The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [226]
The next three days found Louis, Margaret and Warwick busily negotiating the terms of their alliance. After prolonged discussions, the Queen finally agreed to the marriage of Prince Edward and Anne Neville, although she said she would not allow it to take place until after Warwick had proved his loyalty by taking the field against King Edward, and it should not be consummated until England was mostly conquered. The Prince must therefore remain in France while the Earl invaded England.
Louis promised for his part to provide money, soldiers and a fleet of ships. All the parties were aware that Henry VI would never be fit to rule England again, so Margaret agreed that, when he ‘took joyful possession of England again’, Warwick would be named Regent and Governor of England. Should Henry die before the Prince attained his majority, Warwick would become his guardian. And if the Prince should die without heirs, ‘then the kingdom should pass to Clarence and his heirs for ever more’.
It was also agreed that Exeter, Somerset ‘and all the knights, squires and others who had been exiled or dishonoured in the cause of King Henry, should come back to England and retake possession of their property’. Finally, England would join France in an offensive alliance against Burgundy.
The accord between Warwick and Margaret of Anjou astonished observers in Europe. Commines observed that Margaret had consistently condemned Warwick as the man who had worked to dethrone and imprison Henry VI, and was now marrying her only son to ‘the daughter of him that did it!’
On 25 July 1470 Prince Edward was betrothed to Anne Neville in Angers Cathedral. ‘Today,’ observed King Louis, ‘we have made the marriage of the Queen of England and the Earl of Warwick.’ The ceremony took place in the presence of the King of France, King René, Queen Margaret, the Duchess of Clarence and the Earl and Countess of Warwick.
Nothing is recorded of the feelings of the young couple concerned. The chronicler John Rous describes Anne Neville as ‘seemly, amiable and beauteous, right virtuous and full gracious’, but these were the routine courtly compliments to be expected of one who had great respect for her family. Queen Margaret had no doubt been the bogey of Anne’s childhood, and yet now she was being made to do all reverence to this formidable woman who was her future mother-in-law, and who had made it quite clear that she did not want Anne for her son but had only agreed to their marriage as a means of restoring the House of Lancaster to the English throne. Nor was the sixteen-year-old Prince the most prepossessing of bridegrooms, having a notorious penchant for war and violence, and carrying on his shoulders all the grudges of his mother and her desire for revenge on their enemies.
They could not as yet be married because they were cousins in the fourth degree, both being great-grandchildren of John of Gaunt, and a dispensation from the Pope had to be applied for. It was vital that the Pope be made to see the urgency of the matter, but to speed up the process took money. Louis had therefore procured a loan from a merchant in Tours to pay whatever bribes were needful, then dispatched his envoys to the Vatican. After the betrothal ceremony Anne was committed to the safe-keeping of Queen Margaret.
Clarence, meanwhile, had refused to attend the betrothal and was sulking in Normandy. His plan had been to supplant Edward IV himself, but Warwick had abandoned him without a qualm and was now promoting the claims of Lancaster. All he could offer Clarence was a vague promise that if Prince Edward and Anne Neville had no children he would be heir to the throne. And it was for this that Clarence had betrayed his brother, slandered his mother and risked his life and his fortune.
Margaret had kept her part of the bargain, now it was up to Warwick to