The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [217]
On 2 August, Edward was brought before Warwick and Clarence at Coventry. He greeted them amiably and made no protest at their treatment of him. For Warwick, the capture of the King was in some respects an anti-climax. Now that he had him, what was he to do with him? He himself had no royal authority, he and Clarence were not in a strong enough position to indict and execute Edward without fear of reprisals, nor had they gathered enough support to depose him and set Clarence on the throne in his place. In fact, by deferring to Edward as king while holding him in captivity they had placed themselves in an invidious position, for it was no light matter to imprison one’s anointed sovereign. Moreover, without the King at the helm much of the business of government must be held in suspension.
Warwick and Clarence tried to resolve their dilemma by placing Edward in honourable confinement in Warwick Castle and attempting to rule England in his name. Warwick, using the Great Seal, issued writs summoning Parliament to meet at York on 22 September, since some cloak of legality had to be given to the present regime. But the King’s subjects remained staunchly loyal to him, and the magnates were determined to curb Warwick’s power rather than help extend it. Without their support, the Earl found that ruling England was impossible. Unlike the King, he had no means of dispensing patronage with which to buy noble loyalties, and even his Neville kinsfolk were pointing out the dangers inherent in what he had done. There was a general feeling that, this time, Warwick had gone too far.
Edward, meanwhile, cheerfully acted like a well-behaved puppet, doing as he was told, signing everything that Warwick put before him, and comporting himself with unfailing courtesy and good humour. He was well aware that Warwick could not hope to maintain the status quo, but enough of a realist to know that no one would attempt to liberate him at present. Nevertheless, Warwick was nervous that a rescue attempt might be made, and had the King moved at the dead of night to Middleham Castle in Yorkshire.
Queen Elizabeth had been lodging in the royal apartments of the Tower of London when Edward IV was taken into captivity, and Warwick allowed her to remain there, insisting only that she kept ‘scant state’. But he was determined to have his revenge on the other Wydvilles. One of his agents tracked down and apprehended Lord Rivers and Sir John Wydville in the Forest of Dean, and brought them to Coventry, where they were condemned to death on the orders of Warwick and Clarence. Both were beheaded on 12 August at Gosford Green outside the city walls. Rivers’s body was carried to Kent and buried in All Saints’ Church in Maidstone, where an indent remains to show where his brass lay. His son Anthony now became Earl Rivers, and his office of Treasurer of England was given to a former Lancastrian, Sir John Langstrother. When Queen Elizabeth learned the fate of her father and brother, she vowed vengeance on those who had perpetrated the deed.
Warwick’s hatred of the Wydvilles extended also to Rivers’s widow, the Duchess of Bedford. Shortly after the Earl’s execution, she was arrested on a charge of witchcraft. Two men had been paid by Warwick to give evidence that she had made obscene leaden images of Edward IV and Elizabeth Wydville and had practised her black arts upon them to bring about her daughter’s marriage to the King. It was also alleged that she had cast another image to bring about Warwick’s death. The Duchess, mindful of the fate of Eleanor Cobham thirty years earlier, immediately wrote to the Lord Mayor of London soliciting his protection. The