“The Bastard of Fauconberg and his so-called ‘lewd company’ of commoners, tradesmen and mariners terrorised and burnt London suburbs for several days before attacking the city defences.”
By A.W. Boardman
THE siege and bombardment of London on 12 to 14 May 1471 is a largely forgotten episode in the conflict known today as the Wars of the Roses. But its implications were far-reaching in that it sealed the fate of the Lancastrian dynasty and led to 12 years of peace in England under Edward IV.
Although the battles of Barnet and Tewkesbury are the most famous of 1471, the siege of London has been largely neglected by historians. The conflict is often portrayed as an aftermath (or side issue) of Edward IV’s much-publicised exile and invasion of England. Indeed, some modern writers hardly mention the siege of London in context, which is hardly surprising considering who King Edward’s opponents were in 1471. By facing his former ally Warwick ‘The Kingmaker’ at Barnet and then Queen Margaret’s forces at Tewkesbury, Edward’s military competence was tested to the limit. However, Edward did not foresee the intervention of a pirate and adventurer called Thomas Neville, the Bastard of Fauconberg, who singlehandedly raised a large-scale rebellion in the southeast of England and masterminded the only assault on a walled town or city in the Wars of the Roses.
Fauconberg and his so-called ‘lewd company’ of commoners, tradesmen and mariners (numbering thousands) terrorised and burnt London suburbs for several days before attacking the city defences and gates in a daring attempt to free Henry VI from the Tower. With Henry restored to the throne backed by thousands of rebels eagerly seeking reform, Edward IV would have been forced into fighting yet again for the crown. Threatened by Fauconberg’s forces in London, his fleet of sailing ships moored in the Thames, his artillery ready for action, and the icon of King Henry as a figurehead, it is highly likely Edward might have been deposed for a third time in so many years, such was the seriousness of the Bastard’s rebellion.
As for foreign commentators, the Italian writer Polydore Vergil was equally confident it was a ‘close-run thing’ for the Yorkist king in May 1471. He concluded in his Anglica Historia that the Bastard of Fauconberg’s “star, little though it were, yet if it had been raised before, no doubt it would have brought King Edward’s affairs great hazard.”
Fauconberg’s rebellion severely threatened the Yorkist regime, as seen by how fiercely both sides fought against each other, knowing that time was running out. Indeed, the struggle for London was much more military-orientated than Jack Cade’s popular revolt of 1450, which preceded the Wars of the Roses – a consideration that has also been ignored by writers even though it had far-reaching dynastic consequences.
The reason why the Bastard of Fauconberg raised a popular rebellion in the southeast has also not been fully explained by historians, and as a result, Henry VI’s tragic death in the Tower has remained a mystery. It seems the link between the insurgency and Henry’s demise has been forgotten or misinterpreted by writers. Had Fauconberg’s rebellion succeeded, it would have been one of the greatest upsets in medieval history. And as for the leading personalities caught up in the uprising, historians have failed to associate these men with another popular rising in 1470 that made the 1471 siege of London possible.
During the siege of London, the city was bombarded with artillery, and its defences were attacked by at least two large rebel forces led by determined and well-equipped captains – not by a band of ruffians without a plan. Popular rebellion had bubbled under the surface in Kent for many centuries, and disgruntled bands of partisans, egged on by obscure leaders, had hurled themselves at London in the past.
Fauconberg’s call to arms urged ordinary people to march on the capital again. Rebel grievances and impulsiveness were sparked by ancient precedent, and we may wonder how the Lord Mayor of London, his council, and relatively few Yorkist lords defended themselves against the insurgency. What happened to Thomas Fauconberg and his followers once the rebellion ended has been equally disregarded, although why this is so remains a mystery.
To be clear, 1471 is the story of two kings of England whose lives were influenced by the son of Edward IV’s most valued veteran captain of the 1460s. But more than this, the Siege of London is a story of ordinary people with an axe to grind. It is also the story of split-second decisions, devious betrayals and heroic last stands, of determined and brutal pitched battles, unrest in England and terror on the streets of London. The intentions of the main protagonists could not have been more dissimilar, and the aims of Edward IV, along with his younger brothers, the dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, paint a fascinating picture of family upheaval and political ambition in a dysfunctional royal household.
Primary sources point our way back in time to a London beset with factionalism, and by reconsidering the contemporary evidence, local topography, and military conventions of the period, several crucial facts about the siege and its bloody aftermath can be redefined. It is possible to enlarge upon how gunpowder weapons and medieval ships of war played a vital part in Fauconberg’s strategy and explain how unforeseen circumstances and chance governed warfare. Using chronicled evidence, it is possible to uncover what logistical problems commanders faced during the siege, how the chief protagonists adapted to urban warfare, what role religious observance had on soldiers’ morale. We can also revisit the mystery of Henry VI’s death in the Tower with a fresh eye, showing how the king’s fate was directly affected by circumstance and not by personal drama as related in Shakespeare’s plays.
More than anything, the story of 1471 is an account of ordinary people who saw the Wars of the Roses as a crucial backdrop to their everyday lives. High-level politics and personal feuding were beyond simple commoners. However, contrary to the established idea that the civil wars hardly affected the population, Fauconberg’s rebellion (and others like it) touched thousands of men and women who had simple values. Undoubtedly, justice and fair treatment for all was a sought-after ideal. However, wholesale pillaging of property was equally crucial for some, and we may wonder how Fauconberg could trust and control an army of rebels, not to mention launch a siege of epic proportions to free a King of England.
Even today, most writers blame Henry VI’s inept leadership for the irreparable divisions in England during the Wars of the Roses, not to mention a north-south divide that made the conflict so merciless among the nobility. Most contemporaries described King Henry as a model of religious virtue. He was over-generous towards some of his nobles, devoid of personal extravagance and tolerant of those who failed him. Other chroniclers acclaimed Henry VI as the ‘true’ anointed king, a humble and plain servant of his times, yet unsuited to the mantle of medieval kingship in an age of desperate men embroiled in political feuding. As King of England, Henry ruled intermittently for almost fifty years through bouts of civil war and aristocratic violence not witnessed on such a dramatic scale before in the kingdom. Therefore, why was he not assassinated sooner if he was such a troublesome king? And why was he later hailed as a miracle worker by those who deposed him and succeeded to the throne?
All these considerations are directly linked to the siege of London in 1471, and the widespread discontent in the shires also explains why so many Englishmen, including Sir Thomas Malory, the famous knight-prisoner and writer of the period, feared for the kingdom’s safety. No wonder he concluded in his Morte D’Arthur that England ‘stood in great jeopardy a long while, and every lord that was mighty of men made him strong, and many wanted to be king.’
Shakespeare echoed Malory’s concerns in his history plays a century later and concluded that at least three men sought to control the realm in 1471. And as for the Bastard of Fauconberg, he was caught up in one of the most intriguing and complex periods in British history that confirms how quickly civil disorder can erupt in any age when an embittered population has had enough.
A.W. Boardman is the author of The Rose, the Bastard and the Saint King. A medieval military historian, he specialises in the Wars of the Roses. His previous books include St Albans 1455, Hotspur: Henry Percy, Medieval Rebel, Towton 1461 and The Medieval Soldier in the Wars of the Roses (See them all HERE). He also appeared in the Channel 4 documentary Blood Red Roses on the Battle of Towton and contributed to the archaeological report of the Towton excavations. He lives in Yorkshire.
