He could do nothing with either of them. The earl was in practice the ruler of the country, but he lacked legitimacy and moral authority. He could hardly rule on the king’s behalf if he kept the king confined to a castle. Edward’s council seems grudgingly to have accepted Warwick’s direction, but the hiatus in national affairs provoked outbreaks of local violence and rebellion. Once more the great families of the realm could attack one another with impunity. Only one remedy offered itself. The king had to be released from custody and allowed to resume his sovereignty. So Edward IV returned to be met by a contrite earl, archbishop and younger brother who pleaded that they had acted only in the interests of the realm. Edward and his supporters then processed towards London, where they were met by the mayor and aldermen in their scarlet regalia. ‘The king himself’, John Paston wrote, ‘has good language of the Lords of Clarence, of Warwick, and of my Lords of York and Oxford, saying they be his best friends.’ But he added that ‘his household men have other language’. His household, in other words, were inclined towards revenge.
Yet the king realized that the stability of the realm had to be regained at all costs. According to the chronicler Polydore Vergil ‘he regarded nothing more than to win again the friendship of such noblemen as were now alienated from him …’. He invited Clarence and Warwick to join the sessions of a great council that was called to arrange ‘peace and entire oblivion of all grievances upon both sides’. He also allowed his four-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, to be betrothed to Warwick’s nephew. Warwick had of course only recently murdered the young girl’s maternal grandfather and uncle. The politics of power are always realistic.
Nevertheless the earl had been dealt a grievous blow; it had been proved that he could not wield authority without the presence of the king. In the spring of 1470 he was once again implicated in armed rebellion. The revolt came from Lincolnshire where certain families, afraid of the king’s justice or offended by the king’s depredations, rose up with the intention of giving the crown to Clarence. When Edward took the field against them they cried out ‘A Clarence! A Clarence!’ and ‘A Warwick! A Warwick!’ It was all the evidence the king required. His army defeated the Lincolnshire men with ease, and the site of the battle became known as ‘Lose Coat Field’ for the number of clothes bearing the livery of Warwick or of Clarence that the soldiers discarded in their flight. After his overwhelming victory, his two opponents fled to the safety of the court of Louis XI in France. Some of their collaborators were not so fortunate. One of Warwick’s ships was seized at Southampton, where the gentlemen and yeomen on board were beheaded. A sharp stake was then driven through their posteriors, and their heads were impaled on top.
Warwick and Clarence were now joined by Margaret of Anjou. She, too, had left her familial lands and arrived at the court of the French king. Louis had three birds in his hand, but Margaret and Warwick had been fierce enemies for a long time. The king now entered into protracted negotiations in order to reconcile her to the man who had been ‘the greatest causer of the fall of Henry, of her, and of her son’. He spent every day in long discussions with her until eventually she deferred to him. Margaret now agreed to conspire with her once inveterate enemies and to overthrow Edward IV. Her husband, still in the Tower, would regain the throne; her son Edward, prince of Wales, would marry another of Warwick’s daughters and thus become brother-in-law to Clarence. The families of York and Lancaster would therefore be finally united. The young couple were betrothed in Angers Cathedral.
Warwick and his new ally now began preparations for the great invasion of England. Edward kept his eyes upon the coasts but, in the summer of 1470, he was distracted by news of further rebellions in the north inspired by Warwick’s cause; he was obliged to march to York and Ripon. He could not be sure where Warwick’s fleet might land – anywhere from Wales to Northumberland – and he took a calculated risk in going northward. While he lingered in York, having successfully overcome the incipient rebellion, the news came in the middle of September that Warwick and Clarence had landed at Exmouth in Devon from where at once they began their march towards him. The king was in hostile country in any case, and it became increasingly clear that Warwick was acquiring supporters as he moved forward.
