The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [177]
Life was not easy for the Lancastrians in Scotland, however. Although Queen Mary took Prince Edward into her household to learn the knightly graces, his mother found herself in desperate financial straits. Having pawned her gold and silver plate to raise funds for a fresh onslaught upon the Yorkists, she had to resort to borrowing money from the Queen Regent. Between May and July Mary loaned Margaret a total of £200, but she had no means of paying it back. Before long she was ‘in want of the absolute necessities of life’, according to the French chronicler Le Moine. Nevertheless, for all her poverty, Edward IV feared her more ‘than all the princes of the House of Lancaster combined’.
On 25 April, Margaret, in the name of Henry VI, formally ceded Berwick to the Scots. Needless to say, its surrender infuriated the English and presented the Yorkists with an excellent propaganda weapon. Nevertheless, the loss of the last English-owned fortified border town meant that Edward had lost an invaluable bridgehead for invading Scotland; it weakened his diplomatic bargaining position, and gave the French, Scotland’s allies, a potential advantage. Worst of all, in Scottish hands Berwick became a centre for launching Lancastrian raids into Northumberland.
After dealing with several outbreaks of disaffection and disorder in the north, Edward IV left Newcastle on 2 May and returned to London, where he received a hero’s welcome as the man who had saved the city from the brutality of the northerners. During the summer the King issued a stream of commissions of array, which testify to his fear that a Lancastrian invasion was imminent. Fauconberg was left in overall charge of the north, with instructions to safeguard it from Lancastrian attacks. In May, Geoffrey Gate was commissioned to safeguard Carisbrooke Castle and the Isle of Wight against invasion from the south, and in July, orders went out to Lord Ferrers, Sir William Herbert and Sir James Baskerville to raise the levies of Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Shropshire for the defence of the realm against the King’s enemies in Scotland and France. Edward was taking no chances.
In June, Queen Margaret led an army of Scotsmen, retainers of the earls of Douglas and Angus, into England. With her rode Prince Edward, Exeter, Lord Rougemont Grey, Sir Humphrey Dacre, Sir Robert Whittingham, Sir Henry Bellingham and Sir Richard Tunstall. Her objective was to take Carlisle, which she had also promised to the Scots, Her army laid siege to the town and burned its suburbs, but was driven back by a force led by Warwick’s brother, Montague, whose task it was to guard the northern border from attack.
Undaunted, the Lancastrians, who had now been joined by Henry VI himself, who rode at their head, penetrated further south, making for Durham. But King Edward commanded the Archbishop of York to muster his tenants and have them prepare to join a force led by Fauconberg and Montague. When, on 26 June, the Lancastrian standards were raised at Ryton and Brancepeth, the levies raised by the Archbishop, which were now under the command of Warwick himself, repelled the invaders, who retreated north two days later.
Warwick began to root out Lancastrian rebels in the countryside bordering the River Tyne, and by July, thanks to his presence in the region, the Yorkists had gained a foothold in the north and were, by