The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [117]
One of York’s main concerns was to restore order, especially in the north, where the Percies and Nevilles were still ‘breaching the King’s peace’. In May, he visited the area to curb the quarrelsome tendencies of the Percies. However, says Benet, they fled at his approach. He was also concerned about rumbling Lancastrian disaffection in the north and west, and in July he ordered that the pro-Lancastrian Duke of Exeter be held at Pontefract Castle as a hostage for the good behaviour of his affinity.
York made some headway in restoring the authority of the Council, signing warrants issued by it as ‘R. York’. He attempted to sort out the Crown’s finances, so that adequate provision could be made for the King’s household without incurring further debts or draining the Exchequer. In November he had the Council draw up ordinances for the reduction and reform of the household, in the interests of economy and cost efficiency. Even Henry’s Tudor half-brothers found their establishments reduced, each being allowed only a chaplain, two esquires, two yeomen and two chamberlains, an entourage equal to that of the King’s confessor. Nevertheless Richmond and Pembroke supported the reforms because they realised that they could only be in the King’s interests. In fact, these household reforms were aimed primarily at the Queen, being an attempt to deprive her of the means with which to reward her favourites if she returned to power. Her household was reduced to 120 persons, and the Prince of Wales’s to 38, which gave her further reason to hate York. Despite his efforts as Protector, York still failed to win over a majority of the peers. Some were suspicious of his motives and unwilling to trust him, and many still resented his manner.
On Christmas Day 1454, just as York was making some headway with the task of reforming the administration, ‘by the grace of God the King recovered his health’, emerging after sixteen and a half months from his stupor ‘as a man who wakes after a long dream’. He had no memory of what had happened to him during his illness, and told his courtiers that ‘he never knew till that time, nor wist what was said to him, nor wit not where he had to be whilst he had been sick, till now’. As soon as he could speak, he ordered that a mass of thanksgiving be celebrated in St George’s Chapel, and requested that prayers be offered night and day for his complete recovery. On 27 December, he commanded his almoner to ride to Canterbury with an offering, and commanded his secretary to offer at the shrine of St Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey.
On the next day, in the afternoon, according to the Paston Letters,
the Queen came to him and brought my lord Prince with her. And then he asked what the Prince’s name was, and the Queen told him Edward, and then he held up his hands and thanked God therefor. And he asked who were the godfathers, and the Queen told him, and he was well pleased. And she told him that the Cardinal was dead, and he said that he never knew of it till then.
According to one account, Henry said that the Prince ‘must be the son of the Holy Spirit’, which led to some ribald conclusions on the part of York’s followers. But there is no doubt that Henry accepted the Prince as his own child without hesitation. He had, after all, known of the Queen’s pregnancy for some time before his illness and had not entertained any suspicions then as to the child’s paternity, so there was no reason for him to do so now. He would prove a consistently kind and loving father.
‘Blessed be God,’ wrote Edmund Clere, an esquire of the King’s household, to John Paston on 9 January 1455, ‘the King is well-amended and hath been since Christmas.’ The Bishop of Winchester and the Prior of St John’s, Clerkenwell, had spoken to him two days earlier, ‘and he spoke to them as well as he ever did, and when they came out they wept for joy. And he says that he is in charity with all the world, and he would that