bastard feudalism, overmighty subjects and idols of the multitude during the wars of the roses

386 OVERMIGHTY SUBJECTS AND THE WARS OF THE ROSES

© The Historical Association 2000

Bastard Feudalism, Overmighty Subjects andIdols of the Multitude during the Warsof the Roses

MICHAEL HICKSKing Alfred’s College, Winchester

AbstractA handful of overmighty subjects exercised a disproportionate influence on the events ofthe Wars of the Roses. This article considers how and why. Circumstances were certainlypropitious. Not only did the greatest noblemen command exceptional resources of theirown, albeit always less than the king, but they deployed the principal military commandsagainst the crown and sought to enlist the populace on their side. Successful overmightysubjects were also idols of the multitude. Generally they failed and almost all died viol-ently. Their misfortunes, a recovery of royal power and the disappearance of the desire todisturb the realm all help to explain the demise of their type.

The Wars of the Roses is the label applied by historians to a seriesof factional struggles and civil wars between roughly 1450 and1500. Over so long a period the personnel and issues changed. The

wars were not a succession of rounds fought between Lancaster and York,the red and white roses, on issues of dynastic principle. What the warsdefinitely did have in common was the capacity of leading subjects tothreaten and even dethrone the incumbent monarch. English kings weresuccessfully deposed five times. There were many other serious attempts.

Contemporaries such as the Crowland Continuator attributed muchof the responsibility to a series of overmighty subjects and idols of themultitude. Chief Justice Fortescue, the foremost political theorist of hisday, discussed the topic on several occasions. Doubting the public spiritof the magnates, Fortescue sought to exclude them from governmentby constitutional means. A section of his Governance of England on ‘theperils that mowe falle to a king by ovur mighti subgiettes’ explains hownoblemen with more resources than a king ‘aspired to thastate of a prince’and found it ‘more fesable’ to rebel, since ‘the peopul will go with hym

© The Historical Association 2000. Published byBlackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UKand 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

This article has benefited from comments made at the Conference on Lordship and Clientage inEngland and France at York University in 1996 and at the Cambridge University Graduate MedievalSeminar in 1997 and from the advice of the anonymous referees of this journal.

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hat beste may sustene and rewarde hem’. It was essential that the ‘kyngeslyveloode, above such revenues as shulne be assigned for his ordinaricharges, biene gretter thanne the lyveloode of the grettest lorde inEnglonde’, but such was not the case: some indeed were ‘double so mightias theire olde prince’. There was ‘no gretter perile’ for ‘a prince thannetahave a subgiet equilopolente to hym selfe’.1 Though a minority view inhis own day, Fortescue’s arguments appealed strongly to such Victorianconstitutional historians as James Gairdner, Charles Plummer, BishopStubbs and William Denton, who attributed much of the blame to thegreat nobility and their enormous retinues, and to their twentieth-centurysuccessors.2 Such arguments were summarily dismissed by K. B. McFarlanein his 1964 Raleigh lecture to the British Academy. ‘Only undermightykings had anything to fear from overmighty subjects’, he proclaimed. ‘Andif he [the king] were undermighty, his personal lack of fitness was thecause, not the weakness of his office and its resources.’3 Though the causesof royal undermightiness have been much explored and even disputed,4

McFarlane’s downgrading of the significance of the magnates has beengenerally accepted. This article contends that there were indeed over-mighty subjects during the Wars of the Roses. It seeks also to explainhow and why.

This article does not explain why the Wars of the Roses happened orwhy they lasted so long. The circumstances that enabled overmightysubjects to flourish are obviously relevant, however. One factor was theweakness of contemporary kings. That four kings were dislodged, onetwice, was not because they were all deficient in character, but was at-tributable in part to international, financial and dynastic weaknesses.After a period of anomalous ascendancy, England was again a minorplayer on the international stage. England suffered more than a dozeninvasions across the sea and the Scottish borders, usually backed byforeign powers, and those invasions of 1460, 1470, 1471 and 1485 weresuccessful. Royal revenues diminished to about half those of Richard IIor Henry V. Ordinary expenses remained. All the monarchs lacked thespare resources to throw against external threats and to maintain thearmies and fleets necessary to deter, prevent or defeat invasions. Finally,kings could not count on their subjects against invasions and rebellions.Calls for government reform, at their strongest before 1461, were sup-plemented thereafter and ultimately supplanted by rival dynastic claims.

1 Crowland Chronicle Continuations 1459–1486, ed. Nicholas Pronay and John Cox (1986) [here-after Crowland Continuations], p. 147; The Politics of Fifteenth-century England: John Vale’s Book,ed. M. Lucille Kekewich et al. (Stroud, 1995) [hereafter Vale’s Book], pp. 235–7.2 Michael Hicks, Richard III and his Rivals: Magnates and their Motives during the Wars of the Roses(1991), pp. 3–5. This view culminated in Robin L. Storey’s massively documented End of the Houseof Lancaster (1966).3 K. B. McFarlane, ‘The Wars of the Roses’, England in the Fifteenth Century (1981), pp. 238–9.4 See, for example, A. J. Gross, ‘K. B. McFarlane and the Determinists: The Fallibilities of the EnglishKings, c.1399–c.1520’, The McFarlane Legacy: Studies in Late Medieval Politics and Society, ed.R. H. Britnell and A. J. Pollard (Stroud, 1995) [hereafter McFarlane Legacy], ch. 3.



All the kings after 1461 were usurpers of doubtful legitimacy whoseauthority was suspect in the face of rival titles.5 It was difficult to guardagainst external invasions that could fall (and did) anywhere around thecoastline of England and Wales or against dynastically unreliable sub-jects whose identity and geographical concentrations were uncertain orconcealed. Such issues form the context within which overmighty subjectsoperated and which permitted them to flourish.

This article concentrates on a succession of magnates (great noblemen)as listed below:

1450–61: Richard, duke of York (ex. 1460); his heir Edward, earl ofMarch and duke of York who succeeded as King Edward IV (1461–83); and the two Neville earls, Richard, earl of Salisbury (k. 1460) andhis son Richard, earl of Warwick (k. 1471), the kingmaker.

1469–71: Warwick and his son-in-law, Edward IV’s brother, George, dukeof Clarence (ex. 1478).

1471–83: Clarence; his brother Richard, duke of Gloucester, later Richard III(1483–5); and Henry Stafford, duke of Buckingham (ex. 1483).

1483–5: Thomas Lord Stanley, later earl of Derby (d. 1504), and SirWilliam Stanley (ex. 1495).

1485–1509: The De La Poles, the brothers John, earl of Lincoln (k. 1487)and Edmund, earl of Suffolk (ex. 1513).

Not all of these noblemen possessed all the criteria outlined below,certainly not the De La Poles, and not all can be regarded as successfulexamples of their type. Endeavour rather than success is the necessarycriterion for selection. Opposition to the crown, a willingness to disturbthe realm and a track record for doing so are all essential qualifications.There were at all times other magnates with the power to upset the realmwho lacked the desire to do so and who featured rather as lions underthe throne. Some obvious examples are Humphrey, duke of Buckingham(k. 1460), John Howard, duke of Norfolk (k. 1485), and after 1485Thomas, earl of Derby, Jasper Tudor, duke of Bedford (d. 1495) andThomas Howard, earl of Surrey (later duke of Norfolk, d. 1524). William,duke of Suffolk (k. 1450) and William Lord Hastings (ex. 1483) carriedlittle weight apart from the court. All these leading figures are specifi-cally excluded from this study.

The overmighty subject is a phenomenon that does not begin or endwith the Wars of the Roses. Fortescue himself identified Simon deMontfort, earl of Leicester (d. 1265) as an earlier instance.6 Thomas ofLancaster (ex. 1322) and Roger Mortimer, earl of March (d. 1330) wereperhaps the most conspicuous examples before the term came into vogue.John Dudley, duke of Northumberland (ex. 1554), lord protector toEdward VI and kingmaker to Lady Jane Grey, is a later instance. The

5 As pointed out by Dr Helen Castor.6 Vale’s Book, p. 236.

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conditions of the Wars of the Roses were especially propitious for theactivities of overmighty subjects.

I

The Wars of the Roses were fought between kings and the heads of thegreatest noble houses, the magnates. How did the latter raise their armies?The traditional answer is through bastard feudalism: through those menbound to them by ties of service whom they deployed upon the battlefield.The nobility were able to raise whole armies through combining the reti-nues that every nobleman possessed. Retinues combined the members ofthe noble household, the tenants of their lands, members of the gentry orextraordinary retainers, accompanied by their own households and ten-ants; and, perhaps for hostilities only, others (who could be numerous)identified only by a lord’s livery and badges. Existing chains of command,within the household, on the estate, through the sub-retinues of extra-ordinary retainers, enabled them to be mustered quickly and deployedin battle.

Bastard feudalism has been defined ‘as the set of relationships withtheir social inferiors that provided the English aristocracy with the man-power they required’.7 It is thus a label applied to a series of mechanisms.The same mechanisms modified or different mechanisms delivered man-power at other times. In this period the male members of the householdwere bound to their lords by particularly intimate ties and may indeedhave been recruited for their military potential. For the tenants, who madeup the bulk of the rank and file, obedience may have counted for morethan loyalty and could commonly be assumed. The extraordinary retainerswere commonly gentry, aristocratic landlords, lords and heads of house-hold on a smaller scale and men of local standing, who were retained byprivate contracts such as indentures, benefited from fees and good lord-ship, and who were expected to bring their own dependants with themwhether in peace or war. A lord always had his household with him: agreat lord such as Clarence might recruit it from all over his far-flungestates.8 Tenants and estate officials, however, were distinctly local re-sources. It is not particularly difficult to plot on maps the location ofestates and thus of the retinues of many lords, as Chris Given-Wilson hasdone; 9 contemporaries were clear about the local roots of particular lordsand their spheres of influence. Extraordinary retainers might reinforce anobleman’s power in his area of strength, such as Warwick on the westMarch in the early 1460s,10 though a nobleman’s natural ascendancy could

7 Michael Hicks, Bastard Feudalism (1995) [hereafter Hicks, Bastard Feudalism], p. 1. For whatfollows, see ibid., pp. 43–68.

8 Michael Hicks, False, Fleeting, Perjur’d Clarence: George Duke of Clarence 1449–78 (rev. edn.,Bangor, 1992) [hereafter Hicks, Clarence], pp. 168–9.

9 Chris Given-Wilson, English Nobility in the Late Middle Ages (1987), pp. xii–xxii.10 Michael Hicks, Warwick the Kingmaker (Oxford, 1998) [hereafter Hicks, Warwick], pp. 237, 241.



ensure dominance and dependence without such formal ties. Alternatively,they could extend a lord’s authority into areas beyond his own estateswhere otherwise he was weak.

All aristocrats – nobility, gentry and indeed the king – engaged inbastard feudal relationships, some both as lords and men, and enjoyedthese resources to widely varying degrees. Bastard feudalism was power.England was a mixed monarchy in which power was shared betweencrown and aristocracy. Undoubtedly the nobility, and still more obviouslythe nobility and gentry together, commanded far more manpower thanthe king. Admittedly the household and estates of the king were largerthan those of any individual, but he could not maintain direct personallinks with all his servants and tenants, who often indeed had other strongerassociations in the shires, and inevitably his dependants were widely dis-persed rather than conveniently concentrated. His moral authority as kingto everyone gave him a prime claim to everyone’s allegiance: theoreticallyeverybody’s retainers were his own. This was his strongest card in pre-venting and defusing rebellion; sufficing for Henry VI at Ludford in 1459,though less effective in this era than before and after. In practice, thenobility and gentry did not ever combine all their resources against thecrown. The only occasions when almost everyone appeared on the sameside, as in 1459 and 1470, was in support of a king who had apparentlywon. Even the greatest of English magnates could not compare with thegreat feudatories of contemporary France such as the dukes of Brittanyand Bourbon or of other federal states where the nobility actually ruledwhole provinces. The incomes of even the richest of English magnates,York, Warwick or Buckingham, were only a fraction of those of any king.A king should therefore have been able to cope easily with any of themwithout recourse to his moral authority.

It was therefore in alliances, as factions, that recalcitrant nobles madetheir power count. Substantial numbers of noblemen were involved inmost of the set-piece battles, though it was not always the largest armythat won. Kings regnant were defeated by forces containing fewer peers atthe first battle of St Albans (1455), Northampton (1460), Towton (1461)and Bosworth (1485). But the wars were not merely or perhaps even pre-dominantly about pitched battles. There were three other more commonscenarios where the moral supremacy of the king could be overcome byforce: by exploiting surprise, by coercive petitioning and by passive re-sistance. In each case kings could be placed at a disadvantage vis-à-vistheir subjects or reduced to equal terms. To negotiate, as Edward IVcomplained, was to disturb the proper relationship between the king whocommanded and condescended and the subject who should obey, solicitand supplicate. Not to bend, however, was to precipitate further conflictand bloodshed. It was only in the last quarter of his reign, after thedestruction of Clarence, that Edward was able to confront his greatestsubjects and challenge them to their faces.11

11 Crowland Continuations, p. 147.

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Bastard feudalism had a role in every scenario. Manpower was neededfor the field of battle, for ambushes and stratagems, for forceful petition-ing and passive resistance. Bastard feudal mechanisms, exploited skilfully,could deliver manpower in varying numbers and equipped for differenttasks quickly, secretly and efficiently. Yet they could not be taken forgranted, as Henry Vernon demonstrated in 1471 when both Warwick andClarence were disappointed in support that they had taken for granted.12

Buckingham suffered the same experience in 1483: the Staffords wereunpopular with their Welsh tenants and at odds with the Vaughans ofTretower.13 Competence mattered too. All York’s advantages proved tono avail when ambushed at Wakefield in 1460.

Of course, bastard feudalism was not the sole source of men. AsAnthony Goodman has shown, corporate towns supplied contingents forthe main campaigns, small in number both individually and in sum total,but well organized and well equipped. There were also the much morenumerous shire levies raised by commissions of array.14 In theory theywere available only to existing authorities, the government of the day, towhich they constituted a massive resource, though one that was relativelyslow to deploy. They were more useful for defence than for attack. Suchcommissions were also important in turning out bastard feudal retinuesof almost every type. Commissions of array gave royal support to the levyof troops. They gave a legality and a legitimacy to such levies and ensuredthat they were compatible with a retainer’s primary allegiance to thecrown: a theoretical and legal priority that was often a reality. But notalways. In 1460, 1470 and 1471 noblemen led such levies into the oppos-ing camp. It was in shrewd distrust of Warwick’s real motives that hiswest midlanders declined to muster in the spring of 1470.15 One of theprincipal obstacles for even the overmightiest of subjects was to reassurehis retainers and shire levies of his loyalty. Without such reassurance, theycould not be successfully recruited nor safely employed, with potentiallyfatal consequences.

II

The various scenarios did not depend for effectiveness on the deploymentof all or even large sections of the nobility. The same result could beachieved by individuals or small groups of nobles who were able to con-centrate overwhelming force in particular places or at particular times.Bastard feudal lords were not all equal. The income tax returns of 1436reveal a steep pyramid from a horde of minor gentlemen on around

12 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Manuscripts of the Duke of Rutland (1888) [hereafter HMCRutland ], i. 4.13 Carole Rawcliffe, The Staffords, Earls of Stafford and Dukes of Buckingham 1394–1521 (Cam-bridge, 1978) [hereafter Rawcliffe, Staffords], pp. 33–4.14 Anthony Goodman, Wars of the Roses (1981), pp. 202–3.15 Ibid., p. 140; ‘Chronicle of the Rebellion in Lincolnshire, 1470’, ed. John G. Nichols, CamdenMiscellany (1847) [hereafter ‘Chron. Lincolnshire’], i. 11.



£10 a year, through the wealthiest gentry and poorest barons on a fewhundred pounds a year to the richer earls on anything between £1,200and £2,500 and the greatest magnates far above that level. At his peakRichard, duke of York may have enjoyed £5,800 net from his lands, hisbrother-in-law Humphrey, duke of Buckingham £5,020, and RichardBeauchamp, earl of Warwick £4,400. Of the two Nevilles, Salisbury andhis mother were assessed at £1,903 in 1436 but were actually worth muchmore, and Warwick, ultimately, may have been in receipt of £12,000, muchof it from other sources. Clarence’s income has been estimated at £3,400in 1467, £6,000 in 1473, and £4,500 in 1478.16 Probably his brotherGloucester had rather more. Though of the same class, the magnates wereseveral times wealthier than their greatest peers and several hundredfoldmore than the parish gentry. York could outspend half a dozen earls ora dozen barons.

The different ranks were expected to live in the style appropriate totheir station. This meant that the bottom levels of each rank spent theirwhole income maintaining their status: manning households, buyingattire, keeping horses, offering hospitality, equipping chapels, collectingjewels, and resourcing retainers to the numbers and quality commen-surate with their status. To be a poor duke like Henry Holland, duke ofExeter,17 a poor earl or a poor baron was to be under constant financialstrain with little to spare for other things. John, duke of Suffolk, as pooras dukes could be, did not attend the parliament of 1471 because he couldnot procure an escort or household splendid enough.18 The De La Polesindeed were never overmighty in bastard feudal terms. A York, Warwickthe kingmaker or Clarence could afford more of everything. York owneda jewelled collar worth 4,000 marks (£2,666 13s 4d), twice the endow-ment of a duke, and paid fees of £900, more than the qualifying incomefor an earl. Buckingham’s household in 1444 cost him £2,200 andClarence’s riding household of 188 alone was three times as numerousas that of Lord Grey of Ruthin or that of Lord Howard in 1467.19 Thatthe smaller resources of a lesser peer were so largely committed and thatthe magnates had much more free for disposal exaggerated the differencesbetween their incomes. Their spending power and credit far exceeded eventhat of their immediate inferiors.

To take Warwick the kingmaker as an example, we know of substan-tial retinues that he brought from the west midlands and south Wales to

16 Hicks, Warwick, pp. 19, 227; Hicks, Clarence, pp. 2, 164.17 Michael Stansfield, ‘John Holland, Duke of Exeter and Earl of Huntingdon (d. 1447) and theCosts of the Hundred Years War’, Profit, Piety and the Professions in Later Medieval England, ed.Michael Hicks (Gloucester, 1990), pp. 105, 111, 115; T. Brynmor Pugh, ‘Richard Duke of York andthe Rebellion of Henry, Duke of Exeter, in May 1454’, Historical Research [hereafter HR], lxiii (1990),249–51; Simon J. Payling, ‘The Ampthill Dispute: A Study in Aristocratic Lawlessness and in theBreakdown of Lancastrian Government’, English Historical Review, civ (1989), 883–4.18 Stonor Letters and Papers 1290–1483, ed. Charles L. Kingsford (Camden Society, 3rd series, xxix,xxx, 1919) [hereafter Stonor Letters], i. 117.19 Hicks, Clarence, pp. 2, 169; Hicks, Bastard Feudalism, pp. 45, 47.

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the Leicester parliament and against Cade in 1450, against York in 1452,to the Percy–Neville feud in Yorkshire in 1453, to parliament early in1454, and to the first battle of St Albans in 1455. In 1483 John Rousobserved of Henry, duke of Buckingham that ‘so many men had not wornthe same badge since Richard Neville, earl of Warwick.’ Warwick’s badgeof the bear and ragged staff was reportedly everywhere in London andCalais in 1470–1. Warwick’s household was just as impressive. ‘The whichErle’, we are told, ‘was evyr hadd in Grete ffavour of the commonys ofthis lond. By Reson of the excedyng howsold which he dayly kepid Inalle Cuntrees where evyr he sojournyd or laye.’ His retinue was remark-able: ‘After that the Erle of warwyke toke to hyme in fee as manyknyghtys, squyers, and gentylmenne as he might, to be strong.’ Warwickin short was retaining additional gentry in the late 1460s for politicalpurposes, just as earlier, in 1461–2, he was recruiting northerners flat outto fight the Lancastrians and Scots in the west March. His estate recordshave largely disappeared, but his accounts for Warwick in 1451–2 revealseveral new appointments and annuities; so do those for Middleham in1465–6. And he maintained, besides, his own train of ordnance and hisown squadron of ships, second among contemporary Englishmen onlyto that of the fabled Bristolian William Canynges.20

Warwick was not alone. Following the battle of Heworth in 1453, 710retainers and tenants of the Percies were indicted: their conquerors, theNevilles, did not have less. Clarence carried 4,000 men across to EdwardIV in 1471. Their father York was recruiting more gentry by indenturein September 1460 to assist his bid for the crown. Buckingham took onnew men in 1483, including those of the executed Lord Hastings.21 Suchmagnates commanded much greater resources than ordinary earls anddukes like the De La Poles. By choosing the right moment, they couldmake them count for even more. Though the Stanleys dominated Lan-cashire and Cheshire, they were notorious for their careful decisions: theydid not act in 1459 and 1470 when circumstances appeared unpromisingand it was only their carefully disguised casting vote in 1485 that dem-onstrated an overmightiness that was not to be repeated. In practice, ofcourse, it was almost impossible to deploy all one’s resources. As theyderived from lands, and lands derived from the accidents of inheritance,they were too widespread. York was the greatest magnate in Wales andIreland and had significant estates in East Anglia, Northamptonshire andLincolnshire, and south Yorkshire. Warwick’s principal concentrationswere in Cumberland and the west riding, the west midlands, south Wales,and central southern England, other manors being scattered thinly across

20 Hicks, Warwick, pp. 44–50, 81–2, 89, 93, 115–16, 227, 237, 250–1, 265, 304; John Warkworth,Chronicle of the First Thirteen Years of King Edward IV, ed. John O. Halliwell (Camden Society, 1839),vi. 3–4.21 Historie of the Arrivall of Edward IV in England and the Finall Recouerye of his kingdome fromHenry VI, ed. J. Bruce (Camden Society, i, 1838) [hereafter The Arrivall ], p. 11; ‘Private Indenturesfor Life Service in Peace and War’, ed. Michael C. E. Jones and Simon K. Walker, Camden Miscel-lany, xxx (Camden Society, 5th series, 1994), iii. 164–5; Stonor Letters, ii. 161.



almost every other county. Initially basing himself at Tutbury in Stafford-shire, Clarence came to commute from Warwick via Tewkesbury toTiverton in Devon.22 The Yorkists had to manage without their northernretainers in 1460–1 and Warwick failed to join up with his Kentish sup-porters in 1471. Almost all overmighty subjects, however, had anotheradvantage over other noblemen that set them apart. They were massivelysubsidized by the crown.

All noblemen sought royal patronage to enhance their status, reputa-tions, incomes and/or inheritances. These ranged from the great honoraryoffices, such as steward or great chamberlain of England, through min-isterial posts such as lord treasurer and posts at court to military com-mands, custodies of estates and estate offices. Most if not all noblemenat some time were constables of royal castles and stewards of royalestates that enabled them to exercise royal authority and patronage in thelocality and brought in small but not insignificant accretions to theirincomes. The political value of York’s constableships in south Wales farexceeded the fees of £40 with which he was compensated with an annuityin 1457.23 Such offices could be sinecures. More important and long-livedmagnates could amass a portfolio of such offices. No previous magnatehad ever enjoyed such a massive grant of offices in Wales as Henry, dukeof Buckingham in 1483. He was appointed chief justice and chamberlainof north and south Wales and constable and steward of every castleand lordship of the crown and duchy of Lancaster. The fees alone ranto hundreds of pounds.24 Wales was still governed as a border regionin which marcher lords and their officers enjoyed exceptional powers.Buckingham alone was to replace the council of Wales. He would haveappointed deputies who owed their advancement to himself and wouldhave governed through them. He had little time to make his possessioninto a reality. Of his two predecessors, William, earl of Pembroke led aWelsh force to disastrous defeat at Edgecote in 1469 and Anthony, earlRivers was restricted to 2,000 men as escort for the young Edward V in1483.

Far more significant were the roles of the Nevilles, Percies and Gloucesteras wardens of the marches towards Scotland. As the king’s represen-tatives they too were entitled to the obedience of the king’s subjects inthe borders, whom on occasion they committed to domestic politics, andexercised marcher law over them. These offices were sources of prestigeand essential components in their regional hegemonies. Wardens wereentitled to substantial pay from the crown even in peacetime which theysought to maximize. From a nadir of £983 in 1443 – still one and a halftimes the income of an earl – the Nevilles managed to increase theirpeacetime pay as wardens in the west to £1,250 by 1455, as much as

22 Hicks, Clarence, pp. 15, 168, 179.23 Calendar of the Patent Rolls, 1452–61 [hereafter CPR], pp. 245, 340.24 CPR, 1476–85, pp. 349–50, 361; Robert Somerville, History of the Duchy of Lancaster (1953), i.640–2, 648; Rawcliffe, Staffords, p. 31.

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Salisbury’s net income from land in 1436. This was also Gloucester’s rate.Unlike their Percy rivals, the Nevilles had particular revenues appropri-ated for their salaries and ensured that they were paid. Henry VI andEdward IV gave priority to funding the armaments that were subsequentlyused against them. The wardens paid their lieutenants only one-third todeputize.25 To be fair, we cannot properly study their budgets, and anybalance received into their coffers could have been counter-acted bybuilding works at Carlisle and other castles and the high level of fees ontheir estates. Warwick would certainly have lived poorly since only 75 percent of income remained to cover all other expenses after payment offees!26 Wardens were expected to recruit their own forces; indeed in 1468the wardens were explicitly exempted from new legislation on retaining.27

They drew recruits almost exclusively from the north, from Durham andYorkshire as well as the borders, which enabled them to patronize anddominate well beyond the strict bounds of their military commands.

In time of war, the sums were doubled: there were wars with Scotlandwhen the enhanced sums were due in 1461–4 and 1480–3, but there werealso obviously extra costs, not least the feeing of a gunner and otherretainers. Warwick’s brother John, earl of Northumberland was beingpaid £6,000 a year in 1464.28 At such times the wardens were more likelyto reside in person and take command. Salisbury’s northerners werebrought south to fight at St Albans and were marched across the mid-lands to Blore Heath, where they defeated the royal army of Lords Audleyand Dudley, and the rout at Ludford. Warwick, who had been lieutenantof the north in the early 1460s, raised the men of Richmondshire for theEdgecote campaign in 1469, tried again in March 1470 and succeeded inAugust; a local contingent was at Barnet on 14 April and Richmondshireand Carlisle were in arms again later in 1471.29 Warwick’s son-in-lawGloucester also benefited from a near-monopoly of official authority, asubstantial subsidy and the advantage of being the obvious avenue ofroyal patronage to build up his power in the north and arrogate to him-self lordship over the northern peerage even including the earls. He toowas lieutenant of the north. In 1483 parliament granted him the heredi-tary wardenship of the west March and palatine authority in Cumberlandand as much of Scotland as he could conquer. His northern army over-awed court and capital in June 1483.30 It was the connections that he had

25 Robin L. Storey, ‘Wardens of the Marches of England towards Scotland 1377–1489’, EHR, lxxxiii(1957) [hereafter Storey, ‘Wardens’], 605–7; idem, The End of the House of Lancaster (2nd edn.,Gloucester, 1986), pp. 116–17.26 Anthony J. Pollard, ‘The Northern Retainers of Richard Nevill, Earl of Salisbury’, NorthernHistory, xi (1976), 64–5.27 Michael Hicks, ‘The 1468 Statute of Livery’, HR, lxiv (1991), 21.28 Storey, ‘Wardens’, 615n.29 Anthony J. Pollard, ‘Lord FitzHugh’s Rising in 1470’, Bulletin of the Institute of HistoricalResearch, li (1979), 170–5; HMC Rutland, i. 4; Hicks, Warwick, pp. 116, 163, 276–7, 285, 295; TheArrivall, i. 31–2; ‘Chron. Lincolnshire’, 16; CPR, 1461–7, pp. 214–16, 277.30 Michael Hicks, Richard III: The Man Behind the Myth (1991) [hereafter Hicks, Richard III ],pp. 53–6, 59–62, 73.



forged as figurehead of Richard III’s council of the north that John, earlof Lincoln sought to mobilize for the Stoke campaign in 1487. Support-ing such military commands was financially burdensome for kings as wellas politically dangerous. To some extent Edward IV and Richard III,and more systematically Henry VII, sought to make the borders self-supporting and to squeeze the profits out of the posts.

Warwick was also captain of Calais from 1455, keeper of the seas from1457, and warden of the Cinque Ports and constable of Dover from 1460.Together these constituted a constellation of military and maritimeoffices that made him particularly powerful in the south-east, in Kent andSussex which provisioned Calais, and also in the west country whichappears to have furnished much of the shipping. Almost all the crown’scustoms revenues were appropriated to him to defend the seas and Calais.He was contracted to raise ships and seamen and to enlist a personal crew(bodyguard) 300 strong at royal expense.31 We know about his ships andtheir masters.32 What little we know about the chief officers of Calais,recipients of protections and those pardoned in 1471 suggests that arounda core of longstanding retainers (Worsley, Gate) Warwick recruited on anational basis. Apart from a handful of residents of Calais (Whetehill)and others who were French (Duras, Galet), we know of Otters and Coltsfrom Yorkshire, Blounts from Derbyshire, Wrottesleys from Staffordshire,and a Courtenay of Powderham from Devon.33 Though regrettably poorlydocumented, the Calais garrison was probably the most valuable patron-age available to any contemporary nobleman and brought service andloyalty to its captain personally at the same time as diminishing resourcesavailable to the crown. Apart from his substantial salary from Calais,Warwick surely retained a margin from the £3,000 he enjoyed as keeperof the seas, and from the perquisites and £300 that he drew as wardenand constable. Unfortunately, we cannot know how he spent them.34 Mostof this money was actually paid; not only was Warwick reimbursed, unlikehis immediate predecessors as captain of Calais, he also received the firstinstalment of £1,742 in advance.35 His credit even in exile was sufficientfor him to borrow £3,580 from the staplers.36

Such authority had been available to previous holders of these offices,but they had not held them in combination, had seldom resided, hadusually regarded them as sinecures to be exercised by deputy, and hadsuffered from non-payment that had provoked repeated mutinies.Yorkhad never secured admittance to Calais at all. The enormous arrearsof pay (£58,000) were paid off before Warwick took up office and the

31 Hicks, Warwick, pp. 138–48.32 Ibid., pp. 250–1.33 Ibid., pp. 248, 252; CPR, 1467–77, pp. 290–2.34 CPR, 1461–7, p. 45; Hicks, Warwick, p. 141; Gerald L. Harriss, ‘The Struggle for Calais: An Aspectof the Rivalry of Lancaster and York’, EHR, lxxv (1960), 45.35 Hicks, Warwick, p. 141.36 Michael K. Jones, ‘Edward IV, the Earl of Warwick, and the Yorkist Claim to the Throne’, HR,lxx (1997), 342–52, esp. 351–2.

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customs were appropriated for future wages which, though quickly inarrears, were blamed on the government and not the captain. The earlresided almost continually at Calais from 1457 to 1460 and visited frequentlythereafter, when he remained closely interested through his deputies anddiplomats. The earl’s attacks on foreign shipping brought action and profitsto the garrison, mariners and Kentish suppliers and earned him popularityin maritime and mercantile circles throughout London and the south-east.Warwick was thus the most powerful magnate for many years in south-eastern England. King Henry found it impossible to dismiss him.37

Warwick was also unique in that he applied such forces to Englishpolitics. He brought a substantial escort of 600 to the Loveday of St Paul’sin 1458 and invaded England from Calais in 1459, 1460 and 1469. Hewas received and joined by the Kentishmen and admitted by the Lon-doners on each occasion. Exiled in 1459, Warwick returned to Calais andmade it into his base and his springboard for invasion. Though somewould not support him against his allegiance, deserting him at Ludfordand holding the castle of Guines for the king, most of the garrison backedhim and lynched former colleagues who fell into their hands. BesidesCalais, Warwick had his fleet, which enabled him to deny supplies andreinforcements to Guines. It carried him to Ireland, forced the lordadmiral to avoid battle, twice raided Sandwich to the destruction of theking’s expeditionary forces, and finally conveyed him to England. Whenhistory repeated itself in 1470, the exiled Warwick was unable to secureentrance to Calais, but the bastard of Fauconberg carried his ships acrossto the earl. It was these ships that gave Warwick mobility, independenceand initiative, that won him publicity and discounted the supposition thathe was finished, promoted the rupture between France and Burgundythat made his return to England possible, and finally conveyed his armyto their bridgehead. In 1471 Calais was to be the earl’s base for a warof aggression against Burgundy.38 The men of Calais and Kent joinedFauconberg’s Kentish rising against Edward IV in the aftermath ofWarwick’s death.39

Richard, duke of York illustrates some of the same points. His appoint-ments as lieutenants of France and Ireland and captain of Calais broughthim prestige and political credibility. Nominally they brought him sub-stantial incomes – £2,000 from Ireland – which were seldom paid: failingpayment, in 1450 he threatened to lay down office, and the enormousdebts that he accrued, which caused him considerable embarrassment,were attributable at least in part to expenditure that the crown could notrefund.40 Residence in Ireland, where he made both friends and enemies,

37 Hicks, Warwick, pp. 154–5.38 Ibid., pp. 133, 162–3, 177, 276–7; Hicks, Clarence, p. 35.39 The Arrivall, pp. 33–9.40 T. Brynmor Pugh, ‘Richard Plantagenet (1411–60), Duke of York, as the King’s Lieutenant inFrance and Ireland’, Aspects of Late Medieval Government and Society, ed. John G. Rowe (Toronto,1986), pp. 125–6; Paul A. Johnson, Duke Richard of York 1411–60 (Oxford, 1988) [hereafter Johnson,York], pp. 54–64, 69–70.



brought him a reputation and a following there that was to stand him ingood stead. In 1450 he was to re-enter England in defiance of royal wishesand take command of the reformers. In 1459 he fled to Ireland, turned hisnominal lieutenancy into real political control and made Ireland into thebase for his return. The Irish parliament accepted him. He executed hisprincipal rival, received Warwick and planned his conquest of England,and duly returned unmolested to the mainland when victory was won.41

His second son Clarence, also lieutenant but non-resident, consideredexploiting his father’s popularity by fleeing to Ireland in 1470, but decidedagainst it. York’s supposed grandson and Clarence’s supposed son, Lam-bert Simnel, was accepted at his own valuation in Ireland. It was fromthere with an Irish force that he launched his ill-fated Stoke campaign.

Yet York’s most important royal offices were his three protectoratesof England: in 1454–5, the creation of parliament during Henry VI’sinsanity; briefly in 1455–6, again the creation of parliament; and in 1460under the Act of Accord that assured him the throne after Henry VI’sdeath and rule during his life. The office of lord protector was not aregency, but was supposedly limited to leadership in defence and of thecouncil which York certainly took on. Moreover, the protectorate enabledYork to secure preference at the exchequer and to bestow office on him-self and his allies. He was licensed to recruit retainers at public expense.Royal authority was used to still his opponents. He held judicial sessionssupposedly in the interests of justice, but also to strike at his enemies:followers of the Percies were indicted for their feud with his Neville allies,and Thomas Lord Egremont was fined to his utter ruin. Parliament wasinduced to rehabilitate York and his co-conspirators of 1452 and to sanc-tion an official version of the battle of St Albans that rehabilitated theYorkists and placed the blame on their foes. A draconian act of resump-tion was intended to dispossess the queen, the king’s half-brothers andtheir adherents.42 Moreover, York was to be paid the rate for the job. In1454–6 he was awarded 2,000 marks (£1,333 6s 8d) a year. In 1460, whenhe was acknowledged additionally as heir apparent, the duke was to re-ceive 10,000 marks (£6,666 13s 4d) and his elder sons 4,000 marks (£2,66613s 4d) and 1,000 marks (£666 13s 4d) respectively.43 The Act of Accordbestowed on him the moral high ground, made him into the ruler, gavehim possession of the administration, capital and all the resources ofthe crown. Though insufficient to save York, they gave the initiative tohis son, whom Queen Margaret tried and failed to dislodge, and madeit possible for him to become king. Similarly, the protectorate placedGloucester in control of resources and events. It enabled him to act as aking and to make himself king.

Most overmighty subjects were not only the greatest of bastard feudallords, but were also directly subsidized by the crown. It was as warden

41 Johnson, York, pp. 196–201, 210–11.42 Ibid., pp. 133, 141–4, 163, 172–3; Hicks, Warwick, p. 125.43 Rolls of Parliament, ed. J. Strachey et al. (6 vols., 1777) [hereafter Rolls of Parliament], v. 244.

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of the west March in 1455, as captain of Calais and keeper of the seasin 1460, as king’s lieutenants in the north, and as lords protector thatSalisbury, Warwick, Gloucester, York and even Lincoln intervened sodecisively in politics. Henry VI hesitated to destroy such great men andEdward IV dared not do so until after the fall of Clarence. York, War-wick, Simnel, Lincoln and Warbeck all used bases overseas beyond theking’s reach from where their invasions could be launched; Clarence mighthave done the same. They were of interest to foreign powers that wereprepared to back them. It was as protector of England and captor of theresources of the crown that York in 1460, his son in 1461, and Gloucesterin 1483 sought to complete their revolutions.

III

The Wars of the Roses were not merely a contest in which the greatestbastard feudal lords overwhelmed hordes of their lesser neighbours.Edward IV’s execution of his brother Clarence in 1478 was significant,the Crowland Continuator records, because henceforth he could rule athis pleasure ‘now that all those idols had been destroyed to whom theeyes of the common folk, ever eager for change, used to turn in timesgone by. They regarded the earl of Warwick, the duke of Clarence andany other great man who withdrew from the royal circle as idols of thiskind.’44 It is easy to see that the Continuator had in mind York in the1450s and Warwick in the late 1460s, both of whom removed themselvesor were excluded from court. York claimed to have been excluded fromcourt and to be seeking only an audience with the king in 1450, 1452,1455 and 1459; whether he was indeed ‘exiled’ to Ireland remains unsub-stantiated and a matter of academic debate. Several times what was atissue was his inability to dominate rather than his exclusion. Warwick’sbreach with the court in the late 1460s culminated in similar claims inhis manifesto of 1469. That the Continuator saw Clarence as the last doesnot mean that there were no more in future. Anyway his remark can applyonly up to when he was writing, in 1486. It is perhaps surprising that heomitted the future Richard III and his henchman Buckingham, ‘the oldroyall blode of this realme’, who both courted public opinion and wereallegedly rarely at court.45 The case for the exclusion of Buckingham isstrong: royal blood and a Wydeville wife had not secured him the officesand influence that he might have expected. So, too, is that for Lincoln,who lost the preferments and expectations that he had enjoyed underKing Richard. Gloucester’s supposed exclusion, however, may derive fromthe duke himself and deserves no credence. If Gloucester was absent in

44 Crowland Continuations, p. 147.45 Dominic Mancini, Usurpation of Richard III, ed. C. A. John Armstrong (2nd edn., Gloucester,1984) [hereafter Mancini, Usurpation], pp. 64–5; York House Books 1460–90, ed. Lorraine C. Attreed(2 vols., Stroud, 1991), p. 714.



the north, it was his own preference and on his own business and didnot prevent his presence at parliament or at family rites of passage.46

For bastard feudalism, royal subsidies and foreign intervention werenot enough to make subjects overmighty. Warwick’s victories in 1460 and1471 were not built on bastard feudal power nor, in the latter case, onCalais and the Cinque Ports. When the Yorkists in 1459 and Warwickin 1471 relied purely on bastard feudal resources, they failed. In 1450York was able to present himself as the spokesman of an almost univer-sal movement of parliamentary and popular unrest. When the Yorkistsinvaded from Calais in 1460, they were carried forward by a wave of popu-lar enthusiasm that swept them inexorably into the city and to their tri-umph at Northampton. When Warwick invaded in 1470, he was joinedby an extraordinary mass of people whereas King Edward was left almostalone. Even Edward’s victory in 1471, both in his official verses and hisofficial history, was achieved against the odds, in the teeth of popular will,and was deservedly ascribed to God’s judgement. Even after Warwick’sdefeat and death, the bastard of Fauconberg was able to raise the Kentishtowns and countryside against the king. On occasion the people turnedout in overwhelming and potentially decisive numbers.47

No wonder that overmighty subjects thought the people to be worthcourting. York in 1450, Warwick in 1460, Edward IV in 1461,Warwickand Clarence in 1469–71, Gloucester and Buckingham in 1483, all ap-pealed successfully over the heads of kings and politicians for popularsupport. This could take the form of mass demonstrations and massrecruitment to armies, of reassurance and of the disarming of potentialopposition. Usually it required professions of loyalty that were tenderedin the most public and solemn manner, though from 1461 loyalty couldbe pledged to the dynastic rival of the current king. When such profes-sions were discredited, for York in 1460 and Gloucester in 1483, therewas a dangerous loss of popular support.48

Several of the criteria for idols of the multitude have been discussed.All were of the blood royal: from Jack Cade in 1450 onwards the peoplealways naïvely reposed their faith in ‘lordys of his ryal blode’ over par-venues ‘of lower nature . . . broughte up of noughte’.49 The Mortimername and Yorkist legitimacy justified the participation in and domina-tion of government by York and all his sons.50 All idols had been excludedfrom their rightful say in political issues or at least claimed to have beenso excluded; all distanced themselves from and criticized the governmentof the day. Idols thus had much in common with the political saints of

46 Michael Hicks, ‘Richard Duke of Gloucester: The Formative Years’, Richard III: A MedievalKingship, ed. John Gillingham (1993), p. 24.47 Hicks, Warwick, pp. 300–1, 311–12.48 Ibid., pp. 211–12; Hicks, Richard III, pp. 127–9.49 Conflated from Isobel M. W. Harvey, Jack Cade’s Rebellion of 1450 (Oxford, 1991) [hereafterHarvey, Cade’s Rebellion], p. 187; Vale’s Book, p. 188.50 Harvey, Cade’s Rebellion, p. 191; Rolls of Parliament, v. 378–9.

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which Archbishop Richard Scrope was perhaps the last example.51 Theyhad to appeal for popular support. How they did this is for the most parthidden from us: we have the propagandist letters and manifestos that theycirculated and sometimes second-hand reports, but seldom what they said.York’s crucial audience with King Henry and the tumultuous events ofthe ensuing parliamentary session surely witnessed several speeches, butnone of them is recorded. Little is known of Warwick’s address to con-vocation in 1460 and nothing of any other speeches. Several speeches arereported of the young Edward IV, who made the crucial oration prior tohis election and spoke at length from the throne in Westminster Hall, ineach case to his committed supporters. Though the Crowland Continu-ator speaks of Clarence’s mastery of popular eloquence, we know of noinstance outside the royal council when this was employed, nor, but forhis testimony, that the duke was an idol of the multitude at all! Contem-poraries credited to Buckingham the orchestration of Gloucester’s acces-sion, in particular his nomination and acclamation at the Guildhall. Weknow of no public speeches by Gloucester. Persuasive though he was, he,like his father, may have been an insider, at his most effective in counciland behind closed doors, who enlisted public opinion by carefully craftedpublic letters and ceremonial symbolism.

The bulk of the illiterate commons must surely have been aroused bythe spoken word, yet this need not have been through formal speeches.Ceremonial and display had its place: ‘it was by these arts’, observedMancini, ‘that Richard acquired the favour of the people.’52 The peopleto be addressed were seldom if ever together in one place; if they were, itwas the result of earlier recruitment. What the idols had to say and tooffer was commonly disseminated in written manifestos that could be‘read and cried’. We possess many manifestos, open letters and verseswritten by various oppositions to government and to supporters in thesouth between 1450 and 1483. Regrettably we cannot know how manycopies there were or how widely they were distributed. They were care-fully tailored to their audiences. Every government of the Wars of theRoses was charged with evil counsel, cronyism, indebtedness, fiscality,neglect of justice, disregard and overriding of the commonweal. Eachmanifesto additionally cited specific abuses, ranging from the catalogueof fiscal and judicial abuses in Jack Cade’s Kent, the earl of Wiltshire’s‘bloody assize’ at Newbury and the Wydevilles’ pursuit of Sir ThomasCook, to the sexual debauchery of Edward IV and the infanticide andincest of his brother.53 That in every instance support was indeed secured

51 These are discussed in Simon K. Walker, ‘Political Saints in Later Medieval England’, TheMcFarlane Legacy, pp. 77–106.52 Mancini, Usurpation, pp. 64–5.53 Vale’s Book, pp. 204–22; An English Chronicle of the Reigns of Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V andHenry VI, ed. J. S. Davies (Camden Society, 1856), lxiv. 90; Rolls of Parliament, vi. 240–1. For com-mentary, see additionally John L. Watts, ‘Ideas, Principles and Politics’, The Wars of the Roses, ed.Anthony J. Pollard (Basingstoke, 1995) [hereafter Watts, ‘Ideas, Principles and Politics’], p. 119; Hicks,Richard III, pp. 83, 146–9.



suggests that the right note was struck. The accuracy or justice of suchcharges seems hardly to be relevant and takes no apparent account ofthe reconstruction of authority, probity and solvency from the nadir of1450. At all times there was a common fund of popular grievances,whether legitimate or misdirected, to which appeal could be made andwhich could be trusted to secure support. Idols of the multitude knewhow to arouse and channel it. Kings feared it. In destroying Empson andDudley, was not Henry VIII identifying himself with critics of his father’sregime and harnessing popular support just as Henry VII himself andRichard III had done?

Whether the idols of the multitude really shared these grievances, reallylusted for reform or were merely manipulating public opinion is not thepoint of this article. It was not necessary to believe one’s own propa-ganda.54 Even Richard III made a serious attempt to align himself withjudicial and financial reform. The essential point is that overmighty sub-jects were able to represent such popular feeling and thus add it to theresources at their command. If popular enthusiasm could not be kept inthe field indefinitely, it could be translated in the short term into suchnumbers that no king or bastard feudal army could resist. No govern-ment during this period, however well intentioned or reforming, wasexempt from such threats. It was popular hostility to all the governmentsof the Wars of the Roses and popular receptiveness to such appeals thatgave real opportunities to overmighty subjects. It was a passing phasethat perhaps began in 1450, ebbed away sometime after 1485, and deservesa fuller explanation than can be essayed here.

IV

These great men were of several different types. Fortescue himselfaccepted that they could even be ‘righte good for the londe’ as long asthey ‘aspire to noon higher degree or estate’ and cited as example Johnof Gaunt, duke of Lancaster (d. 1399), the greatest of medieval Englishnoblemen.55 The Stanleys were of this type. They possessed the meansto be overmighty, but they lacked the desire. Their instinct for self-preservation kept them out of the limelight and enabled them repeatedlyto escape commitment. They were not royal and were never candidatesfor the crown themselves. If it were not for their decisive intervention atBosworth, they would not qualify for discussion at all. The De La Poles,by contrast, lacked the normal qualifications for overmightiness of per-sonal resources, offices or popular appeal. They mattered solely becauseof the Yorkist blood that made them candidates for the crown, thatappealed to dynastic legitimists and foreign powers, and that made thempawns in the games of others. It did not allow them the independence or

54 Watts, ‘Ideas, Principles and Politics’, p. 117. Watts’s paper has redefined the terms and signifi-cance of political debate.55 Vale’s Book, p. 237.

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choices of York or Warwick. They occurred at a late stage when the warshad assumed a wholly dynastic character that was not the case before.Most truly overmighty subjects combined the attributes of the Stanleysand the De La Poles, admittedly in varying proportions.

Overmighty subjects were born not made. All were princes of the bloodroyal, lords of great inheritances and/or estates, possessed of a concomi-tant pride of lineage and sense of superiority. Almost all held high militarycommands or vice-regal office. They had to be good communicators, ableto win and persuade their peers, masters of the spoken and written word,experts in public relations and skilful propagandists. They were the ablestas well as the greatest of the English nobility. Moreover they were con-vinced of their capacities to rule more effectively than the governmentand were prepared to go to considerable lengths and to take great risksin order to achieve power. Their ambition and assertiveness, appropriatelydescribed as a lust for power, contrasts sharply with the caution, evencowardice, of many of their peers. With such leaders and such resources,their chances of success were really quite favourable. All the overmightysubjects except the De La Poles staged one successful coup d’état. Seiz-ing power without taking the crown, however, never worked, or workedonly in the short term. Such coups led only to further attempts that addedfurther risks. Having tasted power, neither York, nor Warwick, nor Buck-ingham was content to retire. The very characteristics that had made themsuccessful also rendered them inflexible and unable to compromise. Thealternatives, further coups or even usurpation of the crown, raised thestakes and guaranteed no more certain rewards. Of all the overmightysubjects and idols of the multitude, only Edward IV was to escape aviolent death. If the type disappears, it was not merely less propitious cir-cumstances and diminished volatility among the people that contributed,but also an unwillingness among the great to expose themselves and theirfamilies to almost certain disaster. Albeit a short-lived phenomenon, theovermighty subject did indeed play a central and frequently decisive roleduring the Wars of the Roses.

bastard feudalism, overmighty subjects and idols of the multitude during the wars of the roses

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