Stephen David – The Beginning of Sorrows – South Wales 1450-1461’

In 1450 few areas of the realm had such a concentration of major noble estates as south Wales. Paradoxically, Wales and the Marches constituted a major vacuum of authority, being beyond the circuit of the kings’ justices and then lacking the presence of an adult Prince of Wales.

At this time Henry VI was beleaguered by the major disorder of Jack Cade’s Rebellion and so his cousin, Richard Duke of York, returned from Ireland in September 1450, ostensibly to offer Henry his assistance. Over the next two years York repeatedly petitioned the king for governmental change, whilst reconstituting the old Mortimer retinue which had once dominated the eastern Marches. The main object of York’s ire was Edmund Beaufort, Duke of Somerset.

During this period serious violence broke out between Somerset and the young earl of Warwick in Glamorgan, which contemporaries claim was being ‘kept as it were in a land of war’. By the summer of 1453 violence between the two had reached epidemic proportions, requiring the personal intervention of the king. Unfortunately, at this critical moment the mind and the authority of the king collapsed.

When Henry VI recovered, he found his authority directly challenged by York and Warwick at the battle of St. Albans, after which York expanded his offices into south-west Wales. This brought about a reaction by the queen and the court party which saw the dispatch of the king’s half-brother, Edmund Tudor to the region. Unfortunately, Edmund was incarcerated in his own dungeon by York’s henchmen, led by William Herbert and Walter Devereaux and subsequently died. Edmund’s death brought his brother Jasper to the region from which he derived his title, and he now established his authority in the land of his fathers.

These competing loyalties led to a further destabilising of the situation as the Uchelwyr, or the Welsh gentry became increasingly polarised between the champions of the red rose and the white. By the tumultuous year of 1459, as the clouds of civil war darkened, the road to Mortimer’s Cross had already been mapped out.

Katie Dungate – ‘He was an earl, all Wales was his’: William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke – power, politics and support for the Yorkists in Wales, 1461-1468.

William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke (c. 1423-1469) is one of the forgotten men of the Wars of the Roses. Born in Raglan, south Wales Herbert’s career was meteoric, he rose from a knight to earl in only eight years and became a highly influential adviser to Edward IV. Feted by Welsh poets but loathed by the premier “overmighty subject” of England, Richard Nevill, Earl of Warwick, William Herbert’s story is one of a remarkable and ambitious man whose tactical skill and cultural identity made him ‘a bold lord with sword and dart / and keeper of Edward’s peace’ in Wales throughout the 1460s. Herbert was integral to the success of Edward IV, firstly in his ability to stir up trouble in Wales and the Marches for Richard, Duke of York in the late 1450s, and then later at the battle of Mortimer’s Cross and the ‘cleansing’ of Wales during the 1460s.

In this talk, the life of William Herbert will be outlined from the battle of Mortimer’s Cross in 1461, through to the pinnacle of his career, when Edward IV made him Earl of Pembroke in 1468 (the first Welshman in generations to enter the peerage). By the end of his life, nearly all the judicial offices of Wales were held by Herbert himself or one of his family or affinity. His pre-eminence in Wales was born of Edward IV’s trust and respect for him but also from Herbert’s effectiveness at pushing the Lancastrian resistance to a small corner of Wales. How and why did a man from the little understood and little trusted Wales become someone who ‘In the council the decision goes / in every matter according to the tall man’s opinion’ in Edward IV’s government?

Using government records, Welsh poetry and remaining examples of the material culture of Herbert’s life, the chronology of his career on behalf of the Yorkists in Wales, and occasionally in England, will be presented. The focus will be on what he did and how this was remarkable in the context not only of the Wars of the Roses but within his status as a Welshman favoured by an English king.

Graham Evans – ‘Edgcote – the Welsh Dimension’

Fought in a corner of Northamptonshire the battle of Edgcote in 1469 saw a Welsh army under Sir William Herbert take on an army mainly from Yorkshire under the mysterious Robin of Redesdale. Variously described as the “mightiest battlefield in Christendom” and “Judgement day” in the numerous post battle elegy poems, historians have called Edgcote the “Welsh Flodden” as it resulted in the destruction of a whole generation of Welsh nobility. This talk will look at why it happened, what we know about it and the unique insights we gain from looking at the poetry written subsequently.