Hospitality at court was lavish. In 1466 the Queen of Bohemia’s brother, the Lord of Rozmital, was a guest of King Edward, and was as impressed with the banquet of fifty courses that was served in his honour as he was with the courtesy and decorum of the courtiers. A member of his train, Gabriel Tetzel, who wrote an account of the visit, was himself overwhelmed by the magnificence and splendour of the Yorkist court and the astonishing reverence shown to the King by his relatives and nobles. He pronounced it ‘the most splendid court that one can find in all Christendom’.
After Towton, Edward IV found it relatively easy to establish himself as king, even though he still faced opposition and potential rebellion from Lancastrian supporters and even, later on, from discontented Yorkists, who felt that he had failed to live up to his promises. To survive he knew he had to eliminate the Lancastrian threat, both at home and abroad, and adopt a general policy of conciliation towards his subjects, particularly the more influential ones.
The most important challenge facing him was political reconstruction, a task that would take several years. His chief aims were to re-establish the authority of the Crown, restore law and order, win the support of his subjects, and unite the nation under a strong and stable government, thus laying down firm foundations for his dynasty. He wished to gain favour with the prosperous and influential merchant classes, especially in London, and one of the first things he did was to ban the import of inferior goods in order to protect the interests of English industry. Another priority was to secure the goodwill of other European nations, especially France and Burgundy, and so avoid the expense of war.
During the first decade of his reign the King was preoccupied with reasserting the royal authority, and several reforms had to wait. However, within this period English trade began to recover, and the Crown became more respected. Edward was not able to eliminate factions at court; indeed, by favouring the Nevilles he seemed to be encouraging them. However, unlike Henry VI, he exercised a tight rein on patronage.
Edward began restoring law and order at local level by replacing corrupt sheriffs with men of greater integrity, and corrupt officials by professionally qualified ones. In 1464 he accompanied his justices on a tour of duty in the west of England, where he intended to punish ‘risers against the peace’, desiring to be seen to be personally
enforcing his laws. He took measures against the rigging of elections of members of Parliament by insisting that only those qualified to vote be allowed to do so, and preventing them from being intimidated by local lords and their retainers. These measures were only partly successful, as Edward did not always dare to alienate the magnates who had benefited from corrupt practices. He enjoyed greater success in his attempts to prevent piracy; gradually the seas became safe again, which pleased the merchants greatly. Contemporary sources show that under Edward’s rule there was an overall improvement in law and order generally.
Finally – and this was an urgent necessity – the King had to overhaul the royal finances. He began by passing several Acts of Resumption revoking grants and pensions made by Henry VI, though never without lists of exemptions in order to preserve his policy of conciliation. This, naturally, caused some hardship, but Edward had decided on his priorities. He then purged the royal household of numerous Lancastrian officials, replacing them with men of his own affinity. He even tried to close Eton College, but Bishop Wayneflete persuaded him not to.
At the beginning of Edward’s reign the Crown’s annual expenditure was £50,000. The royal income barely covered that, and the King was sometimes unable to cover his costs. Later in 1461 he gained possession of the estates of Henry VI, including the income from the duchy of Lancaster, which, together with the income from his own Yorkist inheritance and from a great number of confiscated Lancastrian properties, brought him an additional income of around £30,000 a year. Much of this, however, was swallowed up in 1461 by grants and rewards to his loyal supporters, and until 1465 Edward had to live carefully. In that year Parliament granted him the revenues from customs duties at English ports for life, which brought him an extra £25,000 a year, a figure that would later increase as the trade depression lifted.
Edward IV had some talent for business and finance, and could also be ruthless. As his position became more secure, he demanded of his wealthier subjects forced loans known as ‘benevolences’, and even outright gifts. These were, needless to say, unpopular measures, but their end result was that the Crown, for the first time in decades, became solvent, an extraordinary achievement in the Middle Ages.
One of the King’s priorities in his early years on the throne was to repay the debts owed by the Crown to London merchants and Italian banks. Henry VI’s reputation for not repaying loans had resulted in him being unable to obtain any further credit. Edward IV had no
intention of allowing the same thing to happen again, and by the end of his reign had repaid debts totalling £97,000. To do this, he had tightened controls on royal expenditure, streamlined the administration of the Crown’s finances, and made corrupt practices difficult. He appointed professional receivers and surveyors to manage the Crown’s estates, abandoning the inefficient and unwieldy system by which they had been administered under his predecessor. Estate officials were made accountable to the Chamber, the financial department of the royal household, instead of to the Exchequer, which meant there was less delay before the King received the revenues due to him, while discrepancies could be spotted early. It was not long before the Chamber replaced the Exchequer as the chief financial department of state.
In 1467 the King promised in Parliament to ‘live of his own’ without borrowing, and not to levy burdensome taxes unless it was for ‘great and urgent causes’, such as the defence of the realm. During the 1460s Parliament voted the King a total of £93,000, and most of this was spent on putting down rebellions. From 1463 Edward became heavily involved in the wool trade for his own profit, exporting thousands of sacks of wool and woollen cloth; over the years the venture proved highly successful and enabled him to pay off his debts and also provide employment for many people.
Mancini commented that, ‘though not rapacious of other men’s goods, [Edward] was yet so eager for money that in pursuing it he acquired a reputation for avarice. By appealing to causes, either true or at least with some semblance of truth, he did not appear to extort but almost to beg for subsidies.’ Between 1461 and 1463, however, the political situation was such that he was obliged to make many financial demands of his subjects, and this did not endear him to them.
Next to the King, the greatest man in England was Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, Edward’s mainstay and foremost supporter. Warwick virtually controlled the government for the first three years of the reign, carried along on a tide of public popularity. He was so well loved that, according to an agent of the King of France, whenever he showed himself in public, accompanied by his customary train of 600 liveried retainers, crowds would run to greet him, crying, ‘Warwick! Warwick!’ ‘It seems to the people that God has descended from the skies.’ No one – especially the Earl himself – doubted that the King was indebted to Warwick for his crown. In Europe it was openly said that he reigned ‘by virtue of the Earl of Warwick’, while the Scots perceived Warwick as ‘the conductor of
the realm’, Warwick and the King were allied not only by kinship, friendship, affinity and a debt of gratitude, but also because their association benefited the interests of both: Warwick did not render his services for entirely selfless motives, while the King needed his support. Many magnates, outwardly subservient to the new regime, were of doubtful loyalty, lukewarm at best, or pragmatic opportunists. Warwick in contrast had proved himself to be a loyal friend to Edward and his father in prosperity as in adversity, and at thirty-two, the Earl was thirteen years older than the King, and far more experienced in politics. It was easy, at first, for him to assert himself, and while he was using his considerable talents and energy to maintain Edward on the throne, Edward naturally felt no resentment. He made Warwick his chief adviser and allowed him to control foreign policy, giving him also complete responsibility for military affairs and the defence of the kingdom. For the present, he was content to let the Earl share the burdens of state while he enjoyed the more frivolous aspects of kingship.
‘Warwick seems to me everything in this kingdom,’ commented the Milanese ambassador, but although Edward IV relied on the Earl in many ways, he would not be ruled by him. This was not apparent to everyone, even Warwick himself, who certainly overestimated his influence over the King, nor was it obvious to most foreign observers, who tended to exaggerate his role. One citizen of Calais wrote to the King of France, ‘They tell me that they have but two rulers in England: Monsieur de Warwick, and another whose name I have forgotten.’ The Earl, observed Commines, ‘could almost be called the King’s father as a result of the service and education he has given him’. Prospero di Camulio had already foreseen discord between the King and his cousin, but few others had such insight.
Warwick was regarded by his contemporaries as ‘the most courageous and manliest knight living’. ‘Of knighthood he was the lodestar, born of a stock that shall ever be true.’ His income at this time was £3900 a year, far exceeding that of any other magnate. His principal seats were at Sheriff Hutton Castle and Middleham Castle, where he maintained the greatest private household of the age, with 20,000 retainers. He also kept a lavish establishment in London, where generous hospitality was dispensed to visitors. He always appeared in public splendidly attired, and his genial manner and unfailing politeness never failed to impress those who had dealings with him.
Yet for all his wealth Warwick had no son to succeed him. His brilliant marriage had produced only two daughters, Isabel, now ten, and Anne, five. These girls would one day inherit all Warwick’s
riches and were therefore the greatest heiresses in England. Wellborn husbands must be found for them, and Warwick was beginning now to consider potential candidates.
Warwick worked hard to restore the authority of the Crown, but, while he entertained no secret designs on the throne itself, he wanted – and needed – to wield power. He saw himself not simply as a member of the aristocracy, but as a man set apart, destined to rule by his gifts and talents. Yet he was more interested in self-aggrandisement and dabbling in international politics than in reforming the government at home or the royal finances, both of which the King regarded as vitally important. Warwick’s own priority was to establish the Nevilles as the leading power in the realm and thus dominate the magnates. His fellow peers, however, were understandably jealous of his power and wealth, and reluctant to offer him their friendship and support. He had already alienated Sir William Herbert by his ambitious designs in Wales, and made enemies of several other nobles, among them Lord Audley and Humphrey Stafford. Yet his influence with the King was such that no one dared criticise him.
Edward was grateful to Warwick for many things, but he intended that there should be only one ruler in England: himself. How that would ride with Warwick’s own ambitions in the long term remained to be seen.
One government body that needed reform was the Council. Lord Chief Justice Fortescue described at this time how he believed it should be done. No longer should that august body be dominated by ‘the great princes and the greatest lords in the land, which lords had many matters of their own to be traded in the Council, [so that] they attended but little to the King’s matters’. Instead, the Council should in future consist of a dozen ‘spiritual men and twelve temporal men, of the wisest and best disposed men that can be found in all the parts of this land’. In other words, it was to be staffed, not by an aristocracy, but by a meritocracy, and its members would swear to serve no one but the King and would in return be assured of a permanent seat on the Council.
Edward IV followed Fortescue’s precepts to some extent, coming to rely on a select group of about twelve trusted individuals and giving them wide responsibilities and influence as his lieutenants in different parts of the kingdom, thereby satisfying their ambitions for power. These councillors were largely highly qualified men who owed their promotion and advancement to the King and had been long-standing supporters of the House of York. Not all were
magnates: some were gentlemen, canon lawyers or public servants. Hitherto, high-ranking clergy had made up the greater part of the Council; under Edward IV it became more of a secular institution.
Prominent among these councillors was Sir William Hastings, a close friend and confidant of the King, who was entrusted with control of the area around Leicester – previously Lancastrian in sympathy – where he ruled with unprecedented authority. Sir William Herbert was appointed governor of south Wales, where his word was law; the Nevilles’ chief sphere of authority was in the north of England, along the border Marches (there were Nevilles on the Council throughout the 1460s – in fact, they dominated it); while Norfolk and Suffolk controlled East Anglia, and the new Earl of Devon and Humphrey Stafford the West Country. Other members of the Council included Henry Bourchier, Sir John Howard and John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester.
Tiptoft remains one of the most enigmatic and repellent figures of the age. He was the son of Sir John Tiptoft, member of Parliament for Huntingdon and a descendant of an old Norman family. The elder Tiptoft had been Keeper of the Wardrobe and Treasurer of England under Henry IV, and had sent his son to be educated at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1443, when his father died, Tiptoft inherited his estate and left university. Six years later he married Warwick’s sister, Cecily Neville, and became Earl of Worcester in right of his wife. His connection with Warwick led to his joining the latter’s affinity, which helped to earn him advancement under Edward IV.