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Louis about harbouring English traitors, even threatening war if Louis did not expel them. When Louis ignored this, Charles sent a fleet of ships to blockade the mouth of the Seine, so that Warwick’s invasion force could not sail. The presence of these Burgundian ships delayed his departure for many days, and since Louis had not been over-generous with money, the Earl found it difficult to provide food and stores for his men during this period. He was also anxious to see his daughter married to Prince Edward before he left for England, but when the dispensation did not arrive in time he had to content himself with Louis’s promise that Anne would be treated as if she were royalty and married as soon as it came.

Although Edward IV had been informed by his ambassadors and spies of events in France, he seems to have underestimated the danger. Commines scathingly accuses him of being more preoccupied with hunting than with preparing to resist an invasion. He ‘was not so much concerned about the invasion of the Earl of Warwick as the Duke of Burgundy was, for [Burgundy] knew [of] the movements in England in favour of the Earl of Warwick and had often warned King Edward of them, but he had no fear. It seems to me folly not to fear one’s enemy, seeing the resources that he had.’

At the beginning of August, Lord FitzHugh, Warwick’s brother-in-law and a member of his northern affinity, staged a sham rebellion in Yorkshire. As a trick to lure the King away from London it worked, and by 5 August Edward was summoning his levies. Before he left the capital he installed Queen Elizabeth, who was again pregnant, in the Tower of London, where she occupied luxuriously appointed chambers which she now had specially prepared for her confinement. She also arranged for the royal apartments to be ‘well-victualled and fortified’, and the King stored there extra ammunition and several large cannon from Bristol.

By the middle of August Edward was in Yorkshire, marching from York to Ripon. His government had not been popular in recent months and he found his subjects less enthusiastic than on former occasions. Nevertheless, he did manage to recruit over 3000 men, who were augmented by another 3000 horse brought by Sir William Hastings, while news came that Lord Montague had gathered 6000 men and was also preparing to join the King. On 7 September, Edward was in York, issuing signet letters to his lieges, commanding them to attend him to vanquish the traitors in his realm. Yet there was now no one to vanquish, for, at news of the King’s advance, Lord FitzHugh had fled north to seek asylum in Scotland.

The real danger was approaching from the south, for across the Channel a violent storm had dispersed the Burgundian blockade of ships, and now there was nothing to prevent Warwick from launching an invasion.

24

The Readeption of Henry VI

On 9 September, Warwick and Clarence and a fleet of sixty ships carrying their invasion force sailed from La Hogue in Normandy. Their company included Jasper Tudor, the Earl of Oxford and Thomas Neville, Bastard of Fauconberg. Edward IV, learning that Warwick had been preparing for an invasion, had sent a royal fleet to prevent him from landing, but a storm had scattered it, leaving the coast unguarded. On the 13th, when Edward was still in Yorkshire, the Earl’s fleet arrived in the West Country, putting in at Dartmouth and Plymouth.

Warwick was still very popular in England. Commines says that, although it was late in the campaigning season, he ‘found infinite numbers to take his part’. As he marched towards Exeter, he ‘gathered a great people’, according to Warkworth, and in Plymouth his supporters proclaimed Henry VI king. In Exeter, Warwick issued a proclamation declaring that his invasion was authorised ‘by the assent of the most noble princess, Margaret, Queen of England, and the right high and mighty Prince Edward’. It was signed by Warwick, Clarence, Jasper Tudor and Oxford, and called upon all true subjects of Henry VI, ‘the very true and undoubted King of England’, to take up arms against the