maintenance of law and justice by strong-handed governance
were his main aims.
But Warwick was one of those ministers who love to do everything for themselves, and chafe at masters and colleagues who presume to check or to criticise their actions. He was surrounded and supported, moreover, by a group of brothers and cousins, to whom he gave most of his confidence, and most of the preferment that came to his hands. England has always chafed against a family oligarchy, however well it may do its work. The Yorkist magnates who did not belong to the clan of the Nevilles were not unnaturally jealous of that house, and Edward IV. himself gradually came to realize the ignominious position of a king who is managed and overruled by a strong-willed and arbitrary minister.
His first sign of revolt was his secret marriage to Elizabeth
Woodville, a lady of decidedly Lancastrian connexions, for her
father and her first husband were both members of
the defeated faction. Warwick was at the moment
suing for the hand of Louis XI.’s sister-in-law in
Edward IV. marries Elizabeth Woodville.
Breach between Warwick and the king.
his master’s name, and had to back out of his negotiations
in a sudden and somewhat ridiculous fashion.
His pride was hurt, but for two years more there was no open
breach between him and his master, though their estrangement
grew more and more marked when Edward continued to heap
titles and estates on his wife’s numerous relatives, and to conclude
for them marriage alliances with all the great Yorkist families
who were not of the Neville connexion. In this way
he built up for himself a personal following within the
Yorkist party; but the relative strength of this faction
and of that which still looked upon Warwick as the
true representative of the cause had yet to be tried.
The king had in his favour the prestige of the royal name, and
a popularity won by his easy-going affability and his liberal
gifts. The earl had his established reputation for disinterested
devotion to the welfare of the realm, and his brilliant record
as a soldier and statesman. In districts as far apart as Kent
and Yorkshire, his word counted for a good deal more than that
of his sovereign.
Unhappily for England and for himself, Warwick’s loyalty
was not sufficient to restrain his ambition and his resentment.
He felt the ingratitude of the king, whom he had
made, so bitterly that he stooped ere long to intrigue
and treason. Edward in 1467 openly broke with him
Warwick organizes a rebellion.
Rising of “Robin of Redesdale.”
by dismissing his brother George Neville from the
chancellorship, by repudiating a treaty with France which the
earl had just negotiated, and by concluding an alliance with
Burgundy against which he had always protested. Warwick enlisted
in his cause the king’s younger brother George of Clarence,
who desired to marry his daughter and heiress Isabella Neville,
and with the aid of this unscrupulous but unstable young man
began to organize rebellion. His first experiment in treason was
the so-called “rising of Robin of Redesdale,” which
was ostensibly an armed protest by the gentry and
commons of Yorkshire against the maladministration
of the realm by the king’s favourites—his wife’s
relatives, and the courtiers whom he had lately promoted to high
rank and office. The rebellion was headed by well-known adherents
of the earl, and the nickname of “Robin of Redesdale”
seems to have covered the personality of his kinsman Sir John
Conyers. When the rising was well started Warwick declared
his sympathy with the aims of the insurgents, wedded his
daughter to Clarence despite the king’s prohibition of the match,
and raised a force at Calais with which he landed in Kent.
But his plot was already successful before he reached the scene
of operations. The Yorkshire rebels beat the royalist army at
the battle of Edgecott (July 6, 1469). A few days later
Edward himself was captured at Olney and put into
the earl’s hands. Many of his chief supporters, including
Battle of Edgecott. Edward a prisoner.
Execution of the queen’s relatives.
the queen’s father, Lord Rivers, and her brother,
John Woodville, as well as the newly-created earls of Pembroke
and Devon, were put to death with Warwick’s connivance, if
not by his direct orders. The king was confined for some
weeks in the great Neville stronghold of Middleham Castle, but
presently released on conditions, being compelled to accept
new ministers nominated by Warwick. The earl supposed that
his cousin’s spirit was broken and that he would give
no further trouble. In this he erred grievously.
Edward vowed revenge for his slaughtered favourites,
and waited his opportunity. Warwick had lost
credit by using such underhand methods in his attack on his
master, and had not taken sufficient care to conciliate public
opinion when he reconstructed the government. His conduct
had destroyed his old reputation for disinterestedness and
honesty.
In March 1470 the king seized the first chance of avenging himself. Some unimportant riots had broken out in Lincolnshire, originating probably in mere local quarrels, but possibly in Lancastrian intrigues. To suppress this rising the king gathered a great force, carefully calling in to his King Edward drives Warwick into exile. banner all the peers who were offended with Warwick or, at any rate, did not belong to his family alliance. Having scattered the Lincolnshire bands, he suddenly turned upon Warwick with his army, and caught him wholly unprepared. The earl and his son-in-law Clarence were hunted out of the realm before they could collect their partisans, and fled to France; Edward seemed for the first time to be master in his own realm.
But the Wars of the Roses had one more phase to come.
Warwick’s name was still a power in the land, and his expulsion
had been so sudden that he had not been given an
opportunity of trying his strength. His old enmity
for the house of Lancaster was completely swallowed
Warwick takes up the cause of Henry VI.
He lands in England.
King Edward in exile.
up in his new grudge against the king that he had
made. He opened negotiations with the exiled Queen
Margaret, and offered to place his sword at her disposition for
the purpose of overthrowing King Edward and restoring King
Henry. The queen had much difficulty in forcing herself to
come to terms with the man who had been the bane of her cause,
but finally, was induced by Louis XI. to conclude a bargain.
Warwick married his younger daughter to her son Edward, prince
of Wales, as a pledge of his good faith, and swore allegiance to
King Henry in the cathedral of Angers. He then set himself
to stir up the Yorkshire adherents of the house of Neville to
distract the attention of Edward IV. When the king
had gone northward to attack them, the earl landed
at Dartmouth (Sept. 1470) with a small force partly
composed of Lancastrian exiles, partly of his own
men. His appearance had the effect on which he had calculated.
Devon rose in the Lancastrian interest; Kent, where the
earl’s name had always been popular, took arms a
few days later; and London opened its gates. King
Edward, hurrying south to oppose the invader, found
his army melting away from his banner, and hastily
took ship at Lynn and fled to Holland. He found a refuge
with his brother-in-law and ally Charles the Bold, the great
duke of Burgundy.
King Henry was released and replaced on the throne, and for
six months Warwick ruled England as his lieutenant. But there
was bitterness and mistrust between the old Lancastrian
faction and the Nevilles, and Queen Margaret
refused to cross to England or to trust her son in the
Restoration
of Henry VI.
king-maker’s hands. Her partisans doubted his sincerity,
while many of the Yorkists who had hitherto followed
Warwick in blind admiration found it impossible to reconcile
themselves to the new régime. The duke of Clarence in particular,
discontented at the triumph of Lancaster, betrayed his
father-in-law, and opened secret negotiations with his exiled
brother. Encouraged by the news of the dissensions among his
enemies, Edward IV. resolved to try his fortune once
Edward returns to England.
more, and landed near Hull on the 15th of March
1471 with a body of mercenaries lent him by the
duke of Burgundy. The campaign that followed was
most creditable to Edward’s generalship, but must have been
fatal to him if Warwick had been honestly supported by his
