Calais,²⁴  with all the ships in the port which were to have conveyed reinforcements to Somerset.
   Having thus secured his position, Warwick continued his preparations to land a force in Kent, where he was assured that his friends would rise in arms the moment he came ashore. Meanwhile the Lancastrians, under Lord Audley and Osbern Mundeford,²⁵  were collecting a force at Sandwich. Early in June a. small force under Lord Audley tried to cross to the reinforcement of Somerset,, who was in great straits, but his ship was driven by a storm into Calais, and he was taken prisoner and persuaded to join the Yorkist cause. About 20 June,. Sir John Dynham and Sir John Wenlock crossed again with Warwick’s vanguard to Sandwich, seized the town, and sent Mundeford to Calais, where he was executed.
   On 26 June, Warwick himself landed with 2,000 men, accompanied by his father Salisbury, his uncle Fauconberg, his brother George Neville, archbishop of York, and the papal legate, Cardinal Coppini, whom he had won over at Calais when on his way to preach peace at the English court. He had already issued manifestoes from Calais. At Sandwich Archbishop Bourchier joined them with his cross,²⁶  and as they moved on towards London they were joined by all Kent, with Lord Cobham at their head. Articles were circulated in the name of the men of Kent charging the king’s advisers with instilling into him that his will was law,²⁷  while a ballad said to have been affixed to the gates of Canterbury declared that the Prince of Wales was a ‘false heir.’²⁸
   London offered a free entry to Warwick, and some Lancastrian lords who endeavoured to resist had to take refuge in the Tower. The invaders were joined by many nobles, including Lord Say and the bishop of Rochester, and by ‘much people out of Kent’ and other counties. When Warwick moved on to Northampton, he left the Earl of Salisbury and Lord Cobham to blockade the Tower. In the battles, with their varying fortunes, that intervened between the victory of Northampton and the final victory at Towton which secured the’ throne for York’s son, Edward IV, Kentish levies had mustered with enthusiasm for the Yorkist cause 29 but the losses on that day included their leaders, John Stafford and Robert Home.
   After his coronation, Edward made his uncle, Lord Fauconberg, Earl of Kent, while Warwick was made Warden of the Cinque Ports and Constable of Dover Castle. In August 1461, Edward made a royal progress through the county, going from Westminster to Sittingbourne and from thence to Canterbury, where he stayed from the 14th to the 16th, afterwards visiting Sandwich and Ashford, amid signs of universal enthusiasm. The new Earl of Kent died in 1463, and two years later Edward conferred the honour on Lord Grey de Ruthyn, whose desertion of the Lancastrians at Northampton, 10 July 1460, had decided the battle. Edward’s marriage with Elizabeth Woodville, daughter of the Lancastrian Lord Rivers, in May 1464, was followed
   ²⁴  Paston Letters, i, 504-6
   ²⁵  He had deserted with Trollope at Ludford.
   ²⁶ J. Stow, Ann. 408. Whethamsted represents the archbishop as having joined them in London. Reg. (Rolls Ser.), i, 372.
   ²⁷ E. Hall, Chron. 243.                        ²⁸  Davies, Chron. (Camden Soc.), 91-4.
   ²⁹ Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. V contains many entries of the expenses of Kentishmen fighting under the Earls of March and Warwick in this campaign; Lydd paid II li I0s ‘to the jorney of St. Albonys in money to them that went—to 34 men and a strangers.’ App. p. 523. Sir Robert Poynings was among those who fell at the second battle of St. Albans.