CHAPTER XXI
DESPOTISM, DISCONTENT, AND DISORDER
While the Woodvilles were supreme, and while Edward was under their influence disheartening the ancient barons of England, and alienating the great noble to whom he owed the proudest crown in Christendom, the imprudent king did not ingratiate himself with the multitude by any display of respect for those rights and liberties to maintain which Warwick had won Northampton and Towton. Indeed, the government was disfigured by acts of undisguised tyranny; and torture, albeit known to be illegal in England, was freely used, as during the Lancastrian rule, to extort evidence. Even the laws of the first Edward and his great minister, Robert de Burnel, were in danger of going as much out of fashion as the chain armor in which Roger Bigod and Humphrey Bohun charged at Lewes and Evesham.
Edward's first victim was William Walker. This man kept a tavern in Cheapside, known as "The Crown," and there a club, composed of young men, had been in the habit of meeting. These fell under the suspicion of being Lancastrians, and were supposed to be plotting a restoration. No evidence to that effect existed; but, unfortunately, the host, being one day in a jocular mood, while talking to his son, who was a boy, said, "Tom, if thou behavest thyself, I'll make thee heir to the crown." Every body knew that Walker's joke alluded to his sign; yet, when the words were reported, he was arrested, and, as if in mockery of common sense, indicted for imagining and compassing the death of the king. The prisoner pleaded his innocence of any evil intention, but his protestations were of no avail. He was found guilty, in defiance of justice, and hanged, in defiance of mercy.
The next case, that of a poor cobbler, if not so utterly unjust, was equally impolitic and still more cruel. Margaret of Anjou was, at that time, using every effort to regain her influence in England, and many persons, supposed to possess letters from the exiled queen, were tortured and put to death on that suspicion. Of these the cobbler was one, and one of the most severely punished. Having been apprehended on the charge of aiding Margaret to correspond with her partisans in England, he was tortured to death with red-hot pincers.
Even when the sufferers were Lancastrians, the barbarity of such proceedings could not fail to make the flesh creep and the blood curdle; but the case became still more iniquitous when government laid hands on men attached to the house of York; when the Woodvilles, who had themselves been Lancastrians, singled out as victims stanch partisans of the White Rose.
Sir Thomas Cooke was one of the most reputable citizens of London, and, in the second year of Edward's reign, had fulfilled the highest municipal functions. Unfortunately for him, also, he had the reputation of being so wealthy as to tempt plunder. Earl Rivers and the Duchess of Bedford appear to have thought so; and exerted their influence with the king to have the ex-mayor arrested on a charge of treason, and committed to the Tower.
It appears that, in an evil hour for Cooke, a man named Hawkins had called on him and requested the loan of a thousand marks, on good security; but Sir Thomas said he should, in the first place, like to know for whom the money was, and, in the second, for what purpose it was intended. Hawkins frankly stated it was for the use of Queen Margaret; and Cooke thereupon declined to lend a penny. Hawkins went away, and the matter rested for some time. Sir Thomas was not, however, destined to escape; for Hawkins, having been taken to the Tower and put to the brake, called "the Duke of Exeter's daughter," confessed so much in regard to himself that he was put to death; and at the same time, under the influence of excessive pain, stated that Cooke had lent the money to Margaret of Anjou.
The Woodvilles, having obtained such evidence against their destined victim, seized upon Cooke's house in London, ejecting his lady and servants, and, at the same time, took possession of Giddy Hall, his seat in Essex, where he had fish-ponds, and a park full of deer, and household furniture of great value. After thus appropriating the estate of the city knight, they determined that, for form's sake, he should have a trial; and accordingly a commission, of which Earl Rivers was a member, was appointed to sit at Guildhall. It would seem that the Woodvilles, meanwhile, had no apprehension of the result being unfavorable to their interests; but, unfortunately for their scheme of appropriation, the commission included two men who loved justice and hated iniquity. These were Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, and Sir John Markham, Chief Justice of England.
Markham was of a family of lawyers, whose progenitors, though scarcely wealthier than yeomen, had held their land from time immemorial, and been entitled to carry coat armor. Having been early called to the bar, and successful in his profession, he became a puisne judge of the court of king's bench; and having strongly supported the claims of the house of York, and greatly contributed, by his abilities and learning, to the triumph of the White Rose, he succeeded Fortescue as chief justice. But, though zealous for the hereditary right of the house of York, Markham was neither a minion nor a tool of its members; and, though he could not but be aware what the court expected, he was incapable of doing any thing to forfeit the public respect which he enjoyed as "The Upright Judge." When, therefore, the evidence against Cooke had been taken, and the whole case heard, the chief justice ruled that the offense was not treason, but, at the most, "Misprision of Treason," and directed the jury so to find it.
The lands of Sir Thomas Cooke were saved, and the Woodvilles, angry as wild beasts deprived of their prey, vowed vengeance on the chief justice. Accordingly Earl Rivers and his duchess pressed Edward to dismiss the unaccommodating functionary; and Edward swore that Markham should never sit on the bench again. Markham, submitting with a dignity becoming his high character, carried his integrity into retirement; and Sir Thomas Cooke was set free after he had paid an enormous fine.
Every man of intelligence must now have seen that the Woodvilles would embroil Edward with the nation. While the king was, under their influence, perpetrating such enormities as caused grave discontent, he was aroused to a sense of insecurity by formidable commotions in the north. For the origin of these, the master and brethren of the Hospital of St. Leonards appear to have been responsible. The right of levying a thrave of corn from every plow in the country for the relief of the poor had, it seems, been granted to the hospital by one of the Anglo-Saxon kings; but the rural population complained that the revenue was not expended for charitable purposes, but employed by the master and brethren for their private advantage. After long complaining, the people of the country refused to pay, and, in retaliation, their goods were distrained and their persons imprisoned. At length, in 1469, finding they could get no redress, the recusants took up arms, and, under a captain named Robert Hulderne, they put the officers of the hospital to the sword, and, to the number of fifteen thousand, marched, in hostile array, to the gates of York.
The insurgents, however, were not to have it all their own way. Lord Montagu commanded in the district; and he prepared to put down the rising with that vigor and energy which had hitherto characterized his military operations. Accordingly, he hastened to bring them to an engagement. A skirmish took place; the insurgents were scattered; and Hulderne, their leader, having been taken, was sent by Montagu to immediate execution. Nevertheless, the insurgents continued in arms; and, having been joined by Lord Fitzhugh and Sir Henry Neville, the son of Lord Latimer, one a nephew, the other a cousin of Warwick, they placed Sir John Conyers, a soldier of courage and experience, at their head, advanced toward London, denouncing the Woodvilles as taxers and oppressors, and loudly demanding their dismissal from the council.
Edward now roused himself from voluptuous lethargy, and prepared to defend his crown. Without delay, he gave commissions to William Herbert, whom he had created Earl of Pembroke, and Humphrey Stafford, to whom, on the execution of Hugh, Earl of Devon, at Salisbury, he had given the heritage of the Courtenays, to march against the rebels. At the same time, Edward buckled on his armor, and advanced to Newark. There, however, he thought it prudent to halt; and, finding his army utterly weak and unsteady, he retreated to Nottingham. Hitherto he had thought England none the worse for Warwick's absence; but now he dispatched a message to Calais, beseeching the earl and Clarence to come to his assistance. Having thus bent his pride, Edward waited the result with anxiety.
Meanwhile, Herbert and Stafford were in the field. Hastily assembling seven thousand men, most of whom were Welsh, the two Yorkist earls moved against the insurgents; but they had hardly done so, when an unfortunate dispute involved them in serious disasters.
It was at Banbury, when the royal army approached the insurgents, that the quarrel took place. It appears that the Yorkist earls had agreed, in the course of their expedition, that when either took possession of a lodging, he should be allowed to keep it undisturbed. On reaching Banbury, on the 25th of July, Stafford took up his quarters at an inn, where there was a damsel for whom he had a partiality. Herbert, who was so proud of the king's letter that he could hardly contain his joy,9 insisted upon putting Stafford out of the hostelry; and Stafford, whose spirit was high, took offense at being so treated by an inferior. Angry words passed, and the consequence was that Stafford mounted his horse, and rode from the town, with his men-at-arms and archers. Herbert, alarmed at being left alone, hastened to the hill on which his soldiers were encamped, and expressed his intention of abiding such fortune as God should send.
When evening advanced, Sir Henry Neville, at the head of his light-horse, commenced skirmishing with the Welsh, and, advancing too far, he was surrounded and slain. The northern men, thereupon, vowed vengeance; and next morning, at Edgecote, attacked the royal army with fury. Herbert, on the occasion, bore himself with a courage which well-nigh justified the king's favor; and his brother, Richard, twice, by main force, hewed his way through the insurgent ranks. Animated by the example of their leaders, the Welshmen were on the point of victory, when an esquire, named John Clapham, attended by five hundred men, and bearing a white bear, the banner of the king-maker, came up the hill, shouting – "A Warwick! A Warwick!" Hearing this war-cry, so terrible, and believing that "The Stout Earl" was upon them, the Welshmen fled in such terror and confusion that the northern men slaughtered five thousand of them. Herbert and his brother Richard, having been taken, were carried to Banbury, and there beheaded, in revenge for the death of Sir Henry Neville. Elate with their victory at Banbury, the insurgents resolved upon giving a lesson to the "queen's kindred;" and, choosing for their captain Robert Hilyard, whom men called "Robin of Redesdale," they marched to the Manor of Grafton, seized on Earl Rivers and John Woodville, who had wedded the old Duchess of Norfolk, carried these obnoxious individuals to Nottingham, and there beheaded them as taxers and oppressors.
The king, on hearing of the defeat of Herbert and the execution of the Woodvilles, expressed the utmost resentment. Displeased with himself and every body else, he looked around for a victim on whom to wreak his fury; and, considering that of all connected with these misfortunes Stafford was the least blameless, he issued orders that the unfortunate nobleman should be seized, and dealt with as a traitor. The royal commands were obeyed. Stafford was taken at a village in Brentmarsh, carried to Bridgewater, and executed.
The aspect of affairs gradually became more threatening. At length Warwick arrived in England, and repaired to the king, who was encamped at Olney. He found Edward in no enviable plight. His friends were killed or scattered, and his enemies close upon him. The earl was just the man for such a crisis, and he consented to exercise his influence. He went to the insurgents, promised to see their grievances redressed, spoke to them in that popular strain which he alone could use; and, at his bidding, they dispersed and went northward. Edward, however, found that he was hardly more free than when the forces of Robin of Redesdale hemmed him in. The earl, in fact, took the king into his own hands till he should redeem his promise to the insurgents, and conveyed him, as a kind of prisoner, to the Castle of Middleham.
Edward had no intention of granting the popular demands; and he was not the man to submit patiently to durance. He gained the hearts of his keepers, and obtained liberty to go a-hunting. This privilege he turned to account; and having one day been met by Sir William Stanley, Sir Thomas Brough, and others of his friends, he rode with them to York, pursued his way to Lancaster, and, having there been met by Lord Hastings, reached London in safety.
A peace between Warwick and the king was brought about by their friends; and Edward's eldest daughter was betrothed to Montagu's son. But a few weeks after this reconciliation, the earl took mortal offense. The cause is involved in some mystery. It appears, however, that Edward had two failings in common with many men both small and great – a weakness for wine and a weakness for women. He was much too fond of deep drinking, and by no means free from the indiscretions of those who indulge to excess in the social cup. On some occasion, it would seem, the king was guilty of a flagrant impropriety which touched the honor and roused the resentment of the earl. Even at this day the exact circumstances are unknown; but, in the fifteenth century, rumor was not silent on the subject. Hall has indicated, in language somewhat too plain for this generation, that the offense was an insult offered by the king, in Warwick's house, to the niece or daughter of the earl; and adds, that "the certainty was not for both their honors openly known." But, however that may have been, the strife between the king and the king-maker now assumed the character of mortal enmity, and led rapidly to those events which rendered the year 1470 memorable in the annals of England.
Edward was not long left in doubt as to the earl's views. At the Moor, in Hertfordshire, which then belonged to the Archbishop of York, which passed fifteen years later to John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and which, in later days, became the seat of Anne Scott, heiress of Buccleuch and widow of the ill-fated Monmouth, George Neville, one day in the month of February, gave a banquet to the king. On the occasion Warwick and Clarence were invited; and all was going on well, and Edward was washing his hands before sitting down to supper, when one of his attendants whispered that armed men were lurking near the house to seize him. The king started, but, recovering himself sufficiently to betray no signs of alarm, he got secretly out of the house, mounted his horse, and, riding all night, reached Windsor Castle in safety.
Edward was not quite prepared to punish this attempt on his liberty. He, therefore, listened to the mediation of the Duchess of York; and that lady was laboring to effect another reconciliation, when an insurrection took place among the people of Lincolnshire. These complained bitterly of the oppression of the royal purveyors; and they were headed by Sir Robert Welles, the heir of a family remarkable for fidelity to the house of Lancaster.
Warwick was suspected to be the author of this disturbance. Nevertheless, the king found it necessary to treat the earl and Clarence as if he entertained no suspicion. He even intrusted them with the command of forces destined to suppress the insurgents, while he prepared to march against them with a numerous army.
Meanwhile, the king sent for Lord Welles, father of Sir Robert, and, at the royal summons, that nobleman came to Westminster, in company with Sir Thomas Dymoke, who had married his daughter. Being informed, however, that the king was much incensed, the Lancastrian lord and his son-in-law deemed it prudent to repair to the sanctuary. Edward, however, plighted his word as a prince, that he intended no harm, and they, fully relying on a pledge so sacred, came to his presence. Edward, thereupon, commanded Lord Welles to write to his son to desist from his enterprise; but Sir Robert continuing firm in spite of the paternal admonition, Edward caused both the old lord and his son-in-law to be executed.
After this faithless proceeding Edward left London. Marching against the insurgents, he came up with them on the 13th of March, at Erpingham, in the county of Rutland. The royal army was so superior in number that Sir Robert had scarcely a chance of victory. Exasperated, however, by the execution of his father, the brave knight, setting prudence at defiance, was eager for an encounter. The armies joined battle, and it soon appeared that Sir Robert had reckoned without his host. The conflict was utterly unequal; and, the insurgents having been worsted, their leader was taken prisoner. No sooner was Welles in the hands of the enemy than the Lincolnshire men whom he had commanded became a mob, and fled from the field, having previously thrown off their coats, that their running might not be impeded. From this circumstance the battle was popularly spoken of as "Losecote Field."
The tables were now turned. The king was in a condition to defy Warwick, while the king-maker had no means of raising such a force as could, with any chance of success, encounter the royal army flushed with victory. The earl, however, made one effort. Being at his Castle of Warwick, and hearing of Edward's victory at Erpingham, he endeavored to draw Lord Stanley, his brother-in-law, to his side. Stanley, however, was far too prudent a man to rush into danger even for his great kinsman's sake. He answered that "he would never make war against King Edward;" and Warwick and Clarence were compelled to turn toward Dartmouth.
CHAPTER XXII
THE SIEGE OF EXETER
On the summit of the hill that rises steeply from the left bank of the River Exe, and is crowned with the capital of Devon, some of the burghers of Exeter might have been met with, one spring day in 1470, gossiping about the king and Lord Warwick, and making observations on several hundreds of armed men, who, not without lance, and plume, and pennon, were escorting a youthful dame, of patrician aspect and stately bearing, toward the city gates. The mayor and aldermen were, probably, the reverse of delighted with the appearance of these fighting men. Indeed, the warlike strangers were adherents of Warwick and Clarence, escorting the young duchess who was daughter of one and wife of the other; and at that time, as was well known, both "The Stout Earl" and the fickle duke were at enmity with King Edward. The citizens of Exeter, however, made a virtue of necessity, and cheerfully enough admitted within their walls those whom they had not the power to exclude.
At that time Isabel, Duchess of Clarence, was about to become, under mortifying circumstances, the mother of a son "born to perpetual calamity;" but, however delicate her situation, Lord Warwick's daughter, reared in the midst of civil strife, was probably less troubled than might be imagined with uneasiness as to the present or apprehension as to the future, as, with all honors due to her rank, she was conducted to the palace of the Bishop of Exeter.
The Duchess of Clarence soon had need of her hereditary courage; for she had scarcely been lodged in the bishop's palace, and the lords who attended her in the houses of the canons, when Sir Hugh Courtenay, sheriff of Devon, took the opportunity of displaying his zeal in the king's service, raised an army in the vicinity, and marched toward Exeter to the assault of the city. Perceiving, however, that its reduction must be the work of time, the sheriff encamped his men around the walls, barricaded the roads, stopped every avenue by which provisions could have reached the garrison, and appeared prepared to proceed deliberately with the siege. Having taken these measures, Courtenay sent a messenger to the mayor, demanding that the gates should be opened forthwith.
The mayor and the other municipal functionaries were by no means willing to incur the wrath of Edward of York. On the contrary, they were much inclined to entitle themselves to his favor by complying with the sheriff's demand. But Warwick's friends were on their guard. Suspecting that the mayor might prove untrue, and resolved to have their fate in their own hands, the lords and gentlemen insisted on the keys of the city being placed in their possession; and, the mayor yielding on this point, they appointed the watch, manned the walls, repaired the gates, and took the entire management of the defense. Finding themselves in a somewhat delicate predicament, and not free from danger, the mayor and aldermen resolved to speak both parties fair, and do nothing till one side or other proved triumphant.
At first Warwick's red-jackets made so brave a defense that Courtenay could not boast of any progress. Ere long, however, they had to contend with a more formidable foe than the knightly sheriff. After the siege had lasted some days, provisions fell short; famine was apprehended; and the inhabitants became inconveniently impatient. The Warwickers, however, were utterly disinclined to yield. Indeed, with the fate of Lord Welles and Sir Thomas Dymoke before their eyes, they might well hesitate to trust to Edward's tender mercies. They, therefore, determined to endure all privations rather than submit, and declared their intention to hold out till God sent them deliverance. This resolution might have been difficult to maintain; but, after the siege had lasted for twelve days, they were relieved by the arrival of Warwick and Clarence.
The earl did not arrive at Exeter with laurels on his brow. At Erpingham, Edward had already encountered the insurgents under Sir Robert Welles; and, having made the northern men fly before his lance, he had proclaimed Warwick and Clarence traitors, and offered a reward for their apprehension. Disappointed of Lord Stanley's alliance, and of aid from Sir John Conyers, the earl and the duke joined their friends in haste and alarm. Resistance was simply out of the question, for the king was at the head of an army of forty thousand men; and the king-maker had merely the yeomanry of the county of Warwick. The earl's game was clearly up for the present; and his only chance of safety appeared to lie in a retreat to the Continent. He, therefore, caused ships to be immediately fitted out at Dartmouth; and, going to that port, after a three days' stay in Exeter, he sailed for Calais, of which he still continued captain.
Meanwhile, the king, flushed with his victory over the Lincolnshire men, learned that Warwick had gone toward Exeter. Thither, at the head of his army, marched Edward, accompanied by a band of nobles, among whom were the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Earls of Arundel and Rivers, and the Lords Stanley and Hastings. The citizens, uncomfortable, no doubt, at having harbored the enemies of a prince so potent, resolved upon doing all in their power to entitle themselves to his favor. On hearing of the approach of the royal army, the mayor issued orders that every inhabitant having the means should provide himself with a gown of the city's livery, and hold himself in readiness to give the king a loyal reception.
At length, on the 14th of April, Edward's banners appeared in sight; and the mayor, attended by the recorder and four hundred of the citizens, clad in scarlet, issued forth from the gates to bid the king welcome. The scene was such as had generally been witnessed on such occasions. The mayor made a humble obeisance; the recorder delivered an oration, congratulating Edward on coming to Exeter. This ceremony over, the mayor presented the king with the keys of the city and a purse containing a hundred nobles in gold. Edward returned the keys; but "the gold," says the historian, "he took very thankfully."
Having thus propitiated the conqueror, the mayor of Exeter, his head uncovered, and bearing the mace of the city in his hands, conducted the king through the gate and toward the house which he was to occupy. After remaining a few days in Exeter, Edward returned to London, congratulating himself on having put under his feet so many of his enemies, and out of the kingdom the great noble to whom he owed his crown. He seemed to think the whole quarrel between the people of England and the family of Woodville decided in favor of his wife's kindred by the flight of the Lancastrians from Erpingham and the earl's retreat from Exeter.