Why were the Yorkists attainted 1459?

Question 1

what are 3 theories for why the Yorkists were attainted 1459?

Answer 1

• Yorkist actions in 1450s (long-term hatred towards previous Yorkists actions)
• Queen Margaret’s Dominance of Government
• The failure of Yorkist military actions 1459

Question 2

what limitations are there to the theory that long-term hatred towards previous Yorkists actions caused their attainder?

Answer 2

• York had been invited to lead the First Protectorate and had acted within his authority
• The parliament of 1455 had pardoned the Yorkists for their actions at St Albans, and this had been confirmed at Loveday

Question 3

what limitations are there to the theory that Margaret’s dominance of government caused the Yorkists to be attainted?

Answer 3

• her authority remained narrowly based and insufficient as long as the lords exercising the authority of the council were able to act in the king’s name; in 1457 she achieved little beyond the judicial punishment of Herbert and Devereux
• Blaming Margaret is inaccurate: York had made other enemies within the nobility and as a woman, on her own, she did not have that much power (she needed the support of male nobles)

Question 4

what is a limitation to the theory that the failure of Yorkist military actions 1459 caused them to be attainted?

Answer 4

the Yorkists were provoked into action due to their exclusion and did not trust the parson (as they had been previously pardoned for their earlier actions, and yet were still condemned)

Question 5

what evidence is there that it was long-term hatred towards Yorkists actions which caused their attainder?

Answer 5

• influence in 1450 crisis
• effects of the First and Second Protectorate
• military actions against royal forces
• Warwick’s piracy

Question 6

how did the Yorkists create dislike for themselves in 1450-52, perhaps contributing to their attainder 1459?

Answer 6

• York’s supporters had been accused of stirring up disorder in 1450 (Ipswich - Sir William Oldhall, Jack Cade - Jack Mortimer, the ‘common weal’).
• York had returned from Ireland 1450 against royal orders and then raised an army and borught it to London late 1450
• attempted coup at Dartford 1452

Question 7

what is an example of an enemy York made during the First Protectorate, perhaps contributing to the Yorkist attainder 1459?

Answer 7

• Thomas Courtenay (Earl of Devon) and Henry Holland (Duke of Exeter)
• by relying on the Nevilles he had made enemies of the Percies

Question 8

why did the First Battle of St Albans cause hatred/dislike of the Yorkists, perhaps contributing to their attainder 1459?

Answer 8

• The Yorkists raised armies in violation of York’s 1452 Oath at St Paul’s, and attacked a royal army where they killed Somerset and injured the king
• blood feuds with Henry Beaufort (Duke of Somerset), Henry Percy (Earl of Northumberland), and John Clifford (Lord Clifford) began
• the Yorkists denied responsibility, as was necessary to acquit themselves of the imputation of treason, and their attribution of blame dishonoured Somerset and the other victims

Question 9

what evidence is there that the First Battle of St Albans caused dislike of the Yorkists, perhaps contributing to their attainder 1459?

Answer 9

• friendly overtures by the Yorkists to the late peers’ heirs and to others, such as Wiltshire, had been rebuffed
• the heirs ignored those York adherents who had not fought in the battle, such as the Bourchiers and Grey of Powys; shows there determination to attack the Yorkist leaders

Question 10

what did the Yorkist vendetta with the heirs from St Albans prevent the Nevilles and York doing?

Answer 10

could not pursue separate political ways and dissolve what had begun as a temporary alliance of mutual self interest, if they had wanted to

Question 11

how did York contribute to the hatred that perhaps led to his attainder 1459, during the Second Protectorate?

Answer 11

• targeted Margaret
• sought to reduce the prerogative powers of the king
• had alienated many nobles by attempting a mass resumption.

Question 12

why did Jasper Tudor become hostile to the Yorkists, perhaps contributing to their attainder 1459?

Answer 12

due to the actions of William Herbert and Walter Devereux in Wales, who had captured Edmund who later died of plague

Question 13

why did Warwicks piracy lead the nobility to dislike him, perhaps contributing to the Yorkist attainder 1459?

Answer 13

when brought to London to account for it, his men had started a fight that led to the death of a royal servant

Question 14

what evidence is there that it was Margaret’s dominance of government which caused the Yorkist attainder?

Answer 14

• her control of the court and her power base
• her government appointments
• the prince’s council
• targeting and challenging Yorkists
• military influence

Question 15

how did Margaret control the court from 1456, perhaps contributing to the attainder of the Yorkists 1459?

Answer 15

• August 1456: Margaret had moved HVI’s court from Yorkist-sympathising London to the midlands - the heartland of many of the estates of the Duchy of Lancaster - to establish her power base
• ## from late 1456 onwards, Margaret promoted her own people to positions in government and removed those close to the Yorkists

Question 16

how did Margaret utilise the authority of Edward of Wales, perhaps contributing to the attainder of the Yorkists 1459?

Answer 16

• meant her power base was built on twin foundations: the duchy of Lancaster lands in the midlands, where she held the Duchy honours of Tutbury and Leicester, with the Duchy castle of Kenilworth, Warwickshire, which became the crown’s principal military bastion; and her son’s earldom of Chester and Principality of Wales

Question 17

which nobles became part of the prince’s council, showing Margaret’s influence?

Answer 17

Wiltshire, Beaumont and others closely connected to Margaret. Shrewsbury probably felt he had no option but to join the queen since the geographical basis of the queen’s power so closely matched his own

Question 18

how did Margaret challenge the authority of the Yorkists in Wales?

Answer 18

• April 1457: charges brought against Herbert and Devereux
• she installed Jasper Tudor as a loyal royal agent there

Question 19

how did Margaret try to gain supporters 1457-58, turning them against the Yorkists and possibly contributing to the 1459 attainder?

Answer 19

• she Margaret arranged marriages
• e.g. to draw Buckingham away from his Yorkist Bourchier kin; marriages between Margaret Beaufort, cousin of Somerset and widow of Edmund Tudor, and Buckingham’s second son, and between Shrewsbury’s heir and Buckingham’s daughter

Question 20

how did Margaret use her control of Loveday against the Yorkists, possibly contributing to their 1459 attainder?

Answer 20

• she emphasised Yorkist compensation and annulled the Percy debt to the Nevilles, thus keeping the support of the Lancastrians
• Loveday was intended to be a general reconciliation and restoration of magnate unity under the king and followed the post St Albans dispensation in refusing to rake over the battle itself; Margaret turned it into specific shows of amity between Yorkists and the heirs of the Lancastrians killed in battle; this became a formal recognition, which the lords had avoided, that there were 2 opposing camps
• this was not done under the aegis of king and council but king and queen and became the end of the noble/conciliar attempt to ignore the emergence of rival camps

Question 21

how was Margaret influential in the military, showing her dominance and contributing to the Yorkist attainder 1459?

Answer 21

• 1459 she gave swan livery badges to ‘all the gentlemen of Cheshire’ (Cheshire was nominally held by the prince) and others, in an attempt to create a private army
• a royal army was summoned to meet at Leicester in May 1459 (this was outside of her gendered role)

Question 22

how was Margaret most influential in the attainder of the Yorkists 1459?

Answer 22

At Margaret’s insistence, the absent Yorkists were condemned at the Great Council at Coventry in June 1459 (Warwick was the main target due to his actions at Westminster in 1458)

Question 23

what evidence is there that it was the failure of Yorkist military actions 1459 which caused the Yorkist attainder?

Answer 23

• Yorkists had been politically outmaneuvered June 1459 and excluded from a Great Council at Coventry
• The Yorkists united at Ludford Bridge (outside Ludlow) but they failed to gain wider support, and their forces were numerically inferior to the king’s
• The overnight flight of the Yorkists from Ludford Bridge confirmed their guilt in the eyes of the lords present

Question 24

how were the Yorkists politically outmanoeuvred June 1459 and excluded from the Great Council at Coventry, contributing to their attainder?

Answer 24

• many lords close to the king and queen were ordered to attend with many armed men
• York, Salisbury, Warwick, and George Neville, were given no guarantees as to their safety and were not invitied. Thomas Bourchier, Henry Bourchier, William Earl of Arundel (Warwick’s brother-in-law) and William Grey Bishop of Ely, also excluded
• pre-empting the judgement of the Great Council against them, the Yorkists laid plans to gather in military strength to force the king into hearing their complaints (in violation of their oaths)
• York was to be joined at Ludlow by Salisbury and his North-Country followers, and Warwick with a force of men from the Calais garrison under Andrew Trollope. But this allowed their enemies to present them as traitors.
• Margaret’s followers learnt of the Yorkist plan and intercepted Salisbury at Blore Heath. This slowed the Yorkists. Audley was killed and Salisbury’s younger sons, Thomas and John Neville, were taken prisoner. By attacking a ‘royal’ army, Salisbury had acted treasonously.

Question 25

how did the events of Ludford Bridge contribute to the Yorkist attainder 1459?

Answer 25

• They were offered a generous pardon by HVI but they rejected it (turning many against them)
• Yorkists fired their artillery against the royal army and spread false rumours that HVI was dead. These treasonous actions and rejection of pardon led to Andrew Trollope, Captain if Warwick’s Calais army, to refuse to fight the king
• The overnight flight of the Yorkists from Ludford Bridge confirmed their guilt in the eyes of the lords present