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By Root 1266 0

Warwick, in London, heard the news of York’s defeat and death. March was still celebrating Christmas at Shrewsbury when a messenger came with the dreadful tidings, and he was ‘wonderfully amazed’ with grief. Spurred on by his determination to avenge his father’s death and his brother’s murder, the new Duke speedily raised an army, recruiting mainly in the Marcher shires and assembling his men at Wigmore and Ludlow. With him were Sir William Herbert and his brother Richard, Sir Walter Devereux, Roger Vaughan of Tretower, and other men of York’s local affinity. York himself was dead, but his claim to the throne had passed to his son, who had every intention of enforcing it. And as the executed Salisbury had supported York, so his son, Warwick, would continue to support York’s heir.

17

The Sun in Splendour

In the New Year of 1461 Margaret of Anjou was marching south from Scotland at the head of an army provided by Queen Mary, intent on consolidating the advantage gained at Wakefield and eliminating Warwick and March. She was on her way to link up with her main force, which was waiting for her near York.

On 5 January the two queens had come to an agreement whereby Margaret undertook to cede Berwick to the Scots in return for troops and the marriage of Prince Edward to Mary’s daughter, Margaret Stewart. What Mary had been unable to provide, however, was money with which to pay the troops, and as Margaret was without funds herself she was again obliged to promise them unlimited plunder once they were south of the Trent. Word of this spread and, anticipating themselves growing rich on the spoils of war, many men of the north came to swell her army.

From January onwards the Yorkists were busily spreading propaganda against the Lancastrians, claiming that the recent wars and troubles were a manifestation of God’s retribution and judgement on the realm for permitting the usurping House of Lancaster, founded by the murderer of Richard II, to remain on the throne, and for ignoring the rightful claims of the true heirs, York and his sons. Thanks to the Yorkist affinity, this propaganda permeated a wide area.

The view that the Wars of the Roses originated with the murder of Richard II is often believed to have been the official Tudor retrospective view on the matter, but in fact it was how the Yorkists perceived the struggle, and once the dynastic issue had been raised it is easy to see how this view was formulated, given the contemporary concepts of how God’s approval or condemnation were manifested.

The Yorkists also began a scare-mongering campaign, warning of what the northerners in the Queen’s army would do if they were victorious, and publicising the fact that she had licensed them to plunder the south: houses would be robbed, sacked and burned, womenfolk raped, lands ravaged, and citizens murdered. This appeal to the prejudices of the southerners against the northerners, who were perceived as an alien race of uncivilised savages, met with tremendous success, for recruits came forward in unprecedented numbers, eager to defend their own.

On 5 January, Warwick and other lords requested the Council for a loan for the defence of the realm and the Council granted him 2000 marks by a unanimous vote. Throughout January and early February a nervous government issued streams of commissions of array and warrants for the arrest of dissidents and persons uttering false tidings, holding unlawful assemblies, or hindering those trying lawfully to defend the King. On the 12th the city fathers of Norwich agreed to provide Warwick with 120 armed men. Five days later the Council ordered the town dignitaries of Stamford in Lincolnshire to put its defences in order, anticipating that Margaret would march that way as she advanced south down the Great North Road. On 23 January it was rumoured in London that the Queen’s supporters and their retinues would ‘be here sooner than men wean, ere three weeks’. By the 28th the Council knew for certain that ‘the misruled and outrageous people in the north parts’ were being led south in force by