The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [212]
Warwick was also renewing his efforts to obtain a papal dispensation for Isabel’s marriage to Clarence, but came up against a reluctant Pope, who had already assured Edward IV’s envoys that such a dispensation would not be granted. Undeterred, Warwick began to negotiate a price.
Warwick had given up much of his life and much of his wealth to supporting the House of York, and his father and brother had died for it. Yet the Burgundian alliance, the King’s ban on Isabel’s marriage to Clarence, the promotion of the Wydvilles, Herbert’s supremacy in Wales, the demotion of George Neville and Edward’s relegation of Warwick to a subordinate role had all combined to change Warwick’s loyalty into hatred, and his alienation from Edward was now complete. According to Croyland, it was the alliance with Burgundy which rankled most.
Warwick now spent most of his time sulking on his estates in the north, and refused to obey two summons to court. The King, alarmed, spent £2000 on strengthening England’s defences. Then Archbishop Neville stepped in again and persuaded Warwick that he should make his peace with the Wydvilles. A superficial ceremony of reconciliation between Warwick and the King and Warwick and Rivers followed, but it changed nothing. However, while he was at court, Warwick discovered that Clarence was also highly dissatisfied with his lot, being jealous of his brother and frustrated because Edward would not allow him any position of power. Both men were angry with the King for forbidding the marriage with Isabel, and Clarence also hated the Wydvilles, believing that it was they who were preventing him from enjoying his supposed ‘rights’ as the King’s brother.
Clarence fell prey to Warwick’s charisma, and throughout that winter and spring they laid their plans to fuel the people’s hatred of the Wydvilles and to undermine Edward’s authority, though, unlike Warwick, Clarence’s aim was not to control the King but to depose him and set himself up in his place. There is no proof that Warwick and Clarence incited the minor riots and disturbances that took place in the north of England at this time, but Warwick’s ally in Redesdale, Sir John Conyers, was certainly ready to take up arms on the Earl’s behalf. Warwick, however, preferred to wait until he was in a position to ensure the success of any uprising against the King. ‘Go home,’ he told Conyers, ‘it is not yet time to be stirring.’
At the beginning of Edward IV’s reign, his subjects had looked forward to prosperity and peace; instead, they had witnessed – and paid for – ‘one battle after another and much trouble and great loss of goods among the common people’. The dominance of the Nevilles and the resurgence of factions at court had helped to convince Edward’s subjects that he, like Henry VI, was unable to control his magnates. Some had never been won over, being jealous of the power enjoyed by Warwick and the Nevilles, or resentful of the men of better brains but lesser degree whom the King favoured.
The country at large was still subject to disorder and lawlessness, two problems that Edward had as yet been unable to tackle effectively. In many areas travel was dangerous and few people dared venture out at night. The late 1460s saw an alarming decline in law and order, due largely to the corrupt practices of the Yorkist magnates in their own territory; feuds between these peers inevitably led to outbreaks of violence. Discontent was especially rife in the north, where it was exacerbated by disaffected magnates such as Warwick. This posed as serious a threat to Edward IV as had the Lancastrian rebellions of the early 1460s. Lancastrian chroniclers claim that by 1469 the people of England had become disillusioned with Yorkist rule because Edward had not been able to fulfil the promises made at his accession, having been too preoccupied with foreign policy and crushing Lancastrian resistance.