Most discussions of Ireland in the Yorkist period are brief on the events of Richard III's reign, and most biographies of the king fail to discuss his Irish policies. The studies by Donough Bryan, Professor Otway-Ruthven and D.B. Quinn acknowledge Richard's energy, refer to his embassies and letters, and accept that Gerald, earl of Kildare, visited the king in England, but it is time for a thorough examination of Richard III's charters to Irish towns, his embassies and his desire for a united lordship, as expressed in the quotation at the head of this essay. A case can be made that he intended to build upon the foundation of the ancestry shared by the Yorkist kings with the Anglo-Irish lords (as well as many Gaelic Irish chiefs), the friendly relations established by his father Richard, duke of York, and more recently the hope for stability offered by the agreement between Edward IV and the new earl of Kildare in 1479–80, which had finally acknowledged that an Anglo-Irish magnate was the natural ruler of the lordship under the king's prerogative. The constructive attitude of the Yorkist kings towards trade and the urban classes was also welcomed in an Ireland that is now recognised as being culturally confident and prosperous in this period. Richard, like his father, may have hoped to counter the cultural divisions between the Anglo and Gaelic Irish, and by using the valuable tool of personal, royal arbitration to facilitate the emergence of a loyal Ireland under the king's direct rule of grace. There are signs that the resistance to obedience to statutes made in the English parliament could be overcome by the incorporation of the lordship, if lawyers were encouraged to promote this end by royal approval. The intentions put forward by a new broom with a new chancellor and new advisors were put into action by a practical search for up-to-date information undertaken by three embassies (one formal, and two informal and exploratory), with wide authority to encourage contact and dialogue between the king and all ranks and classes, Anglo and Gaelic Irish alike, within and without the towns.

It was unusual for the same man to combine the roles of Admiral and Constable, but it was a logical pairing. From 1462 to 1483 Richard, duke of Gloucester, was Admiral and from 1469 to March 1470 and from 1471 to 1483 he was Constable. The two decades were a time of change for both these offices: they were increasingly subordinated to the appointment by king and Council of specific commissions to deal with all matters of disorder and treason, whether on sea or land. When he became king, Richard III's experience in the two posts allowed him to make beneficial changes in the management of the Admiralty and navy and in effect to bring the role of the Constable to an end.

It is surprising that the earl of Warwick, Richard Neville, was not automatically made Admiral on Edward IV's accession, given his achievements as captain of Calais from 1456, and his ownership of a fleet sufficient to ensure that the king hardly needed to think of acquiring his own ships in the 1460s. He remained Keeper of the Seas, however, and was Warden and Admiral of the Cinque Ports and so had little practical need of the title. Edward IV appointed Warwick's uncle, William Neville, Lord Fauconberge and newly created earl of Kent, as Admiral on 30 July 1462, but only during the king's pleasure and coincidental to his command of a fleet to raid the French coast. This was a compliment to that useful and loyal noble and would not have offended Warwick. Richard of Gloucester can be understood to have had the title and profits of the office by 12 August and the formal appointment from 12 October 1462, while Neville went off on Edward's northern campaigns – where he died before the end of the year.

On 29 March 1461 men of Bury St. Edmunds fought at the battle of Towton for Edward IV, their banner flying alongside that of London, the white castle of Norwich, the harrow of Canterbury, the white ship of Bristol, the black ram of Coventry, the leopard of Salisbury, the wolf of Worcester, the dragon of Gloucester, the griffon of Leicester, the George of Nottingham, the boar's head of Windsor, and the wild rat of Northampton. This was certainly a key moment of Bury's support for the house of York, orchestrated by Alderman John Smith – Bury had an alderman rather than a mayor. Though support for the king was mandatory when called for, the articulate leading burgesses, such as Smith, had organised their force under the captaincy of William Aleyn, one of their number, and it is probable they hoped that eventually they would receive some tangible reward. This paper discusses the relations of Bury with Edward IV, in which the crucial role was played by John Smith, who earned the title of ‘especiall lover and preferrer off the politik and comen well’ of his town. The chief aim of Smith and his fellows was to throw off the control of the abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, and for this the support of the king was essential. The Yorkist period was propitious for this campaign: both the kings and their lawyers favoured incorporating towns already responsibly ruling themselves by prescription. During his reign, Edward regularly showed he was willing to listen to requests from towns owned by clerics: Peterborough, Salisbury and Reading were all accorded his attention and favour in varying degrees, and are essential comparisons to augment and illuminate the under-documented struggle of Bury.

Edward IV, his Lordship of Clare and the Men of Bury St. Edmunds

Edward IV came to the throne in 1461 with popular support. For ten years before he did so there had been debate in England on how to cope with a king, Henry VI, who failed to direct government for the benefit of his people and allowed his household servants, gentry and nobles, to usurp his functions for their private gain.

It was a merchant, William Caxton, past-governor of the Merchant Adventurers of England in the Low Countries, who introduced printing in the English language to England, in the 1470s, operating first from Bruges and then from Westminster Sanctuary, free from the interference of the city of London where he belonged to the Mercers' Company. A merchant may be defined as a man who traded overseas, the only way to make serious profits; lesser men retailed and distributed goods in England. Caxton's mercantile expertise told him there was little point in competing in the saturated market of Latin or French books, except as a retailer of other printers' goods. The English language would not excite competition from overseas, English competitors would take time to establish themselves, and migrant, alien printers would always be at a disadvantage. He made a business decision to supply books in bulk to those who read English: ‘hit shold be a good besynes to translate hyt into oure Englissh to thende that hyt myght be had as well in the royame of Englond as in other landes’. As he found a shortage of English texts, he had to work on his own translations, drawing on the languages he had learnt in the cross-Channel trade (French and Dutch). His industry in translation was phenomenal and continued literally to the day he died.

Executive summary

Nature of the problem

• Environmental problems related to nitrogen concern all economic sectors and impact all media: atmosphere, pedosphere, hydrosphere and anthroposphere.

• Therefore, the integration of fluxes allows an overall coverage of problems related to reactive nitrogen (Nr) in the environment, which is not accessible from sectoral approaches or by focusing on specific media.

Approaches

• This chapter presents a set of high resolution maps showing key elements of the N flux budget across Europe, including N2 and Nr fluxes.

• Comparative nitrogen budgets are also presented for a range of European countries, highlighting the most efficient strategies for mitigating Nr problems at a national scale. A new European Nitrogen Budget (EU-27) is presented on the basis of state-of-the-art Europe-wide models and databases focusing on different segments of Europe's society.

Key findings

• From c. 18 Tg Nr yr−1 input to agriculture in the EU-27, only about 7 Tg Nr yr−1 find their way to the consumer or are further processed by industry.

• Some 3.7 Tg Nr yr−1 is released by the burning of fossil fuels in the EU-27, whereby the contribution of the industry and energy sectors is equal to that of the transport sector. More than 8 Tg Nr yr−1 are disposed of to the hydrosphere, while the EU-27 is a net exporter of reactive nitrogen through atmospheric transport of c. 2.3 Tg Nr yr−1.

• The largest single sink for Nr appears to be denitrification to N2 in European coastal shelf regions (potentially as large as the input of mineral fertilizer, about 11 Tg N yr–1 for the EU-27); however, this sink is also the most uncertain, because of the uncertainty of Nr import from the open ocean.