John Tiptoft by RJ Mitchell is in Modern Era.
John Tiptoft (1427-1470) by R. J. Mitchell. With Illustrations in Collotype. Longmans, Green And Co. London • New York • Toronto. First published 1938.
Edward IV made up his mind to ignore these statutory limitations, and on 7 February 1462 he appointed Tiptoft Lord High Constable with far wider powers than had ever before been attached to that office. He was to try all cases of treason 'summarily and plainly without noise and show of judgement, on simple inspection of fact'13. Some months earlier Tiptoft had sat with a jury of twenty-four, trying a case at Hounslow in which Sir William Plumpton had been acquitted on a charge of treason14; henceforward the accused was to be denied trial by jury, and his life or death would hang upon the opinion or caprice of the Lord Constable.
Note 13. Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1461-1467, p. 74. See also Maitland: Constitutional History, p. 266.
Note 14. Plumpton Correspondence, p. Ixix. The charges against him included the item that 'when any turble or enterprise was leke to fall hurt or scaythe to the King's people, the said Sir William Plumpton ... rejoyced and [was] glad in chere and countenance.*
2nd February 1462. Five days before Tiptoft's appointment the Earl of Oxford, his eldest son, John Clopton, Sir Thomas Montgomery, and "William Tyrell were all arrested in Essex on a charge of 'hyghe and myghty treson that they ymagenyd agayne the Kynge'15; it is impossible not to suspect that there was close connection between these two events — the capture of the King's enemies immediately followed by the appointment of his friend and kinsman as their judge. A commission for the arrest of Sir Thomas Tudcnham16, Capgrave's patron, had been issued soon after Edward's accession, and he was captured at about the same time as Oxford and found to be implicated in the plot.
There can be little doubt of Oxford's guilt, though there are two different stories of his plot. The first, and more probable, is that he had been making arrangements for the Duke of Somerset, then in Bruges, to land with an army on the Essex coast; the other, more highly coloured tale, is told by William of Wyrcester17, and in part corroborated by a letter from the Milanese ambassador to the Legate Coppini18. From this account it appears that Oxford and Ins fellow conspirators were to accompany Edward on his expedition to the north and to fall upon his army from the rear as soon as the Lancastrian forces under Margaret of Anjou came within striking distance in the front. Their messenger, bearing Oxford's letter to Queen Margaret and the King in Scotland, became so conscience stricken while attending Mass near Northampton that he took the letter to Edward IV instead. Edwafd had the letters copied, so the story runs, and sent them on again by the hand of this messenger, and then seized Oxford before he had time to carry out his plan.
Note 15. Gregory: Chronicle, p. 218.
Note 16. He had been Keeper of the great wardrobe and Treasurer to the household of Henry VI.
Note 17. Chronicle of England by William of Worcester.
Note 18. Dated 25 March 1462. Calendar of Milanese State Papers, I. 106.
In the circumstances Oxford's execution after a perfunctory trial was a foregone conclusion. He was arraigned before Tiptoft at Westminster, and, while his trial was proceeding, a high scaffold was built upon Tower Hill. The Earl [aged 53] and his son [aged 21] were condemned and executed, while of the other four conspirators only Clopton escaped with his life. An anonymous chronicler says that Oxford's son, Lord Aubrey de Vere, accused his father of treason and turned King's evidence, and 'they were both takin ... and they suffrid deth bothe on one day'19, but this is unlikely, and in any case father and son did not die on the same day, for Oxford was executed on 20 February 1462 and Aubrey de Vere six days later [26th February 1462]a. As this chronicler gives the date as 'February 1460' — when Tiptoft was still in Italy, and shortly after the Lancastrian victory of Wakefield — his account may be disregarded. Both father and son were buried in the church of the Augustinian Friars.
Note 19. Sprott's Chronicle, pp. 289-90.
Note a. The author here appears to have transposed the dates of execution.
Edward IV was in an awkward position, for he could not afford to leave so powerful a traitor at large nor did he wish to be burdened with him as a prisoner. If he had shown clemency on this occasion, he might have succeeded in converting Oxford and his family into faithful subjects, but the risk was very great; as it was, Oxford's younger son John de Vere, the thirteenth earl, became a life-long enemy of Edward's house and ultimately helped to overthrow Richard III at the battle of Bosworth20. This lad was only nineteen when his father was executed, and he seems to have escaped suspicion, but his mother was imprisoned for some three months after the execution. John de Vere was allowed to inherit his father's lands as soon as he reached his majority, for Oxford had never been attainted, and he succeeded to the earldom without question.
Note 20. C. L. Scofield: The Early Life of John de Vere, thirteenth Earl of Oxford; E.H.R., April 1914.
Although violent death was the rule rather than the exception, these executions aroused widespread resentment and indignation. Popular opinion was expressed by Warkworth when he wrote 'thei were brought before the Earle of Worcestre, and judged by lawe padowe that thei schuld be had to Toure Hylle ... and ther was there hedes smyten of, that alle men mygt see, whereof the most peple were sory'21. At first sight it is difficult to see why there should have been an outcry. Only three years earlier nine men had been hanged, drawn and beheaded, by the order of the Lancastrian party, for attempting to cross the Channel and to join Warwick at Calais22, and this execution had aroused scarcely any comment. The summary execution of prisoners captured during battle was taken as a matter of course, and after the second battle of St. Albans, when three Yorkist prisoners were beheaded, Margaret of Anjou and her lictle son the Prince of Wales witnessed the execution with relish. It is hardly surprising that this child, by the time he was thirteen, could talk of 'nothing but of cutting off heads or making war', as the Milanese ambassador in France wrote to the Duke and Duchess of Milan in 1467.
Note 21. Chronicle, pp. 4-5.
It was not from any horror of bloodshed nor even because Oxford was an influential and popular man; the real reason for the outcry was fear of the Constable and the use he might, and seemed prepared to make, of the dangerous powers entrusted to him. His authority was second only to that of the King, who could not quash his judgments, though he might remove him from office, and there was no appeal from his court. Oxford and his son had not had a public trial, that is, in a court of justice or in Parliament, but had been tried by martial law. Englishmen were quick to recognize the perils of such a violent and unconstitutional means of government, for their wits had been sharpened by adversity. The surprisingly acute and widespread knowledge of law possessed by citizens of this time, by women as well as men, has often been remarked, and it was this very familiarity with the process of the common law that showed them the scope and danger of Edward's innovation.