For a small band of career criminals from Oxfordshire, English defeat in the Hundred Years War was something of a setback. Very little of the proceeds from their extensive thieving, racketeering,
extortion and blackmail operation could be saved from the wreck of Normandy. Unceremoniously dumped back home by an ungrateful government, there was nothing to do but start again from
scratch. Fortunately for them the country was spiralling towards a civil war later generations would know as the Wars of the Roses; plenty of opportunity to extract a profit under the guise of
soldiering.
Their big break came when the great Earl of Warwick took them under his protection. Vain, arrogant and stupid, Richard Neville was a man looking to go places and was willing to pay anyone
prepared to help him. And for the Windrush boys and girls, it was a golden opportunity to milk him for every silver penny, as well as enabling them to carry on where they left off in France. So
in name only the company became Yorkists, fighting for the cause when it was unavoidable and playing a small but unwilling part in the momentous events of the time.
Following bloody Towton in 1461, when Edward IV took the crown from Henry VI, a decade of profitable peace followed. The Windrush Company supported Warwick in his quarrels and were
in turn supported by him in theirs. The law was powerless to intervene. But when Warwick turned against Edward, he outlived his usefulness in protecting the Company's schemes. Better to drop
him and side with someone more advantageous. That person came in the shape of the young Richard, Duke of Gloucester, brother to Edward IV - a man just as rapacious but far smarter than
Warwick. It seemed like a match made in heaven, an opportunity for serious money making.
Then Edward died, Richard decided to murder his way to the crown, and the Yorkist settlement fell apart. The time had come to silence the witnesses, destroy the evidence and opt for a
quiet life living off the proceeds. Despite a lengthy commission of enquiry, the new king Henry VII could find no trace of the Company, only newly respectable tradespeople, craftsmen and
farmers who swore their undying loyalty to him.
