Warwick

“ The king ordered up these fresh troops, and led them to the assault. Warwick fronted this new peril with haughty disdain; and, in accents of encouragement, appealed to his remaining adherents to persevere. "This," said he, "is their last resource. If we withstand this one charge the field will yet be ours." But the earl's men, jaded and fatigued, could not encounter such fearful odds with success; and Warwick had the mortification of finding that his call was no longer answered by his friends, and that his battle-cry no longer sounded terrible to his foes. ”

“ Here in Warwick and at Kenilworth we take a long dream backward, and by working our imagination and our sentiment we see the England of Shakespeare, of Warwick, of Ivanhoe. It is a good dream, but it is a past that will never return, a past that is more nearly connected with the present in Warwick than at any other place. It is old England, which first learned to rule herself and then began to rule most of the rest of the world, and with the assistance of the American child will undoubtedly do the business in the future. ”

“ Besides being the most patriotic, Warwick had the good fortune to be the richest, of England's patricians; and his immense revenues were expended in such a way that his praise as the people's friend was ever on the tongues of the poor and needy. His hospitality knew no bounds. The gate of his mansion in London stood open to all comers; six oxen were usually consumed at a breakfast; no human being was sent hungry away; and every fighting man had the privilege of walking into the kitchen and helping himself to as much meat as could be carried away on the point of a dagger. ”

“ In the campaign in Scotland, and especially at the battle of Pinkie, Warwick had appeared the real achiever of victory, and now he was suffered to reap the easily-won distinction of suppressing the rebels. He returned from Norfolk like a victor, and his reputation rose remarkably from that moment. He was looked up to as the able and successful man, and his ambitious views were warmly seconded by the wily old ex-chancellor, Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, who hated Somerset for having dismissed him from office, and for a time banished him from the Council. ”

“ Warwick, though richly and even gorgeously attired,—nay, with all the care which in that age was considered the imperative duty a man of station and birth owed to himself,—held in lofty disdain whatever vagary of custom tended to cripple the movements or womanize the man. ”

“ Warwick, intending to perfect the victory over that part of K. Edward’s army, came up to Oxford, when, the light being dull with mists, rendered Oxford’s badge as big as the king’s, the difference in form and colours being but little; so that Warwick’s men by mistake let fly at those of Oxford. They seeing Warwick’s ragged staff and bear making havock at their backs, whilst they were pressing forward on K. Edward’s sun-beams, not knowing or guessing the cause and Error, cryed out, “Treason! Treason! we are all betrayed.” ”

“ In his eyes smouldered a dull glow, as of resentment at the limits of the human stomach and the volubility of wives. He woke up as his visitor prepared to depart, to inform him that the thermometer had registered twenty degrees of frost that morning, and to express the conviction that Warwick would spoil him for residence hereafter in any other city. Leigh assured him that there was no doubt of it, and went out into the winter twilight, homesick for the full, crude life of the Middle West, for the picturesque civilisation of California, for the smoke and splendour and roar of New York. ”

“ But now the King had in turn come back and seized his own again, and slain Warwick on bloody Barnet field—and the frightened monks had bethought them to finish the book, with sundry emblazonings of the royal arms now ingeniously married to those of the Nevills, and make it a peace offering to Duke George of Clarence, who had wedded Warwick's daughter, and would be lord of Tewkesbury in his shoes.
The half-written page of vellum on the table seemed to Hugh a living part of all this stirring new romance of blood and spark-striking steel. Almost it made a soldier out of him to touch it. ”

“ Warwick flashed a look at him, but agreed. They all moved out to the veranda, walked toward one end of it where there were easy chairs. They seated themselves and lighted cigarettes, and indulged in some more small talk. Warwick and Marlowe were watching each other carefully, each fearing that the other would make an unexpected move.
Warwick began wondering how the thing was to be accomplished. It had seemed so simple compared to some things he had done—merely snipping a locket from a chain and getting away with it without arousing suspicion. ”

“ This was the visit, ordered by the king, of the earl of Warwick to St. Paul's Cathedral; thus to contradict to the eyes of all men the pretender in Ireland. Warwick had spent a year in the Tower, in almost solitary imprisonment. Hopeless of freedom, worn in health, dejected from the overthrow of all the wild schemes he had nourished at Sheriff Hutton, linked with the love he bore his cousin, the Lady Elizabeth, now queen of England, he could hardly be recognized as the same youth who had been her companion during her residence there. ”

“ Yet the Warwick of to-day, in its summer dress, well repays the visitor who may chance upon its hospitable soil. All along its beautiful shores arise pleasant homes and hostelries for the accommodation of the summer visitor; while inland, the rolling hills, prosperous with growing grass and coming harvests, are not without a quiet and restful beauty which pleases the eye, and solaces the mind and heart. In the little hamlet of Apponaug, close by Coweset Bay, the brave new Town Hall, one of the finest in New England, testifies to the enterprise as well as to the prosperity of the people. ”

“ Warwickshire is the heart of England, and the country within ten miles or so of the town of Warwick may be called the heart of this heart. On one side of this circle are Stratford and Shottery and Wilmcote—the home of Shakespeare's mother—and on the other are Kenilworth and Coventry.
In Warwick itself is the famous castle of its Earls—"that fairest monument," as Scott calls it, "of ancient and chivalrous splendor which yet remains uninjured by time." ”

“ Enter Warwick, Clarence, Oxford, Somerset, and French Soldiers, silent all.
War. This is his tent; and see where stand his guard.
Courage, my masters! honour now or never! ⁠24
But follow me, and Edward shall be ours.
1. Watch. Who goes there?
2. Watch. Stay, or thou diest.
Warwick and the rest cry all, ‘Warwick! Warwick!’ and set upon the Guard, who fly, crying, ‘Arm! Arm!' Warwick and the rest following them.
The drum playing and trumpet sounding, enter Warwick, Somerset, and the rest, bringing the King out in his gown, sitting in a chair. Richard and Hastings fly over the stage. ”

“ To his chagrin, he found that she was not at home. The maid informed him further that she had gone to New York for a week. As he walked slowly away, he wondered almost resentfully at this sudden disappearance, as if he felt that she ought to stay in Warwick and watch the result of her experiment. But he did not consider that if the daughters of men would be clothed like the lilies of the field, they must seek periodically the place most remote from the solitude in which their models grow. ”

“ Warwick was known to be an adherent of the old faith, and it was feared that both his ambition and his religious zeal might lead him to seek the execution of Somerset, and with that the restoration of Papacy. But Warwick was too unprincipled a man to sacrifice any interest for religion, and he was aware that not only the king, but a strong body of the nobility, were zealous for the Reformed Church. He soon learned that the young king looked with aversion to the shedding of the blood of another uncle, and he acted accordingly. ”

“ Warwick himself had no son, but he had two daughters, whom he meant to marry to the king's two brothers—George, Duke of Clarence, and Richard, Duke of Gloucester. Edward thought this would make Warwick too powerful, and though he could not prevent George from marrying Isabel Nevil, the eldest daughter, the discontent grew so strong that Warwick persuaded George to fly with him, turn against his own brother, and offer Queen Margaret their help! ”

“ The bridal of the prince and Anne Neville having been celebrated, Warwick and Oxford prepared to return to England. Fortune, with fickle smile, cheered the king-maker's enterprise. Every thing was promising; for the English people, since Warwick had been exiled to a foreign strand, complained that England without "The Stout Earl" was like a world without a sun; and day after day came messengers to tell that thousands of men were ready to take up arms in his cause whenever he set foot on his native soil. ”

“ When Warwick came back from his ruthless campaign against the peasants of Norfolk, flushed with an easy victory, the idol of a discontented and partly foreign soldiery, the time was ripe for him to strike his blow. Gardiner and Bonner were in the Tower, the Catholic party were being harried and persecuted throughout the country, the French and Scots in Scotland were now strong and invincible, the French fleet dominated the Channel, the town of Boulogne was known to be untenable; and, above all, an unpaid victorious soldiery looked to Warwick as their champion. ”

“ The earl, in the mean while, walked to and fro the chamber with a light, careless stride, every moment pausing to laugh at the frank simplicity of his kinsman, or to throw in some shrewd remark, which he cast purposely in the rough Westmoreland dialect; for no man ever attains to the popularity that rejoiced or accursed the Earl of Warwick, without a tendency to broad and familiar humour, without a certain commonplace of character in its shallower and more every-day properties. This charm—always great in the great—Warwick possessed to perfection ”

“ His body was brought home and buried at Warwick. His tomb in St Mary's church is one of the most splendid specimens of English art in the 15th Century. Warwick married (1) Elizabeth Berkeley, (2) Isabella Despenser. By his second wife he left an only son Henry, afterwards duke of Warwick, who died in 1445, and a daughter Anne, who as her brother's sister of the whole blood brought the title and chief share of the estates to her husband Richard Neville, the kingmaker. By his first wife he had three daughters, of whom the eldest, Margaret, married John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury. ”

“ Having reduced everything to writing, Warwick took his standard out of his portmanteau for the purpose of planting it, and on the 13th of September, 1479, he landed at Plymouth with a select but sturdy party of malcontents. The people, whose motto was, "Anything for a change," were soon persuaded to join in a cry of "Long live King Henry," and he was taken out of the Tower for the purpose of being dragged about as a puppet to give a sort of legitimacy to Warwick's projects. ”

“ Warwick was detained in London by negotiations with ambassadors from France and Burgundy, and, though he reached York by 5 May, his brother Montagu had the sole honour of giving the quietus to the northern Lancastrians at Hedgeley Moor and Hexham. In June the two brothers reduced the three outstanding strongholds (Warkworth, p. 36; Worcester, p. 782) . All England, except an isolated handful of men in Harlech Castle, had now submitted to Edward, and foreign powers had ceased to look askance upon him. For this he had to thank Warwick and the Nevilles. ”

“ He sent for Queen Margaret, who was then at Angers, and assured her that Providence had at length prepared the certain means of the restoration of King Henry and his family.
Warwick engaged, by the assistance of Louis and of the Lancastrians, to replace Henry again upon the throne. By this means Warwick was to depose, and if possible to destroy, Edward of York. But Warwick never forgot the suggestions of his ambition. He must, if possible, sit on the throne of England in the persons of his descendants. For this he had married one daughter to Clarence. ”

“ Thus in Warwick [310] in the eleventh century, when the population was scarcely over a thousand, the King held a hundred and thirteen houses, and various lords and prelates owned a hundred and twelve, while there were nineteen independent burgesses who had the right of sac and soc. So also in the time of Edward the First there were five gallows in Worcester and the district immediately round the city. One belonged to the town, another to the bishop, and a third to the Earl of Gloucester, while two more were set up by the abbots of Pershore and Westminster who held property in the borough ”

“ The opportunity for a quarrel was too favorable to be neglected. One day, when Warwick was attending the council at Westminster, a yeoman of his retinue, having been struck by one of the royal household, wounded his assailant. The king's servants assembling at the news watched until the earl was returning from the council to his barge, and set upon him with desperate intentions. A fray ensued, and Warwick, with some difficulty, escaped in a wherry to London. ”

“ For on May 13, 1485, the Mayor and Corporation of York determined to address a letter to the Lords of Warwick and Lincoln and other of the Council at Sheriff Hutton. [20] The precedence here given to young Warwick above Lincoln, and the fact of his being addressed as one of the Council, prove the statement of Rous to be false. It shows also that Warwick had not been superseded, and that he was still heir to the throne, just before the battle of Bosworth. [21] He was probably a member of the King's household, and one of the children mentioned in the Royal Ordinance of July 23, 1484. ”