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Edward IV’s ‘regional’ policy:
The stimulus for this investigation was D.A.L. Morgan’s analysis of Edward IV’s second reign… Morgan proceeded to explain that this ‘territorial re-ordering’ was designed to cure disorder and lawlessness in the localities. Thus, Morgan suggested, Edward intended ‘the creation of an apanage’ for his second son, Richard, Duke of York, and that ‘by 1475 the plan was to endow him with a collection of lands in the East Midlands’. Also, the king ‘bent his efforts to making his elder son’s household at Ludlow the governing power in Wales and the West Midlands...and similarly to establishing his brother [Richard, Duke of] Gloucester as heir to the Neville lands and ruler of the North’. Furthermore ‘1474 saw the scheme pushed forward...and the beginning of an apanage endowment for the king’s stepson Thomas Grey [Marquess of Dorset] in the South-West’. Moreover, Edward’s ‘two leading household men were fitted in as the heads of further regional blocs’: his steward, Thomas, Lord Stanley, was ‘made undoubted ruler of Lancashire’, while ‘in Cheshire and north-east Wales also Stanley power was extended’ through Stanley’s brother, William; and the king’s chamberlain, William, Lord Hastings, ‘similarly emerged in 1474 as ruler of the North Midlands from Rockingham to the Peak’ (pp. 1–2).
…the concept of Edward IV’s provincial policy raises much broader questions… whether this regional policy was planned or unintentional, and also as to whether its consequences were constructive or destructive. Furthermore, in a broader context, Edward’s scheme also suggests the importance of issues concerning the concept of regions, with potential implications for our study of politics and government in the localities, as well as questions regarding royal authority, governance, and the constitution, in general, in the later fifteenth century (p. 5).
…This topic [Arbitration] is inseparable from the wider consideration of justice, and law and order, and these aspects could be the subject of substantial research in themselves; hence the remit of this study is specifically limited to questions of politics and governance. Arbitration of disputes may indicate a magnate’s influence and local standing, but this is, of course, not the only way in which to ascertain a magnate’s power in the localities: consideration of his estates, offices, and clientele reveals the extent to which his lordship pervaded local society (p. 8).
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Robert E. Stansfield-Cudworth (Political Elites in South-West England, 1450–1500: Politics, Governance, and the Wars of the Roses)