The New Murrey and Blue blog

Penn, and others left quite a bit out concerning Sir Thomas Browne’s role that led to his execution (and it was under the auspices of the trial at the Guildhall before Warwick, Salisbury and the Lord Mayor Hulyn that handled the 6 executed: Browne and 5 men in Exeter’s service, ie. brother-in-law to Edward IV). While not as despicable as Henry VI’s “Harvest of Heads” that followed the Jack Cade insurrection (1450) London was in no mood to be mollified after Lord Scales, Browne, Lovel, Clifton, de Vescy, de la Warr, Hungerford (always a Hungerford involved) doused the people of London outside the Tower with something called ‘wildfyre’ during their futile siege against Yorkist leaders, including Salisbury, Lord Cobham and Wenlock, intent on taking the Tower. Northampton was already won, Edward and Warwick were on the march towards London, the victory was known to the dozens of Lancastrians inside the Tower who should have sued for surrender but Scales (a long time veteran of the French Wars where sieges went on for months and months) did not – btw, Anne, duchess of Exeter, sister to Edward IV, was also inside the Tower at the time, befitting its role as a the ‘safest’ place in London.
The “Siege of London” collapsed by 19 July 1460 (Lord Hungerford surrendered the Tower to Salisbury once he gained promise of his own safe conduct) and many of those inside immediately became overnight Yorkists (Kendal, dela Warr, de Vescy). The infamous Scales (who I believe ordered the use of wildfyre, shot from ‘small guns’) attempted to escape to Westminster and sanctuary the following night, by water but was recognized by the wherrymen and murdered on the spot. Browne, for whatever reason, did not get out of the Tower and along with several others paid the price for London’s wrath in full on 20 July – his widow, a plum, was handed off to Edward’s retainer, Sir Thomas Vaughan (yes that one) and the miserable travesty of step-son George’s ‘inheritance’ is another story – as is the Lucy Neville one (which entails Henry VII’s spy/informer in Calais) who overheard the various captains and garrison leaders idly discussing what to do IF H7 died, apparently he was having one of his illnesses. The consensus was they, in Calais, wanted either Edmund earl of Suffolk, or his cousin, Edward, 3rd duke of Buckingham, none even considered Arthur or baby bro Henry. Once the informer got back to H7 you can imagine the position of Sir Antony Browne, of a formerly iron-clad trusted family (on the Browne side).
As is the norm with Yorkist history no one source gives you the whole or even partial account of this Siege, and this isn’t even a fraction of it, but if the professionals such as Penn are the author just keep in mind that there are dozens of sources that they may have seen, may have read, but simply found too much work to include or outside their preferred narrative. Edward was still making repairs to the curtain wall at the Tower, damaged by Salisbury’s barrage from his bombardes in response to Scales’ use of those ‘small guns’ throughout his reign. That is info you get reading up on the archaeological papers that London has provided over the years (and really cool reading too!)

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