recover her estates and planned to get his hands on them through her. There were certainly rumours that it was just what would happen – ‘and of this divers folks marvel greatly’.
Duke George was infuriated. Probably ‘false, fleeting, perjured Clarence’ dabbled in treason yet again. That unconquerable Lancastrian, the Earl of Oxford, who had escaped from Barnet, seized St Michael’s Mount on the Cornish coast in the autumn of 1473 and raised his standard. There were rumours that George was in some way involved. About this time Sir John Paston noticed how members of Edward’s household were sending for their armour as if they expected trouble. He commented that the
Duke of Clarence maketh himself big in that he can, showing as he would but deal with the Duke of Gloucester. But the King intendeth to be as big as they both and to be a stifler between them. And some think that under this there be some other thing intended, and some treason conspired.
In the event Edward’s men quickly sealed off the Mount, starving Oxford into surrender and imprisonment by the following January. In itself it was not a particularly alarming episode. What was disturbing, however, was that Oxford was said to have shown Louis XI a list of names of those ready to support him and that it included a Duke’s. No doubt Richard was far from displeased by such insinuations about his brother of Clarence.
Not content with Oxford’s estates, which he had received in 1471, he had also acquired those of the Earl’s aged mother, the dowager Countess. As he showed in Lady Warwick’s case, he was a young man with a gift for bullying old ladies, if we are to believe the evidence of depositions by witnesses which are contained in a Petition later presented to Parliament by her son. On Edward IV’s orders she had been confined in a nunnery at Stratford-le-Bow, Bromley Priory, where ‘in the Christmas season’ of 1472 Gloucester arrived withoutwarning, announcing that the King had given him custody of her person and lands. Despite her tears she was forced to hand over her keys to Richard’s men, who searched her coffers. He then had her taken to a supporter’s house at Stepney where he threatened that, unless she gave him her estates, he would send her a prisoner to Yorkshire and shut her up in one of his castles.
The dowager, records the Petition, ‘considering her great age, the great journey and the great cold which was then, of frost and snow, thought that she could not endure to be conveyed thither without great jeopardy of her life and [was] also sore fearing how she should be there entreated’. Terrified, she promised to do whatever Gloucester wanted, crying, ‘I thank God … I have those lands which shall now save my life.’ Then she was led through the snow by night to another house and forced to sign the necessary documents, after which she was taken back to confinement at Bromley Priory. Subsequently her trustees were browbeaten into accepting the transfer of her entire fortune to Richard.
When the Duke tried to sell her London house to Sir John Risley, one of the King’s Esquires of the Body, even Edward admitted that his brother had acquired it unlawfully. ‘Risley, meddle not ye with the buying of the said place,’ he warned. Perhaps it would do for Gloucester or some other great magnate, but ‘it might well be dangerous to thee to buy it’. When the dowager died at the end of 1473, the Duke went decorously to her funeral at the Austin Friars’ church in Broad Street. 2
Edward IV may have suspected George, but he was not yet prepared to destroy him. He worked hard to reconcile him with Gloucester. In May 1474 an iniquitous Act of Parliament took away from Lady Warwick all rights to her own property, ordaining it should be treated as though she ‘were now naturally dead’. The wrangling continued for nearly another year and only in February 1475 was a settlement finally agreed. Details of it have not survived, but
Duke George was infuriated. Probably ‘false, fleeting, perjured Clarence’ dabbled in treason yet again. That unconquerable Lancastrian, the Earl of Oxford, who had escaped from Barnet, seized St Michael’s Mount on the Cornish coast in the autumn of 1473 and raised his standard. There were rumours that George was in some way involved. About this time Sir John Paston noticed how members of Edward’s household were sending for their armour as if they expected trouble. He commented that the
Duke of Clarence maketh himself big in that he can, showing as he would but deal with the Duke of Gloucester. But the King intendeth to be as big as they both and to be a stifler between them. And some think that under this there be some other thing intended, and some treason conspired.
In the event Edward’s men quickly sealed off the Mount, starving Oxford into surrender and imprisonment by the following January. In itself it was not a particularly alarming episode. What was disturbing, however, was that Oxford was said to have shown Louis XI a list of names of those ready to support him and that it included a Duke’s. No doubt Richard was far from displeased by such insinuations about his brother of Clarence.
Not content with Oxford’s estates, which he had received in 1471, he had also acquired those of the Earl’s aged mother, the dowager Countess. As he showed in Lady Warwick’s case, he was a young man with a gift for bullying old ladies, if we are to believe the evidence of depositions by witnesses which are contained in a Petition later presented to Parliament by her son. On Edward IV’s orders she had been confined in a nunnery at Stratford-le-Bow, Bromley Priory, where ‘in the Christmas season’ of 1472 Gloucester arrived withoutwarning, announcing that the King had given him custody of her person and lands. Despite her tears she was forced to hand over her keys to Richard’s men, who searched her coffers. He then had her taken to a supporter’s house at Stepney where he threatened that, unless she gave him her estates, he would send her a prisoner to Yorkshire and shut her up in one of his castles.
The dowager, records the Petition, ‘considering her great age, the great journey and the great cold which was then, of frost and snow, thought that she could not endure to be conveyed thither without great jeopardy of her life and [was] also sore fearing how she should be there entreated’. Terrified, she promised to do whatever Gloucester wanted, crying, ‘I thank God … I have those lands which shall now save my life.’ Then she was led through the snow by night to another house and forced to sign the necessary documents, after which she was taken back to confinement at Bromley Priory. Subsequently her trustees were browbeaten into accepting the transfer of her entire fortune to Richard.
When the Duke tried to sell her London house to Sir John Risley, one of the King’s Esquires of the Body, even Edward admitted that his brother had acquired it unlawfully. ‘Risley, meddle not ye with the buying of the said place,’ he warned. Perhaps it would do for Gloucester or some other great magnate, but ‘it might well be dangerous to thee to buy it’. When the dowager died at the end of 1473, the Duke went decorously to her funeral at the Austin Friars’ church in Broad Street. 2
Edward IV may have suspected George, but he was not yet prepared to destroy him. He worked hard to reconcile him with Gloucester. In May 1474 an iniquitous Act of Parliament took away from Lady Warwick all rights to her own property, ordaining it should be treated as though she ‘were now naturally dead’. The wrangling continued for nearly another year and only in February 1475 was a settlement finally agreed. Details of it have not survived, but
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