it did not end the struggle. Warwick's reward was the Captaincy of Dover, with the Wardenship of the Scots Marches, the offices of Lord Chamberlain, and Lord Steward, and large grants of land; but Edward's marriage, in 1464, with Elizabeth Woodville, displeased the king-maker, who for the sake of peace would have preferred an alliance with France, and who presently, as will be seen, opposed both king and queen.
At his accession, Edward IV. was in his nineteenth year, of handsome appearance, and of equal geniality and vigour; and he at once became popular. The sea had made him king, and he appears to have determined from the first never to neglect his fleet. Nor could he well afford to do so; for scarcely had he assumed the crown when the ex-Queen Margaret went to France with the object of raising a naval armament there, and of so attempting to recover England for her husband, who had taken refuge in Scotland.
For a short time after the triumph of the House of York, Warwick himself was Admiral of England.[1] Later, in 1462, he was superseded by William Neville, Lord Fauconberg,[2] who, in 1461, had been created Earl of Kent. Kent, whose tenure of office was terminated by his death within three months, at once put to sea with a powerful fleet, carrying ten thousand soldiers, and commanded, under him, by Henry Bourchier, Earl of Essex, and Admirals Audley and Clinton; and, after scouring the Channel, attacked and burnt the town of Le Conquêt in Brittany, ravaged the Isle of Rhé, and took many prizes and much booty.[3] The death of Kent[4] may have put an end to the cruise, which does not seem to have been immediately re-commenced after the appointment, on October 12th, of Richard, Duke of Gloucester and brother of the king, to the office of Lord High Admiral.
The temporary withdrawal of the fleet to port seems to have been seized upon by Margaret as a good opportunity for making her contemplated descent. She sailed in 1463 with a squadron, under the command of Pierre de Brézé, with the intention of landing at Tynemouth, but, although she entered the bay, she was driven out
- ↑ He was so appointed for three years by an agreement of February 1st, 1462. Excheq. Warr. for Issues; but was succeeded by Kent on July 30th following.
- ↑ Son of Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland, and brother of the Earl of Salisbury.
- ↑ Grafton, 659; Stowe, 416.
- ↑ There are some grounds for supposing that both Kent, and John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, who, in the summer of 1463, was "captain and keeper of the sea," acted as Warwick's deputies.
