Warwick and his brother, Thomas Neville, wasted no time in going to York’s lodging at Westminster to remonstrate with him. Men-at-arms filled the room, and Warwick saw the Duke at the far side, his elbow resting on a sideboard. Warwick was furious and told York so, and why, using ‘hard words’. Young Rutland then came in and, seeing the Earl castigating his father, said, ‘Fair Sir, be not angry, for you know that we have the true right to the crown, and that my lord and father here must have it.’
March, who was also present, could see that Warwick was in no mood for such talk, and realised that so powerful an ally must not be offended. ‘Brother,’ he said, ‘vex no man, for all shall be well.’ Warwick, controlling his anger, turned away from York and Rutland, and made a great show of speaking only to March.
Although the magnates quickly made it clear to York that they stood by their oaths of allegiance to Henry VI, he was determined to force the issue. On 16 October, sitting on the throne in Westminster Hall, he formally claimed the crown of England by right of inheritance and then submitted to the Lords in Parliament a genealogy showing his descent from Henry III. The Lords displayed few signs of approval and asked him why he had not put forward his claim before. He answered, ‘Though right for a time rest and be put to silence, yet it rotteth not, nor shall it perish.’
Next day, the Lords respectfully asked the King for his views on the matter, and he asked them to draw up a list of objections to York’s claim. The Lords then laid the matter before the justices, the serjeants-at-law and the royal attorneys, but all were extremely reluctant to express an opinion as to whether York’s claim was valid or not, saying that it was not within their competence to do so, but was a matter for the King and York to determine between them. In fact, it was such a high matter that it was above the law and beyond their learning, and they referred it back to a higher legal authority – the Lords in Parliament.
There then followed much debate and poring over yellowing genealogies, statutes and precedents. The Lords warned York that the matter was proving difficult to determine, the stumbling block being their oaths of allegiance to Henry VI and their recent oath recognising Prince Edward as the future king. They pointed out that York had also sworn these same oaths and referred him to ‘great and notable Acts of Parliament which be sufficient and reasonable to be laid against [his] title’. These Acts, they argued, recognised Henry’s title, and should be relied upon as the ultimate authority on the matter.
York answered that the oaths made to Henry VI by the peers were invalid because the nature and purpose of an oath was to confirm the truth, and the truth was that he was the rightful king, not Henry, and the Lords ought to help him claim what was rightfully his. God’s law, he said, governed inheritance, and that took precedence over all other laws.
Thomas Thorpe, Speaker of the Commons, later had some scathing words to say in Parliament about York’s claim. But even though York was not yet king, he still wielded great power, and Thorpe soon found himself incarcerated in London’s Fleet Prison, accused by York of trespass and theft. For this he was found guilty and fined, provoking protests in the Commons. It was to no avail, and the members had no choice but to elect another Speaker.
At length, the Lords grudgingly concluded that York did indeed have a better right to the crown than Henry VI, but by a majority of only five they decided that a change of dynasty was unthinkable at this stage. The Lords were now forced to a compromise, not so much because York had the better claim, but because they knew he had the power to make them acknowledge it.
On 31 October it was announced that the King and York were reconciled, and the next day, in St Paul’s Cathedral, ‘the King wore his crown and led a procession of dukes, earls and lords, as a symbol of concord’. Parliament now resolved that King Henry ‘should enjoy
the throne of England for as long as he should live’, Prince Edward should be disinherited, and York should be proclaimed heir apparent and succeed to the throne on Henry’s death. This was not the best compromise that York could have expected, and it reflected the Lords’ antipathy towards him, for he was after all ten years older than the King and likely, in the natural course of things, to predecease him.
On 24 October an Act of Settlement – the ‘Act of Accord’, as it became known – was drawn up, enshrining the new order of succession in law. Four days later, Henry VI, under pressure from the few magnates who were present in Parliament – the rest having deemed it politic to stay away – agreed to its terms, and the Act became law. The King at once sent a message to the Queen, commanding her to bring the Prince to London, and warning that if she failed to do so she would be denounced as a rebel.
Now that the dynastic issue had been raised, the Wars of the Roses changed course. No longer were they primarily a struggle for supremacy between York and the Queen’s party; instead, from now on they would be a struggle for the throne itself, with reform of the government second in importance. The unleashing of the dynastic dispute would have far-reaching consequences for the royal succession over the next twenty-five years and beyond, weakening the concept of legitimate title and fostering the ambitions of those whose might was greater than their right. From now on, also, the outcome of every battle would be regarded as an indication of God’s approval of the claim of the victor.
In late October Parliament reversed the attainders against York and his followers, and restored to them their titles, lands and goods. On 8 November York was proclaimed heir apparent to the throne and Protector of England. All the lords spiritual and temporal swore allegiance to him as the King’s heir, and he in turn swore allegiance to Henry and the lords, saying that for his part he would abide by all the conventions and compacts that had been agreed.
York now ruled England in the name of the King. He might reasonably have thought he was in an invincible position, but once again he would find that he was mistaken.
The Act of Accord provoked a furious political storm. The Queen had marched south with her Scottish recruits, who were reinforced as they went by large numbers of men from Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire. Many of the northern lords who joined her army cared little for the political issues at stake but were motivated rather by self-interest and the possibilities of
plundering the prosperous and envied south. Meanwhile, Somerset and Devon were coming up from the south-west with a large force of gentlemen, knights and soldiers, marching via Bath and Coventry to York. Then Margaret learned that Lords Clifford, Roos, Greystoke, Neville and Latimer were on their way to join her.
When, at Hull, she received the news that Parliament had dispossessed her son of his inheritance, she was furious, and instantly stepped up her recruiting campaign, gathering an army of 15,000 men at Pontefract Castle, and placing them under the command of Somerset, Northumberland and Devon. By the time the army reached York, it numbered about 20,000. That the Queen had raised such an army so late in the year, when the campaigning season had long finished, is a tribute to her tenacity and energy, and also testimony to her fierce determination to protect her son’s interests. What was more, the Queen had mustered her force so swiftly and stealthily that it was some time before York realised what was happening.
At York, Margaret made a formal public protest against the Act of Accord and challenged York to settle the issue of the succession by force of arms. She then summoned a council of war and informed the lords of her intention to march on London and deliver the King from the hands of his enemies. Those magnates who had not endorsed the Act shared her anger, and many more flocked to take up arms on her behalf.
Late in November, the Lancastrian army began to advance southwards from York. As they marched through Yorkshire the Queen took great pleasure in allowing her soldiers to sack the homes of tenants of York and Salisbury. They also raided York’s castle at Sandal, where it was noticed by the superstitious that no herons had nested in the adjacent park that year.
As soon as York found out what Margaret was doing, he organised a fresh propaganda campaign which was calculated to instil fear of the Queen’s savage northern hordes into the southerners, and began preparations to march north to deal with this new threat. The Queen and Prince had written to the Common Council of the city of London, requesting monetary and military aid, but their requests had been ignored. York, however, was granted a loan of 500 marks to finance his campaign. He was also in control of the royal arsenal of weapons in the Tower, and commandeered several guns to take north with him.
York and Salisbury, at the head of about 5–6000 men, rode out of London on 9 December, cheered on by waving crowds lining the streets and leaving Warwick behind to maintain order in the capital.
They marched north via Nottingham, recruiting on the way. Many of their scouts, or ‘aforeriders’, however, were killed in a skirmish with Somerset’s men at Worksop, and at the same time Lancastrian scouts discovered that York’s army was vastly inferior to their own.
York made for his castle of Sandal, two miles west of Wakefield, because, says Whethamstead, he desired to be among his own people and enjoy a comfortable lodging at Christmas. He also deemed his presence in the area necessary because his tenants had suffered harassment by local Lancastrian lords. Built in the reign of Edward II, Sandal Castle was a mighty fortress occupying an imposing position, though today it is a crumbling, roofless ruin. York arrived on the 21st and set his men to digging trenches around the castle and positioning their guns at strategic points around the walls, thus putting himself – theoretically at least – in a good defensive position should the Lancastrians attack. His plan was to await March’s arrival from Shrewsbury with reinforcements before engaging with the enemy, and he settled down with his men to celebrate Christmas.
Somerset and Northumberland would have liked to besiege York in Sandal Castle, and in any case planned to prevent any fresh supplies from reaching him there. However, since they lacked the resources with which to conduct a siege, they decided that York must somehow be lured out of the castle and made to fight before March arrived. The Lancastrians certainly had the greater army, about 20,000 men to York’s 12,000 at most, and they had also a substantial number of magnates, including Exeter, Somerset, Devon, Northumberland and Clifford. York had not a single peer in his army, apart from the ever-loyal Salisbury. While the Queen’s captains included the experienced Sir Baldwin Fulford and Sir John Grey, who was husband to Lord Rivers’s daughter, Elizabeth Wydville, one of York’s captains of foot was a mere London mercer, John Harrow, who had served under Salisbury at the siege of the Tower in July. And although Lord Neville responded to York’s summons, riding to Sandal with 8000 men, he then deserted to the Lancastrians. Even after this, York still underestimated the strength of his opponents.
By the end of December the Duke was in an increasingly precarious situation, though his captains believed that if he stayed in the castle until reinforcements arrived he would have nothing to fear. Discipline among his men was lax; many were allowed to go out foraging, thus broadcasting to the enemy that food supplies were running low, and his scouts were incompetent, failing to discover what the Lancastrians were planning. Sir Davy Hall, grandfather of the Tudor chronicler Edward Hall, advised York not to let his men
out but to ‘keep within his castle’, but the Duke replied, ‘Wouldst thou that I, for dread of a scolding woman, whose only weapons are her tongue and her nails, should shut my gates? Then all men might of me wonder and report to my dishonour, that a woman hath made me a dastard, whom no man could ever yet prove a coward!’
During the Christmas holidays, Somerset rode over to parley with York, and it was agreed that a state of truce would prevail until after the Feast of the Epiphany on 6 January; the royal commanders, however, had no intention of keeping it. For three days running they sent a herald with instructions to provoke York by insults into taking the offensive. The herald publicly sneered at the Duke’s ‘want of courage in suffering himself to be tamely braved by a woman’. On the 29th the Lancastrians selected 400 men, disguised them as Yorkist reinforcements, and sent them to join the garrison at Sandal. The deception worked.
It is not known for certain why York left the safety of Sandal Castle on 30 December. It was commonly believed at the time that fast-depleting provisions forced him to send out a foraging party to get more food. These men either attacked the waiting Lancastrians and were quickly driven back inside the castle, or were attacked by them. Another theory is that a band of reinforcements under Andrew Trollope, who had joined the royal army the night before, were also masquerading as Yorkist soldiers by parading in Warwick’s livery; York, seeing them approaching the castle at dawn, either came out to meet them or, seeing through their disguises, decided to sally forth and take the offensive.
Whatever happened, the centre of the Lancastrian army, under Somerset, now advanced to a position near the castle and waited to engage in battle. At the same time, the right and left flanks of that army, commanded by Wiltshire and Roos, concealed themselves in the woodland on either side of the entrance to York’s fortress. York obviously had no idea that the enemy was so near at hand, and in such strength, waiting to ambush him and his men. Nor did he listen to the repeated advice of his captains, who were still urging him to await reinforcements. Unsuspecting, he and Salisbury rode out at the head of their men across the drawbridge and cantered down the hill to the open fields south of the River Calder, an area known as Wakefield Green. With them rode York’s seventeen-year-old son, Rutland. The waiting Lancastrian centre charged to meet them and there was a tremendous clash between the two armies, with the Yorkists fighting fiercely and bravely, believing they had the upper hand. But Somerset had been advised on strategy by Trollope, to devastating effect. As soon as the Yorkists had issued forth from the
castle, he and his second-in-command, Lord Clifford, had sent orders to Wiltshire to take the castle, and to Lord Roos, telling him to block York’s line of retreat. Suddenly, the two Lancastrian flanks emerged from the woods and descended on York’s men, surrounding them on three sides ‘like a fish in a net or a deer in a buckstall’. The Yorkists discovered that they were hopelessly outnumbered, but by then it was too late. Many were slaughtered, and the rest hastened to lay down their arms and surrender. York was pulled from his mount and killed in the midst of the fighting.