Warwick The Kingmaker

WARWICK, CALAIS CAPTAIN AND ADMIRAL

CHAPTER SEVEN

Warwick established his name and gained popularity during the four years between the Battle of St. Albans and the commencement of the Second Civil War in 1459. Before 1455, he was recognized as a competent young aristocrat who followed his father Salisbury's example in everything. He still needed to be granted autonomous command or trusted alone in any work of significance. However, he was far past the age at which many divinities of the fifteenth century began to play a significant part in politics. He was now 27 years old, eleven years older than Henry the Fifth when he took control of Wales, and nine years older than Edward the Fourth when he won the battle of Mortimer's Cross. Warwick showed no symptoms of the rapid maturation that had turned so many of his contemporaries into grown men at sixteen and worn-out veterans at forty.

Unlike most of his family, Warwick was not blessed with a big family. Anne Beauchamp had only given him two children, both fragile girls who died before the age of thirty. No male heirs were ever awarded to him, and it appeared confident that the domains of Warwick and Despenser would be passed down through the female line once more. But that day was far off, and Richard Neville's muscular build and constitution—his attitude paribus corporis viribus, to paraphrase Polidore Vergil—promised many a long year of active manhood.

Warwick had already established himself as a significant role in English politics, owing to the vastness of his domains and the promise of military strength he had demonstrated at St. Albans, as evidenced by his near-universal popularity. As subsequent authors portrayed him, he was far from the pompous Lord, the Last of the Barons. On the contrary, his contemporaries describe him as the Commons' idol and the people's friend, saying that "his words were mild, and he was amiable, was acquainted with all persons, and never spoke of his own advancement, but always of the augmentation and good government of the realm." There was never a peer who was a finer lord to his own retainers or who behaved himself more generously towards the Commons; as a result, he achieved personal popularity that his father Salisbury never attained and that even his uncle of York could not match.

The governorship of Calais could not have been a more significant training ground for a man of action. The area had been besieged by the French since the surrender of Normandy in 1450, and it was never safe from an unexpected invasion. Three times in the previous six years, large armies marched against it, only to be pushed back by unforeseen developments elsewhere. Even when there was a notional ceasefire, the fighting with the French garrisons at Boulogne and other nearby locations never stopped. To deal with the enemy, the Captain of Calais had a fortress that was always understaffed and in a condition of repressed mutiny; because one of the main symptoms of the ill governance of Suffolk and Somerset had been the central government's failure to find the money for the realm's normal war-expenses. The Calais garrison was continually in arrears of pay, and successive governors have repeatedly heard grumbling that they had to empty their purses to keep the troops on the job. Even the town walls had been allowed to deteriorate due to a lack of funds to maintain them.

In addition to his military duties, the Captain of Calais had additional severe responsibilities. He was on the boundary of Flanders, and a significant part of the traffic between England and the dominions of the house of Burgundy flowed through his town because Calais was the "staple" for that branch of business. Hence, he had to maintain good terms with the adjoining Burgundian rulers and—what was even more difficult—to strive to sweep the Straits of Dover clean of pirates and of French privateers whenever there was not an English fleet at sea. This was no guarantee, for English ships had recently been seldom seen. When they had appeared, they had returned without doing anything meaningful. Therefore, the man who could take up the office of Captain of Calais with a light heart had to be capable and self-assured.