Pembroke and his Welshmen. Then Robin and Warwick joined forces and routed Pembroke at Edgecote near Banbury, capturing and beheading him, together with other leading supporters of the King.
Edward IV, as strong-nerved as he was cunning, now adopted a policy of totally passive resistance. He disbanded his outnumberedtroops and then waited for Warwick to take him prisoner. It was a calculated gamble – everyone remembered how Richard II had been dethroned and murdered in similar circumstances. Certainly the rebels were in no very merciful mood. Old Rivers and his son John – the aged Duchess of Norfolk’s youthful husband – were quickly caught and executed. There was a general massacre of Woodville supporters. The Queen’s mother was accused of trying to bewitch Edward by means of ‘an image of lead made like a man-at-arms, being the length of a man’s finger and broken in the middle and made fast with wire’. However, Warwick was not quite brave enough to take the only step which might have ensured victory – to kill the King, as had been done with Richard II. Edward was placed in honourable confinement, first at Warwick Castle, then at Middleham, then at Pontefract. He showed the utmost amiability, graciously co-operating with his captors and signing documents drafted by them without demur. Warwick appointed a new Lord Treasurer and appeared to be in complete control of the realm. In reality all he had achieved was to plunge it into anarchy without eliminating the captive King’s supporters.
It seems that the young Duke of Gloucester had not been arrested with his brother. We know that Edward’s chamberlain, his cousin and friend Lord Hastings, was busy raising troops in Lancashire while the King was being held, and it is likely that Richard was doing the same somewhere else in the North Country. It is also known that when Edward suddenly summoned his lords to come to him at Pontefract at the end of September, Gloucester and Hastings rode there together at the head of a very strong force. The King’s unofficial gaoler, the Archbishop of York, could do nothing when in October Edward announced he was going to London. In the capital he was welcomed with unfeigned relief. Warwick watched helplessly from the North as the King reasserted his authority. The Earl and Clarence finally dared to go down to London in December, where they were received with apparent forgiveness.
The Duke of Clarence had gained less than nothing from his treachery. By contrast, Richard was magnificently rewarded, being made Constable of England and receiving many other great honoursand estates, among them the beautiful castle of Sudeley in Gloucestershire. He was also appointed Chief Steward and Surveyor of the Principality of Wales and Earldom of March, Chief Justice of North Wales and – until the majority of the boy Earl of Pembroke – Chief Justice and Chamberlain of South Wales. The Welsh were inveterate Lancastrians. Shortly after Edward’s return to London, Henry ap Thomas ap Griffith and Morgan ap Thomas ap Griffith seized the castles of Cardigan and Carmarthen as bases for a full-scale rebellion. The seventeen-year-old Chief Justice dealt with them with impressive speed, recapturing both castles before Christmas.
But Warwick and Clarence remained an insoluble problem. They knew that their very existence threatened the King, while they could not forget a most unforgiving Queen. Even had they wished, they were unable to hold back their supporters – a strange mixture of personal followers, secret and not so secret Lancastrians, and energetic opportunists. By March 1470 risings were again breaking out in the North. On 10 March Sir John Conyers, Lord Fitzwalter and Lord Scrope of Bolton were up in arms. The outbreak was recognized as very serious. After an apparently puny affray by Lord Welles and Sir Thomas Dymmock in Lincolnshire the previous month, on 4 March Welles’s son Sir Robert had had a proclamation read in all the
Edward IV, as strong-nerved as he was cunning, now adopted a policy of totally passive resistance. He disbanded his outnumberedtroops and then waited for Warwick to take him prisoner. It was a calculated gamble – everyone remembered how Richard II had been dethroned and murdered in similar circumstances. Certainly the rebels were in no very merciful mood. Old Rivers and his son John – the aged Duchess of Norfolk’s youthful husband – were quickly caught and executed. There was a general massacre of Woodville supporters. The Queen’s mother was accused of trying to bewitch Edward by means of ‘an image of lead made like a man-at-arms, being the length of a man’s finger and broken in the middle and made fast with wire’. However, Warwick was not quite brave enough to take the only step which might have ensured victory – to kill the King, as had been done with Richard II. Edward was placed in honourable confinement, first at Warwick Castle, then at Middleham, then at Pontefract. He showed the utmost amiability, graciously co-operating with his captors and signing documents drafted by them without demur. Warwick appointed a new Lord Treasurer and appeared to be in complete control of the realm. In reality all he had achieved was to plunge it into anarchy without eliminating the captive King’s supporters.
It seems that the young Duke of Gloucester had not been arrested with his brother. We know that Edward’s chamberlain, his cousin and friend Lord Hastings, was busy raising troops in Lancashire while the King was being held, and it is likely that Richard was doing the same somewhere else in the North Country. It is also known that when Edward suddenly summoned his lords to come to him at Pontefract at the end of September, Gloucester and Hastings rode there together at the head of a very strong force. The King’s unofficial gaoler, the Archbishop of York, could do nothing when in October Edward announced he was going to London. In the capital he was welcomed with unfeigned relief. Warwick watched helplessly from the North as the King reasserted his authority. The Earl and Clarence finally dared to go down to London in December, where they were received with apparent forgiveness.
The Duke of Clarence had gained less than nothing from his treachery. By contrast, Richard was magnificently rewarded, being made Constable of England and receiving many other great honoursand estates, among them the beautiful castle of Sudeley in Gloucestershire. He was also appointed Chief Steward and Surveyor of the Principality of Wales and Earldom of March, Chief Justice of North Wales and – until the majority of the boy Earl of Pembroke – Chief Justice and Chamberlain of South Wales. The Welsh were inveterate Lancastrians. Shortly after Edward’s return to London, Henry ap Thomas ap Griffith and Morgan ap Thomas ap Griffith seized the castles of Cardigan and Carmarthen as bases for a full-scale rebellion. The seventeen-year-old Chief Justice dealt with them with impressive speed, recapturing both castles before Christmas.
But Warwick and Clarence remained an insoluble problem. They knew that their very existence threatened the King, while they could not forget a most unforgiving Queen. Even had they wished, they were unable to hold back their supporters – a strange mixture of personal followers, secret and not so secret Lancastrians, and energetic opportunists. By March 1470 risings were again breaking out in the North. On 10 March Sir John Conyers, Lord Fitzwalter and Lord Scrope of Bolton were up in arms. The outbreak was recognized as very serious. After an apparently puny affray by Lord Welles and Sir Thomas Dymmock in Lincolnshire the previous month, on 4 March Welles’s son Sir Robert had had a proclamation read in all the
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