Identification of a regional element to Edward IV’s governance – as accepted by numerous historians (including D.A.L. Morgan, C.D. Ross, M.A. Hicks, D.R. Starkey, S.J. Gunn, and others) – was the stimulus for this Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded study’s examination of the crown's approach to government in South-West England during the later fifteenth century: investigating Edward IV's policy towards the English regions, and exploring the feasibility of a regional approach by examining the politics, government, and ruling elites of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset from 1450 to 1500.
Chapter 1 begins by discussing historians’ views of Edward IV’s regional policy, and extrapolates its implications for issues of governance and methodology.
Chapter 2 considers the wider concept of regions and their definition, and examines how the four shires of the south-western region might be defined and delineated by geography, economy, culture, and political structures – identifying the importance of meso-scale (two-county) regions.
Chapter 3 discusses political structures – those methods for exerting royal authority – in general, and with specific reference to the region: in particular, the prime role played in contemporaneous regional politics by the Duchy of Cornwall, whose estates, regalities, and administration have, until now, remained largely unstudied. This chapter also leads onto an exposition of the principles of patron-client ('bastard feudal'/clientelist) relationships, and the evidence that can be used to reconstruct lordship and socio-political alliances, which forms a basis for a methodological approach to the categorisation of clients in 'affinities' (following a widely-accepted method in medieval Scottish historiography).
Chapter 4 defines the region’s political elites (comprising the local peerage and the four counties’ sheriffs, escheators, knights of the shire and burgesses (MPs), and JPs, and totalling 347 individuals: 82 peers and 265 gentry), and questions the extent to which they may have identified with their locality, county, or region by evaluating the degree to which their land-holding, office-holding, marriages alliances, and interactions were regional. The degree to which their associations were also regional is examined by means of three family case-studies (selectively chosen because of their importance): the Hungerfords, the Arundells, and the Edgcumbes (in which the clientelist principles outlined in Chapter 3 are demonstrated).
The crown's use of its royal-household servants in local government – increasingly the vital institution for exerting royal influence, and a topic which has been unduly neglected – is examined alongside issues of regional governance, and the significance of the Duchy of Cornwall. These important themes – in the ensuing chapters – are silhouetted against an analysis of the politics, government, and local political alignments in the counties and region as a whole on a chronological basis (utilising published (and unpublished) family and county studies, and Duchy of Cornwall archives.
After consideration of pertinent personalities during previous decades, the influence of the Beauforts, the tumults of Bonville-Courtenay rivalry, and the regional ascendancy of James Butler, Earl of Ormond and Wiltshire during the later years of Henry VI’s reign (1450–61) are considered in Chapter 5.
There is a particular emphasis on the ascendancy of Humphrey, Lord Stafford of Southwick, and his role in Edward IV’s regional gubernatorial system of government (1461–9) in Chapter 6.
The roles of George, Duke of Clarence, William, Lord Hastings, John, Lord Dinham, and Thomas Grey, Marquess of Dorset, and the re-structuring of regional politics during Edward IV's second reign (1471–83) are examined in Chapter 7.
This study also contributes to ongoing discourses concerning the region’s contribution to the October Rebellion of 1483, and Richard III’s policy of ‘Northern Plantations’ and its aftermath (1483–5) in Chapter 8.
Henry VII's governance – which remains largely unexplored with regard to local and regional politics – is the focus of Chapter 9 (1485–1500), highlighting the particular influence of Giles, Lord Daubeney (in Somerset and Dorset), and Robert, Lord Willoughby de Broke (in Cornwall and Devon).
In conclusion (Chapter 10), the related themes of ‘regional governance’ and ‘household governance’ are evaluated within a wider historical context. Rather than stressing the role of magnate-led-affinities, beneath the evanescent manoeuvrings of local politics, leading-gentry-led associations may have provided a resilient and durable foundation. In addition, elites’ interactions, alliances, and identities appear to indicate the strength of the county-unit and meso-regional communities of Somerset/Dorset and Devon/Cornwall (as discerned in the region’s geography, economy, and culture), and the broader relevance of these south-western elites and identities is discussed in relation to the study of meso- and macro-scale regions.
The Duchy of Cornwall with its political hinterland – as a subsidiary core – radiated royal authority thereby providing a regional focus. In addition, successive appointments of magnates (with region-wide interests) to Duchy offices also ensured that these regional ‘governors’ became political foci. However, these regional hegemonies may have failed, ultimately, because they ignored pre-existing county and meso-regional identities. Moreover, because of the inherently unstable nature of such hegemonies, the regional trend in governance that is discernible during the period may have been a significant factor in the continuance of the Wars of the Roses: but these twin policies of 'regional governance' and 'household governance' ended with Henry VII's distinct change in approach.
This regional study – whilst focussing on particularly pertinent individuals and themes – integrates local, regional, and national perspectives, and – by examining each – aims at achieving a greater understanding of royal authority and government in late-medieval south-western England, whilst also offering a perspective of the Wars of the Roses that is firmly placed within the broader context of longer-term trends in governance, institutional evolution, and state formation during the later Middle Ages.
University of Lancaster:
http://www.research.lancs.ac.uk/portal/en/clippings/successful-completion-of-phd-by-history-student(16973d39-5ad5-4d9c-a43a-d6c51c10d099).html
