St Albans 1455 E-Book

A.W. Boardman

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 362

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

For many years the first battle of St Albans was regarded as a 'short scuffle in the street'. A.W. Boardman, the author of Towton 1461: The Anatomy of a Battle, proves this was not the case. Indeed, the battle was unique and a significant event in England's medieval history. The street fighting was widespread, the town was pillaged in the aftermath, Henry VI was almost killed, and the battle's political consequences proved so problematic for both sides that parliament used official propaganda to conceal the truth. St Albans was, along with other lesser-known battles of the early 1450s, the genesis of the Wars of the Roses, and it is probably the best-documented encounter of the period. The battle heralded the beginning of an intense blood feud that fuelled the civil wars between York and Lancaster for many generations. But what really happened in the streets of St Albans on 22 May 1455? What prompted Richard Duke of York and the Neville family to rebel against Henry VI? And who were the instigators of the conflict that caused the execution and deaths of a substantial portion of England's nobility by the end of the fifteenth century? This book answers these questions and discusses the theories about St Albans following a detailed and multi-disciplined approach. A.W. Boardman reveals the anatomy of a battle hidden beneath the streets and alleyways of this modern city and explains the wider issues of the Wars of the Roses in northern England. Illustrated throughout with contemporary images, modern photographs and specially drawn battle maps, this new and fully updated edition is a thorough examination of the sources, the terrain and the military significance of the first battle of St Albans: a battle where the streets ran red with blood.

Leseprobe

The medieval clock tower at St Albans around which most of the intense fighting took place on 22 May 1455. (Courtesy of Geoffrey Wheeler)

First published 2006

This paperback edition published 2023

The History Press

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Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

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© Andrew Boardman, 2006, 2023

The right of Andrew Boardman to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 80399 302 7

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

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Saint Albans battle won by famous York

Shall be eternized in all age to come.

Sound drums and trumpets, and to London all:

And more such days as these to us befall.

William Shakespeare

Henry VI, Part 2

Contents

Introduction

One

York and Somerset

Two

The Beginning of Sorrows

Three

Faith, Allegiance and Duty

Four

St Albans

Five

‘I Shall Destroy Them, Every Mother’s Son’

Six

‘A Warwick! A Warwick!’

Seven

The Fate of the Kingdom

Appendix 1.

The Stow Relation

Appendix 2.

The Phillipps Relation

Appendix 3.

State Papers of Milan

Appendix 4.

The Dijon Relation

Appendix 5.

The Fastolf Relation

Appendix 6.

Whethamstede’s Registrum

Appendix 7.

The Parliamentary Pardon

Notes

Bibliography

About the Author

Introduction

For many years, the battle of Bosworth was regarded as the final encounter of the ‘Wars of the Roses’ purely because some commentators found it a convenient place to mark the end of one historical period and the beginning of another. This same reasoning also claimed that Bosworth signified the end of Richard III’s rule and the creation of a new age under Henry VII, the first Tudor king. Shakespeare, among other writers, appropriated this symbolism and made it common currency in his history plays, and thus the above timelines have featured in popular tradition ever since. However, today most historians accept that the ‘Wars of the Roses’ continued into the reign of Henry VII, and the final pitched battle of the conflict was fought not at Bosworth in 1485, but at Stoke Field two years later. So, if the battle of Stoke signified the end of the wars, where did York and Lancaster first cross swords?

Before I wrote the first edition of this book in 2006, I firmly believed that the civil wars known persistently as the ‘Wars of the Roses’ began at the battle of Blore Heath in 1459, when Neville contingents led by the Earl of Salisbury successfully beat a Lancastrian army under Lord Audley. Suffice to say I have changed my opinion since. This book claims that the first battle of St Albans was not merely ‘a short scuffle in the street’, as Sir Charles Oman and several other historians have suggested. Instead, it was a significant battle of the ‘Wars of the Roses’ along with the battles of Heworth Moor and Stamford Bridge, fought in 1453 and 1454, which extend the wars further back in time, thereby challenging established history.

It is well known that civil disorder, rebellions and pitched battles had long been endemic throughout the fifteenth century, and when I wrote in 2006, even I accepted that a recognisable civil war had been avoided. However, by accepting this, I, like most historians, fell into a trap and it is not surprising that earlier battles of the ‘Wars of the Roses’ have been forgotten – until now. To declassify is to essentially forget these encounters remain central to our understanding of how the all-important blood feuding aspects and polarisation of the ‘Wars of the Roses’ began. Thus, a more measured exploration of the battles of Heworth Moor, Stamford Bridge and first St Albans is worthy of investigation, as is the thorny issue of who was responsible for provoking the wars in the first place.

Walking and exploring a battlefield is the only way to appreciate the ground over which armies fought, and this is essential when dealing with a medieval battlefield like St Albans. The archaeology of battlefields is an ongoing preoccupation in the twenty-first century, but the evidence of first St Albans is not easy to appreciate, given the sprawl of urban life that has almost erased it. Unlike a pitched battle fought somewhere in the English countryside, a town or city changes over time. Although thankfully, the epicentre of St Albans still conforms to its medieval footprint. Therefore, it could be said we are lucky, in one respect, that the existing street layout is the only place where the battle could have been fought in 1455. The main areas of interest are set in stone, and so are many period buildings that medieval inhabitants would have recognised in their day. However, the new science of conflict archaeology is fairly limited at St Albans. Predictably, little in the way of artefacts relating to the first battle have been found, unlike at the second battle, fought in 1461, where a medieval cannonball was recently discovered close to Bernards Heath.

How, then, do we unlock what happened at St Albans in 1455? The answer has spawned some debate over the years, although not an in-depth military and topographic study until now. In 1960, C.A.J. Armstrong wrote ‘Politics and the Battle of St Albans 1455’ for the Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, and this was the only serious study of how the battle came about. Other books, biographies and papers touched on the battle and the politics, but no military history had been written to enlarge Armstrong’s work. History is constantly evolving, and even I have revised my work on the battle since 2006, the results of which are presented here.

Today the wealth of information about the ‘Wars of the Roses’ is staggering, but to reveal the obvious conclusions about the civil wars is to discount the not so obvious. Stripping down the military aspects of the period to the bare minimum is one way of telling the story. Another is to see what remains on the ground or can be proven by modern research methods. However, as M.A. Hicks points out, any new research depends heavily on contemporary sources, and according to him, we should always listen to these closely:

Records seldom offer overt avowals of motives: their significance is not always or often beyond dispute. Even the perusal of vast quantities of second-rate material can add relatively little to what is known. Our attempts to answer the major questions by oblique approaches and with reference to an ever-wider range of sources has seldom borne the direct fruits that were once hoped.1

To investigate the first battle of St Albans it is, therefore, essential to analyse the words of those who lived at the time and were witness to what occurred there. This must be our principal compass. Such testimonies mark the start of any journey into history’s looking glass, then follows interpretation by other means. In fact, St Albans was quite a unique town in the ‘Wars of the Roses’ as it was the only place in Britain where two battles were fought over similar ground in the space of only a few years. The first battle was also the site of at least three assassinations that affected how English chivalry was viewed from then on. It was the place where a significant blood feud began, where indiscriminate pillaging of an English town occurred, and where a king was abandoned and almost killed in the street. Even the phrase the ‘Wars of the Roses’ is directly associated with how historians have viewed the St Albans story. Therefore, I feel the only productive way to investigate the battle as it appeared to those living at the time is to forget the title was ever coined.

It is well known that the term ‘Wars of the Roses’ was not recognised during the conflict or in the fifteenth century. In contemporary chronicles, we only hear about the ‘civil wars’, and no contending roses are mentioned. Therefore, we may wonder how people viewed the battle of St Albans and the events that came before it. Considering the uncertainty of the times, it seems safe to assume writers did not try to pigeonhole the battle and that it was not considered part of a particular phase or division of military history at all.

In 1964, the eminent historian S.B. Chrimes wrote in his acclaimed book Lancastrians Yorkists and Henry VII that the ‘Wars of the Roses’ as a title should be dropped from every history book. In his lifetime, he examined the conflict between York and Lancaster from various academic viewpoints, and to achieve a broader perspective on the wars, it is worth reiterating his introductory words in full:

It deserves to be made quite clear at the start that there is no historical justification for the term ‘Wars of the Roses’. We need to grasp firmly that no contemporary ever thought of the civil wars in such terms, nor indeed ever used the expression at all…The men who fought those battles from 1455 onwards certainly knew nothing of such flights of literary fancy, and for that reason the present writer has avoided using the term at all, even though he can scarcely hope that others will readily follow his example in this perhaps, by now, pedantic renunciation.2

My renunciation of the term ‘Wars of the Roses’ is not done lightly. However, my decision bears no similarity to that condoned by Professor Chrimes. In all previous books about the civil wars, historians have traditionally endeavoured to stylise the period due, in part, to its complexity. As I have said, no contemporary writer or chronicler ever mentioned a ‘series’ of wars. Instead, they only recorded what they saw or heard, not how the wars fitted into a specific time frame. Therefore, in this work about the first battle of St Albans, I have entirely divorced this well-worn cliché from the late fifteenth century and assimilated the viewpoint of a person living at the time. My aim is to give a new perspective on the military and topographic aspects of St Albans, without the romanticism, supported and referenced by contemporary or near-contemporary sources. Where possible, I have only used reliable evidence, official documentation, letters, and foreign authorities that can be verified. I have discounted the later Tudor chroniclers, and other commentators in their entirety, which may shock some readers as most of the detail about the civil wars comes from them.

To explain this, it is well known that the sixteenth-century chronicler Edward Hall invented the ‘Wars of the Roses’ although Sir Walter Scott first popularised the phrase in 1829. However, Hall’s Chronicle, published in the first year of Edward VI’s reign (1548), was a masterpiece of Tudor propaganda, and on the title page of his book, Hall dedicated his work in grandiose style to,

the union of the two noble and illustrious families of Lancaster and York being long in continual dissention for the crown of this noble realm with all the acts done in both the times of the princes, both of the one lineage and of the other, beginning at the time of King Henry the Fourth, the first author of this division, and so successively proceeding to the reign of the high and prudent prince King Henry the Eighth, the undoubted flower and very heir of both the said lineages.3

There is no doubt that Hall wrote factual history, but he also invented fictional scenes that Shakespeare later used for dramatic purposes. Crucially, Hall paints a mainly black-and-white picture of historical characters and their motives, with particular reference to the battles of the era, none of which referenced extensive resources or oral tradition.4 The picture of a country wholly torn apart by conflict and blood feuding is the common theme throughout Hall’s work. Unrest, inward war, unrighteousness, the shedding of innocent blood and the abuse of law and order were his blueprints to Tudor stardom. But more than this, Hall’s story of the fifteenth century is more divisive and focuses on divine judgement, political morals, and the fear of unrest and usurpation rather than contemporary analysis. The simple fact is that a great deal of Hall’s Chronicle is a dramatised account. The author loved to describe battles in graphic detail and put speeches into the mouths of principal characters. And later, Tudor writers and dramatists, including Sir Thomas More, Raphael Holinshed and Shakespeare, followed his example with stories of their own that distorted the reputations of even kings to please their benefactors. That Hall’s grandfather Sir David had been slain fighting for the Yorkists at the battle of Wakefield in 1460 was also a strong incentive to embroider the truth and charge certain individuals with murder.

It is well known that chroniclers saw morals and the hand of God in everything, while others claimed that history was the key to inducing virtue and repressing vice. Edward Hall was a lawyer, a great believer in justice, and his near contemporary Raphael Holinshed thought that most chronicles were next to holy scripture and packed with profitable lessons.5 Famous battles were the pinnacle of his work, and later chroniclers wrote passionately about them partly to enhance the deep divisions and later ‘perfect union’ of York and Lancaster in 1486. The expected fame of Edward VI in 1547 was, according to Hall, a product of Henry VII’s triumph over Richard III at the battle of Bosworth. And in his chronicle, you can almost hear the universal sigh of relief when Richard III is killed and Henry Tudor is crowned king. It was also the end of the medieval period for some writers, which takes us neatly back to the beginning and end of the civil wars and the ‘Wars of the Roses’ as a time frame.

As discussed, I take the viewpoint that the first battle of St Albans was a continuation of military activity in England rather than a commencement. And by this rule, we can safely say the battle was no different from the private wars that peppered the second half of the fifteenth century. St Albans, for this reason, was a battle and not a skirmish in the street. It is certain the Duke of York aimed to remove the Duke of Somerset, by force if needed. Thousands of men were ready to fight at St Albans and knew the consequences of the battle might cause political shockwaves for years to come. After hours of waiting in Key Field to the east of St Albans, York contemplated the dreaded crime of treason, and not for the first time. Furious that his many declarations of loyalty had not been heeded, he was determined to act against his political enemies or die trying. Henry VI’s last message to York spoke of severe punishment for him and all his followers, and rather than act faithfully upon the words of a king who might be constrained by false councillors, York was put in an incredibly difficult position.

However, that morning in May 1455, the duke was supported by his brother-in-law, the Earl of Salisbury, and his ambitious young son, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, later to become known as the ‘kingmaker’ of ‘Wars of the Roses’ legend. Both were itching for a fight with their northern rivals, the Percys. Both Neville earls had swelled York’s ranks with their extensive retinues, mustered from those parts of England where violence was an everyday fact of life. Add to this the fact that their border levies were agitated after hours of waiting for orders, and there was potential for violence even without a political expedient.

But what if York failed in his attempt to remove the Duke of Somerset from office peaceably? What would the kingdom think of his decision to act forcefully against the king with banners displayed? How might he explain such treasonable action afterwards if, by some chance, the king was injured or even killed in battle? Alternatively, if York’s bid to capture Somerset succeeded, how could he permanently remove his rival from the king’s inner circle once his Neville supporters had disbanded their contingents? In short, what crucial decision might Duke Richard have to take to remove Somerset’s ‘seditious’ hold over the king? York could step back from the abyss, but the argument of who should rule England if King Henry succumbed to another bout of mental illness was unmistakably one-sided. The only course of action was for York to try and extract Somerset by force and thereby cut a new cloth of state with cold steel.

Intense local rivalry would open hostilities at St Albans, but for both sides, the first blow struck would inflict a much deeper wound that would overshadow political wrangling. The battle would be brutal and merciless. A climax of all that had gone before. One side would display its rebellious proclivity, the other its need for a competent military leader. And no one that day could have anticipated the long-term effects of the battle, nor prophesy how the bloodletting at St Albans would eventually sign the death warrants of a substantial portion of England’s nobility by the end of the fifteenth century.

Andrew Boardman

2023

1 A simplified genealogical chart of the contending houses of York and Lancaster. (Author’s Collection)

One

York and Somerset

Like most medieval nobles, Richard Plantagenet, third Duke of York, wanted to be liked by his contemporaries. Yet, this seemingly innocent ambition – to appear the perfect champion of law and order and the model protector of England – was never fully realised in his lifetime.

Despite several attempts at political mediation, not to mention various bouts of what might have been termed treasonable activity, York was destined to fail time and time again in his efforts to remove his political rivals from office, chiefly because his noble and impetuous character always got in the way of sound judgement. Chivalric pride was a quality that most fifteenth-century nobles understood and would readily die for if the cause benefited themselves or their family. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that York’s self-righteous and reckless ambition would eventually lead to a copybook chivalrous death at the hands of those injured by his rise to power. We may question York’s rash paladin nature, ambition and pride, but was this noble recklessness the chief cause of his downfall, as some historians suggest? In short, was the Duke of York completely loyal to the crown during his lifetime, even after the watershed battle of St Albans in 1455, or was he, in fact, a rebel opportunist whose aim was to usurp the throne in place of Henry VI, who was clearly unfit to rule the kingdom.

A considerable body of written evidence remains concerning the Duke of York’s vast inheritance, official correspondence and military appointments. However, as with so many other historical figures, no accurate character assessment of York is possible other than to say that, at face value, his sense of nobility far outweighed his recklessness. Many times, in his letters and petitions to the king, we are reminded of York’s apparent loyalty and determination to prove he was ‘the king’s true liegeman and servant … to advise his Royal Majesty of certain articles concerning the weal and safeguard of his most royal person, and the tranquillity and conservation of all this his realm’.1 However, as part of this loyalty York also wished to remove the king’s enemies, including Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset and his supporters, all of whom, in his own words, ‘laboureth continually about the King’s Highness for my undoing’ – an opinion that can be taken both ways if York was in any way paranoid.2 Therefore, in the absence of an impartial character witness, much of Richard of York’s temperament and character must remain hidden from view.

It is also a matter of great frustration that no full descriptions or faithful images survive of medieval personalities other than in character sketches, manuscripts and statues, which often contain misinformation and portray invented images. In York’s case, the most famous of these is the stained-glass window at Trinity College Cambridge, which shows him wearing full armour, while another similar depiction in Cirencester parish church reveals the face of a rather weak-looking character, clearly not in keeping with one so powerful. However, in written evidence, York’s immediate family provide the best clue to the duke’s outward appearance. It was evidently well known to later contemporaries that York resembled his youngest son (later Richard III), who, during the defamatory campaign aimed at bastardising his brother Edward IV in 1483, was noted by the Italian writer Dominic Mancini:

Edward, said they, was conceived in adultery and in every way was unlike his father the late Duke of York whose son he was falsely said to be, but Richard Duke of Gloucester who altogether resembled his father [York], was to come to the throne as the legitimate successor.3

Richard of York was born on 21 September 1411 into an infamous family who inherited its royal blood from the patriarch of all late medieval kings, Edward III, through his two sons, Edmund, Duke of York and Lionel, Duke of Clarence. Richard was an only son, and his renowned claim to greatness and dynastic right to the English throne can be explained on two counts. His mother, Anne Mortimer, was the sister of Edmund, Earl of March, whose family had been the focus of so many political intrigues and threats against the crown in the past, including Henry Bolingbroke (later Henry IV), whose usurpation of 1399 later formed part of Yorkist propaganda. On the paternal side of York’s family, his father, Richard Earl of Cambridge, was executed for high treason in what later became known as the Southampton Plot against Henry V in 1415. This terrible association was one that Richard of York had to bear throughout his life, and, indeed, it may have been a psychological stigma that weighed heavily on his character in adulthood. However, apart from the apparent antipathy he may have felt against such treasonable behaviour against the crown, York was never openly tainted with his father’s crime. Also, Richard’s uncle, Edward, Duke of York, had died loyal to the Lancastrian cause at the battle of Agincourt in 1415, and thus York’s family, at least on the ascendant branch, had redeemed itself in blood.

2 Richard, Duke of York. Fifteenth-century glass in Cirencester Church. (Courtesy of Geoffrey Wheeler)

3 Richard III, ‘Altogether like his father’ the Duke of York, according to sources. Engraving of a Society of Antiquaries portrait. (Courtesy of Geoffrey Wheeler)

Soon after Henry V’s brilliant victories in France, the young Richard of York was placed with trusted mentors, like most noble offspring of his age, to learn the ‘gentle’ arts of nobility and chivalry. In Richard’s case, this was with Sir Robert Waterton, an old Yorkshire knight and veteran of the French Wars. No better-skilled campaigner could have been chosen for York, but in 1423 it was decided that the young duke should be transferred to the Earl of Westmoreland’s care for nine years. And it was here that he learned much about the Neville family and their Beaufort connections from Joan, Westmoreland’s second wife.

However, on the death of the Earl of March in 1425, significant changes began to shape Richard’s life, and soon the vast Mortimer inheritance of his uncle, the earl, became the focus of his attention. In May 1426, York was knighted, along with the new king Henry VI at the Leicester parliament, and in November 1429, he was summoned to attend Henry’s lavish coronation at Westminster Abbey. Not long after this, York began to take up his rightful position at court as Duke of York, and he was present at Henry’s other crowning as King of France in Paris – a notable achievement for any English monarch, although a legacy left by the new king’s warrior father that his infant son could never hope to equal.

As for the Duke of York’s future, a bride had been found for him when he was only thirteen. In 1426, he married into the respected and powerful northern family where he had spent much of his youth. The Nevilles were equally pleased with their daughter Cecily’s marriage into the house of York. And like many other large and ambitious medieval dynasties before them, they doubtless saw Duke Richard as a lucrative way to advance their position at court and in northern England.

By 1445, the Duke of York had become acquainted with his vast lordship. He had secured the services of many notable knights and retainers as befitted his position, including Ralph Lord Cromwell, Thomas Lord Scales, Sir John Falstolf, Sir Andrew Ogard, Sir William ap Thomas and Sir William Oldhall, the latter knight figuring in the critical political events which followed his master’s enforced exile to Ireland in 1450. Also prominent among Richard’s many connections at this time were members of the powerful Bourchier family, Viscount Bourchier being recorded as York’s chief councillor in 1448. More significantly, regarding St Albans, Duke Richard was also related to Thomas Bourchier, who became chancellor and Archbishop of Canterbury in 1454 and recieved York’s letters of fealty prior to the battle. The Bourchiers were the powerful half-brothers of Richard’s aunt, the countess of March, and York’s only sister Isabel was married to Henry Bourchier, connections that would prove crucially important to the duke later in his career.

As might be expected, the Duke of York’s links to these and several other important baronial houses made him an extremely wealthy man in his own right. And by the time he finally gained his Mortimer inheritance, provided he honoured the outstanding obligations of his two dead uncles, he could boast vast landholdings in almost every English county. He also owned properties and estates in the Marches of Wales and Ireland, while on his maternal grandmother’s side, he benefited from being known as the Earl of March and Ulster, the Lord of Wigmore, Clare, Trim and Connaught, the latter titles providing him with a foothold in Ireland and, by coincidence, a place of refuge where he might find shelter in times of trouble or personal crisis.

Like most men of his age, York had already seen military service in France, but it was not until 1436 that he formally agreed by indenture to serve as the king’s lieutenant-general in Normandy, an appointment that was to lead to several dismissals and recalls, all resulting in a vast personal debt that was never repaid in full by the crown. Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, was appointed to succeed York as lieutenant in 1437, but when he died two years later, the chief command of English armies in France devolved to John Beaufort, then Earl of Somerset. As a nephew of the extremely powerful and politically minded Cardinal Beaufort, the Earl of Somerset could, like York, trace his royal blood back to Edward III through John of Gaunt and his second wife, Catherine Swynford. However, Somerset’s line of descent had been barred from the succession, and so was no threat to York at this time, although if this claim was legitimised, it could provide an heir to the throne should Henry VI remain childless.

Somerset was an unconvincing military leader, but when York’s bid to provoke Charles VII into fighting pitched battles failed, the king’s council decided that Somerset should take York’s place as lieutenant – a decision that was to result in the duke’s distrust of the entire Beaufort family and, most notably, his dread of a possible competitor for the throne if Henry should die. Advanced by his uncle, the wealthy cardinal, and given a dukedom to enhance his authority by the king, Somerset crossed the English Channel in August 1443 and proceeded to pillage La Guerche, a town belonging to the friendly Duke of Brittany. Incurring not only the anger of York but also the great displeasure of the English government, Somerset’s appointment proved to be a complete disaster. However, given that the war was slowly turning in favour of the French anyway, Somerset was not the first to suffer a severe reprimand from those who had appointed him. Recalled to England, he died the following year, leaving the new duke, Edmund Beaufort, in direct competition to York’s supremacy.

4 Seal of Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. (Courtesy of Geoffrey Wheeler)

As for the Duke of York, he continued to command in France despite a lack of financial help, but his ambitions to emulate the English successes of Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt were ingloriously dashed on several occasions. Instead, he was given more commercial and civil duties, and in 1445 he accompanied Margaret of Anjou, his future enemy, to the French coast before she embarked for England to marry Henry VI. Evidently, more peaceable means were being contemplated in England to heal the wounds of war in the form of a truce. But soon, the political wheel of fortune was about to turn full circle against Duke Richard when he, like Somerset before him, was ordered to return home on the pretext that his presence was required at the coming parliament.

York’s term of office in France had, in fact, expired, but Duke Richard obviously hoped to be recalled at some later date as, in theory at least, he was the obvious choice to command now that the Beauforts were discredited.

However, the Duke of York had no idea what the court party was planning against him at this time, or he would have acted against the threat immediately. The essential mechanism that brought about York’s recall and later ‘banishment’ to Ireland was clearly the design of a group of unscrupulous nobles who sought to control the king and, in so doing, enhance their own positions at court. It is also apparent that broader politics and a complex web of retainers and ‘well-willers’ added fuel to the political fire when England’s finances began to suffer because of the Hundred Years War.

It is no accident that the politics which brought York into direct opposition with Edmund, the new Duke of Somerset, were initially manufactured by the ambitions of lesser courtiers hoping to carve out a career at the expense of an ineffective king. However, King Henry must also bear a significant portion of the blame, and to appreciate this further, it is essential, as far as possible, to understand the king’s complex character. In his fulsome assessment of Henry’s ‘saintly’ nature, John Blacman, the king’s confessor, makes plain the absurdity and complexity of his sovereign’s monkish kingship:

He was like a second Job, a man simple and upright, altogether fearing the Lord God, and departing from evil. He was a simple man, without any crook of craft or untruth, as is plain to all. With none did he deal craftily, nor ever would say an untrue word to any, but framed his speech always to speak the truth … The lord king complained to me once in his room at Eltham, when I was alone with him and working with him on his holy books, and hearing his serious admonitions and devout observations, one of the most powerful of the English dukes knocked on the door. The king said: ‘See how they disturb me!’4

This depiction of Henry’s devout and other-worldly nature is contrary to what other commentators thought of him, as there is no contemporary evidence to suggest the king was uniquely addicted to prayer or private meditation. Indeed, Henry could be both spiteful and vindictive, and his apparent failure to appreciate what was going on in the real world was, in fact, one of the main causes of the civil wars. All his life, apart from faint glimpses of adroit kingship, others controlled him to the extent that one biased chronicler later described him as ‘of small intelligence’.5 However, this character assassination of the king formed later anti-Lancastrian propaganda, and during his youth, there was no reason to suppose that Henry might not turn out to be a replica of his formidable father. Among the chroniclers who lamented the passing of Henry V was John Hardyng, a northern chronicler and former soldier, who wrote at about the same time as the first battle of St Albans. His eulogy in praise of the victor of Agincourt is interesting, considering that Hardyng fought for Harry Hotspur against the young Henry V in 1403, and it compares the rule of both father and son:

O good Lord God, why did you let so soon to pass

This noble prince [Henry V], that in all Christianity

Had then no peer in any land, no more nor less,

So excellent was his happy truth.

In flourishing age of all freshness of youth,

That might have let him live to greater age

Till he had wholly gained his heritage.

The peace at home and law so well maintained

Were root and head of all his great conquest,

Which exiled is away and foully now disdained

In such degree that north and south and west

And east also enjoys now little rest,

But by day and night in every shire throughout

With sallets bright and jacks make fearful rout.6

Such was the contempt levelled at Henry VI in adulthood, at a time when many men must have known first-hand how lawless some parts of England had become. Clearly, Hardyng’s scathing but veiled words about Henry VI did not express his propaganda alone, and this, aside from the obvious bias, points to a weakness in both the king and his administration. However, this was not the only reason for the steady decline mentioned above by Hardyng. From as early as September 1422, the government of England had been carried on in the name of Henry VI by a select council of peers, the infant king then being a minor and not yet old enough to rule the kingdom alone.

5 A young Henry VI from an original dated c.1450 in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle.

It was common medieval practice for the king’s uncles to take precedence during a minority, but Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Henry V’s younger brother, had reluctantly become part of a ruling council in which the Beauforts were his most quarrelsome enemies. With the crown virtually out of commission for a time, one would have expected that these two factions might have come to blows on more than one occasion, but this was not the case, and business was carried on as usual in the name of the king. However, the political history of the next ten years disclosed an underlying conflict, established in 1437, which brought about factionalism and division when King Henry emerged from his minority a less forceful monarch than medieval England deserved. Thus, it was only a matter of time before the most dominant court faction took control of the king, and as the war with France turned unmistakably sour against the English, this inner circle became headed by William de la Pole, later Duke of Suffolk, and a group of clerics guided by bishops Ayscough of Salisbury and Moleyns of Chichester.

The public denunciation of these three men leaves no doubt that they were chiefly responsible for the disasters that followed, both at home and abroad. After Gloucester’s mysterious death in 1447, Suffolk succeeded in making Henry VI his puppet while at the same time removing many of the enemies who stood in his way. This process of control and indoctrination was, of course, a gradual development, but in July 1446, the Duke of York was involved in a violent quarrel with Adam Moleyns, then Henry’s keeper of the privy seal, who he accused of bribing his troops so that they would charge him with embezzlement. The result had been a serious breach with the court party who, during their machinations, caused York’s recall to England and the appointment of Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, to the lieutenancy of France.

The Duke of York’s punishment was clearly galling and even more so when he was appointed Lieutenant of Ireland for the unusual term of ten years. However, it is apparent that Suffolk and the court party wanted York out of the way for purely selfish reasons, and by using King Henry’s pliability and power to impose their will, they largely succeeded in achieving their aim.

However, soon, from his enforced ‘exile’ in Ireland, York had the dubious satisfaction of hearing that yet another Beaufort was leading English armies to disaster in France. It is significant that at the end of York’s term of office in Normandy and his removal to Ireland in 1447, Henry’s dwindling exchequer owed him £38,666, an enormous sum of money at the time, part of which the duke renounced and the remainder of which he aimed to recover in the future. The resulting French losses, caused by the well-financed Somerset, therefore injured York on two counts at a time when he was both physically and politically constrained abroad. By the tone of his later letters denouncing Somerset’s conduct in France, it was a personal humiliation that cut York to the core.

But was there yet another reason why the Duke of York was being excluded from the king’s council? Abbot Whethamstede, the opinionated chronicler who recorded the first and second battles of St Albans, had no doubt that York’s dynastic claim to the throne was the true source of his arrogant and uncontrolled quest for power in the 1450s. Whethamstede asserted that York’s vendetta against Somerset was unmindful, and that revenge was wrong. Duke Richard, as Henry’s heir apparent, had every reason to fear Somerset’s ambitions, especially when his rival came to entrench himself deep within the king’s inner council. In fact, the fear that Somerset might be officially recognised as the Lancastrian heir if Henry VI should die childless was probably the main reason for Whethamstede’s scathing remarks about York’s ambitious nature. While another motive could be that the abbot probably harboured intense feelings against the Duke of York because his men pillaged the town of St Albans in 1455 and almost sacked his abbey.7

However, it is clear that York could not afford to overlook the Beaufort claims to the throne, and doubtless this was the main reason for his feud with Somerset. As for the Duke of Suffolk, the chief instigator of all York’s troubles, he did not live long enough to see his political intrigues come to fruition. In January 1450, the commons, awakening to the frightening losses in France as well as the tides of discontent and lawlessness at home, conveniently placed the blame for the current misfortunes on Suffolk’s ambitious head. Clearly, the court party needed a scapegoat, and it was undoubtedly to Somerset’s benefit that someone else was available to take the blame. The exclusion and death of Suffolk was a travesty brought about by an ineffective king and a series of events that were undoubtedly arranged by other ambitious courtiers. When the commons tried to impeach Suffolk, the king’s merciful intervention backfired and only helped to delay the inevitable. A term of banishment was placed on the duke, and consequently, when his boat pulled away from the Kentish coast, there was already a plot to kill him:

6 Edmund Beaufort in Rouen. (Chronique de Jean Chartier. © Bibliothèque Nationale de France)

And one of the lewdest of the ship bade him lay down his head [so] that he might be fairly dealt with and die on a sword; and [he] took a rusty sword and smote off his head with half a dozen strokes, and [he] took away his gown of russet and his doublet of velvet mailed, and laid his body on the sands of Dover; and some say his head was set on a pole by it.8

Banishment for five years was clearly a sentence that a man like Suffolk could have easily survived, but, as fate would have it, the duke was considered a worthy sacrifice for England’s troubles. The kind of unrest that was virulent in the kingdom, and the general disorder that was rife, especially in Kent, only added to the mounting problems that King Henry and his corrupt government had to overcome. Indeed, their troubles went from bad to worse. The insurrection and rebellion led by Jack Cade in May-July 1450 was symptomatic of the growing dissatisfaction against many of the king’s chief ministers. Once more, the cry of ‘Mortimer’ was used to signal popular rebellion in English shires, and by the time hundreds of southern insurgents reached the gates of London, news of Cade’s murderous rampage had spread far and wide. The volatile situation could only have added to York’s unease in Ireland, especially when news reached him that his name was being used in the rebel’s manifesto as the man most likely to bring about reform. The rebel petition was adamant that the king should,

take about his noble person his true blood of his royal realm, that is to say, the high and mighty prince, the Duke of York, exiled from our sovereign lord’s person by the noising of the false traitor the Duke of Suffolk and his affinity.9

It was a situation that York, and his enemy Somerset, could not fail to ignore, even though Cade’s rebellion was soon put down and its ringleaders executed for treason. With characteristic blindness, the final act of the king’s council was to recall Somerset from France and duly appoint him Constable of England to help deal with any further disturbances at home. Despite failing dismally in Normandy, Somerset was given every opportunity and assistance to establish law and order in the country, including the power and finances to coordinate resistance against the problematic return of Duke Richard, who, due to Cade’s slanderous manifesto, had already taken alarm and landed in North Wales. But characteristically, Somerset’s appointment only added fuel to the fire.

At first, York’s threatened return caused a great deal of panic among the court party, although, according to the letter he sent before he arrived in England, he was not aiming to cause trouble in the king’s council. Waiting jealously in Ireland for a message to recall him to England can hardly have soothed the feelings of injustice and frustration that York must have felt at this time. He, therefore, took the initiative even though Somerset and his friends wanted the duke permanently exiled, a fact that must have crossed York’s mind when he managed to avoid several ambushes on his way to London. After these attempts on his life, Duke Richard had no choice but to protect himself, and he soon raised an army of some 4,000 men, an act guaranteed to raise the stakes in the York and Somerset feud. In fact, very soon their rivalry entered a new and dangerous phase of animosity.