some French intrigues, he seemed inclined to withdraw from the engagement. Therefore, when Albany, a fugitive from Scotland, sought his protection, Edward determined to support him and his party, and, finally, made a treaty with him at Fotheringay, in which he spoke of him as King Alexander. He obtained from him a promise of homage, and of the cession of Berwick and some other districts. Albany also engaged to marry the Princess Cicely, who was to be transferred to him, although previously engaged to the son of the Scotch King. An invasion of Scotland under Richard of Gloucester, and a conspiracy which broke out at the Bridge of Lauder, where James’s favourite, Cochrane, was hanged, seemed for a moment to raise Albany to the summit of his ambition. But the Scotch had no intention of changing the succession to the throne, or suffering their kingdom to be in any way dependent on England. They restored Albany his property, but also returned the dowry of Cicely, and intimated that the match was entirely broken off. The advantage that the English gained from the whole affair was the much disputed town of Berwick.
The arrangements for the marriage between Elizabeth and the Dauphin were equally unsuccessful. Although that Princess had assumed the name of the Dauphiness, Louis was in no hurry to complete the marriage, and had indeed directed his views elsewhere. In 1477, Mary of Burgundy had married Maximilian the Archduke of Austria; and now Edward engaged to join him against France upon condition of receiving from him the same pension as Louis had paid him since Pecquigni. But, as usual, Louis’ diplomacy got the better of Edward’s. Mary of Burgundy died in 1482, and the French King contrived to make a treaty with Maximilian, by which the Dauphin, deserting Elizabeth, engaged himself to Margaret, the heiress of Burgundy. Edward was vowing vengeance at this trick, and speaking of a new invasion of France, when he died on the 9th of April, worn out probably by his self-indulgence.
His personal beauty, his success in war, the familiarity of his manners, his splendid household, and the share which he allowed himself to take in the commercial enterprise of the day, endeared Edward to the burgher class, and rendered him on the whole a popular monarch. But beneath this splendid exterior there existed a pitiless cruelty, a selfishness which sought its gratification in unbounded license, and which was ready to crush relentlessly any, however nearly related to himself, who crossed his path. The mixture of sensuality, love of the new state of society, mingled with political selfishness and cruelty, remind us rather of the character of an Italian tyrant than of an English king. The character of the monarchy which he established was also different from that which had hitherto been seen in England. It has been usual to name the reign of Henry VII. as that in which this change began. It is true that that Prince and his successors completed it; but already there are visible all the elements of that peculiar despotic government resting upon popular favour, which is the characteristic of the Tudor rule. In all respects Edward is the popular King. The old nobility had for the most part been destroyed. As around the Buonapartes of modern time, a new nobility of relatives or personal friends of the King had begun to be called into existence. The balance of the Constitution had been changed by the removal of the Baronage, the great check on the royal power, which now stood, as it were, face to face with the Commons, who were as yet unfitted to make head against it. The practice of tampering with the elections had ruined the independence of Parliament. The Church, no longer in sympathy with the nation, sought to secure their wealth by devotion to the Crown. The King thus found no class sufficiently strong to check his prerogative. For a time, therefore, the constitutional advance of the preceding century was lost, and the government of England was practically despotism. At the same time, as the disturbances caused by the Wars of the Roses were not yet wholly over, and a short period of rapid revolutions intervenes before the final establishment of the constitutional change now begun, it is more convenient to adopt the old division, and to place the epoch of the new monarchy at the Battle of Bosworth.