Clarence
adheres to
Warwick.
General
pacification
at Coventxy
in 1467.
Session of
parliament
in 1468.
PxopObed
war with
France.
Money
giants.
The war
delayed.
Maigarefs
continued
efforts.
210 Constitutlukal IΓιstory. [ciiap.
witlɪ a paid body-guard. Clarence drew off i'10111 Iiis brother,
and, following the policy of heirs-presumptive, took on every
possible occasion a line opposed to that of the king. The
widening of the breach was not stopped by a formal recon-
ciliation which took place at Coventry at Christmas1. Arch-
bishop Neville and lord Bivers, having first adjusted their own
differences, acted as mediators, and brought the king and
Warwick together; Herbert and the Wydvilles were included
in the pacification.
In the following spring Edward conceived himself strong
enough to declare his hostility to France; and the chancellor2,
in opening the parliamentary session at Beading on the 12tl1
of May, was able to announce the conclusion of treaties with
Spain, Denmark, Scotland, and Brittany ; the close alliance
with Burgundy, which was to be cemented by the marriage of
Margaret of York ; and the king’s intention and hopes of re-
covering the inheritance of his forefathers across the Channel.
Edward himself spoke his mind to the lords3 ; if he could
secure sufficient supplies he would lead his army in peιsoιι.
The commons welcomed the idea of a foreign war, which might,
as in the days of Henry V, result in internal peace ; they voted
two tenths and fifteenthsi. This done, the parliament, on the
7tl1 of June, was dissolved. The next month the Burgundian
marriage was completed5, and the alarm of treason and civil
war revived. Seven years were to elapse before Edward could
fulfil his undertaking; and before the end of the year 1468
duke Charles and king Lewis had concluded a truce8.
The spirits of the Lancastrians were now reviving, notwith-
standing the fact that the seizure of Margaret’s letters had
ruined several others of her partisans, and that the lord
1 W. Wore. p. 789.
2 After several formal prorogations the parliament met at Iteading,
May 12 ; Rot. Parl. v. 622. Convocation, May 12, 1468, granted a tenth
and a subsidy of the priests’ noble ; Wilk. Cone. iii. 606 ; Chron. Abbrev.
p. 12.
3 W. Wore. p. 789.
4 liot. Parl. v. 623; Chron. Abbrev. p. 21.
ɔ W. Wore. p. 789 ; Paston Letters, ii. 31/-319-
6 W. Wore. p. 792.
XVIiI.] Ilcnevjal of War. 2iι
Herbert, after defeating Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke, had
succeeded at last in taking Harlech. On both occasions some
few executions followed. Herbert was made earl of Pembroke
in the place of the defeated Tudor. Earl Jasper’s rising was Threatened
probably part of a scheme in accordance with which Margaret, ⅛≡S
with the forces she had raised in France, was to land on the ooabt'
south coast. To repel this attack the lords Scales and Mount-
joy were sent to the Isle of Wight with a fleet and five thousand
men. The threat of invasion was a mere bravado ; the expe-
dition of lord Scales cost ,£18,000, one quarter of the grant
made for the French war. Edward’s devotion to the advance-
ment of the Wydvillcs took this year the curious form of an
attempt to force his brother-in-law Richard into the office
of prior of S. John’s, Clerkenwell, the head of the Knights
Hospitallers of England1.
The next year witnessed the renewal of the civil war. The Renewal of
e war in 1469.
Lancastrian party in the north had been suffered to gather
strength, and had been more than encouraged by the attitude
of Warwick. Since 1466 the relics of earl Thomas of Lancaster
had been sweating blood and working miracles2. Margaret
and her agents had been active abroad. The king’s popularity General
was gradually vanishing, as the more active politicians found
every prize lavished on the Wydvilles, and the more apathetic
mass of the nation discovered that the peace and security of
life and property were no better cared for under the new
dynasty than they had been under the old3. But there was not Partiesin
yet any concert between the two sections of the disaffected; 4δ9'
the struggle of 1469 was carried on by the Nevilles and Clarence
lor their own ends; in 1470 the Lancastrians took advantage
ol the situation to ally themselves with them for the purpose of
a restoration. The rebellion of Robin of Redesdale was an
attempt to employ against Edward IV the weapons used in the
Kentish rising of 1450 under Jack Cade. The insurrection
had begun in Yorkshire in consequence of a quarrel about
1 W. Wore. pp. 791, 792.
- Chron. Abbrev. '( lamlι. Antiq. Soo.) p. 10.
3 See Warkworth, p. 12