POLITICAL HISTORY 



Gloucester suffocated, and Parliament was as a catspaw in the king's hands. 1 

 Early in the next year Hereford and Norfolk, the last of the lords appellant, 

 were banished, ' the king was rid of Parliament and began to rule more 

 fiercely than before,' 8 until by his arbitrary rule he prepared the way for the 

 Lancastrian. 



Apart from the military service performed by the county, the reigns of 

 the two first Lancastrians seem to have furnished little towards the political 

 history of Nottinghamshire. Even the rebellion of 1450 seems hardly to 

 have affected the county, the only connexion being that in 1451 the mayor 

 of Nottingham let to farm a meadow in the common meadow of Nottingham 

 to raise money to furnish men to march with the king to Blackheath to 

 suppress Cade's rebellion. 3 



In the Wars of the Roses, although the strength of the Lancastrian 

 party lay in the north of England, the county of Nottingham seems on the 

 whole to have favoured the Yorkists, although the Lancastrians could reckon 

 among their number many of the county nobles.* The castle seems to have 

 been generally in Yorkist hands, and to have been one of the most useful 

 stations of Edward IV. After his victory at the second battle of St. Albans, 

 and his subsequent proclamation as king in London, the news that the queen 

 was gathering her northern forces called Edward north to prepare for the 

 victorious day at Towton. A commission was issued to Richard earl of 

 Warwick to array all the able-bodied men in Nottinghamshire and the 

 surrounding counties 'for defence against Henry VI and his adherents' ; 6 and 

 Edward gathered his forces as he went, hoping that ' in the conflict of one 

 day he might perfect all his travailes and victoreyes.' * At Nottingham he is 

 said to have held a court ' to afford an opportunity to the nobility and 

 gentlemen of the district to render him their honour and support.' 7 



His next recorded visit to the county seems to be in 1469 on his way 

 northward to suppress Robert of Redesdale's rebellion. 8 Closely following on 

 this came his visit early in 1470, when, hearing that the earl of Warwick, 

 now supporting Henry, had landed in England with help from France, he 

 marched to Nottingham, and there proclaimed Warwick and his adherents 

 to be traitors.' In September, 1470, he was again at Nottingham, where he 

 awaited the arrival of Thomas, Lord Montague, with a strong force of 6,000 

 men ; but when Lord Montague, ' whom the king loved entirely,' 10 but 

 whose loyalty he had rewarded by giving him a marquisate with ' a pye's 

 nest to maintain it withal,' 11 had arrived near Nottingham, he suddenly 

 declared for King Henry, and made a retrograde movement to meet Warwick 

 and Clarence and attack the king. But Alexander Carlisle, ' that was sarjeant 

 of the minstrels,' came to the king in great haste and told him of the treason 

 of Montague. Whereupon Edward fled ' from his host beside Nottingham ' 

 to Bishop's Lynn in Norfolk, and thence to Holland. 12 On his return to 



1 Walsingham, Hist. Angl. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 224. et seq. 'Froissart (ed. Bcrner), iv, chap. 78. 



s Stevenson, Rec. of the Son. ofNott. iii, 409. 



4 For example, Thomas Lord Roos, Lord of Orston, in Notts, was one of the lords deprived of their 

 estates by attainder for allegiance to Henry, Cal. of Pat. 14617, 30. 



4 Cal. of Pat. 1461-7, 31. Polydore Virgil, Hilt, of Hen. VI, etc. (Camd. Soc.), 1 10. 



7 Thomas Bailey, Annals of Notts, i, 329. 



8 Paston Letters (ed. Gairdner), ii, 361. 



' Chron. of the White Rose (ed. Giles), 229. 10 Ibid. 29. " Stow, Annals, 422. 



" Chron. of the White Rose, 29 ; Cant. Hist. Croyland, 554. 



