The Defection of The Earl of Warwick
The Earl of Warwick, who strove so hard and gave so much to put Edward IV on the throne, came to be in open rebellion against him by 1469. Eight years after the great Yorkist victory at the Battle of Towton, things had changed. Despite Warwick's growing discontent with Edward and his new government, nobody thought they would come to blows. However in Warwick's mind the motives were plentiful enough to merit war. In the years after Towton, the running of the country was mainly left to Warwick.
In 1464 Warwick was in the middle of negotiations with pro-Lancastrian France, and he knew that a royal marriage with a French princess could solve their problems. Warwick told Louis XI that Edward would be delighted to marry the French princess, but soon afterwards was informed of the humiliating truth: Edward had secretly been married to Elizabeth Woodville, a commoner, for the past six months. Later on, Elizabeth's brothers and sisters were married off to ladies and nobles of importance, throughout the land. Most of these marriages offended Warwick in some way, and at least one was a direct insult to his family.
Warwick was also angered by Edward's constant refusal to let George (Plantagenet), the Duke of Clarence, marry Warwick's eldest daughter. Edward claimed hypocritically that Clarence would serve for a diplomatic marriage and none other.
Warwick no longer exercised any control or even influenced his cousin, the King, in political matters. Thoughts turned to rebellion in Warwick's mind, a rebellion in which he already had an ally: the Duke of Clarence, heir to the English throne.
Read more about this topic: Battle Of Edgecote Moor
Famous quotes containing the words defection and/or earl:
“The most dangerous follower is the one whose defection would destroy the whole party: hence, the best follower.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“His eloquence was of every kind, and he excelled in the argumentative as well as in the declamatory way. But his invectives were terrible, and uttered with such energy of diction, and stern dignity of action and countenance, that he intimidated those who were the most willing and the best able to encounter him. Their arms fell out of their hands, and they shrunk under the ascendant which his genius gained over theirs.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)