A fortuitous marriage, a substantial inheritance from his father, and grants of land from a grateful king had made Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, the greatest landowner in England. With great wealth came great responsibility and high office. It was through his administration of one of these high posts that first brought him into conflict with the king.
As the Lancastrian rising in the north petered out Edward took steps to make peace with both Scotland and France. Warwick therefore began negotiations with France for Edward to marry King Louis XI of France’s daughter. When it was revealed that Edward had married Elizabeth Woodville in secret in 1464 Warwick initiative was revealed as folly and he was humiliated. Warwick’s embarrassment was compounded when the King rejected his proposal that the King’s two brothers, George, Duke of Clarence and Richard, Duke of Gloucester, should marry Warwick’s own daughters, Isabel and Anne.
When Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville became official it further widened Warwick’s split with and the king. Elizabeth was a commoner and, even worse, came from a family of Lancastrian supporters. When she began exploiting her position as Queen to advance her own family’s interests by marrying brothers and sisters to nobles of rank she was seen as threating the established order and a threat to the Yorkist cause. Consequently he began a plot to overthrow the King.
He enlisted the support of the King’s brother, George, Duke of Clarence, and the backing of Thomas Neville, Fauconberg’s bastard son, Sir John Conyers of Hornby, the husband of Alice Fauconberg’s daughter, Lord Fitzhugh, the Archbishop of York and a number of other prominent Yorkist diehards. At the time Warwick was still the Captain of Calais. So when he retired there with his family it did not raise any suspicions. Shortly after this relocation the Duke of Clarence joined him and proceeded to marry Warwick’s daughter Isabel in defiance of the King’s wishes.
Back in England Warwick’s agent went to work undermining the King by spreading rumours and fermenting unrest. Around York, one of Warwick’s captains, Sir William Conyers, who went by the nom de guerre of Robin of Redesdale, started a rebellion. When the king went north to deal with this rising rumours were started that the childless Edward was illegitimate and that therefore Clarence was the rightful king. On his way to York Edward became aware that the rebellion was larger than he expected and so he withdrew to Nottingham. There he attempted to gather support but his rising unpopularity saw few respond to his calls. When he received word that his supporters the Earls of Pembroke and Devon were mustering men he decide to wait in Nottingham for them to arrive.
Meanwhile Warwick and Clarence returned to London with the Calais garrison and marched on London gathering men as they went. They declared their support for the Yorkshire rebels and moved north. The rebels, under John and William Conyers, moved south to rendezvous with them. When Edward heard of the threat posed by Warwick and Clarence he left Nottingham and moved south to Northampton hoping to join forces with Pembroke and Devon. The Conyers’ force out paced Edward and he interposed his men between the king in Northhampton and Pembroke and Devon at Banbury. In Banbury, Pembroke and Devon fell out. Devon withdrew ten miles south to Deddington while Pembroke moved to join the king.
During the 25th Pembroke moved east and made camp on a ridge on Edgecote Moor. The Yorkshire rebels were camped a few miles southeast of them near Thorpe Mandeville. On the 26th the rebels broke camp, moved west by road about a mile and a half. They then left the road and moved northeast up a ridge that overlooked Pembroke’s camp. Once they reached the top of the ridge they sighted Pembroke’s men drawn up below them and they attacked.