Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 40.djvu/311

 Council, v. 212; cf. Fœdera, xi. 4). But in March 1443 he was appointed captain of Roxburgh Castle for five years, and was present in the privy council in the summer (ib. pp. 249, 276;, i. 519). At the end of that year his brother Robert, now bishop of Durham, appointed him steward of the bishopric, a position which he continued to fill until 1453 (, Official Baronage). In 1448 Fauconberg was again in France acting as one of the English commissioners in the conferences held at Louviers and Rouen during the winter (, iv. 319, 330). But on 16 May 1449, in a sudden attack made by the French on Pont de l'Arche, he was taken prisoner and had nearly been slain by the archer who seized him (ib.;, i. 166). ‘The Fisher has lost his angle hook’ (Fauconberg's badge), lamented a contemporary bewailer of England's misfortunes (Paston Letters, i. p. 1). He was liberated in the course of 1450, and served on an embassy to Charles VII appointed in September of that year (ib. i. 101; ).

Two years later Fauconberg was given security for over four thousand pounds arrears of pay. This and his reappointment at the same time as keeper of Roxburgh Castle for twelve years, in association with Sir Ralph Grey, may perhaps be connected with the abstention of the Nevilles from York's recent armed demonstration (ib.) During York's first protectorship in 1454, Fauconberg, whose elder brother, Salisbury, was chancellor, sat with the other chiefs of the family in the privy council. He was not present at the first battle of St. Albans, being then in France on an embassy to Charles VII; but in the distribution of rewards among York's Neville supporters, he was made joint constable of Windsor Castle, and sat regularly at the council board (, v. 410). In 1457 he was serving at Calais under his nephew Warwick, and in the February of the following year commanded a fleet at Southampton, a French fleet being in the Channel (Paston Letters, i. 425). When Warwick went over in the summer of 1459 to join in the general Yorkist rising that had been arranged, Fauconberg remained behind as his lieutenant at Calais, to which he readmitted his nephew, who was accompanied by his father, Salisbury, and the Earl of March, on their being driven out of England in October (, p. 635;, i. 368). He was not included in their attainder. But at the end of June 1460 he and Sir John Dynham secured a landing-place for the earls at Calais by the sudden capture of Sandwich. Fauconberg sent Osbert Mundeford [q. v.], whom he had taken prisoner, to Calais, and remained at Sandwich until the arrival of Warwick and the rest on 26 June (ib. pp. 370–1; Chron., ed. Davies, p. 91). A fortnight later (10 July) he assisted Warwick and March in gaining the victory of Northampton, when the king fell into their hands (ib. p. 95). His presence is not mentioned either at Wakefield (14 Dec. 1460) or at the second St. Albans (17 Feb. 1461); but in March 1461 he joined Edward IV on his march into the north and fought at Towton. Hall ascribes a very prominent part in it to Fauconberg. When Lord Clifford, during the night of 27–8 March, recovered the passage of the Aire at Ferrybridge, which the Yorkists had seized, Fauconberg, with Edward's vanguard, was detached to cross the river at Castleford, three miles higher up the river. This movement caused Clifford to fall back from Ferrybridge upon the main body of the Lancastrian forces at Towton; but Fauconberg suddenly fell upon him before he could reach it and cut his detachment to pieces, Clifford himself being slain. In the battle next day at Towton, Fauconberg, ‘a man of great policy and much experience of martial feats,’ is credited with a manœuvre which apparently went far to decide the battle. Commanding the Yorkist left, he ordered his archers to pour a flight of arrows into the opposing ranks and then fall back a little space. With the wind in their favour they did great execution, while the return flight fell short of them by ‘forty tailor's yards.’ Advancing a little, they discharged another flight into the ranks of the Lancastrians, who then pressed forward to attack them at close quarters, and thereby lost their advantage of position and fell into disorder (see Engl. Hist. Review, iv. 463; Archæologia, ix. 253). It should be noted, however, with regard to what took place at Ferrybridge, that Fauconberg's nephew, the chancellor George Neville [q. v.], in the report which he sent from London to the legate Coppini a week after the battle, states that the passage was carried ‘sword in hand’ at Ferrybridge, and makes no mention of a detour by Castleford (State Papers, Venetian, i. 370). It is possible, of course, that he wrote on early and imperfect information.

Edward left Fauconberg to assist his nephews Warwick and Montagu in completing the reduction of the north when he went south for his coronation. His services were recognised in the distribution of honours on that occasion, or a little later by his elevation to the earldom of Kent, which had