The Wars of the Roses - Alison Weir [52]
After a joyful welcome back home, Henry settled down to his studies again. He was progressing well, having read many chronicles of English history and become particularly interested in Alfred the Great, whom he was later to try, unsuccessfully, to have canonised. In 1432, at eleven, Henry was still headstrong, and so rebellious at times that his hard-pressed governor again complained to the Council of the boy’s wilfulness. The lords assured him of their support. It seems that Henry greatly resented his royal person being beaten for misdemeanours, and was fond of threatening Warwick with dire retribution when he came of age. The Council, however, made it plain to the King that Warwick’s disciplinary measures were enforced with its full approval. It also empowered the Earl to dismiss any of the King’s companions who distracted him from his studies and exerted a subversive influence over him.
Richard, Duke of York, came of age in 1432, when he was twenty-one. Two years earlier he had been given the important office of Constable of England, which carried responsibility for England’s military defences, and in 1431 had attended Henry VI, in France. Now, on 12 May, York was recognised as Earl of March, Ulster and Cambridge by hereditary right, notwithstanding the attainder against his father. However, he was only allowed to take possession of his estates after agreeing to pay the King, within five years, the sum of £1646.0s.6d (£1646.02½p) for the privilege of doing so. In 1433 he was made a Knight of the Garter.
Despite his vast wealth and his nearness in blood to the throne – and probably because of it – York was not given a place on the King’s Council nor involved in the government of the kingdom. There were those about the King who feared he might make a bid for the throne if he were allowed too much power, and it was decided to employ him in a strictly military capacity.
York was now the owner of great tracts of land in Wales, Ireland and thirteen English counties. The greatest concentration of his estates was along the northern Welsh Marches. From his uncle, March, he had inherited the fabulous wealth of the Mortimers, making him the richest magnate and greatest landowner in England. He also owned the great castles at Ludlow and Fotheringhay, and Baynard’s Castle in London. In 1436, his income was at least £3231, possibly twice as much, and by 1443–4 his income from his Welsh Marcher lordships alone had risen to £3430 net. Despite his loyalty to the King, this wealth, and his powerful family connections, made him potentially a force to be reckoned with.
The year 1433 saw the emergence of two disastrous trends in Lancastrian history. The first was the decline of Burgundy’s friendliness towards England. After Anne of Burgundy, Bedford’s wife, died in childbirth in 1432, Bedford married Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the beautiful daughter of the Count of St Pol. Burgundy was against the marriage for various political reasons, and from then on relations between England and her greatest ally began to cool.
By now, it was obvious that England no longer had the resources to support the war. Bedford was ill, and his chief desire was to negotiate an honourable peace with the French before England was ignominiously defeated. Predictably, Gloucester blocked every attempt he made to persuade the Council that this was the best course of action, knowing that if the war ended Bedford would return to England and oust him from power. By 1434 Burgundy was already negotiating his own peace with Charles VII, and before the year was out had written to Henry VI formally breaking their alliance. The young King cried when he saw that Burgundy had not addressed him as King of France, and when the news of the Duke’s disaffection broke in London there were riots, and Flemish aliens,