The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [146]
On landing at Sandwich, Warwick had sent messengers to the other Cinque Ports, asking for assistance in the form of armed men and stressing that he came to remove the evil counsellors about the King. The mayor of Rye, receiving his message, cautiously sent to see if the mayor of Winchelsea was going to comply. Apparently the answer was yes, for both men led contingents from their towns to join the Yorkists. Archbishop Bourchier, who had hitherto acted as mediator between the opposing sides, was now heartily sickened of the Queen’s misrule and was urging the men of Kent to rally to Warwick’s banner, which they did in large numbers.
The Yorkist lords made their way that day to Canterbury. The Council had appointed three of its citizens to lead the defence of the city against the invaders, but the people of Canterbury were overwhelmingly Yorkist in sympathy and at dawn on the 27th these men met with the Yorkist lords at St Martin’s Church, outside the walls, and agreed to surrender the keys of the city to them. Canterbury then joyfully opened its gates and afforded the invaders a warm welcome.
After Warwick, Salisbury and March had offered at the shrine of Becket and received the blessing of the Archbishop of Canterbury – who agreed to ride with them – they pressed on through Rochester and Dartford towards London, recruiting as they went. In their train was the papal legate, Francesco dei Coppini, Bishop of Terni. During the previous spring, Coppini had been sent to England by Pope Pius II to effect a reconciliation between the rival factions and ‘quieten the people’, so that England could provide him with men for a new crusade against the Turks. The Queen had not been interested in Coppini’s offer to mediate, guessing that his sympathies lay with the Yorkists. This was true, but only because the Lancastrians had rebuffed him. The legate dearly wanted a cardinal’s hat, and if his mission was successful he might obtain one. If he helped the Yorkists to power they might reward him by supporting the crusade. Coppini had with him ‘papal bulls stating that the Pope had excommunicated Wiltshire, Shrewsbury and Beaumont and all others who had opposed the Duke [of York]’. His open support of the Yorkists swayed the opinions of several English bishops, who felt that they should follow the Pope’s lead.
News of the invasion had reached London, and the mayor, aldermen and Common Council met to debate what they should do. At length they dispatched a messenger to warn the Yorkist lords that they would not be allowed to enter the capital. Warwick, however, had many supporters in London; merchants who had suffered as a result of the government’s concessions to foreign traders were especially anxious to further his cause, and through their influence the Lord Mayor was persuaded to rescind his order. He may also have been swayed by the proximity and activities of several lords in or near the city – Bourchier, Bergavenny, Clinton, Say and Scrope – who were preparing to join Warwick. At the end of June the Yorkist lords were informed that they could enter London provided their soldiers behaved themselves.
As the Yorkist army approached, prominent Lancastrians who were in the city, the Lords Hungerford, de Vesci, Lovell, de la Warre, the Earl of Kendal and the Duchess of Exeter, took refuge in the Tower of London, which was under the command of Lord Scales, a veteran of the French wars who deplored the decision of the city authorities to let in the Yorkists.
On 2 July, the gates of London were thrown open and the Yorkist lords rode into the city with a vast band of armed men. Estimates of their numbers vary between 20,000 and 60,000; the real figure, based on the evidence of Whethamstead and the London chroniclers, is likely to have been around 40,000, and at least 500 of them were on horseback. As the army began its progress across London Bridge, crowds of Londoners surged forward in welcome and two men were trampled to death. Lord Scales fired guns from the