Edward IV: November 1470

1470 November

Introduction 1470

Westminster and London

26 November 1470 - ? April 1471

No roll survives

The final session of the 1467-8 parliament, which saw the confident assertion of Edward's plans to lead a confederation against France and the apparently unproblematic grant of generous taxation, was arguably the high point of Edward's first reign. Cracks were, however, already appearing. The falling out of the king and his erstwhile leading ally the earl of Warwick, already apparent in the dismissal of George Neville as chancellor in 1467, encouraged a resurgence of Lancastrian activity. More immediately threatening was the conjunction of Warwick with Edward's brother and heir-male the duke of Clarence, formalised in the marriage of Clarence and Warwick's daughter Isabel at Calais on 11 July 1469. From Calais the two Nevilles and Clarence issued a manifesto couched as a bill delivered to them by the king's true subjects. The circle around Edward IV was accused of causing the king to adopt unacceptable policies, including recoinage and the heavy burden of taxation. (fn. int1470-1)

The dissidents then returned to England, defeated Edward's forces at the battle of Edgecote on 24 July, and took possession of the king. Edward, in the earl's keeping, was taken first to Warwick and then to Middleham, while Clarence and the archbishop of York attempted to hold things together at the centre. This was the context in which, on 10 August 1469, parliament was summoned to meet at York on 22 September. It is unlikely that at this stage the rebels had the 1461 precedent in mind. Their manifesto had been aimed at the men around the king, not at the king himself. Parliament was surely intended instead to validate the removal of the king's evil counsellors by his loyal kinsmen on the model of 1455, with Edgecote taking the place of St Albans. In the event, nothing happened. It must have become apparent to Warwick and his allies that the strategy was untenable. As the Milanese ambassador had noted as early as 16 August, 'Everyone is of the opinion that it would be better not'. (fn. int1470-2) Writs of supersedeas were issued on 7 September, nominally because it was necessary to take defensive action against Scotland and France. No returns survive, but Wedgwood offers the names of twenty-eight men thought to have been elected, all for borough seats. (fn. int1470-3) A number of those elected claimed expenses, which suggests that delivery of the supersedeas was delayed. The Hythe member, for example, claimed expenses for a five-day journey towards York, which either means that he had set off early or that the supersedeas had taken over a week to arrive.

Unable to offer a viable alternative government, Warwick had little option but to let Edward resume power. Although, on the surface, peace had been restored the former rebels must have expected recriminations. As John Paston II observed, in a letter to his mother, 'The kyng hym-selffe hathe good langage of the lordys of Claraunce, of Warwyk seyng they be hys best frendys. But hys howsolde men paue other langage'. (fn. int1470-4) In the following year Warwick and Clarence fled into exile after supporting a rising in Lincolnshire that was crushed by the king's forces. In France, Warwick allied himself with the Lancastrians and, with the support of Louis XI, launched an invasion of England in the autumn. Edward, wrong-footed by the unexpected defection of Warwick's brother John, escaped to the Low Countries with a small circle of associates. On 3 October Henry VI was moved to the royal apartments in the Tower. Three days later, Warwick and Clarence arrived in the city and conveyed the former king to the palace of the bishop of London, which was to remain his base throughout the Readeption. (fn. int1470-5) A week later, to mark the feast of the translation of St Edward, Henry went crowned to St Paul's - ten years to the day since crowds had gathered to see whether Richard duke of York would take the king's role in the procession. (fn. int1470-6) The usual focus of the ceremony was Westminster, and the departure from tradition suggests that Henry was not in good shape.

Writs were issued on 15 October summoning parliament to meet at Westminster on 26 November. No returns survive, and only thirty-nine members of the commons have been identified. (fn. int1470-7) In the absence of the roll, and hence of the list of triers of petitions, there are few clues to aristocratic attendance. The receivers of petitions for England, who were by convention the master of the rolls, the clerk of parliament, and a master of chancery can, however, be partly reconstructed. William Morland, dean of St George's, had replaced Robert Kirkham as master of the rolls. (fn. int1470-8) Baldwin Hyde, a canon of Windsor, was appointed clerk on 25 November, the day before parliament met. John Fawkes, who had held the office since the parliament of 1449, had died at some point in 1470. (fn. int1470-9) Neither of the new appointees was to serve in subsequent parliaments.

At some point during the first session, which was prorogued just before Christmas, parliament moved to the palace of the bishop of London, where the king was based. (fn. int1470-10) It resumed around 22 January, a date which rests primarily on the expenses paid to one of the Southampton members, but also receives some confirmation from a Stonor correspondent, who wrote on 17 January that the duke of Suffolk, 'purposeth and woll be and attend at the Parlement as other lords shall'. (fn. int1470-11) The duration of the second session is unknown and there is no reference to its prorogation or dissolution. No roll survives and Wedgwood assumed that none was ever made, but it is more likely that it was compiled and then destroyed after Edward IV's return. The acts of the parliament were not officially voided until 1478, but in practice they were a dead letter from the moment of Edward's restoration. There are a handful of references to parliamentary action in the chronicles or letters under the great seal, but any reconstruction of parliamentary business can only be tentative.

According to Warkworth, the chancellor (once again George Neville) preached the opening sermon on Jeremiah 3.14: 'Return, you backsliding children'. (fn. int1470-12) Warwick appears to have adopted the parliament of 1461 as his precedent, although there was one problem to be resolved which had not existed in 1461. As was also to be the case in 1485, the king was under an act of attainder when parliament opened. It was not thought necessary to reverse Henry's attainder to re-establish his right to the throne - a decision which provided a precedent for Henry VII - although the attainder of his associates was subsequently reversed and their lands restored. (fn. int1470-13) Parliament's first task was to dismantle the Yorkist title to the throne and declare Edward IV a usurper. In 1461 the rejection of the previous regime's right to the throne had been seen as calling all its grants into question, but no universal act of resumption was enrolled. This rather ambiguous situation seems also to have prevailed in 1470. The abbess and convent of Syon, consistently swift to protect their interests, successfully petitioned that no statute or act of resumption made in the parliament should be prejudicial to them (appendix item 1).

Presumably the leading Yorkists were attainted in turn, but Warwick, like Edward IV, may have chosen to use the weapon sparingly. The chancellor's choice of text implies that the regime wished to welcome back those who had gone astray, rather than shut the door against them, and the only Yorkists whose attainder is noted by the chronicles are Edward and his brother Gloucester. (fn. int1470-14) But even if the new regime wished to be conciliatory, the restoration of committed Lancastrians constituted a profound tenurial upheaval, which produced losers among Warwick's supporters as well as among his opponents. Clarence, for instance, had to surrender his duchy of Lancaster lands and although he was apparently recognised as the heir of his father, the duke of York, it is unclear how much this meant in practice. He did manage to retain his earldom of Richmond lands, but Warwick thereby offended Henry VI's family of the half blood, the Tudors. In such a minefield it would not be surprising if parliament's specific decisions were kept to a minimum and the detailed reconstruction of the political landscape left to negotiation.

One sensitive piece of political engineering that parliament may have ratified was the vesting of the succession in Clarence and his heirs if Henry VI's male line failed. One of the charges levelled against Clarence at his trial in 1478 was that he had kept an exemplification of the relevant act, but historians have divided on the truth of the accusation. (fn. int1470-15) Supporting evidence of a sort is to be found in Warkworth, who believed that this was part of the deal brokered in France in the summer of 1470. But neither he, nor any other chronicler before Edward Hall in the sixteenth century, mentions parliamentary confirmation of such a settlement. Perhaps the strongest argument in favour of the existence of such an act is that the 1478 parliament found it necessary to revoke all the actions of the 1470 parliament, along with everything consequent upon them and all exemplifications (1478 item 34).

No other public business can be traced. Scofield believed that in the second session parliament authorised a ten-year truce and peace treaty with Louis XI of France, a dramatic reversal of the foreign policy of recent years. (fn. int1470-16) The treaty was a reality, but there is no good evidence that it was put before parliament. In French eyes it was a preliminary to Anglo-French action against Burgundy, and war would have required taxation but (again following the precedent of 1461) there is no sign that Warwick asked parliament for money. It would have been a deeply unpopular move, especially in the context of hostility to Edward's demands. Warwick may also have thought it unnecessary in the short term, hoping instead to levy money still due from the 1468 grant, the collection of which had fallen into arrears. (fn. int1470-17)

All the other recorded business apparently originated in private petitions. The best-documented, thanks to the interest of the London chroniclers, is Sir Thomas Cook's petition for restitution. Cook, a former mayor of London, had been accused of treason during the Lancastrian scare of 1468, put on trial and found guilty of the lesser offence of misprision. He was fined at the king's pleasure and dismissed as alderman on Edward IV's orders. Cook represented London in the parliament and took the opportunity to demand 22,000 marks by way of compensation, asserting in open parliament that the wrongs he had suffered had been 'for the fydelyte that he bare unto Kyng Henry and Quene Mergaret'. (fn. int1470-18)

York and Great Yarmouth also petitioned parliament. Yarmouth sought the remission of part of its fee farm because of its financial difficulties. It cited the decay of the herring fishery and the consequent departure of merchants from the town, but the underlying problem was the silting of its harbour entrance. The bill is not extant but the response was presumably le roy s'advisera given that a commission was appointed under the great seal to investigate the matter (appendix item 3). The commission apparently never reported, but there is no trace of a subsequent petition. York was concerned with internal unrest manifesting itself at mayoral elections and sought a change of date for the election from St Blaise's day (3 February) to St Gregory's day (12 March). This was agreed, but the result appears to have been that there was no election at all in 1471. (fn. int1470-19) In 1473 Edward IV intervened and gave responsibility for choosing the mayor to the crafts. This did not help the situation, and in 1489 Henry VII was asked to restore the pre-1473 arrangement whereby the crafts nominated two candidates, from whom the mayor and aldermen chose one. (fn. int1470-20)

No record of the parliament's dissolution survives. Contemporary chronicles ignore the second session and it is likely to have been relatively short. It perhaps ended in prorogation rather than dissolution, in which case the parliament may have remained at least nominally in existence until Edward IV's return in April.

Appendix: 1470

1

Source : RP , v, 456-7; CPR 1467-77, p. 238 (exemplification of 21 February 1471)

Petition of the abbess and convent of Syon that no statute or act of resumption made in the parliament should be prejudicial to them, and that the grants to the College of St Mary and St Nicholas, Cambridge, of the priory of St Michael's Mount (Cornwall), specified lands once belonging to the abbey of Caen, the lands in Buckinghamshire and Spalding (Lincs) once of the abbey of Angers and the fruits of the church of Corsham (Wilts) be void and of no effect and that the petitioners should have the same.

Address: to the kyng our soveraigne lord

Answer: le roy le voet

2

Source : RP , v, 455-6; CPR 1467-77, p. 238 (22 February 1471, warranted by petition in parliament)

Because of dissension among the citizens of York, the election of the mayor should take place annually on the feast of St Gregory [12 March] by a process described in the ordinance. Anyone taking on the office without election shall forfeit £100, half to the king and half to the city.

[The ordinance does not rehearse the petition itself.]

3

Source : CPR 1467-77, p. 250 (14 February 1471, warranted by king and council in parliament)

Commission to investigate a petition from the burgesses and inhabitants of Great Yarmouth requesting the remission of a great part of their fee farm because of the decay of the herring fishery, which has led to the departure of the merchants, and the financial burdens which the town bears.

4

Source : PRO E159/247 brevia baronibus m. 1 (30 January 1471)

Rehearses the fact that members of the lords and commons and their servants should be free from arrest. Thomas Gille esquire has come to parliament with the archbishop of York and has been summoned to answer for a debt and been arrested. He is to be delivered from prison without delay.