The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [211]
Louis XI, meanwhile, was determined to undermine Edward’s new alliance by aiding the Lancastrians, and had provided Pembroke with money, ships and men. Early in July the Earl landed in Wales in the Dyfi estuary near Harlech and marched east, inciting rebellion against the Yorkists. This prompted Lord Herbert to launch a new onslaught on Harlech Castle, which he had been besieging for four years without success. Herbert raised a force of 7–10,000 men on the Welsh border, then split them into two divisions, attacking Harlech by a pincer movement from both east and south. Pembroke, meanwhile, was sweeping all before him and holding many sessions of assizes, all in Henry VI’s name. News of his astonishing success spread rapidly to France, and Queen Margaret prepared to go to Paris to ask Louis to send reinforcements to aid him. Her elation was premature. On 14 August, after making only token resistance, Harlech surrendered, and the last bastion of the Lancastrians fell into Yorkist hands. When they entered the fortress, Herbert’s men found many incriminating letters from the Queen, which were at once dispatched to King Edward.
Pembroke was devastated by the fall of Harlech. He marched on Denbigh, burned the town and occupied the castle, but was pursued and driven out by Herbert and his brother Sir Richard. He was then obliged to dismiss his men and go into hiding, disguising himself as a peasant with a bale of straw on his back. Thus he made his way to the coast, where he boarded a ship bound for Brittany; the crew was inexperienced and he was obliged to steer the ship himself and navigate it as well. On 8 September, to complete Jasper Tudor’s humiliation, his earldom of Pembroke was bestowed on Herbert by a grateful Edward IV as a reward for taking Harlech.
Tudor was not alone in being angered by Herbert’s promotion, however: Warwick resented the new Earl’s prominence at court and was jealous of the high favour shown him by the King. His links with the Wydvilles were already enough to damn him in Warwick’s eyes, but so also were his plans to take possession of lands confiscated from the Percies and Tudors, and now held by Warwick and Clarence, in order to provide handsome dowries for his daughters and so increase his influence by allying himself to other great magnates. Warwick feared very much that Edward would agree to Herbert’s schemes, given the bad feeling between himself and the King and the Wydvilles’ apparent determination to slight him. Thus the rivalry between Warwick and Herbert grew daily, and may possibly have been the final straw that prompted Warwick’s defection from the Yorkist cause.
Between autumn 1468 and spring 1469, according to the Great Chronicle of London, ‘many rumoured tales ran in the city of conflict atween the Earl of Warwick and the Queen’s blood, the which Earl was ever had in great favour of the commons of this land,’ who were also hostile to the Wydvilles and frequently complained about ‘the great rule which the Lord Rivers and his blood bare that time within the realm’. Warwick made no secret of his grievances, complaining that the King ‘resolutely maketh more honourable account of new upstart gentlemen than of the ancient houses of nobility’.
Warwick was still in touch with King Louis through his agent, William Moneypenny, but he was alarmed by Edward’s growing hostility to France, which had recently prompted Parliament to vote £62,000 for an invasion of that country. This was the last thing Warwick wanted, and all his hopes now rested on Louis. He must have been aware that Louis was intriguing to reconcile him to Margaret of Anjou, and was probably considering whether or not to throw in his lot with