by Derek Birks
This is the final part of my exploration into the notion that Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, merits the epithet of “kingmaker”. [N.B. Links to the previous 3 parts can be found at the end.]
This is the final part of my exploration into the notion that Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, merits the epithet of “kingmaker”. [N.B. Links to the previous 3 parts can be found at the end.]
In the winter of 1469-70, despite
an apparent rapprochement with the king, Warwick was contemplating open
rebellion. Apart from capitulation, it was his only option: he must replace Edward IV with his own son in law, George, Duke of Clarence.
So, in March
1470, Warwick created a crisis by backing Lord Welles in a local feud
with one of the king’s household men, Sir Thomas Burgh. At first, the king was
unaware of the involvement of Warwick and Clarence, but when he defeated
Welles, he discovered plenty of evidence. Though he summoned the earl and the
duke to explain, they refused to come and gathered their forces in the
midlands. Warwick hoped for support from his brother, John Neville, Earl of
Northumberland, and from Lord Thomas Stanley, the most influential lord in the
north-west. Both refused to join him and, without them, he knew he was doomed.
Fleeing
south, Warwick and Clarence collected their wives and managed – just – to evade
the king’s pursuing army at Dartmouth. From there, after attempting to gather more ships
and men at Southampton, they sailed to Calais. But King Edward had already
written to Calais and the ships were denied entry, though Warwick’s heavily
pregnant daughter Isabel was going into labour and subsequently lost her child.
Warwick had little choice but
to head for France and hope for a warm welcome. Another attempt at kingmaking
had ended in abject failure.
Warwick’s
ships continued along the channel, indulging in some gratuitous piracy against
Flemish ships on the way. The earl might have seen this as a windfall, or perhaps
he reckoned that action against the Burgundians would ease his entry to a
French port. My guess is that he thought it couldn’t hurt his reputation with
the French king, Louis XI, when he asked for his protection.
Condemned
in England as a traitor, Warwick now faced an ignominious end to his
illustrious career, but remarkably, in a matter of months, he managed to resurrect
his kingmaking ambitions. How did such an unlikely reversal
of fortune come about?
Even
before this latest disaster, Warwick surely realised that Clarence was a weak
reed so, if he really wanted a change of monarch, he needed a better
candidate. One of Warwick’s few remaining assets was his daughter, Anne, and now whoever
she married would need to bring something special to the family – preferably
a touch of royalty. He needed someone whose name alone would attract men to his
banner, which brings us to one of the most interesting volte-faces in English
history: Warwick’s pact with his most bitter enemy, Margaret of Anjou.
It is a measure of Warwick’s
utter desperation that he was willing to fling aside previous loyalties to
mount one last attempt at achieving real power.
 |
| Source gallica.bnf.fr / National Library of France |
England already
had a spare king. The unfortunate Henry VI had been a prisoner of Edward IV
since July 1465, but his queen, Margaret of Anjou, had never given up hope of
restoring not only her husband but more importantly her son, Edward of
Westminster.
If
Warwick had ever considered the possibility of reconciliation with Queen
Margaret, he must have viewed it as a last resort. Well, in May 1470, the last
resort had been reached. Yet, how could the former queen be persuaded to agree
to a pact with the man she regarded as the architect of her family’s demise?
Whilst it is true that Margaret would need a lot of persuading, by spring 1470 with no resources left to her, even the indomitable Margaret was low on
optimism.
This was an alliance King Louis was desperate to break. Thus, between May and July 1470, he brokered negotiations between Warwick and Margaret. He was very persuasive and both parties recognised that it was their last chance. Margaret swallowed her bile and came to terms, doing her best to humiliate the earl in the process; and Warwick, always a better diplomat than soldier, soaked it up on his knees.
At first
it was probably just one of many irons in the fire for ‘the spider’, but once
it seemed that it might actually happen, he provided money, ships and men – the
lifeblood of invasion without which Warwick could have gone nowhere!
One could devote a dozen posts to
the subsequent events but since my focus is on the kingmaking, I shall simply note
that, against all odds, Warwick succeeded in putting together a coalition of
Edward’s enemies, including not only Queen Margaret but the renegade lords:
Jasper Tudor – King Henry’s half-brother and John de Vere, Earl of Oxford – a
diehard Lancastrian.
Nevertheless, as always, success in England would depend upon the actions of a few key men: his brother John
Neville, recently stripped of the earldom of Northumberland; Lord Thomas
Stanley and, not least, the Duke of Clarence himself. How would all these
individuals react in the crisis that Warwick created?
When
Warwick landed in the south-west in September 1470, he proclaimed that he was
restoring the rightful king, Henry VI. However dishonest one might feel now that
this claim was, there is no doubt that it resonated with some at the time.
Bear in mind also that, at this point Edward IV had no male heir whereas Henry
VI did. However unlikely it seemed, Warwick had put together what appeared to be an
attractive package.
King
Edward was in the north stamping out Neville-backed risings, but still confident
he could defeat Warwick. However, one by one, his leading nobles joined the rebellion:
notably Lord Stanley and the Earl of Shrewsbury - but also crucially, and at
the very last minute, Warwick’s brother, John Neville – still smarting from the
loss of his earldom. Since he had always remained loyal to Edward, it was a
body blow to the king. With Warwick advancing from the south and John Neville close by in
the north, the king could only disband his army and flee to his Burgundian ally,
Duke Charles. Meanwhile, his pregnant wife, Elizabeth Woodville, took sanctuary
with her daughters at Westminster – not for the first, or last, time!
Victorious,
Warwick headed for the capital to free a bemused Henry VI and await the return
of Queen Margaret and her son, Edward – recently married to Anne Neville.
Nevertheless, he faced some tricky problems ahead in managing a hastily-engineered
coalition which amounted to an alliance of his enemies. Once Queen Margaret
returned, along with some of his most bitter foes, such as Henry Beaufort, Duke
of Somerset, he must have feared what would happen. All that though lay in the
future, because Queen Margaret was reluctant to take the leap of faith and
return to England, beset by her own doubts about the wisdom of trusting Warwick.
Thus, at
the heart of Warwick’s alliance lay animosity and mistrust.
His friends too were
nervous: some supporters, notably Stanley and Shrewsbury, received little
reward for their vital support. His brother John, risking all to support him,
must have been uneasy about his rival in the north, Henry Percy, recently
restored to the earldom of Northumberland by Edward IV. If these men harboured
doubts about what they had done, those with no love at all for Warwick were
just biding their time until Queen Margaret arrived. If enough pressure was applied,
would the coalition simply splinter?
The sudden
return of Edward IV in March 1471 provided the first test for the new regime. Edward
landed with perhaps 500 men, professed loyalty to Henry VI and claimed that he wanted
only his dukedom of York. With hindsight of course this seems pretty hard to believe,
but at the time it created confusion at a critical moment. Edward’s boldness paralysed his enemies, for though both Northumberland and John Neville
could have stopped him in his tracks, neither did.
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| Battle of Barnet via Wikimedia Commons |
Even so, Edward
gathered only modest support before he reached the midlands. After all, who
would risk all by supporting him? Well, as it turned out, his errant brother, George, Duke of
Clarence would. Clarence was the ‘spare thumb’ of Warwick’s regime and was even
more worried about his future than Warwick himself. Though the earl might have
foreseen it, Clarence’s sudden defection to Edward, taking all his adherents
with him, changed everything.
Edward IV hurried
to London where he returned the old king to the Tower and prepared to meet Warwick
head on. At the resulting battle of Barnet in April, several key advantages lay
with Warwick: better artillery and two reliable commanders in his brother,
John, and the Earl of Oxford. However, since it was fought in a fog, the
outcome might just as well have been settled by the toss of a coin. Yet perhaps
it was a fitting end to the chaotic years of plotting and in-fighting from
1469-71.
Warwick not only lost at Barnet,
but he was killed, so his kingmaking exploits ended there. Only hours
afterwards, Queen Margaret and her son landed at Weymouth. King Edward’s
troubles did not end at Barnet, but Warwick’s ambitions did.
Like all
his kingmaking attempts, the last was fatally flawed. You could argue that he
was unlucky and that, had he won at Barnet, his achievement would have endured.
But it was not just bad luck. His last hurrah was built upon a creaking
foundation and, in his desperation, Warwick ignored vital flaws - not least the
very real problem of what to do with Clarence. Clarence, as they say, ‘voted
with his feet’.
If ever there was a tragic figure
in English history, it is Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick. One of the great
men of his age, he promised much, but was destroyed by his own pride and
ambition. He was not the only English nobleman to perish in that way during the
medieval period, but he was certainly one of the most notable.
For me, there is no occasion when
Warwick justifies the name “kingmaker”, for he made no-one king. In every case,
other factors were more important than the role of Warwick himself and even the
readeption of Henry VI proved so fragile that it barely lasted a few anxious
months. The image of Warwick, the kingmaker, belongs only in the pages of
historical fiction.
To read the earlier 3 parts of
this theme, click on the links below:
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Derek Birks was
born in Hampshire in England but spent his teenage years in Auckland, New
Zealand, where he still has strong family ties.
For many years he taught history in a secondary school but took
early retirement to concentrate on writing. Apart from his writing, he spends
his time gardening, travelling, walking and taking part in archaeological digs
at a Roman villa. Derek is interested in a wide range of historical themes but
his particular favourite is the late medieval period. He writes action-packed
fiction which is rooted in accurate history.
His debut historical novel was Feud, which is set in
the period of the Wars of the Roses. Feud is the first of a
now complete four-book series, entitled Rebels & Brothers, which
follows the fortunes of the fictional Elder family from 1459 to 1471.
A new series, The Craft of Kings, picks up the story
of the Elders in 1481 in its first book, Scars from the Past. In
February 2018, the violent events of 1483 are played out in the sequel, The
Blood of Princes.
