Loveday (1458)

Richard, Duke of York, leader of the Yorkist faction and bitter enemy of the King's favourites, the Dukes of Suffolk and Somerset, whom he believed had excluded him from his rightful position in government.

An uneasy peace existed between the court and the Yorkists until April 1455, when the King summoned a great council to meet at Leicester the following month. The Duke of York feared that the purpose of this council was to destroy him; several chroniclers of the day suggest that Somerset was influencing the King against the Duke with "subtile meanes".[3] York and the Nevilles raised an army from their northern estates.[note 5] They wrote to Henry regarding their fears, and emphasised their loyalty to him. This was in spite of what they called the "doubtes and ambiguitees [and] jealousie" spread by their enemies.[21] The Yorkist lords also expressed their fears that their lives were in danger from those who hid "undre the wynge of your Mageste Roiall".[22] This, they said, was the reason they felt the need to travel accompanied by large retinues.[21] The Yorkists' solution was that the King dismiss those who kept the King's true liegemen (i.e., them) from him and that the malicious advisers be excommunicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury.[23]

It is unknown whether the King received the Yorkist lords' letters, although the historian Michael Hicks believes that "there is no convincing evidence" that he did not.[24] Henry and a small force left London for Leicester on 20 May; while it was natural for both the King and his followers to travel with armed contingents, the majority were members of their civil households.[25][note 6] The Yorkists approached from the north with a speed calculated to surprise.[26] In a pre-emptive strike, York and his allies intercepted the royal army at St Albans.[27] Fighting in the streets lasted only a short time, and though there were very few fatalities among the common soldiery, the chief Lancastrian captains—Northumberland, Somerset and Thomas, Lord Clifford—were all killed. They were not only three of the King's most loyal and powerful supporters, but Northumberland and Somerset were bitter enemies of the Nevilles and York.[28] Because of this, the clash has been described more akin to a series of targeted assassinations than a fully fledged battle.[29][30] On the 22nd, Henry was escorted, under guard, back to London: "all honour was shown to him" by York, Salisbury and Warwick, notes Griffiths, and a ceremony—intending to establish the new-found friendship between the King and the Yorkists—was held in St Paul's the following day.[31][32]

The period between St Albans and the Loveday, says Pollard, is one of the most poorly recorded of the entire century,[33] although what is known has enabled historians to piece together the basic chronology. By 1458, Henry's government urgently needed to deal with the unfinished problem that the Battle of St Albans had created, summarised by the scholar Ralph Griffiths as the "craving of the younger magnates for revenge on those who had killed their fathers".[34] But Henry also wanted to bring the Yorkists back into the fold.[35] Taking the initiative,[36] the Loveday was intended to be his personal contribution to a lasting peace.[37][note 7] Another motive for achieving a united magnatial front was the French: intelligence had been received suggesting they planned to attack Calais.[note 8] In the event, this never occurred,[40] but the previous year the French had been able to land at Sandwich in Kent, which they sacked, taking many prisoners.[41] This alone was reason enough to bring the warring parties together.[35] The Yorkists released an official statement, known as the Parliamentary Pardon, which was intended to absolve them of blame for the crisis. This, as the name suggests, was passed by act of parliament, and was seen as a stronger defence for the Yorkists than one issued by the King alone.[42][29][note 9]

In the context of a 'loveday', 'love' meant concord or a settlement;[44] likewise, in law, a 'day' indicated a case-opening rather than a twenty-four hour period.[45] There were few, if any restrictions on the kind of business that a loveday could address, as long as the court had authorised it,[46] and this included cases that were pending at a higher court.[47] Arbitration, argues legal historian Anthony Musson, was not a resource restricted to one particular group of people, rather a universal phenomenon, occurring at every level and among all orders of society".[48]

The ritualistic reconciliations that contemporaries called lovedays[33] have been described by the scholar B. P. Wolffe as "a formal accord on the limited issue of atonement and compensation".[49][note 10] Legal historian John Baker suggested that, in particularly contentious affairs, a loveday was deliberately designed "to avoid reasoned decision making",[51] being intended to result in voluntary—therefore amicable—settlements. This was regardless of who was legally in the right.[51] The process often had a social aspect to it, such as the parties having to worship or dine together.[52] Lovedays were particularly favoured among the nobility as a mechanism by which parties could avoid the involvement of the crown if they so wished.[53] Held in neutral locations agreeable to the protagonists, lovedays were arranged by individuals acting as the protagonists' councillors. These would be important men in the extra-legal process, says Griffiths: "anyone who talked or wrote about or organized these dies amories was half-way towards settling potentially dangerous quarrels".[54] The protagonists would usually arrive accompanied by small retinues[note 11] and await an award from the arbitration committee.[58] This normally comprised three men, trusted by all those involved,[59] and usually members of the local nobility or respected local gentry.[60] Often one of them would be appointed at the beginning of the process as an umpire, in case of a deadlock.[59]

King Henry believed that an organised settlement, under his leadership, could be made between the opposing factions.[61] Several great councils were called through the autumn of 1457, involving long and protracted negotiations between the parties.[62] Henry eventually summoned a great council to Westminster,[note 12] with the intent of eventually imposing his own arbitration award.[34] The summons told how the King wished "to set apart such variances as be betwixt divers lords".[49][64] This council was scheduled to meet in November 1457, but it received little interest from the nobility, only a few turning up.[40] Among those who did were York and Salisbury, although the latter had been escorted[49]—willingly or not is unknown[65]—from Doncaster by Viscount Beaumont.[49] The little that is known of this council stems from subsequent writs which simultaneously cancelled and reformed it.[61][note 13] The council was rescheduled for 27 January 1458, and, this time, it appears to have been more positively received. Lords began arriving in London a few days before it was due to start. Each arrived with their retinues, which in the cases of the main protagonists involved substantial bodies of men.[note 14]

Henry tried to guarantee the safety of those attending, as he summoned levies from the counties for the defence of London and Westminster, which he then paraded through the City in a show of strength.[61] On 26 January, York arrived with 400 armed followers; the Earl of Salisbury—still in London from the November council—had 500 men.[34] Their attendance, if not their retinues, boded well for the King's plans.[67] The Yorkists' bitter rivals soon followed. These included Henry, Duke of Exeter—who had aided the Percies in the feud with the Nevilles[68]—and the new Duke of Somerset. Somerset had been involved in at least one attempt to assassinate Warwick the previous year.[69] Described as "ducal hotheads" by historian R. L. Storey,[40] they arrived soon after York with another 800 men between them. A fortnight later, the new Earl of Northumberland, Henry Percy, and his brothers Thomas, Lord Egremont and Sir Ralph Percy arrived, accompanied by John, Lord Clifford. Together, they brought a small army of around 1,500 men. The Earl of Warwick arrived last, coming from Calais—where he was Captain—having been delayed crossing the Channel. He brought another 600 men, seasoned soldiers of the town's garrison,[34] all dressed in red jackets with his cognizance, the white ragged staff.[70][note 15]

It was only after Warwick arrived that the King summoned members of the nobility less involved in the dispute, such as the Earl of Arundel.[67] The sheer number of retainers involved meant an enormous increase in the City of London's daily population for it to manage. With tensions running high, civic leaders went to great lengths to keep the parties apart. The Lancastrians were lodged outside the City Walls, at the Temple Bar and in Fleet Street.[72] According to Griffiths, they were seen as "spoiling for a fight",[71] and were therefore unwelcome in the City.[71] The mayor and common council feared a pitched battle breaking out if the two sides and their entourages met.[73][note 16] There was little appetite for reconciliation among the sons of the nobility killed at St Albans,[75] and York and Salisbury were nearly ambushed by Exeter, Egremont and Clifford on their way to Westminster, although the attempt failed.[67]

Henry's Queen, Margaret of Anjou, who by the end of the 1450s had become a political force in her own right and an implacable enemy of the Duke of York.

The great council met on 27 January 1458[note 17] and King Henry made a personal appearance before the newly gathered lords to make a plea for unity. He then withdrew to Chertsey, while the Mayor restored law and order following the attempted ambush of the Yorkists.[67]

Henry returned to London in mid-February, but within the week he had retired to Berkhampstead Castle. York's biographer, Paul Johnson, suggests that, in doing so, Henry damaged any subsequent chance for the attendees to reach a "broad-based accommodation", as now they had no-one to adjudicate their arguments.[77] Also, he suggests that, with the Yorkists effectively confined to the City, the Lancastrian lords could travel unhindered from their lodgings. And travel they did. While the King dwelt in Berkhampstead, Somerset, Exeter, Clifford and Egremont visited him on 23 February. It is not known whether their visit was regarding the imminent arbitration, but Johnson suggests that it was unwise of Henry to see them, in case it was perceived as breaching his perceived neutrality.[77] Meanwhile, the council, says Wolffe, instead of commencing negotiations, "does not appear to have done anything until the middle of March", when the King returned to Westminster.[49]

From that point on discussions,[71]—led by Henry and certain impartial councillors[49]—began in earnest. These negotiations, says Griffiths, "were long and doubtless acrimonious". The King prayed and prayed again for a settlement. Eventually[71]—perhaps inevitably[78]—one was reached, although the presence of so many armed men probably facilitated the process.[71] Deliberations were carried out through intermediaries. Henry's councillors met the Yorkists in the City, at the Blackfriars, in the mornings; in the afternoons, they met the Lancastrian lords at the Whitefriars on Fleet Street.[49] During the council's sittings, other policy issues were addressed. The question of the governorship of Ireland probably arose,[77] and the Earl of Warwick was appointed admiral of the seas. This office had previously been held by the Duke of Exeter, further damaging relations between the two men.[64] These were peripheral issues; the Battle of St Albans was the topic of overriding importance.[77]

On 24 March the King announced his decision. Blame for St Albans was placed squarely upon the Yorkist lords.[79] The King did not spare them, telling of "the execrabill and moost detestable deed by theym doon at Seynt Albones".[24] He emphasised the obviationem et insultationem ("opposition and insults"), as the chronicler, John Whethamstede, called them, that Somerset, Northumberland and Clifford had endured. For the King, his award served two purposes. He both acknowledged and condemned the wrongdoing and criminality done but, by doing so, demonstrated the king's grace in the role of keeper of the king's peace.[79]

Similar to the arbitration awards the nobility imposed upon themselves and their tenants, the financial element was critical. York was to pay 5,000 marks[note 18] to Somerset and his dowager mother, Warwick was to pay 1,000 to Lord Clifford, and Salisbury agreed to cancel the fines that had been imposed on Egremont and Ralph Percy in 1454.[71] Salisbury was also, on behalf of his younger sons John and Thomas,[note 19] to pay 12,000 marks to Eleanor Neville, Dowager Countess of Northumberland.[note 20] She and her son, the new Earl, in turn pledged themselves to keep the peace with the Nevilles.[81] The financial obligations that had been imposed on many Percy tenants after the feud with the Nevilles were also lifted.[83] Further—because Egremont had escaped from Newgate in 1456—Salisbury also swore not to take any action against the Newgate sheriffs whose negligence was presumed to have enabled it.[81][note 21]

Wolffe has argued that Henry's decision was no more than "a formal accord on the limited issue of atonement and compensation".[85] Changing the attitudes of individuals towards their enemies was considered more important than the question of compensation, important though that was.[77] Furthermore, York and Warwick's payments to the families of their enemies were not in cash; rather, they were to renounce debts owed them by the crown which amounted to similar sums.[40] To fulfil their obligations, York and the Nevilles merely had to return government-issued tallies which entitled them to receive the required sum.[71] The Yorkists, for their part, were declared to be the King's "true lieges", although any reassurance they took from this, comments the medievalist John Watts, may have been tempered by the knowledge that so also had been the three dead lords of St Albans.[86]

The Yorkists agreed to endow St Albans Abbey with a new chantry[87] and £45 a year for two years for the monks to say masses for the slain.[71] The Lancastrian lords, as the injured parties, had to make no reciprocal concessions to York and his allies. Egremont was required to make an independent bond of 4,000 marks towards the Nevilles to keep the peace with them in Yorkshire for ten years.[71] Thus, says the scholar Helen Maurer, the crown implicitly recognised that bad blood had existed between the Nevilles and Egremont even before St Albans.[88] One contemporary observed in a Paston letter that the final settlement was a "throw [sic: thorough] peace final[ised] by means of all the Lords".[73]

There is some disagreement among historians as to who won or lost at the Loveday. Hicks considers it to have been a "reasonable compromise",[88] with which the Yorkists appear to "have been pleased with the result".[106] Conversely, Griffiths saw it as being punitive to them.[107] Watts suggests that it indicates that, notwithstanding St Albans, "York and the Nevilles were regarded as acceptable by the ruling lords".[101] Johnson argues that York, at the least, did "very well" out of it.[88] To the scholar David Grummitt, this Loveday illustrated the "essentially private and personal nature of the dispute" between the Yorkists and their enemies.[108] More broadly, though, the personal basis for their enmity was in the long term disadvantageous to the Yorkists. By focussing on, and emphasising, the personal quarrels between York and Somerset—or Salisbury and Northumberland for example—the award ignored and sidelined the original complaints of the Yorkists that they had argued led to the battle.[38][note 23] Furthermore, he says, if any part of the nobility were united by the Loveday, it was the Yorkist lords.[110] Historian Christine Carpenter has suggested that the King wanted to keep the occasion one of "general reconciliation and restoration of magnate unity".[111] She argues that not highlighting the degree to which the nobility was divided was a deliberate policy, but the involvement of the Queen meant there had to be "a formal recognition...that there were two opposing camps".[111]

The Loveday saw the Yorkists—for the first time—acknowledge their wrongdoing and accept culpability for St Albans. This was something they had denied immediately after the battle and in the years following, but was insufficient in the long term, says Pollard, because it did not contain the one thing that the new Lancastrian lords most wanted—revenge for their fathers. It was not, therefore, "a satisfying long-term solution" that guaranteed future peace as intended.[112]

A contemporary illustration of a procession entering the medieval St Paul's Cathedral—in the background—where the nobility gathered on 25 March 1458.[113][114]

Historian Cora Scofield suggests that the Loveday procession to St Paul's was "doubtless an edifying spectacle, but it had little real meaning and probably deceived no-one".[115] Not long after the Loveday, an anonymous poem was published entitled Take Good Heed; this offers the Yorkist lords advice and anxious support for the years ahead, which, the author recognises, will be difficult ones for all.[116] Other writers were more optimistic. The poem Reconciliation of Henry VI and the Yorkists repeats the refrain, "rejoise, Angleonde to concorde and unité",[90] suggesting that the author expects the kingdom to be strong and unified going forward.[117] The author of the Reconciliation emphasises how "ther was bytwyn hem lovely contynaunce / Whiche was gret ioy to all that ther were".[117] The author expands on his theme:[118]

Not all commentators were impressed: a Coventry preacher, one William Ive, said caustically that the King "made Lovedays as Judas made with a kiss with Christ".[78] Enemies may have marched together that day, argues Scofield, but they trusted each other no more after the procession than they had before.[70] This was the view of Thomas Malory in his mid-century Morte darthur, which expresses a cynicism regarding Lovedays as a means of settling feuds. Malory's pessimism was probably caused by his view of the 1458 ceremony.[117] Malory portrays Lancelot as attempting to atone for the murders of his enemies through the building of chapels—"penitence as a remedy for war", suggests literary scholar Robert L. Kelly. But Lancelot's, like Henry's, attempts are in vain: "Lo what meschef lyth in variaunce / Amonge lordis, whan þei nat accorde", comments Malory on both.[119]