On 16 February, Richard III sent Fauconberg to capture
Oxford and Edmund Beaufort, who were last known to be in Stamford. The King and the Nevilles disbanded the majority
of their armies after paying them on top of the booty they had taken from the
Beaufort encampment, however the King made it clear than any sacking or
terrorizing of the population would result in the forfeiting of their liberty,
if not their lives. Richard III
accompanied by Salisbury, Warwick, a chained and heavily guarded Duke of
Somerset with a small army in tow headed for London. The Royal procession took its time during
which Richard III sent word to his wife in Gloucester to come to London with
the rest of their family and sent word to his sons, Norfolk, and Bourchier in
London to prepare for his return. During
the march south, Richard III was greeted in every town by throngs of commoners. Meanwhile, Fauconberg had persuaded Oxford
and young Edmund Beaufort to Norwich, but before he arrived the two had boarded
a ship bond for Scotland. On 23 February, Richard III and the Nevilles were
greeted by the Princes Edward and Edmund, Norfolk, Bourchier, and the Lord
Mayor of London outside the capital before entering the city to thunderous
cheers from the citizens. The Duke of
Somerset was escorted to the Tower while the rest of the procession made its
way to Westminster Abbey to hold a celebratory mass.
On 1 March, Richard III called Parliament for the beginning
of April and announced that his coronation would take place by the end of
May. The King also dismissed a large
percentage of his remaining army that had accompanied him from Bosworth, but
those not dismissed were to help keep the peace in London for the beginning of
Parliament and for the coronation.
Richard III went about forming his own Great Council to help him rule
the realm. The King appointed Salisbury
the Lord Chancellor, Norfolk was confirmed to his hereditary position of Earl
Marshal, Warwick was appointed the Captain of Calais, Bourchier was named Lord
High Treasurer, the Earl of Devon was named Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, and Baron
Cobham was given the position of Lord Great Chamberlain due to the face that
it’s hereditary holder Oxford was to be attained. Of the other Great Offices of the Realm,
Richard III retained from Henry VI’s council the Duke of Buckingham as Lord
High Constable as an olive branch to those that had remained neutral through
the succession crisis, Buckingham being the most powerful, and kept his
son-in-law the Earl of Exeter as Lord High Admiral so as not to create a
scandal upon his eldest daughter. As of yet, Buckingham and Exeter had not arrived
in London.
Of the many topics taken up by Richard III and the Council,
the first concern of the King was the succession. While the King had four sons, Richard III
reminded the Council that Henry IV had come to the throne with four sons as
well but they had produced only one grandson among them, the late Henry VI. The several foreign merchants were inquired
upon for the eligibility of foreign princesses; they soon arrived at a
consensus upon Joan of Portugal whom the King himself believed would help his
dynasty counterarguments from those that would still support the Beauforts and
their like. The King sent a delegation
led by the Bishop of London and the Earl of Worchester to inquire of Afonso V
about the hand of his sister. Richard III
and the council then took up the question of the Scottish capture of Berwick
and the siege of Roxburgh
Castle . The King and the Council agreed that after
the succession crisis that the realm needed to be stabilized before Richard
again rode off to battle, in the meantime the King appointed Fauconberg,
recently arrived in London after his unsuccessful pursuit of Oxford, as
Lieutenant of the North and charged him to relieve Roxburgh and if practicable
retake Berwick.
Several times after his arrival in London, Richard III had
called upon Margaret of Anjou. The Queen
dowager was still in sanctuary at Westminster Abbey and refused to see the
King, under the belief that he might have had a hand in her husband’s death and
the stillbirth of her child. Her Tudor brothers-in-law
finally prevailed upon her to receive the King.
In the presence of Edmund Kyrton, the Abbot of Westminster, Richard III
vowed to Margaret that she would be provided lands and income if she were to
remain in England as if she was his sister or if she were to leave the country
she would be provided a large dowry so that she could live comfortably as she
saw fit. By all indications Margaret was
courteous to the King and the meeting between the two was without incident,
though after the meeting Richard III ordered discrete inquires to be made of
worthy candidates of marriage for Margaret on the Continent.
Meanwhile Cardinal Kempe, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
having supported the Duke of Somerset wouldn’t reconcile himself with the new
King. The Archbishop had tried to
reclaim his Cathedral only for the townspeople to chase him from it, he sent
out numerous excommunications to any cleric that gave ‘the traitorous York’ the
mass or attempted to crown him King.
Cardinal Kempe had also sent a letter to Rome to gain support for the
House of Beaufort, filling it with vastly exaggerated or inaccurate accounts of
the conduct of Richard III’s campaign.
Several nobles and clergymen attempted to persuade the Archbishop to be
reconciled, but were rebuffed with the threat of excommunication. On 22 March, Kempe suddenly fell from his
horse and died while on the road to Dover.
When news of the Archbishop’s death reached him, Richard III appointed Thomas
Bourchier, the Bishop of Ely, who had been one of the first to support him in
the clergy and brother of Viscount Bourchier, the King’s brother-in-law, to act
as Archbishop of Canterbury until confirmed by the Pope. The King ordered the Bishop to collected
Cardinal Kempe’s body and to ensure he was given a proper burial before taking
up his new seat. The King sent a letter
to Pope Nicholas V detailing events since the death of Henry VI in September,
including the nomination Thomas Bourchier as Archbishop.