Early in the reign of James III, Scottish policy toward England revolved around exploitation of the political turmoil caused by the WARS OF THE ROSES to recover the border town of BERWICK. Later in the reign, James weakened his hold on the Scottish Crown by pursuing an unusual policy of accommodation toward England.

 

James succeeded to the throne in August 1460, when his father, JAMES II, was killed by an ARTILLERY explosion while besieging the English-held castle of Roxburgh. Directed by MARY OF GUELDRES, the Queen Mother, and by Bishop James KENNEDY of St. Andrews, the regency government of the nine-year- old king continued his father’s policy of exploiting the English civil war to make Scottish territorial gains. Between December 1460, when Queen MARGARET OF ANJOU arrived in SCOTLAND seeking assistance for the Lancastrian cause, and December 1463, when Scottish support for the house of LANCASTER ceased, the minority government of James III balanced the Lancastrian need for military assistance against the Yorkist need for security to extract concessions from both parties. When the Lancastrian royal family fled into Scotland after the Battle of TOWTON in March 1461, Queen Margaret agreed to cede English border towns in return for Scottish help against EDWARD IV. Although the citizens of Carlisle refused to obey Margaret’s order to admit the Scots, Berwick surrendered to James III in April.

 

With Berwick achieved and Yorkist pressure increasing, notably through the 1462 Treaty of WESTMINSTER-ARDTORNISH, whereby Edward IV threatened an alliance with rebellious Scottish magnates, enthusiasm for the Lancastrian cause waned. By early 1464, Queen Margaret and Prince EDWARD OF LANCASTER had sailed to FRANCE, HENRYVI had been returned to England, and a truce had been concluded with Edward IV. Although James assumed personal control of the government in 1469, he was intent on consolidating his authority in Scotland and did not intervene when the English conflict revived between 1469 and 1471. In the 1470s, James attempted to improve relations with England by proposing a series of marriages between members of his family, including his son, the future JAMES IV, and members of the house of YORK, including Edward’s brother, George PLANTAGENET, duke of Clarence, and his sister MARGARET OF YORK, the widowed duchess of BURGUNDY. None of these unions occurred, mainly for lack of English interest.

 

Anglo-Scottish relations deteriorated in the late 1470s, when Edward sought to retake Berwick by exploiting internal dissension in Scotland. In 1482, Edward concluded the Treaty of Fotheringhay with James’s brother, Alexander, duke of Albany. The agreement called for Albany to surrender Berwick to England in return for assistance in overthrowing James. Richard, duke of Gloucester, recaptured Berwick in August 1482, but the attempt to crown Albany failed. In 1484, James, accepting the loss of Berwick, concluded a truce with RICHARD III. Although a Scottish contingent fought for him at the Battle of BOSWORTH FIELD in August 1485, HENRY VII showed no willingness to yield Berwick, and James was defeated and killed by Scottish rebels in 1488, in part for his failure to pursue a more aggressive policy toward England.

 

Further Reading: Macdougall, Norman, James III:A Political Study (Edinburgh: J. Donald, 1982).

 

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The picturesque Ludford Bridge over the River Teme in Ludlow.

Because it resulted in the Yorkist leaders’ decision to abandon their troops and flee the country, the military encounter at Ludford Bridge on 12–13 October 1459 seemed a final and ignominious end to the attempt by Richard PLANTAGENET, duke of York, to control HENRYVI and the royal government.

 

After his victory over a Lancastrian force at the Battle of BLORE HEATH in September 1459, Richard NEVILLE, earl of Salisbury, evaded two other royal armies and joined forces with York at the duke’s lordship of Ludlow in southern Shropshire. Also at Ludlow was Salisbury’s son, Richard NEVILLE, earl of Warwick, with a portion of the CALAIS garrison, the only standing military force of any significance in fifteenth-century England. From Ludlow, York and the Nevilles sent the king a letter setting forth their reasons for taking up arms. Henry responded with a promise of pardon for York and all his adherents, if they would lay down their arms and surrender to the royal forces. Excepted from this offer were those responsible for the Battle of Blore Heath and the death there of the Lancastrian commander, James TOUCHET, Lord Audley. Because this exception certainly covered Salisbury and could probably be stretched to cover York and Warwick as well, the Yorkists declined to respond to the king’s message. Thus, on 12 October, a royal army reached Ludford Bridge and made contact with an entrenched Yorkist force that was probably only one-third its size. Beyond the Nevilles, York had attracted little noble support to his cause, while the royal army comprised the followings of a great number of English peers. When the soldiers of the Calais garrison, perhaps remembering their sworn oath to the king, accepted the royal pardon and abandoned York, the Lancastrian advantage in numbers became even greater.

 

 With the defection of the Calais garrison, York lost both his best troops and his most experienced commander, Andrew TROLLOPE, who took with him to the royal camp his knowledge of York’s plans and dispositions. As evening approached, York ordered an ARTILLERY barrage to cover the withdrawal of himself, his two eldest sons, and Salisbury and Warwick to Ludlow Castle for the night. However, upon reaching the fortress, the Yorkist leaders collected their personal belongings and scattered in flight, York and his son Edmund PLANTAGENET, earl of Rutland, to IRELAND and Warwick, Salisbury, and York’s son Edward, earl of March (see EDWARD IV), to Calais. Abandoned by its commanders, the Yorkist army quickly dispersed the following morning, leaving the Lancastrians to plunder the town of Ludlow and Queen MARGARET OF ANJOU and her supporters in uncontested control of the government.

 

Further Reading: Haigh, Philip A., The Military Campaigns of the Wars of the Roses (Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Sutton Publishing, 1995); Hodges, Geoffrey, Ludford Bridge and Mortimer’s Cross (Herefordshire: Long Aston Press, 1989).

The surviving letters and papers of the Plumptons of Yorkshire are a valuable source of information on the lives and concerns of a northern GENTRY family during the WARS OF THE ROSES.

 

The Plumpton archive contains about 250 letters and almost 1,000 estate and other family documents. The correspondence dates from 1461 to the mid-sixteenth century, with most of the letters written during the reigns of HENRYVII and Henry VIII, when the family was headed by Sir Robert Plumpton (1453–1525) and his son William Plumpton (d. 1547). For the civil wars, the most relevant letters are the earlier ones relating to EDWARD IV’s reign; this correspondence concerns Sir Robert’s father, Sir William Plumpton (1404–1480), who was a long-standing RETAINER of the Percy earls of Northumberland. As rivals of the NEVILLE FAMILY (see NEVILLE-PERCY FEUD), the Percies were partisans of the house of LANCASTER, and Sir William followed his lord, Henry PERCY, third earl of Northumberland, into the service of HENRYVI. Sir William fought at the Battle of TOWTON in 1461 and spent some months following the battle in confinement in the TOWER OF LONDON, but he somehow escaped ATTAINDER by the Yorkist PARLIAMENT.

 

In the 1460s, Sir William lived uneasily under the northern dominance of Richard NEVILLE, earl of Warwick, but won greater favor with the house of YORK after 1470, when Edward IV released the Percy heir from confinement and recognized him as Henry PERCY, fourth earl of Northumberland. Through the patronage of the new earl, Sir William held a number of local offices, as did his son Sir Robert, who fought under Northumberland in the duke of Gloucester’s campaigns in SCOTLAND in the early 1480s. Although the letters for RICHARD III’s reign are few, those from the previous decade shed light on Richard’s exercise of power in the north as duke of Gloucester.

 

The letters for the reign of Henry VII are fuller and more numerous, describing such events as the coronation of Henry’s queen, ELIZABETH OFYORK; the suppression of the northern rebellion of 1489, which began with the murder of Northumberland; and the trials in 1499 of Perkin WARBECK, the Yorkist pretender, and Edward PLANTAGENET, earl of Warwick, the remaining male heir of the house of York. Besides illuminating key events in the north, the letters from the years before 1500 provide a limited but useful view of the political activities of a gentry family during the Yorkist and early Tudor periods.

 

Further Reading: Kirby, Joan, ed., The Plumpton Letters and Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Stapleton, Thomas, ed., The Plumpton Correspondence (London: Camden Society, 1839; reprint, Stroud, Gloucestershire, UK: Alan Sutton, 1990).