For some time now Warwick had engaged in acts of piracy, on one notorious occasion ordering his ships out of Calais to plunder the fleet of the German merchants of the Hanseatic city of Lübeck. This attack violated a truce between the League and the English government, and the Germans had protested strongly to Henry VI about Warwick’s behaviour. The Queen, who wished to oust the Earl from the captaincy of Calais, now saw her chance to get rid of him. She summoned him to London and ordered him to explain his actions before the Council.
Warwick responded to her summons by arriving in London at the head of 600 armed retainers, all wearing his livery. Margaret demanded of the Council that he stand trial for his crimes. On 31 July 1458 the Council instituted an enquiry, but after the first day Warwick publicly protested that the interrogation he had been made to undergo had been unduly rigorous, and that he believed there was a plot to discredit him. The Queen, he complained, had been acting insincerely on the Loveday, and had no regard for the glory of England’s achievement on the high seas.
The next day, incited by Warwick’s protests, his supporters – and there were many in London, including a number of aldermen – ran riot, demonstrating against the Queen and the authorities. In the confusion the Attorney General was murdered. The Queen commanded that pikemen be sent into the city to restore order, and when this had been done, those aldermen and citizens who had taken part in the riot were thrown into gaol. The outcome of the Council’s enquiry is not recorded, but there was no doubt that the Queen’s attempt to eliminate Warwick from the political scene had failed.
In the autumn Warwick again visited the court at Westminster. As he was passing through the royal kitchens, one of the King’s scullions nearly impaled him on a spit. It was an accident, but Warwick and the retainers with him chose to believe that the scullion had been instructed by the Queen to murder him. A fight broke out between the Earl’s followers and the royal servants, who rushed to defend the scullion. During the scuffle Warwick was set upon by the royal guard, though his men soon gained the upper hand, and the
unfortunate scullion was seized by them and hauled before the Queen. Margaret knew that if she defended the man Warwick would accuse her of murder, so she ordered his execution. However, he was allowed to escape and flee to Yorkshire, while the Queen announced defiantly that the fight had been caused by Warwick’s supporters at his instigation. Fabyan asserts that she then persuaded the Council to draw up an order for the Earl’s arrest and committal to the Tower.
As soon as he heard that there was a warrant out for his arrest, Warwick left London and travelled at speed to Warwick Castle, and thence to the safety of Calais, where he would be protected by the garrison. In November, the Queen and Council, incensed at his escape, demanded that he surrender his post to Somerset. At this, Warwick boldly returned to London and stood defiantly before the Council, stating that Parliament had appointed him to his post, and therefore Parliament was the only authority that could revoke the appointment. Tempers were running high, and as he left the Council chamber he was attacked by retainers of Somerset and Wiltshire and only narrowly escaped. This time his claim that the Queen had tried to have him killed was almost certainly justified.
Warwick knew it was not safe for him to remain in England, and after a hurried consultation with his father, Salisbury, he returned to Calais, where he defiantly continued his attacks on the Lübeck fleet. It was probably this that drove the conciliatory Buckingham off the political fence and firmly into the camp of the Queen’s party.
Margaret now knew she had to take decisive action against the Yorkists, and Warwick in particular. Late in 1458 she left London and during the following months travelled through Cheshire and Lancashire, cultivating support among the nobility and gentry and recruiting men. Davies’ Chronicle claims she was prompted by her dread that the Prince ‘should not succeed his father’, and states that she ‘allied unto her all the knights and squires of Cheshire, and held open household among them’.
It now seemed that a further confrontation between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists was inevitable.
‘T
he Queen’, wrote a Paston correspondent, ‘is a great and strong labour’d woman, for she spareth no pain to sue her things to an intent and conclusion to her power.’ None of her supporters now doubted that she would do her utmost to destroy the Yorkists. According to Croyland, Margaret, Northumberland and Clifford caused the Duke ‘to stink in the King’s nostrils even unto death, as they insisted that he was endeavouring to gain the kingdom into his own hands’.
It was obvious to everyone that Henry VI was no longer capable of leading an initiative against the Yorkists. The Queen’s party needed a more inspiring figurehead, and who better than the appealing figure of the five-year-old Prince, a symbol of hope for the future? Margaret even tried to persuade Henry to abdicate in favour of his son, though he flatly refused. She continued to raise support in the north-west Midlands, and in Chester made the Prince bestow a livery of swans (the swan being Henry IV’s personal badge, and his own) to all the gentlemen of the county, ‘trusting through their strength to make her son king’.
The Queen spent the early months of 1459 at Coventry. In the spring Sir William Herbert urged her to take the field with her Cheshire levies, who were gathered around the city, before the Yorkists had time to unite in arms. Margaret saw the sense in this, and the Council approved it. In April, the Queen persuaded the King to issue writs commanding all his loyal magnates to meet with him at Leicester on 10 May ‘with as many men defensibly arrayed as they might, and that they should bring their expenses for two months’. She also ordered that commissions of array be issued throughout the realm, conscripting young men from every town, village and hamlet. York responded by issuing a manifesto condemning
conscription and asserting that this French innovation was unwelcome to all Englishmen.
Somerset and other nobles began to muster their private armies, and the city of Coventry sent the Queen forty able men at its own expense. In May, Pembroke was given a tower of the Palace of Westminster as his London headquarters, so that he could be at hand to defend the palace if it was attacked. Soon afterwards the King and Queen took the Prince on a progress through Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire in an attempt to rally support.
York and Salisbury were also preparing for war, at first resorting to propaganda which had proved successful on earlier occasions. In the early months of 1459 there appeared throughout London a proliferation of seditious bills and mocking verses against the Queen’s government. Once again the Prince’s paternity was questioned, and Margaret herself was accused of ruling like a tyrant through extortion and corrupt practices. This propaganda went home, especially among the merchant community, who at that time were making highly vocal protests against Lancastrian misrule and were already inclined to support York, even though Lancastrian counter-propaganda claimed that ‘people in many places’ were being ‘deceived and blinded by subtle and covert malice’.
But favouring the Duke was one thing, rising in arms on his behalf and ‘meddling betwixt lords’ entirely another, and they were wary of taking any action that might be construed as treason. Thus York did not find it easy to enlist volunteers. He could, however, call upon his vast following of tenants and retainers to fight for him, as could Salisbury, and in the spring the two lords summoned their armies. However, with York at Ludlow and Salisbury at Middleham, they faced the problem of joining their forces before the Lancastrian army, concentrated in the Midlands, could intercept them.
The fact that the Yorkists were arming at all, even in self defence, was interpreted by the Queen as treason. Late in June, says Benet, ‘the King held a great council at Coventry, which was attended by the Queen and the Prince. However, despite being summoned to attend, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke of York and other lords’ – including Salisbury, Warwick, George Neville, now Bishop of Exeter, the Earl of Arundel and Viscount Bourchier – ‘were absent’. York and Salisbury had instead sent an urgent message to Warwick, warning him that the Queen intended their ruin and begging him to come to their aid.
Warwick speedily raised 200 men-at-arms and 400 archers, all of whom were issued with red jackets sporting his badge. These men were mostly professional soldiers who had seen active service in
France, and they were commanded by two veterans, Sir John Blount and Andrew Trollope, both of whom would attain renown during the Wars of the Roses; Trollope was the Master Porter of Calais, and Warwick had ‘greater faith in him than any other’.
Leaving his uncle William Neville, Lord Fauconberg, in charge of the Calais garrison, Warwick crossed with his men to England, landing at Sandwich. He did not stop to raise a force in Kent, but pressed on to London, knowing that his services were urgently required by York. On 21 September he entered London unopposed, leaving it the next day through Smithfield, at the head of a ‘very well armed force’, making for Warwick Castle, where the Yorkist lords had planned to rendezvous. The plan was to go together to the King at Kenilworth at the head of their combined armies and lay their grievances before him.
The Queen’s soldiers got to Warwick before the Earl did. He lacked enough men for a confrontation, and his scouts warned him that the King’s army was marching north from Coventry and blocking any chance of him linking up with Salisbury. Warwick therefore had no choice but to turn west towards Ludlow, where York’s army waited.
On the way, at Coleshill, Warwick was warned that the Queen and Somerset had sent a sizeable West Country force to intercept him. Just in time he managed to avoid it, and continued on his way. Salisbury, meanwhile, had left Middleham with a considerable following and, ‘dreading the malice of the Queen and her company, which hated him deadly, took his way towards Ludlow’. No longer did the Yorkist lords entertain ideas of an appeal to the King. Their objective now was to combine their forces and march on London.
Margaret was recruiting in Cheshire when she learned of Salisbury’s advance, and she and her commanders decided to intercept him as he marched through Staffordshire on his way to meet York. The Queen now issued a summons to Lord Stanley and other local magnates, commanding them to muster their retainers at once and join the King; then she turned back to Eccleshall Castle, where Henry joined her, having suffered a bout of illness at Coleshill. Margaret persuaded him that he must send ‘a great power’ of Cheshiremen, nominally under the command of the Prince of Wales but in reality led by James Touchet, Lord Audley, and Lord Dudley, to confront and apprehend Salisbury before he linked up with York. The main body of the royal army was to march to Eccleshall and remain with the Queen, where Audley was to bring Salisbury to her, alive or dead.
Of the two commanders Salisbury was by far the more
experienced and he had with him approximately 3–4000 well-armed men, possibly more. However, he was outnumbered by Audley’s force, which comprised 6–12,000 men at least – the sources differ wildly and it is difficult to determine more exact figures. Salisbury’s men were armed mainly with spears and bills and some cannon, but while Audley had many of the crack archers from Cheshire, whose reputation went before them, a lot of his recruits were inexperienced and ill-prepared for battle. Lord Stanley had asked the Queen if he might command the forward battle of her army, but the Prince’s council thought his fellowship was too small and ordered him to join the main body of Audley’s force. Piqued, he stayed where he was, six miles off, sending only ‘fair promises’ to Audley that he would join him. When he failed to do so, Audley and Dudley were left ‘distressed’, especially when they learned that Stanley’s brother William had sent a detachment of soldiers to assist Salisbury.
On Sunday, 23 September Salisbury was approaching Market Drayton from Newcastle-under-Lyme when his scouts warned him that his route was blocked by Audley’s army. He therefore drew up his forces in battle order on nearby Blore Heath, which was partly wooded and enclosed terrain. His centre wing was stationed on a small slope above the Hempmill Brook, while the left flank was concealed behind a hill protected by a stream. The weather was wet and the ground muddy, but the Earl set his men to digging ditches behind their line and driving sharpened stakes at an angle into the ground in front of the ditches. As an added precaution he ordered that the carts and wagons carrying the army’s provisions be placed in a circle around his right flank as a protection against Audley’s archers. He was now in a good defensive position; knowing himself outnumbered he realised that to take the offensive would be to court disaster.
When Audley’s army approached, says Benet, ‘Salisbury entered into negotiations with them, asking that they might permit his passage. When they refused to allow this, the Earl engaged in battle with them.’ In fact, Salisbury seems to have feigned preparations for an advance or a retreat in order to lure Audley into ordering a charge. The ruse worked: Audley sent his cavalry thundering across the brook against the Yorkist centre, but it was repelled and had to fall back. Salisbury’s men also retreated some way from the brook. Audley’s horse charged again, and this time they breached the brook, which was no mean feat as it was a narrow stream with steep banks. Those in the vanguard of Audley’s army dismounted and led their horses across, but as they climbed the far bank, Salisbury ordered his infantry to bear down on them. As the remaining Lancastrian cavalry
galloped towards the brook, they were met with a hail of arrows from the Yorkist ranks, which shot their horses from under them and so unnerved the riders that 500 of them defected at once to the enemy. This was a blow to Audley, but he had little time in which to reflect upon it, for chaos now reigned on the battlefield.
After a fierce and bloody struggle on the slope, Audley’s line broke and his men fled, being pursued by the Yorkists as far as the banks of the River Tern. During the rout Audley and many of his captains were brutally slain, and Lord Dudley was taken prisoner. After Audley’s death many of his men deserted and returned to their homes.