Within a short time after the battle the king had fallen prey to some malady, the nature of which remains unknown. It is easy to conjecture that he had relapsed into the same state of confusion as before, perhaps traumatized by his defeat, but he does not seem to have withdrawn completely from the world. He even managed to open the parliament in the summer of 1455. After a delay of some months York resumed the protectorate but the king, or his wife working in his name, let it be known to his councillors that he wished to be kept informed ‘in all matters as touching his honour, worship and safety’. The royal family were now more wary and defensive; they feared that York aspired to being king in all but name.
York’s most significant task was to defend the southern coast against French incursions and the northern frontier against the Scots; he was also obliged to protect the last remaining English settlement at Calais. So he named his ally, Warwick, as captain of that town. For all these preparations he needed money to be granted by the parliament house. That proved a complicated and arduous task, made infinitely more difficult when in February 1456 the king was brought by the lords to Westminster in order to abrogate the proceedings and effectively to overrule the protector. At that point York, resentful and weary, resigned or was made to resign from his post.
The king was now nominally in command, but the real power lay with his wife. Margaret of Anjou was according to a contemporary ‘a great and strong laboured [strong-minded] woman’ who arranged everything ‘to an intent and conclusion to her power’. She was certainly more masterful than her husband. Her essential purpose was now to safeguard the interests of her infant son and to make sure that he succeeded his ailing father. In this respect, York was still the principal enemy made all the more dangerous by the death of Somerset.
She moved the king and court to the middle of her landed estates around Coventry, with the castle of Kenilworth as her stronghold, thereby setting up a base of power as an alternative to York who remained in London. The citizens had taken up his cause, and the queen did not feel safe among them. The councils of the realm were literally divided, and the course of affairs seemed likely to drift. One contemporary observed that ‘the great princes of the land [pre-eminently York and Warwick] were not called to Council but set apart’.
For the next three or four years there is little mention of the king; he spent much of his time travelling through the midlands, staying at various favoured abbeys or priories. It is said that above all else he enjoyed sleeping. No speeches by the king are reported. He was ‘simple’; he upheld no household, and he prosecuted no war. Little or no attempt was made at governance, apart from the routine business of finance and patronage. Even in these spheres, however, the queen’s wishes and decisions were paramount. The Lancastrian court, and the Yorkist lords, watched each other eagerly and suspiciously; the air was filled with threat.
The court returned to Westminster, in the winter of 1457, accompanied by a force of 13,000 archers; it was widely believed that the king and queen had returned in order to overcome York and to overawe the city. Political life had always been a form of gang warfare, in a scramble for lands and riches. Now it showed its true face. The streets of the city were filled with supporters of the Lancastrians and the Yorkists; the younger relatives of the Lancastrians who had been killed at St Albans had come for vengeance.
Another source of unrest arose in that winter. In the summer of the year a French fleet had landed at Sandwich and devastated the town, a signal example both of the failure of English policy and of English weakness. The merchants of London, in particular, were horrified and outraged at the threat to maritime trade. In such an environment no one could feel safe.
Confronted with the possibility of civil war breaking out in the capital between the supporters of both sides, the principal figures reached a form of compromise in which the relatives of the dead were offered financial compensation for their loss. Money, in England, is always the best policy. This agreement was followed by what was known as a ‘love day’, in which sworn enemies literally joined hands and proceeded to a solemn service in St Paul’s Cathedral. But the love did not last. The royal court showed no favour to York or to the Nevilles, and in the spring of 1459 Henry ordered his loyal nobles to gather at Leicester with ‘as many persons defensibly arrayed as they might according to their degree’. The king was, in other words, calling for the armed retainers of the lords to be put at his disposal. A great council was held in June at Coventry, to which York and his supporters were not invited. At this assembly the renegade lords were denounced for their disloyalty.
