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York was not slow to accept, and when civil war broke
out with the battle of St. Albans, 21 May 1455, Kentishmen were
evidently on the side of the Yorkists.18 In the three years’
truce that followed this battle, the confusion that resulted from the
alternate illnesses and recoveries of the king and from the queen’s
determination to govern in opposition to the Yorkist party, intensified
the Yorkist sympathies; these were further increased by the incompetence
of the Lord Admiral, the Duke of Exeter, who took no measures to guard
the coast. A strong French fleet under Pierre de Brize, seneschal of
Normandy, landed some 1,500 men at Sandwich, and in spite of a stout
resistance pillaged and stormed the town. On the same day he moved off
with all his shipping and plunder, but remained at anchor in the Downs,
defying England. The lieges of the king in Kent were called upon to
resist the enemy,19 and Exeter was deprived by the Council
of his command, which was conferred on the Earl of Warwick, York’s
nephew and chief supporter. The earl had already won high esteem as
governor of Calais, where at his own expense he had kept the garrison in
hand by supplementing the insufficient supplies of money granted to him
for their pay, and had induced the men of Kent to victual the town when
it was threatened with a siege in 1457. In the first year of his new
command he fought two considerable engagements in the Dover Straits. He
won a great victory, 29 May 1458, over 28 Castilian ships, six of which
were captured. In the second engagement he fell upon a great Hanseatic
fleet which refused to strike their flags to salute him and captured
five of them after a stiff fight.20 Kentishmen held him in
high favour for thus restoring their self-esteem, but the queen made the
complaints of the Hansa a pretext for endeavouring to remove him. Taking
his stand on the fact that he could only be deposed by Parliament, he
retired to Calais, and in the following summer had another notable
success at sea.21
When, therefore, in the spring of 1459, Queen Margaret’s preparations
drove the Yorkists into action, Kent was hotly Yorkist, and very ready
to receive the Earl of Warwick when he landed there with 200 lances22
and
400 archers of the garrison of Calais to join York in the Midlands. It
was in Kent that the Yorkist failure in the Midlands was atoned for by
success, mainly through the instrumentality of Warwick, who with his
father and other fugitives returned to Calais to make another attempt
from there to revive the cause of York.23
In order to prevent this, Somerset himself crossed over to Guisnes,
still further embittering English feeling against him by leaguing with
the French to attack Calais, while Lord Rivers was posted at Sandwich to
guard against a landing and to cross over to Guisnes to his assistance
as soon as weather permitted. But before this could be done, Warwick on
7 January 1460 sent an expedition under Sir John Dynham and Sir John
Wenlock to Sandwich. They entered the place between four and five o’clock
in the morning, captured Rivers and his son, Anthony Woodville, in their
beds, and carried them off to
18 Cf. Paston Letters, i, 392.
Anno, 1456. ‘The Comons
of Kent, as thei werre wontte er not all weel disposed, for there is in
doyng amongs them whatevere it bee.’
19 Cal. Pat. 1452-61, p. 371.
20 It had been the claim of our admirals, since the reign of Edward III,
that foreigners must dip their ensigns on meeting an English squadron of
royal ships, to acknowledge the English lordship of the narrow seas.
21 Whethamsted Reg. Abbat. (Rolls Ser.),
i, 330.
22 These lances, under Sir Andrew Trollope, deserted after the rout
of Ludford.
23 The Duke of Buckingham on 12 Feb. 1459 received compensation for his
expenses in attending the king on his journey through Kent against the
rebels there. Cal. Pat. 1452-1, p. 548. |