His previous conduct might have hinted at other allegiances for in 1459 the king appointed a northern embassy to Scotland, but Strangeways refused to travel.

Reappointed as a JP of the North Riding, he rode with the Yorkist nobles into southern Yorkshire to arrest and imprison the Lancastrian knights there.

Strangeways made extensive use of an arbitrary piece of law Scandalum magnatum widely abused by the Yorkist regime.

When Somerset's army defeated and killed the duke of York at Wakefield at the end of the year the earl of March was not present.

The Commission of Oyer et Terminer was a State Trial that aimed at the truth about bringing lawless opponents of the regime to book through summary procedures.

King Edward thanked his faithful retainer after his great victories of 1461 when the Yorkist army marched into London to announce a new reign.

Strangeways' fealty was rewarded with Speaker of the House of Commons in the first parliament of Edward IV which met in November 1461.

An ancient Norman family, de Eure could trace their lineage through the Plantagenets, securing Strangeways immortality among the noble elites.

His second wife made Sir James join the Guild of Corpus Christi of York to atone by religious devotions.