Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/188

 Somerset. Moreover, we should naturally suppose York to have been at Coventry on 6 March, when his appointment as lord-lieutenant of Ireland was renewed for another ten years by a patent of that date, though his indenture to serve was formally dated at Westminster on 7 April following. That he could still negotiate with the court is further evident from the fact that he at this time resigned in favour of the king's half-brother, Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke [q. v.], the offices of constable of Caernarvon, Aberystwith, and Caerkeny Castles, which had been granted to him (practically by himself) on 2 June 1455, just eleven days after the battle of St. Albans (Patent, 33 Henry VI, pt. ii. m. 8), and received in compensation an annuity of 40l. He probably attended another council at Westminster in October following (, Repressor, Rolls Ser. Introd. p. xxxvi). This council was adjourned to 27 Jan., with an intimation that no excuse would then be allowed for non-attendance.

The king took care to be at Westminster by the time appointed. York also arrived on 26 Jan., ‘with his own household only, to the number of one hundred and forty horse.’ His friend Salisbury had arrived before him, on the 15th, with four hundred horses and eighty knights and squires in his company, and Somerset arrived on the 31st with two hundred horses. Warwick, detained for some time at Calais by contrary winds, arrived on 14 Feb. with six hundred men in livery. York went to his city mansion of Baynard's Castle, and Salisbury and Warwick to their city houses; but the city would not admit the Lancastrians, who they feared meant to disturb the peace, and Somerset and his friends lodged outside the walls, between Temple Bar and Westminster. A strong body of trained bands rode about the city daily, and a strong watch was kept at night. Conferences were held every morning at the Blackfriars, and every afternoon at the Whitefriars, in Fleet Street; and terms of peace and friendship were at last agreed to. The king pronounced the final award on 24 March. York and the two earls were required to endow the abbey of St. Albans with 45l. a year, to be spent on masses for the soul of Somerset and the other lords slain on the king's side at St. Albans, and to make some pecuniary compensation besides to their sons and widows. The agreement was accepted by both parties, and the day following there was a great procession to St. Paul's, in which the king walked crowned, followed by the queen and the Duke of York, the other rival lords leading the way hand in hand.

So long as this hollow peace endured York must naturally have been predominant in the king's counsels. Even before it was made they had not been able to do without him, and so late as 17 Dec. preceding his name had been placed at the head of three of the commissions issued in different counties for the levying of the thirteen thousand archers granted by the Reading parliament (Patent, 36, Hen. VI, pt. i. membs. 7 and 5 in dorso). The only person of greater influence than himself was the queen, for support against whom it seems that even in May following the grand reconciliation he made overtures to Charles VII of France. These Charles declined to entertain; but in June there arrived at Calais an embassy from the Duke of Burgundy, which probably laid the foundations of some rather mysterious negotiations between England, France, and Burgundy, which went on till January following. In these it was proposed at first to marry King Henry's son to the Duke of Burgundy's granddaughter, York's son to a daughter of the House of Bourbon, and Somerset's son to a daughter of the Duke of Gueldres; but they led ultimately to no result.

Later in the year the old feuds were revived. On 26 Aug. summonses were sent out for a council to be held at Westminster on 21 Oct., and both York and Warwick received notice to attend. York's loyalty was still so fully recognised that a commission of array for Essex was directed to him and others on 5 Sept. (Patent, 37 Hen. VI, pt. i. m. 16 d). But on 9 Nov. an attempt was made to murder Warwick as he left the council-chamber, and he with difficulty escaped to his barge on the river.

The queen now kept ‘open household’ in Cheshire, and made her little son give ‘a livery of swans’ to all the gentry. It was said she designed to get her husband to resign the crown in the lad's favour. The king called for armed levies to be with him at Leicester on 10 May 1459. No overt act was imputed to the Yorkists, but they believed that as Warwick was at Calais the queen intended to attack his father, the Earl of Salisbury, and Salisbury thought it best to seek the king's presence to clear himself. On his way he overthrew at Bloreheath (23 Sept.) a force under Lord Audley that sought to stop him, and thereupon joined the Duke of York at Ludlow. Thither the Earl of Warwick came from Calais, and the three lords wrote a joint letter to the king on 10 Oct., full of solemn protestations of their loyalty and desire to avoid bloodshed, declaring that they had only been driven to take up arms in self-defence. But the king came up with a much larger army,