SECOND PART

THIRD PART

FOURTH PART

FIFTH PART

 

CHAPTER XIII

THE ANJOUITES VENGEANCE

 

As the autumn of 1460 was deepening into winter, a rumour reached London that Margaret of Anjou was raising troops on the Borders of England. The Duke of York, though not seriously alarmed, was apprehensive of an insurrection in the north; and, marching from the metropolis, with an army of five thousand men, he, on Christmas eve, arrived at Sandal Castle, which stood on an eminence that slopes down towards the town of Wakefield. Finding that his enemies were so much more numerous than he had anticipated, the Protector saw the propriety of remaining in his stronghold, till reinforced by his son, who was recruiting in the Marches of Wales.

The fact, however, was, that Margaret had no intention of allowing Duke Richard to profit by delay. Marching to Wakefield Green, she challenged him to the field, and ridiculed the idea of a man having aspired to a crown, who was frightened to encounter an army led by a woman. Well aware, however, that the battle is not always to the strong, Margaret did not altogether trust in numerical superiority. Determined to secure victory; she formed an ambuscade on either side: one under Lord Clifford, the other under the Earl of Wiltshire; while to Somerset she intrusted the command of her main army.

Meanwhile, York called a council of war: Salisbury and the other chiefs of the White Rose who were present, strongly objected to hazarding a battle; and David Hall, an old and experienced warrior, implored the Duke to remain within the walls of Sandal. But York considered that his honour was concerned in fighting; and, addressing himself to Hall in familiar phrase, he expressed the sentiments by which he was animated.

“Ah, Davy, Davy,” said the Duke, “hast thou loved me so long, and wouldst now have me dishonoured? No man ever saw me keep fortress when I was Regent of Normandy, when the Dauphin, with his puissance, came to besiege me; but, like a man, and not like a bird enclosed in a cage, I issued, and fought with mine enemies; to their loss (I thank God), and ever to my honour. If I have not kept myself within walls for fear of a great and strong prince, nor hid my face from any living mortal, wouldst thou that I should incarcerate and shut myself up for dread of a scolding woman, whose weapons are her tongue and nails. All men would cry wonder, and report dishonour, that a woman made a dastard of me, whom no man could ever, to this day, report as a coward. And, surely, my mind is rather to die with honour than to live with shame. Their numbers do not appall me. Assuredly, I will fight with them, if I fight alone. Therefore, advance my banners, in the name of God and St. George!”

Seeing the Duke determined to hazard a field, Salisbury and the other captains arrayed their men for battle; and the Yorkists, sallying from the castle, descended to meet the foe on Wakefield Green. The Duke supposed that the troops under Somerset were all with whom he had to contend; and the brave warrior, now in his fiftieth year, advanced fearlessly to the encounter. Never was Plantagenet more completely deceived. When between Sandal Castle and the town of Wakefield, York was suddenly assailed, by Clifford on the right hand, and by Wiltshire on the left; but though environed on every side, the Duke did not yield to fate without a desperate struggle. On both sides, the soldiers fought with savage fury; and the Yorkists, conscious of superior discipline, were, for a while, hopeful of victory. At a critical moment, however, Margaret brought up a body of Borderers, and ordered them to attack the Yorkists in the rear; and the effect was instantaneous. The northern prickers laid their spears in rest, spurred their lean steeds, and charged the warriors of the White Rose with a vigour that defied resistance. The victory was complete; and of five thousand men, whom York had brought into the field, nearly three thousand were stretched on the slippery sod. The bold Duke was among the first who fell. With him were slain, his faithful squire, David Hall, and many lords and gentlemen of the South—among whom were Sir Thomas Neville, Salisbury’s son; and William Bonville, Lord Harrington, the husband of Katherine Neville, Salisbury’s daughter.

An incident as melancholy as any connected with the Wars of the Roses now occurred. York’s son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, being in the Castle of Sandal, had gone with his tutor, Sir Robert Aspall, to witness the fight. They dreaded no danger, for Aspall was a priest, and Rutland was a fair boy of twelve, and innocent as a lamb. Seeing, however, that the fortune of the day was against York, the tutor hurried the young Earl from the field; but as they were crossing the bridge, Lord Clifford rode up, and asked the boy’s name. The young Earl fell on his knees, and being too much agitated to speak, implored mercy by holding up his hands.

“Spare him”, said the tutor;  he is a Prince’s son, and may hereafter do you good.”

“York’s son,” exclaimed Clifford, eyeing the boy savagely. “By God’s blood, thy father slew mine, and so will I thee and all thy kin.”

Deaf to the tutor’s prayers and entreaties, “the black-faced lord” plunged his dagger into Rutland’s heart; and as the boy expired, turned to the priest, who stood mute with horror. “Go,” said the murderer, “bear to his mother and his brother tidings of what you have heard and seen.”

After thus imbruing his hands in the blood of an innocent boy, Clifford went in search of the corpse of York. Having severed the Duke’s head from the body, and put a crown of paper on the brow of the dead man, and fixed the head on a pole, he presented the ghastly trophy to the Queen. “Madam,” said Clifford, mockingly, “your war is done; here I bring your King’s ransom.” Margaret of Anjou laughed; the Lancastrian lords around her laughed in chorus; there was much jesting on the occasion. “Many,” says Hall, “were glad of other men’s deaths, not knowing that their own were near at hand;” and the chronicler might have added that others lived through many dreary years to rue the jesting of that day.

One of the hated “Triumvirate” was now no longer alive to annoy the Queen; and she was yet to have another victim. Thomas Neville, the son of Salisbury, was, as has been stated, among the slain; but the old Earl, though wounded, had left the field. He was too dangerous a foe, however, to be allowed by Clifford to escape. Keenly pursued, he was taken during the night, carried to Pontefract Castle, and there executed.

Margaret ordered Salisbury’s head, and those of York and Rutland, to be set over the gates of York, as a warning to all Englishmen not to interfere with her sovereign will. “Take care,” she said to her myrmidons, “to leave room for the bead of my Lord of Warwick, for he will soon come to keep his friends company.”

Glowing with victory, and confident that her enterprise would be crowned with triumph, the Queen, taking the great north road, pursued her march toward the capital. Her progress was for a time unopposed. On approaching St. Albans, however, she learned that the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Norfolk had left London to intercept her; that they had taken possession of St. Albans; that they bad filled the streets of the town with archers, and posted their army on the hills to the south-east.

Margaret was not dismayed at the intelligence that such formidable foes were in her way. On the contrary, she intimated her intention of passing through St. Albans in spite of their opposition; but did not deem it safe to trust to force alone. One of the ladies of her Court—so runs the story—happened to have, in other days, interested Warwick, and had not quite lost her influence with “The Stout Earl.” Upon this dame—the daughter of Sir Richard Woodville and the wife of John Grey of Groby—devolved the duty of playing the spy; and accordingly she repaired to Warwick under the pretence of asking some favour. The lady was cunning enough to act her part with discretion; and she, doubtless, brought her royal mistress intelligence which gave the Lancastrians courage to proceed.

It was the morning of the 17th of February, 1461, when the van of the Queen’s army advanced to force their way through St. Alban’s. At first, the attempt was unsuccessful; and the Lancastrians were met by Warwick’s bowmen with a flight of arrows that caused them to fall back from the Market Place. Undaunted by this repulse, Margaret persevered; and driving the archers before her, she brought her soldiers into action with the main body of the Yorkists in a field called Bernard’s Heath.

At this point the Lancastrians found their task more easy than they could have anticipated. For the third time during the wars of the Roses occurred an instance of desertion in the face of the enemy. At Ludlow Andrew Trollope had left the Yorkists; at Northampton Lord Grey de Ruthyn had abandoned the Lancastrians; and now Lovelace, who at the head of the Kentish men led Warwick’s van, deserted the great Earl in the hour of need. This circumstance placed the victory in Margaret’s power; and a dashing charge made by John Grey of Groby, at the head of the Lancastrian cavalry, decided the day in favour of the Red Rose. A running fight was, nevertheless, kept up over the undulating ground between St. Albans and the little town of Barnet; and a last stand having in vain been made on Barnet Common, Warwick was fain to retreat with the remnants of his army.

So unexpected had been the Queen’s victory, and so sudden the Earl’s discomfiture, that the captive King was left in solitude. However, Lord Bonville, grand­father of the warrior who fell at Wakefield, and Sir Thomas Kyriel, renowned in the wars of France, went to the royal tent, and in courteous language expressed their regret at leaving him unattended. Henry, entreating them to remain, gave them a distinct promise, that, in doing so, they should incur no danger; and after accepting the royal word as a pledge for their personal safety, they consented, and advised the King to intimate to the victors that he would gladly join them.

A message was accordingly dispatched; and several Lancastrian lords came to convey Henry of Windsor to the presence of his terrible spouse. The monk-King found Margaret of Anjou and the Prince of Wales in Lord Clifford’s tent, and having expressed his gratification at their meeting, rewarded the fidelity of his adherents by knighting thirty of them at the village of Colney. Among these were the Prince of Wales, and John Grey of Groby, the warrior who had broken the Yorkist’s ranks, and who, dying of his wounds a few days later, left a widow destined to bring countless miseries on the royal race whose chiefs had so long ruled England. After the ceremony of knighting his partisans, Henry repaired to the Abbey of St. Albans and returned thanks for the victory.

While Henry was occupied with devotional exercises, the Queen was unfortunately guilty of an outrage which, even if she had been in other respects faultless, must have for ever associated crime with the name of Margaret of Anjou. The Lord Bonville and Sir Thomas Kyriel had consented, as we have seen, from motives of compassion and romantic honour, to remain with Henry; and the King had on his part given a distinct promise that no evil should befall them. But by the Queen and her captains no respect was paid to Henry; in fact much less decorum was observed towards him by the Lancastrians than by the Yorkists. At all events Margaret, exhibiting the utmost disregard for her husband’s promise, ordered a scaffold to be erected at St. Albans; and, in defiance of all faith and honour, Lord Bonville and Sir Thomas Kyriel died by the hands of the executioner.

Meanwhile Margaret’s adherents were taking a sure way to render her cause unpopular. Ere marching towards London the men of the north had, as the price of their allegiance to the Red Rose, covenanted to have the spoil south of the Trent; and, resolved not to return home empty-handed, they had forayed with so much energy as to spread terror wherever they went. At St. Albans their rapacity knew no limits. Not only did they plunder the town with an utter disregard to be rights of property, but stripped the Abbey with a sacrilegious hardihood which rapidly converted the head of that great monastic house from a zealous Lancastrian to a violent partisan of the White Rose.

The report of the lawless scones enacted at St. Albans was carried to London, and the citizens, who believed that the Queen had marked them as objects of her vengeance, were impressed with a sense of danger, and rather eager to win back her favour. When, therefore, the northern army lay at Barnet, and Margaret sent to demand provisions, the Mayor hastened to forward some cart loads of “lenten stuff” for the use of her camp. The populace, however, exhibited a courage which their wealthier neighbours did not possess, and rising in a mass at Cripplegate, stopped the carts, and forcibly prevented the provisions leaving the city. The Mayor, in alarm, sent the Recorder to the King’s Council, and moreover interested Lady Scales and the Duchess of Bedford to intercede with the Queen, and represent the impolicy of exasperating the commons at such a crisis. This led to another scene of lawless outrage. Some lords of the Council, with four hundred horsemen, headed by Sir Baldwin Fulford, were sent to investigate matters, and attempted to enter London at Cripplegate. Again, however, the populace fought for the White Rose; and the Lancastrian horsemen being repulsed, plundered the northern suburbs in retaliation, and left matters infinitely worse than they had previously appeared.

While affairs were in this posture—Margaret’s heart beating high with the pride of victory—a price set on the head of Edward of York—the Lancastrian lords cherishing the prospect of vengeance—“the wealth of London looking pale, knowing itself in danger from the northern army”—and the citizens apprehensive of being given over to the tender mercies of Grahams and Armstrongs—from Mortimer’s Cross there arrived news of battle and bloodshed. The citizens resumed their feelings of security; the wealth of London appeared once more safe from huge Borderers; and Margaret of Anjou, forcibly reminded that Edward Plantagenet and Richard Neville yet lived to avenge their sires, prepared to return to “Northumberland, the nursery of her strength.”

 

CHAPTER XIV.

A PLANTAGENET AND THE TUDORS.

 

At the opening of the year 1461, a princely personage, of graceful figure and distinguished air; rather more than twenty years of age, and rather more than six feet in height, might have been seen moving about the city of Gloucester, whose quiet streets, with old projecting houses, and whose Gothic cathedral, with stained oriel window and lofty tower, have little changed in aspect since that period. The youthful stranger, who was wonderfully handsome, had golden hair flowing straight to his shoulders a long oval countenance, a rich, but clear and delicate complexion, broad shoulders, and a form almost faultless. Perhaps his eye roved with too eager admiration after the fair damsels who happened to cross his path; but it was not for want of more serious subjects with which to occupy his attention; for the tall, handsome youth was Edward Plantagenet, Earl of March; and he had been sent to the Welsh Marches to recruit soldiers to fight the battles of the White Rose.

Edward of York was a native of Rouen. In that city he was born in 1441, while his father ruled Normandy. At an early, age, however, he was brought to England, to be educated in Ludlow Castle, under the auspices of Sir Richard Croft, a warlike Marchman, who had married a widow of one of the Mortimers. Under the auspices of Croft and of his spouse, who, at Ludlow, was known as “The Lady Governess,” Edward grew up a handsome boy, and was, from the place of his birth, called “The Rose of Rouen,” as his mother had been called “The Rose of Raby.” Early plunged into the wars of the Roses, the heir of York never acquired anything like learning, but became a warrior of experience in his teens; and, when at Northampton, bearing his father’s banner, he exhibited a spirit which inspired the partisans of York with high hopes.

When Edward received intelligence that, on Wakefield Green, his father, the Duke of York, had fallen in battle against Margaret of Anjou, and that his brother, the Earl of Rutland, had been barbarously murdered by Lord Clifford, the Prince, in the spirit of that age, vowed vengeance, and applied himself with energy to execute his vow. Doubtless, other objects than mere revenge presented themselves to his imagination. As the grandson of Anne Mortimer, he was the legitimate heir of England’s kings; and he had not, during his brief career, shown any of that political moderation which had pre­vented his father plucking the crown from the feeble Henry.

The recruiting expedition on which Edward had gone, accompanied by a gallant squire, named William Hastings, said to derive his descent, through knights and nobles, from one of the famous sea kings, was, at first, much less successful than anticipated. The Marchmen seemed disinclined to stir in a dynastic quarrel which they did not quite understand. But a report that York had fallen in battle, and that Rutland had been murdered in cold blood, produced a sudden change. Men, who before appeared careless about taking up arms, rushed to the Yorkist standard; and the retainers of the House of Mortimer, on hearing that their valiant lord was slain, appeared, with sad hearts and stern brows, demanding to be led against the murderers.

Edward was already, in imagination, a conqueror. After visiting Shrewsbury, and other towns on the Severn, he found himself at the head of twenty-three thousand men, ready to avenge his father’s fall, and vindicate his own rights. At the head of this force, he took his way towards London, trusting to unite with Warwick, and, at one blow, crush the power of the fierce Anjouite ere she reached the capital. An unexpected circumstance prevented Edward’s hope from being so speedily realised.

Among the Welsh soldiers who fought at Agincourt, and assisted in repelling the furious charge of the Duke of Alençon, was Owen Tudor, the son of a brewer at Beaumaris. In recognition of his courage, Owen was named a squire of the body to the hero of that day, and, a few years later, became clerk of the wardrobe to the hero’s widow. It happened that Owen, who was a handsome man, pleased the eye of Katherine de Valois; and one day, when he stumbled over her dress, while dancing for the diversion of the Court, she excused the awkwardness with a readiness which first gave her ladies a suspicion that she was not altogether insensible to his manly beauty. As time passed on, Katherine united her fate with his; and, in secret, she became the mother of several children.

When the sacrifice which the widowed Queen had made became known, shame and grief carried her to the grave; and Humphrey of Gloucester, then Protector, sent Owen to the Tower. He afterwards regained his liberty, but without being acknowledged by the young King as a father-in-law. Indeed, of a marriage between the Welsh soldier and the daughter of a Valois and widow of a Plantagenet no evidence exists; but when Edmund and Jasper, the sons of Katherine, grew up, Henry gave to one the Earldom of Richmond, and to the other, that of Pembroke. Richmond died about the time when the wars of the Roses commenced. Pembroke lived to enact a conspicuous part in the long and sanguinary struggle.

When the Lancastrian army, flushed with victory, was advancing from Wakefield towards London, Margaret of Anjou, hearing that Edward of York was on the Marches of Wales, resolved to send a force under Jasper Tudor to intercept him; and Jasper, proud of the commission, undertook to bring the young Plantagenet, dead or alive, to her feet. With this view, he persuaded his father to take part in the adventure; and Owen Tudor, once more, drew the sword which, in years gone by, he had wielded for the House of Lancaster.

Edward was on his march towards London when he heard that Jasper and other Welshmen were on his track. The Prince was startled; but the idea of an heir of the blood and name of the great Edwards flying before Owen Tudor and his son was not pleasant; and, moreover, it was impolitic to place himself between two Lancastrian armies. Considering these circumstances, Edward turned upon his pursuers, and met them at Mortimer’s Cross, in the neighbourhood of Hereford.

It was the morning of the 2nd of February—Candlemas Day—and Edward was arraying his men for the encounter, when he perceived that the “orb of day” appeared like three suns, which all joined together as he looked. In those days, the appearance of three suns in the sky was regarded as a strange prodigy; and Edward either believed, or affected to believe, that the phenomenon was an omen of good fortune. Encouraging his soldiers with the hope of victory, he set fiercely upon the enemy.

The Tudors, whose heads had been turned by unmerited prosperity, were by no means prepared for defeat. Owen, with whom a Queen-dowager had united her fate, and Jasper, on whom a King had conferred an earldom, were too much intoxicated to perceive the danger of giving chase to the heir of the Plantagenets. Not till Edward turned savagely to bay, did they perceive that, instead of starting a hare, they had roused a lion.

At length the armies joined battle, and a fierce conflict took place. Edward, exhibiting that skill which afterwards humbled the most potent of England’s Barons, saw thousands of his foes hurled to the ground; and Jasper, forgetful of his heraldic precept, that death is better than disgrace, left his followers to their fate and fled from the field. Owen, however, declined to follow his son’s example. He had fought at Agincourt, he remembered, and had not learned to fly. His courage did not save the Welsh adherents of Lancaster from defeat; and in spite of his efforts, he was taken prisoner with David Lloyd, Morgan ap Reuther, and other Welshmen.

Edward had now a golden opportunity, by sparing the vanquished, of setting a great example to his adversaries. But the use which Margaret had made of her victory at Wakefield could not be forgotten; and it seemed to be understood, that henceforth, no quarter was to be given in the Wars of the Roses. Accordingly, Owen and his friends were conveyed to Hereford, and executed in the Market Place. The old Agincourt soldier was buried in the Chapel of the Grey Friars’ Church; but no monument was erected by his regal descendants in memory of the Celtic hero whose lucky stumble over a royal widow’s robes resulted in his sept exchanging the obscurity of Beaumaris for the splendour of Windsor.

 

CHAPTER XV.

BEFORE TOWTON.

 

On the 3rd of March, 1461, while Margaret of Anjou was leading her army towards the Humber, and the citizens of London were awakening from fearful dreams of Northern men plundering their warehouses with lawless violence, and treating their women with indelicate freedom, Edward of York entered the capital at the head of his victorious army. Accompanied by the Earl of Warwick, by whom he had been joined at Chipping Norton, the conqueror of the Tudors rode through the city, and was welcomed with the utmost enthusiasm. It was long since London had been the scene of such loyal excitement. From Kent and Essex came crowds to gaze on the handsome son of Richard, Duke of York; and many were the predictions that, as a native of Rouen, Edward would reconquer Normandy, and retrieve those losses which, under the government of Margaret of Anjou, the English had sustained on the continent.

Whatever he might pretend, Edward had none of the moderation that characterised his father, and he was determined without delay to ascend the throne, which he had been taught to consider his by hereditary right. Anxious, however, to have the popular assent to the step he was about to take, the heir of the Plantagenets resolved to test the loyalty of the Londoners. With this object a grand review, in St. John’s Fields, was pro­claimed by William Neville, Lord Falconbridge; and the wealthy citizens, as well as the multitude, assembled to witness the military pageant. Suddenly availing him­self of a favourable moment, Warwick’s brother, the Bishop of Exeter, addressed the crowd on the great dynastic dispute, and asked them plainly whether they would any longer have Henry to reign over them. “Nay, nay,” answered the crowd. Warwick’s uncle, Lord Falconbridge, having then spoken in praise of Edward’s valour and wisdom, asked if they would have him for King. “Yea, yea—King Edward, King Edward,” shouted the populace, with one accord, cheering and clapping their hands.

The Yorkist chiefs were satisfied with the result of their experiment in St. John’s Fields; and next day, a great Council was held at Baynard’s Castle. After due deliberation, the Peers and Prelates declared that Henry, in joining the Queen’s army, and breaking faith with Parliament, had forfeited the Crown; and the heir of York, after riding in royal state to Westminster, offered at St. Edward’s shrine, assumed the Confessor’s Crown, ascended the Throne, explained the nature of his claim, and harangued the people. His spirit and energy inspired the audience with enthusiasm, and he was frequently interrupted with shouts of “Long live King Edward.”

On the day when the young Plantagenet took possession of the English Throne at Westminster, he was proclaimed King in various parts of London. Edward was not, however, so intoxicated with the applause with which the men of the south had greeted his arrival in the metropolis as to delude himself into the idea that his triumph was complete. He knew that the lords of the north would again rise in arms for the Red Rose, and that battles must be won, and fortresses taken, ere the crown of St. Edward could sit easily on his head.

Nothing, however, could be gained by delay; and Warwick was well aware of the danger of procrastination at such a crisis. The young King and the King-maker, therefore, resolved upon marching forthwith against the Lancastrians, to achieve, as they hoped, a crowning victory; and having sent the Duke of Norfolk to recruit in the provinces, they made preparations to go in search of their foes.

No time was wasted. Indeed, within three days of entering London, Warwick marched northward with the van of the Yorkist army; and the infantry having meanwhile followed, Edward, on the 12th of March, buckled on his armour, mounted his war-steed, and rode out of Bishopgate to conquer or die. By easy marches the royal warrior reached Pontefract, memorable as the scene of the second Richard’s murder; and having, while resting there, enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing his army swell to the number of forty-nine thousand, he dispatched Lord Fitzwalter, with a band of tall men, to keep the passage over the Aire at Ferrybridge.

Nor had Margaret failed to prepare for the inevitable conflict. When, at St. Albans, the Lancastrian Queen found that her foes were still unsubdued, she speedily bore back to the northern counties, and commenced recruiting her army on the banks of the Humber, the Trent, and the Tyne. Her spirit, ever highest in time of trouble, sustained the courage of her adherents; and the men of the north who now, without entering into the delicate questions of hereditary right and parliamentary settlement, sympathised with the dethroned Queen, came from towers by the wayside, and shealings on the moor, till around the Lancastrian banner at York mustered an army of sixty thousand.

On hearing of Edward’s approach the Queen resolved to remain with Henry and the young Prince, at York, to await the issue of the battle impending. But she could hardly dream of defeat as she inspected that numerous army, headed by knights and nobles arrayed in rich armour and mounted on prancing steeds, who had gathered to her standard in the capital of the North. Somerset, Northumberland, and Clifford, appeared in feudal pride, determined at length to avenge the slaughter of their sires at St. Albans; and the Duke of Exeter, with John, Lord Neville, brother to the Earl of Westmoreland, and Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon, without the death of sires to avenge, came to fight for the Red Rose; the first against his brother-in-law, King Edward, the second against his kinsmen, the Lords Warwick and Falconbridge, and the third against the House of York, of which his father had been one of the earliest adherents. Many other staunch Lancastrians bearing names celebrated in history and song, had assembled; as Leo, Lord Welles, James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire, Ralph, Lord Dacre of the North, and Thomas, Lord De Roos, heir of that great Anglo-Norman baron of the twelfth century, whose effigy is still to be seen in the Temple Church. Among the Percies, Beauforts, and Cliffords, figured Sir John Heron, of the Ford, a stalwart Borderer, who, in his day, had laid lance in rest against the Homes and Cranstouns; and Andrew Trollope, that mighty man of war, whose betrayal of the Yorkists at Ludlow had, for a year, delayed the exile of Margaret of Anjou. Even a venerable lawyer and a subtle churchman might have been seen in the Lancastrian ranks; for Sir John Fortescue, had left the Court of Kin’s Bench to fight for the cause which he believed to be that of truth and justice; and John Morton had deserted the Parsonage of Blokesworth to win preferment, if possible, by the arm of flesh. Such were the chiefs, devoted heart and hand, to the House of Lancaster, who, at the head of the Northern men, awaited the coming of the Yorkist King and the King-maker.

 

CHAPTER XVI.

TOWTON FIELD.

 

With Margaret of Anjou heading a mighty army at York, and Edward Plantagenet heading an army, not assuredly so numerous, but perhaps not less mighty, at Pontefract, a conflict could not long be delayed. Nor, indeed, had the partisans of either Rose any reason to shrink from an encounter. For while the Yorkist chiefs felt that nothing less than a crowning triumph could save them from the vengeance of the dethroned Queen, the Lancastrian lords were not less fully aware that nothing but a decisive victory could insure to them their possessions, and restore to Henry his throne.

Learning that Edward was at Pontefract, and anxious to prevent him passing the Aire, Margaret’s magnificent army moved from York. Formidable, indeed, the Lancastrians must have looked as they left the capital of the north, and marched southward; Somerset figuring commander-in-chief; while Northumberland, aided by Andrew Trollope, the great soldier of the Red Rose ranks, led the van, and Clifford, with the hands that had been dyed in Rutland’s blood, reined in his prancing steed at the head of the light cavalry. Crossing the Wharfe, and marching through Tadcaster, the Queen’s captains posted their men to the south of Towton, a little village some eight miles from York. In front of their main body was a valley known as Towton Dale; their right wing was protected by a cliff, and their left by a marsh, which has since disappeared.

Somerset had hoped to keep the Aire between him and the Yorkist foe; and the aspiring Duke was somewhat dismayed to hear that Lord Fitzwalter had seized Ferrybridge, and posted his company on the north side of the river. The Lancastrian lords, however, were in no mood to be daunted; and Clifford, who was quite as courageous as cruel, readily undertook to dislodge the Yorkist warriors from the position they occupied. Accordingly, at the head of his light cavalry, and accompanied by Lord Neville, Clifford spurred across the country, reached Ferrybridge by break of day, and finding the guards asleep, and utterly unsuspicious of an attack, had little difficulty in fulfilling his mission. Ere well awake half of the men were slaughtered, and the survivors were glad to escape to the south side of the Aire. Hearing a noise, and supposing that some quarrel had arisen among his soldiers, Fitzwalter rose from his couch, seized a battle-axe and hastened to restore order. But before the Yorkist lord could even ascertain the cause of the disturbance, he was surrounded and slain, and with him, Warwick’s illegitimate brother, known as “The Bastard of Salisbury,” and described “a valiant young gentleman, and of great audacity.”

Early on Saturday news of Clifford’s exploit reached Pontefract and caused something like a panic in the Yorkist camp. Awed by the terrible name of Clifford, and not unaware of the numerical superiority of their foes, the soldiers lost heart and showed a disposition to waver. At this crisis, however, it became known that Warwick had mounted his horse, and every eye was turned towards the King-maker as he spurred through the lines straight to King Edward.

“Sir”, said the Earl, dismounting, “may God have mercy upon their souls, who, for love of you, have lost their lives. I see no hope of succour but in Him, to whom I remit the vengeance.”

Edward, perhaps, thought Warwick was manifesting more alarm than was either necessary or prudent. “All who were afraid to fight might, at their pleasure, depart,” the King said, “but to those that would stay he promised good reward; and,” he added, “if any after staying should turn or flee, then that he who killed such a dastard should have double pay.”

 “Though your whole army should take to flight,” said Warwick to Edward, “I will remain to fight”, and having thus expressed his resolution to stand by the young King to the death, the Earl, in a manner not to be mistaken, intimated to the army of the White Rose that he, for one, rather than retreat one inch, was prepared to die with his feet to the foe. Drawing his sword, the patrician hero kissed the hilt, which was in the form of a cross, and, killing his war-horse in view of the soldiers, he exclaimed—“Let him flee that will flee, I will tarry with him that will tarry with me.”

The effect of this sacrifice was marvellous; the soldiers saw that their chief and idol relied solely on their courage, that with them he would fight on foot, and that with them he would share victory or defeat. A feeling of enthusiasm pervaded the army, and not one man was craven enough to desert the great warrior-statesman in that hour of peril.

The Duke of Norfolk, as heir of Thomas de Brotherton, held the office of Earl Marshal, and was therefore entitled to lead the van of England’s army. It happened, however, that Norfolk had not yet made his appearance among the Yorkist warriors, and, in his absence, Warwick’s uncle, Lord Falconbridge, took the post of distinction and danger. With a view of cutting off Clifford’s cavalry from the main body of the Lancastrians, Falconbridge, at the head of the Yorkist van, passed the Aire at Castleford, three miles above Ferrybridge, and, favoured by the windings of the river, led his men along the north bank ere Clifford was aware of the enemy being in motion. On being informed of the fact however, the Lancastrian leader mustered his horse­men and made a dash northward to reach the Queen’s camp. Fortune, however, was this time against the savage Lord. At Dintingdale, somewhat less than, two miles from Towton, the murderer of Rutland and the executioner of Salisbury found that the avengers were upon him, and turned desperately to bay. A sharp and sanguinary skirmish ensued. Clifford offered a brave resistance to his fate, but, pierced in the throat with an arrow, he fell, never more to rise. Lord Neville having shared Clifford’s fate, most of the light horsemen fell where they fought, and Ferrybridge was retaken.

On receiving intelligence of the victory at Dintingdale and the recovery of Ferrybridge, Edward hastened to pass the Aire, leading the centre of the Yorkist army, while the right wing was headed by Warwick, and the rear brought up by Sir John Denham, a veteran warrior who had ever adhered to the Yorkist cause, and Sir John Wenlock, who had once already changed sides to his profit, and was to do so again to his loss. As the day was drawing to a close the Yorkists reached Saxton, a village little more than a mile south from Towton, and, on their coming in sight of the Lancastrian host, the northern and southern armies expressed the intense hatred they felt for each other by a long yell of defiance. At the same time Edward caused proclamation to be made, in the hearing of both, that, on his side, no prisoners should be taken and no quarter given; and Somerset immediately ordered a similar proclamation to be made in the name of the Lancastrian chiefs.

All that cold March night the hostile armies prepared for the combat, and on the morning of the 29th of March—it was that of Palm Sunday—Yorkist and Lancastrian sprang to arms. As the warriors of the Roses approached each other snow began to fall heavily, and, from having the wind in their faces, the Lancastrians were much inconvenienced by the flakes being blown in their eyes. Falconbridge, prompt to avail himself of such a circumstance, caused the archers in the Yorkist van to advance, send a flight of arrows among their antagonists, and then draw back to await the result. Galled by this discharge, the lancastrians, who formed the van of the Queen’s army, bent their bows in retaliation; but, blinded by snow, they shot at random, and the shafts fell forty yards short of their adversaries.

Northumberland, the grandson of Hotspur, and Andrew Trollope, that “terrible man-at-arms”, did not relish this inauspicious opening of the battle. Perceiving that, at a distance, they were fighting at disadvantage, Trollope and the Earl ordered the men to draw their blades, to rush forward, and to close with the foe. An unexpected obstacle, however, presented itself to the assailants; for the northern men, finding their feet entangled in their own shafts that stuck in the ground, came to a halt; and the Yorkists, galling their adversaries with another shower of arrows, threw them into confusion, and drove them precipitately back on the main body of the Lancastrians.

The White Rose was so far fortunate; but the Lancastrians, conscious of superior numbers, and elate with their victories at Wakefield and Bernard’s Heath, were not to be daunted. Ere Northumberland fell back on the Queen’s forces, the two armies were face to face, and on neither side was there any wish to delay meeting hand to hand. Impatient to try conclusions, and disdaining to balk his enemies of the close conflict they desired, Falconbridge gave the word for his soldiers to lay aside their bows, take to their swords, and advance to the encounter; and with shouts of anger and scorn, the men of the north and of the south, approached each other to decide their quarrel, with foot opposed to foot and steel to steel.

The clarions having sounded a charge, the battle now began in earnest, and with such fury as had never before been displayed by Englishmen when opposed to each other. The leaders trusted less to their own generalship than to the courage of their men; and the soldiers on both sides, animated with the deadliest hatred of their foes, moved forward in masses. Every man fought as if the quarrel had been his own; and among the fiercest and foremost, where skulls were cleaved and blood shed, appeared, on one side, Andrew Trollope, performing prodigies of valour, and on the other, the young King, fiery with martial ardour, and freely hazarding his life to advance his fortunes. Mounted on barbed steed, and arrayed in emblazoned surcoat, and his standard, on which was a black bull, borne by Ralph Vestynden, Edward seemed the very prince to kindle enthusiasm in the heart of a multitude; and woe betided those who crossed his path, as, in this, his twentieth year, he fought with the savage valour which afterwards bore down all opposition on the fields of Barnet and Tewkesbury. The King’s courage and prowess made him conspicuous in the fight, and his indomitable determination contributed, in no slight degree, to main­tain the resolution of the Yorkists to conquer or to die for his sake.

But notwithstanding Edward’s achievements, and the confidence with which the soldiers fought under Warwick’s leadership, hours passed, and thousands upon thousands fell without the prospect of a Yorkist victory. Still the northern warcries rose upon the gale; still Andrew Trollope hounded the northern men upon their foes; and still terrible proved the sweep of those long lances with which, at Wakefield, Herons and Tunstalls and Whartons had scattered the chivalry of York as the wind scatters leaves. No easy victory could, by any warriors, be won against such foes; and in spite of all the young King’s courage, and “The Stout Earl’s” sagacity, it appeared too likely that Trollope, with fortune as well as numbers on his side, would conquer, and that the bloodiest day England had ever seen would close in a Lancastrian triumph.

Meanwhile the aspect of the field was too terrible even to be described without a shudder. All on the ridge between Towton and Saxton were heaps of dead, and wounded, and dying; and the blood of the slain, lay caked with the snow that covered the ground, and afterwards dissolving with it, ran down the furrows and ditches for miles together. Never, indeed, in England, had such a scene of carnage been witnessed as that upon which the villagers of Towton and Saxton looked out from their lowly cottages, and of which the citizens of York heard flying rumours, as, in common with Christendom, they celebrated the festival commemorative of our Redeemer’s entry into Jerusalem.

At length, when the battle had lasted wellnigh ten hours, and thousands had fallen in the sanguinary conflict, fortune so far favoured the Red Rose, that it seemed as if those long Border spears, so seldom couched in vain, were destined to win back the crown of St. Edward for Henry of Windsor. The Yorkists were, in fact, giving way; and Warwick must have felt that his charger had been sacrificed in vain, and that his head was not unlikely to occupy a place between those of York and Salisbury over the gates of the northern capital; when, through the snow which darkened the air and drifted over the country, another army was seen advancing from the south; and into the field, fresh and in no humour to avoid the combat, came the fighting men of Norfolk, under the banner of the princely Mowbrays, to the aid of Edward’s wavering ranks. This new arrival of feudal warriors speedily turned the scale in favour of York; and while Edward, animated his adherents, and Warwick urged the Yorkists to renewed exertion, the Lancastrians, after an attempt to resist their fate, at first slowly and frowning defiance on their foes, but gradually with more rapid steps, commenced a retreat northwards.

Among the thousands who, on that stormy Palm Sunday, took the field with Red Roses on their gorgets, there was no better or braver Knight than Ralph, Lord Dacre. From his castle of Naworth, in Cumberland, Dacre had brought his riders, arrayed under the ancestral banner—

That swept the shores of Judah’s sea,

And waved in gales of Galilee,

and mounted to strike for King Henry; not, perhaps, without some presentiment of filling a warrior’s grave. But death by a mean hand, the lordly warrior would not contemplate; and with a spirit as high as his progenitor, who fought at Acre with Richard, Coeur de Lion, he could hardly dream of falling by a weapon less renowned than Warwick’s axe, or Edward’s lance, or the sword of William Hastings, who, in the young King’s track, slaughtering as he rode, was winning golden spurs and broad baronies. No death so distinguished, however, awaited Lord Dacre of the North. While in a large field, known as the North Acre, and still in rustic tradition and rhyme associated with his name, the haughty Borderer, probably making a last effort to rally the beaten and retreating Lancastrians, was mortally wounded with an arrow, shot by a boy out of an auberry tree, and prostrated among dead and dying on the miry ground.

“All is lost” groaned Exeter and Somerset, in bitter mood, as together they spurred over mounds of slain, and galloped towards York, to warn the Queen that her foes were conquerors. And well, indeed, might the Lancastrian dukes express themselves in accents of despair; for never before had an English army been in a more hapless plight, than that which they were now leaving to its fate. At first, the retreat of the Lancastrians was conducted with some degree of order; but, ere long, their ranks were broken by the pursuing foe, and everything was confusion, as they fled in a mass towards Tadcaster. No leader of mark remained to direct or control the ill-fated army in the hour of disaster. John Heron, and Leo, Lord Welles, were slain. Andrew Trollope, after having “done marvellous deeds of valour,” lay cold on the ground: Northumberland stooped his lofty crest as low as death; Devon and Wiltshire were heading the flight, and in vain endeavouring to place themselves beyond the vengeance of the victors. Resistance was hopeless; quarter was neither asked nor given; the carnage was so frightful that the road to York was literally red with the blood and strewn with the bodies of the slain; and the pursuit was so hot and eager, that multitudes were drowned in attempting to cross the rivulet of Cock, while the corpses formed a bridge over which the pursuers passed. The brook ran purple with blood, and crimsoned, as it formed a junction with, the waters of the Wharfe.

Evening closed, at length, over the field of Towton, but without putting an end to the work of destruction. Till the noon of Monday, the pursuit was keenly urged; and a running fight, kept up beyond the Tyne, caused much bloodshed. The Chief Justice of England and the Parson of Blokesworth escaped. But Devon and Wiltshire were less fortunate. One was taken near York, the other seized near Cockermouth by an esquire named Richard Salkeld; and both were executed by martial law.

After his signal victory on Towton Field, Edward knighted Hastings, Humphrey Stafford, and others, and then rode in triumph to York. Henry, with Queen Margaret and the Prince, having fled from the city, the inhabitants received him with humble submission; and, having taken down the heads of his kinsmen from the gates, and set up those of Devon and Wiltshire instead, Edward remained at York, and kept the festival of Easter with great splendour. After visiting Durham, and settling the affairs of the north, the young King turned his face towards London.

From the day on which Edward rode out of Bishop­ gate, until Easter, the citizens had been in fearful suspense. At length a messenger reached Baynard’s Castle, to inform the Duchess of York that the Lancastrians had been routed; and, when the news spread, the metropolis was the scene of joy and rejoicing. Men of all ranks breathed freely, and thanked Gon for giving King Edward the victory; and minstrels, in grateful strains, sang the praise of the royal warrior who had saved the fair southern shires from the fierce and rude spearmen of the north.

 

CHAPTER XVII.

THE QUEEN’S STRUGGLES WITH ADVERSITY.

 

On Palm Sunday when, on Towton field, the armies of York and Lancaster were celebrating the festival with lances instead of palms, Margaret of Anjou, with the King, the Prince of Wales, and Lord De Roos, remained at York to await the issue of the conflict. The Lancastrians, when they rode forth, appeared so confident of victory that, in all probability, the Queen was far from entertaining serious apprehensions. As the day wore on, however, Somerset and Exeter spurred into the city, announced that all was lost, and recommended a speedy flight.

Margaret was not the woman to faint in the day of adversity. The news brought by her discomfited partisans was indeed hard to bear; but their advice was too reasonable to be rejected. Dauntless in defeat, as merciless in victory, that resolute princess could, even at such a moment, dream of fresh chances, and, calculate the advantages to be derived from placing herself beyond the reach of her enemies. Besides, it was necessary to do something, and that quickly. The day, indeed, was cold and stormy: but what were snow and sleet in comparison with the Yorkist foe, headed by a chief who had proved at Mortimer’s Cross that he could exercise a degree of cruelty almost as unsparing as that of which, at Wakefield, she had been guilty. The Queen, therefore, determined on carrying her husband and her son to Scotland; and the whole party, mounting in haste, rode northward with all the speed of which their horses were capable.

The way was long and the weather was cold; but the fear of pursuit overbore all such considerations; and the royal fugitives were fortunate enough to reach Newcastle without being overtaken by the light horsemen whom Edward had sent out in pursuit. From the banks of the Tyne the Queen proceeded to Berwick, and thence found her way to Kirkcudbright. In that ancient town of Galloway, near which, on an island in Lockfergus, stood the palace of the old kings of the province, Margaret left her husband to tell his beads, while she undertook a journey to Edinburgh, that she might concert measures for another effort to retrieve her disasters.

At the Scottish Court the unfortunate Queen was received with distinction; and warm sympathy was expressed for her mishaps. But the Scots, though dealing in fair words, were in no mood to assist Margaret without a consideration; and, to tempt them, she agreed to surrender the town of Berwick, the capital of the East Marches and the last remnant of the great Edwards’ conquests in Scotland.

Berwick having thus been placed in their possession, the Scots commenced operations in favour of the Red Rose. One army attacked Carlisle; another made an incursion into the Bishopric of Durham. Both expeditions resulted in failure. Early in June, Warwick’s brother, John Neville, Lord Montagu, defeated the Scots under the walls of Carlisle; and, ere the close of that month, the Lancastrians, under Lord De Roos, were routed at Ryton and Brancepath, in Durham.

Margaret, however, was in no humour to submit to fortune. Finding the Scottish Court unable to render any effectual assistance, the exiled Queen despatched Somerset to implore aid from France. An appeal to the French monarch could hardly, she thought, fail of producing the desired effect; for he was her relative; he had negotiated her marriage with Henry; and he entertained so high an opinion of his fair kinswoman, that, at parting, he had remarked, almost with tears in his eyes, “I feel as though I had done nothing for my niece in placing her on one of the greatest of European thrones; for it is scarcely worthy of possessing her.”

Misfortunes are said never to come singly; and Margaret had, ere long, reason to believe such to be the case. Having lost her throne, she lost the only friend who, for her own sake, would have made any exertions to restore her. Ere Somerset readied the Court of Paris, King Charles had expired at the age of three­score; and his son, known in history and romance as Louis the Crafty, had succeeded to the French crown.

Louis had no ambition to incur the enmity of Edward of York. He even evinced his disregard for his kinswoman’s claims by causing Somerset and other Lancastrians to be arrested while they were travelling in the disguise of merchants. The Duke was, ere long, set free, and admitted to the King’s presence; but he could not prevail on Louis to run any risk for the House of’ Lancaster: and after lurking for a time at Bruges, to elude Edward’s spies, he was fain to return to Scotland.

This was not the worst. The mission of Somerset proved doubly unfortunate. Not only had he failed in his object with the King of France, but he had given mortal offence to the Queen of Scots. The Duke, it would seem, had, during his residence in Scotland, been attracted by the charms of Mary of Gueldres; and the widowed Queen had showed for him a much too favourable regard. In an hour of indiscreet frankness Somerset revealed their familiarity to the King of France; and the secret becoming known at Paris, reached the Scottish Court. The royal widow, on learning that her weakness was publicly talked of, felt the liveliest indignation; and forthwith employed Hepburn of Hailes, a new lover, to avenge her mortally on the chief of the Beauforts. Moreover, she availed herself of the opportunity to break off friendly relations with the Lancastrian exiles.

Matters had now, in fact, reached such a stage, that Mary of Gueldres could hardly have avoided a quarrel with the Lancastrians. The young King of England was far from indifferent to the advantage of a close alliance with the Scots; and Warwick commenced negotiations by proposing, on behalf of Edward, a marriage with their Queen. Crossing the Border, in the spring of 1462, the King-maker arrived at Dumfries to arrange a matrimonial treaty.

Margaret of Anjou must now have been somewhat perplexed. Even if she had not received warning to quit the country, the presence of “The Stout Earl” at Dumfries was a hint not to be mistaken. Feeling that it was time to be gone, the Lancastrian Queen obtained a convoy of four Scottish ships, and, embarking with her son, sailed for the continent. Landing on the coast of Brittany, Margaret visited the Duke of that province; and he, compassionating her misfortunes, advanced her a sum of money. After passing some time with King René, who was then at Anjou, she proceeded with the Prince of Wales to the French Court, and implored Louis to aid in restoring Henry of Windsor to his father’s throne.

The French monarch had as little inclination as before to rush into war with a powerful nation merely to redress the wrongs of a distressed princess. But Louis had a keen eye to his own interests, and no objection to meet Margaret’s wishes, if, while doing so, he could advance his projects. He, therefore, went cunningly to work, declaring at first that his own poverty was such as to preclude the possibility of interference in the affairs of others; but gradually making Margaret comprehend that he would furnish her with money, if Calais were assigned to him as security.

After the battle of Cressy, Calais had been taken from the French by the third Edward, and was a conquest fur a king to boast of. Such, at least, continued the opinion of the commons of England. Indeed, when sighing over the memory of Cressy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, and reflecting on their subsequent disasters, patriots never failed to console themselves with the thought that, so long as Calais remained in their possession, they carried the keys of France and of Flanders at their girdle. Margaret did not, of course, sympathise with such sentiments; and, catching at the proposal of Louis, she put Calais in pawn tor twenty thousand livres Having received this sum, she raised an army of two thousand men.

At that time there was languishing in prison a French captain of great renown, named Peter de Brezé, who, in the reign of King Charles, had occupied a high portion, and greatly distinguished himself at a tournament held in honour of Margaret’s bridal. Inspired on that occasion by the Provençal Princess with a chivalrous devotion which was proof against time and change, he offered, if set free, to conduct her little army to England; and Louis, hoping, it is said, that the brave captain might perish in the enterprise, gave him his liberty.

Brezé, embarking with the Queen, set sail for Northumberland. Fortune did not, in any respect, favour the invaders. They, indeed, escaped the vigilance of Edward’s fleet, and attempted to land at Tynemouth; but the weather proving unfavourable, they were driven ashore near Bamburgh. The Queen had anticipated that the whole north would hail her coming, but she was utterly disappointed. For, instead of friends rushing to her aid, there appeared Sir Robert Manners of Etal, and the Bastard Ogle, who, zealous for the White Rose, attacked her little force with so much determination that the Frenchmen were utterly routed.

Margaret was fain to turn towards Berwick; but undismayed by reverses, she determined to persevere. Leaving her son in safety and having been joined by some English exiles and a body of Scots, she seized the Castles of Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh, and Alnwick. While in Alnwick, the stronghold of the Percies, she was dismayed by intelligence of Warwick’s approach; and, after taking counsel with Brezé, retired to her ships.

As she put to sea, however, a storm arose, scattered her little fleet, and wrecked the vessels bearing her money and stores on the rocky coast of Northumberland. The Queen was in the utmost danger; but, having been placed on board a fishing boat, she had the fortune, in spite of wind and weather, to reach Berwick.

Warwick, meanwhile, approached with twenty thousand men; and Edward, following, took up his quarters at Durham. The Queen’s French troops fared badly. Five hundred of them, endeavouring to maintain themselves on Holy Island, were cut to pieces; and the garrisons of the three northern castles were soon in a desperate condition. Indeed, the plight of the Lancastrians appeared so utterly hopeless, that Somerset submitted to Edward, and, having been received into the King’s favour, fought against his old friends.

Becoming most anxious to save Brezé, who, within the Castle of Alnwick, was reduced to extremity, Margaret applied to George Douglas, Earl of Angus, to rescue the gallant Frenchman from the jeopardy in which he was placed. “Madam,” replied Angus, who was father of the famous Bell-the-Cat, “I will do my utmost;” and having crossed the Border with a chosen band of spearmen, he broke through the ranks of the besiegers and carried off the garrison in safety.                         

The prospects of the Lancastrians were now dismal. Margaret, however, did not despair. Her courage was still too high—her spirit too haughty—to give up the game, which she had hitherto played with so little success. Being on the Scottish marches, she cultivated the friendship of those chiefs, whose spearmen were the plague of lordly wardens and the terror of humble villagers.

In the halls of Border lords, who, with hands strong to smite, had, under their coats of mail, hearts far from insensible to the tears of a beautiful woman and the supplications of a distressed princess, Margaret told the story of her wrongs. With a voice now stirring as the sound of a trumpet, now melancholy as the wind sighing among sepulchral yews, she reminded them what she had been when, eighteen years earlier, England’s nobles paid homage to her at Westminster, as she sat on the throne, wearing the crown of gold and the mantle of purple; how, when a fugitive, pursued by enemies thirsting for her blood, she had endured want and hunger; and how, when an exile, depending for bread on the charity of rivals, she had been humbled to beg from a Scottish archer the mite which she placed on the shrine of a saint. Her poetic eloquence, potent to move the heart, drew tears from ladies, and caused men to lay their hands upon their swords, and swear, by Gon and St. George, that such things must no longer be. Ever, when Margaret was in distress, and laid aside her imperious tone and haughty manner, she became too persuasive and insinuating to be resisted. It was impossible for listeners to resist the conclusion, that of all injured ladies she had suffered most, and that they would be unworthy longer to wear the crest and plume of knights, who did not use every effort to restore her to that throne which they believed her so well qualified to grace.

Thus it came to pass that when the winter of 1463 had passed, and the spring of 1464 again painted the earth, the Red Rose-tree began to blossom anew. Margaret found herself at the head of a formidable army; and Somerset, hearing of her success, deserted Edward’s Court, rode post-haste to the north, and took part in the Lancastrian insurrection. All over England there was a spirit of discontent with the new Government; and Edward, while watching the movements of the malecontents, got so enthralled by female charms that, instead of taking the field against the Lancastrian warriors, he was exerting all his skill to achieve a triumph over a Lancas­trian widow. However, he called upon his subjects to arm in his defence, and ordered a numerous force to march to the aid of Lord Montagu, who commanded in the north.

Margaret was all fire and energy. Carrying in her train her meek husband and hopeful son, she, in April, once more raised the Lancastrian banner, and marched southward. Somerset and his brother, Edmund Beaufort, were already at her side; and thither, also, went Exeter, De Roos, Hungerford, with Sir Ralph Percy, who had for a while submitted to Edward, and Sir Ralph Grey, who, having been a violent Yorkist, had lately, in revenge for not being granted the Castle of Alnwick, become enthusiastic for Lancaster.

Montagu, as Warden of the Marches, now found his position too close to the enemy to be either safe or pleasant. Undismayed, however, that feudal captain met the crisis with a courage worthy of his noble name, and a vigilance worthy of his high office. At Hedgley Moor, near Wooler, on the 25th of April, he fell on a party of the Lancastrians, under Sir Ralph Percy, and defeated them with slaughter. Sir Ralph, a son of the great northern Earl Blain at St. Albans, and a high spirited warrior, fell fighting, exclaiming, with his latest breath, “I have saved the bird in my bosom”

After having so auspiciously commenced his Northumbrian campaign, Montagu paused; but when Edward did not appear, the noble Warden lost patience, and determined to strike a decisive blow. Hearing that the Lancastrians were encamped on Level’s Plain, on the south side of the Dowel Water, near Hexham, he, on the 8th of May, bore down upon their camp. Somerset, who commanded the Lancastrians, was taken by surprise, and, indeed, had at no time the martial skill to contend with such a captain as Montagu. The northern men, however, met the unexpected attack with their usual intrepidity; but their courage proved of no avail. For a time, it appears that neither side could boast of any advantage; till Montagu, growing impatient, urged his men to “do it valiantly;” and, after desperate effort, the Yorkists entered the Queen’s camp. A bloody conflict ensued; the Lancastrians were put to the rout; poor Henry fled in terror and amaze; and, mounted on a swift steed, con­trived to get out of the fray, leaving part of his equipage in the hands of the victors.

A few days after Hexham, Edward arrived at York, and having been there met by Montagu, was presented with the high cap of state called “Abacot,” which Henry of Windsor had left behind on the day of battle. Out of gratitude, the King granted to his victorious Warden the Earldom of Northumberland, which, having been forfeited by the Percies, whose heir was then either a captive in the Tower or an exile in Scotland, could hardly have been more appropriately bestowed than on a lineal descendant of Cospatrick and Earl Uchtred.

Edward, however, had to punish as well as reward, and such of the Lancastrians as fell into the hands of the victors were treated with extreme severity. Somerset, who knew not where to turn, who had no reason to expect mercy in England, and no reason to expect protection in Scotland—since his revelations as to Mary of Gueldres had led Warwick to break off matrimonial negotiations on behalf of Edward—was discovered lurking in a wood, carried to Hexham, tried by martial law, and beheaded. The ill-tarred Duke died unmarried, but not without issue; and his descendants, in the illegitimate line, were destined to occupy a high place among the modern aristocracy of England. It happened that a fair being, named Joan Hill, without being a wife became a mother. Of her son, Somerset was understood to be the father. After the Duke’s execution, the boy went by the name of Charles Somerset; and, as years passed over, he won the favour of the Tudors. By Henry the Eighth he was created Earl of Worcester; and by Charles the Second the Earls of Worcester were elevated in the peerage to the Dukedom of Beaufort.

About the time when Somerset perished on the scaffold, the Red Rose lost a chief, scarcely less conspicuous, by the death of Lord de Roos. His widow found a home with her eldest daughter, the wife of Sir Robert Manners, of Etal; his son Edmund escaped to the continent; and his Castle of Belvoir, inherited through an ancestress from William de Albini, was granted by King Edward to William Hastings, who, since Towton, had become a baron of the realm, and husband of Warwick’s sister, Katherine Neville, the widow of Lord Bonville, slain at Wakefield. Hastings hurried to Leicestershire, to take possession of Belvoir; but the county, faithful to the banished De Roos, turned out under an esquire named Harrington and compelled the Yorkist lord to fly. Perceiving that to hold the castle, under such circumstances, would be no easy task, Hastings returned with a large force, spoiled the building, and carried off the leads to the stately pile he was rearing at Ashby de la Zouch.

The Lord Hungerford, with Sir Humphrey Neville, and William Tailbois, whom the Lancastrians called Earl of Kent, died, like Somerset, on the scaffold. But a punishment much more severe was added in the case of Sir Ralph Grey. This unfortunate renegade, when found in the Castle of Bamburgh, was condemned, ere being executed, to degradation from the rank of knighthood. Everything was prepared for the ceremony; and the master cook, with his apron and knife, stood ready to strike off the gilded spurs close by the heels. But from respect to the memory of the knight’s grandfather, who had suffered much for the King’s ancestors, this part of the punishment was remitted.

The hopes of the Lancastrians could hardly have survived so signal a disaster as their defeat at Hexham, if one circumstance had not rendered the victory of Montagu incomplete. Margaret of Anjou had, as if by miracle, escaped; and, while she was in possession of life and liberty, friends and adversaries were alike conscious that no battle, however bravely fought or decisively won, could secure the crown or assure the succession to the House of York.

 

CHAPTER XVIII

THE WOODVILLES.

 

About the opening of 1464, Edward, King of England, then in his twenty-fourth year, was diverting himself with the pleasures of the chase in the Forest of Whittlebury.

One day, when hunting in the neighbourhood of Grafton, the King rode to that manor-house and alighted to pay his respects to Jacqueline, Duchess of Bedford. The visit was, perhaps, not altogether prompted by courtesy. He was then watching, with great suspicion, the movements of the Lancastrians ; and he probably hoped to elicit from the Duchess, who was a friend of Margaret of Anjou, some intelligence as to the intentions of the faction to which she belonged—forgetting, by the bye, that the Duchess was a woman of great experience, and had long since, under trying circumstances, learned how to make words conceal her thoughts.

Jacqueline of Luxembourg, a daughter of the Count of St. Pol, when young, lively, and beautiful, found herself given in marriage to John, Duke of Bedford. John was a famous man, doubtless, but very considerably the senior of his bride ; and when he died at Rouen, Jacqueline probably considered that, in any second matrimonial alliance, she ought to take the liberty of consulting her own taste. In any case, one of the Duke’s esquires, Richard Woodville by name, was appointed to escort her to England; and he, being among the handsomest men in Europe, made such an impression on the heart of the youthful widow, that a marriage was the result. For seven long years their union was kept secret; but, at length, circumstances rendered concealment impossible, and the marriage became a matter of public notoriety.

The discovery that the widow of the foremost prince and soldier of Europe had given her hand to a man who could not boast of a patrician ancestor or a patriotic achievement caused much astonishment, and such was the indignation of Jacqueline’s own kinsmen, that Woodville never again ventured to show his face on the continent. To the esquire and the Duchess, however, the consequences, though inconvenient, were not ruinous. A fine of a thousand pounds was demanded from Woodville; and, having paid that sum, he was put in possession of Jacqueline’s castles.

As time passed on, the Duchess of Bedford, as “a foreign lady of quality,” insinuated herself into the good graces of Margaret of Anjou; and Woodville was, through the interest of his wife, created a baron. About the same period their eldest daughter, Elizabeth, became a maid of honour to the Queen, and, subsequently, wife of John Grey of Groby, a zealous Lancastrian, who died after the second battle of St. Albans. Finding herself a widow, and the times being troublous, Elizabeth placed herself under the protection of her mother, at Grafton. There she was residing when the Yorkist King appeared to pay his respects to the Duchess.

Elizabeth probably regarded Edward’s visit as providential. She had two sons; and as the partisans of York were by no means in a humour to practise excessive leniency to the vanquished, the heirs of Grey were in danger of losing lands and living for their father’s adherence to the Red Rose. Believing that she had now a capital opportunity of obtaining the removal of the attainder, she resolved to throw herself at the King’s feet, and implore his clemency.

An oak-tree between Grafton and Whittlebury Forest has since been indicated by tradition as the scene of Elizabeth Woodville’s first interview with Edward of York. Standing under the branches, holding her sons by the hand, and casting down her eyes with an affectation of extreme modesty, the artful widow succeeded in arresting his attention. Indeed, there was little chance of Edward of York passing such a being without notice. Elizabeth was on the shady side of thirty, to be sure; but time had not destroyed the charms that, fifteen years earlier, had brought suitors around the portionless maid of honour. Her features were remark­able for regularity; her complexion was fair and delicate, and her hair of that pale golden hue then deemed indispensable in a beauty of rank.

Edward’s eye was arrested, and being in the fever of youth, with a heart peculiarly susceptible, he was captivated by the fair suppliant. Too young and confident to believe in the possibility of his addresses being rejected, the King made love, though not in such terms as please the ear of a virtuous woman. Elizabeth, however, conducted herself with rare discretion, and made her royal lover understand that monarchs sometimes sigh in vain. At length the Duchess took the matter in hand; and, under the influence of a tactician so expert, the enamoured King set prudential considerations at defiance, and offered to take the young widow for better or for worse. A secret marriage was then projected; Jacqueline applied her energies to the business; and, with her experience of matrimonial affairs, the Duchess found no difficulty in arranging everything to satisfaction.

The ceremony was fixed for the 1st of May, and, since privacy was the object, the day was well chosen. Indeed, May-Day was the festival which people regarded as next in importance to Christmas; and they were too much taken up with its celebration to pry into the secrets of others. It was while milkmaids, with pyramids of silver plate on their heads, were dancing from door to door, and everybody was preparing to dance round the maypole, that Edward secretly met his bride at the Chapel of Grafton, and solemnised that marriage which was destined to bring such evils on the country. As the Duchess probably suspected that it was not the first time the King had figured as a bridegroom, she was careful, in the event of any dispute arising, to provide herself with other witnesses than the priest and the mass boy. With this view she brought two of her waiting women ; and the King, having gone through the ceremony, took his departure as secretly as he came. Ere long, however, Edward intimated to the father of the bride that he intended to spend some time with him at Grafton; and Woodville, who still feigned ignorance of the marriage, took care that his royal son-in-law should have nothing to complain of in regard to the entertainment.

Having thus wedded her daughter to the chief of the White Rose, the Duchess of Bedford converted her hus­band and sons from violent Lancastrians into unscrupulous Yorkists, and then manifested a strong desire to have the marriage acknowledged. This was a most delicate piece of business, and, managed clumsily, might have cost the King his crown. It happened, however, that while Edward, in the shades of Grafton, had forgotten everything that he ought to have remembered, Montagu, by his victory at Hexham, had so firmly established Edward’s power, that the King deemed himself in a position to inflict signal chastisement on any one venturesome enough to dispute his sovereign will. Nevertheless, it was thought prudent to ascertain the feeling of the nation before taking any positive step; and agents wore employed for that purpose.

Warwick and Montagu were not, of course, the men for this kind of work. The chief person engaged in the inquiry, indeed, appears to have been Sir John Howard, a knight of Norfolk, whose family had, in the fourteenth century, been raised from obscurity by a successful lawyer, and, in the fifteenth, elevated somewhat higher by a marriage with the Mowbrays, about the time when the chief of that great house was under attainder and in exile. Howard, inspired, perhaps, by his Mowbray blood, cherished an ardent ambition to enrol his name among the old nobility of England; and, to get one inch nearer the gratification of his vanity, he appears to have undertaken any task, however undignified. Even on this occasion he was not by any means too nice for the duty to be performed; and he was careful to return an answer likely to please those who were most interested. Finding that the Woodvilles were rising in the world, he reported, to their satisfaction, that the people were well disposed in regard to the King’s marriage. At the same time the aspiring knight was not forgetful of his own interests. He entreated the Woodvilles to obtain, for himself and his spouse, places in the new Queen’s household; and, by way of securing Elizabeth’s favour, presented her with a palfrey, as a mark of his devotion to her service. What dependence was to be placed on the faith or honour of Sir John Howard, Elizabeth Woodville found twenty years later, when her hour of trial and tribulation came.

And now, Edward, whose fortunes half the royal damsels of Europe, among others, Isabella of Castille, afterwards the great Queen of Spain, were eager to share, resolved upon declaring his marriage to the world; and, with that purpose, he summoned a great Council, to meet at the Abbey of Reading, in the autumn of 1464. Having there presented Elizabeth to the assembled peers as their Queen, he ordered preparations to be made for her coronation in the ensuing spring.

In the meantime, the King’s marriage caused serious discontent. Warwick and Edward’s brother, the young Duke of Clarence, in particular, expressed their displeasure; the barons murmured that no king of England, since the Conquest, had dared to marry his own subject; and ladies of high rank, like the Nevilles and De Veres, were, in no slight degree, indignant at having set over them one whom they had been accustomed to consider an inferior. At the same time, the multitude, far from regarding the marriage with the favour which Sir John Howard had led the Woodvilles to believe raised the cry that the Duchess of Bedford was a witch, and that it was under the influence of the “forbidden spells” she practised that the young King had taken the fatal step of espousing her daughter.

But nobody was more annoyed at Edward’s marriage than his own mother, Cicely, Duchess of York, who, in other days, had been known in the north as “The Rose of Raby,” and who now maintained great state at Baynard’s Castle. From the beginning, Elizabeth found no favour in the eyes of her mother-in-law. With the beauty of the Nevilles, Cicely inherited a full share of their pride; and, in her husband’s lifetime, she had assumed something like regal state. To such a woman an alliance with third-rate Lancastrians was mortifying, and she bitterly reproached her son with the folly of the step he had taken. Moreover, she upbraided him with faithlessness to another lady; but Edward treated the matter with characteristic recklessness. “Madam,” said he, “for your objection of bigamy, by God’s Blessed Lady, let the bishop lay it to my charge when I come to take orders; for I understand it is forbidden to a priest, though I never wish it was forbidden to a prince.”

Not insensible, however, to the sneers of which Elizabeth was the object, Edward determined on proving to his subjects that his bride was, after all, of royal blood, and therefore no unfit occupant of a throne. With this purpose he entreated Charles the Rash, Count of Charolais, and heir of Burgundy, to send her uncle, James of Luxembourg, to the coronation. The Count, it appears, had never acknowledged the existence of the Duchess of Bedford since her second marriage; but on hearing of the position Jacqueline’s daughter hail attained, his sentiments as to the Woodville alliance underwent a complete change, and he promised to take part in the coronation.

Faithful to his promise, the Count appeared in England with a magnificent retinue; and his niece was brought from the Palace of Eltham, conducted in great state through the city of London, and crowned, with much pomp, at Westminster. Hardly, however, had Elizabeth Woodville been invested with the symbols of royalty, than she found the crown sit uneasily on her head. The efforts made to render King Edward’s marriage popular had failed. Even the presence of a Count of Luxembourg had not produced the effect anticipated. Still the old barons of England grumbled fiercely; and still the people continued to denounce the Duchess of Bedford as a sorceress who had bewitched the King into marrying her daughter. Ere long, this widow of a Lancastrian knight, when sharing the throne of the Yorkist King, found that, with the White Rose, she had plucked the thorn.

The new Queen conducted herself in such a way as rapidly to increase the prejudices of the nation. After her marriage she too frequently reminded people of the school in which she had studied the functions of royalty. Indeed, Elizabeth Woodville, when elevated to a throne, assumed a tone which great queens like Eleanor of Castille and Philippa of Hainault would never have dreamed of using. Charitably inclined as the patrician ladies of England might be, they could hardly help remarking that Margaret of Anjou’s maid of honour did credit to the training of her mistress.

The people of England might have learned to bear much from Edward’s wife; but, unfortunately, the Queen was intimately associated in the public mind with the rapacity of her “kindred.” Elizabeth’s father, Richard Woodville, was created Earl Rivers, and appointed Treasurer of England; and she had numerous brothers and sisters, for all of whom fortunes had to be provided. Each of the sisters was married to a noble husband—Katherine, the youngest, to Henry Stafford, the Boy-Duke of Buckingham : and for each of the brothers an heiress to high titles and great estates had to be found. Unfortunately, while the Woodvilles were pursuing their schemes of family aggrandisement, their interests clashed with those of two powerful and popular personages. These were the Duchess of York and the Earl of Warwick.

Among the old nobility of England, whose names are chronicled by Dugdale, the Lords Scales occupied an eminent position. At an early period they granted lands to religious houses and made pilgrimages to the Holy Land, and in later days fought with the Plantagenet Kings in the wars of Scotland and France. The last chief of the name, who, after Northampton, suffered for his fidelity to the House of Lancaster, left no sons. One daughter, however, survived him; and this lady, having been married to a younger son of the Earl of Essex, was now a widow, twenty-four years of age, and one of the richest heiresses in England.

Upon the heiress of Scales, Elizabeth Woodville and the Duchess of York both set their hearts. The Duchess wished to marry the wealthy widow to her son George, Duke of Clarence; and the Queen was not less anxious to bestow the young lady’s hand on her brother, Anthony Woodville, who was one of the most accomplished gentlemen of the age. The contest between the mother-in-law and the daughter­in-law was, doubtless, keen. The Queen, however, carried her point; and the Duchess retreating, baffled and indignant, wrapt herself up in cold hauteur.

Of all the English heiresses of that day, the greatest, perhaps, was the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Exeter. The Duke, having fought at Towton and Hexham for the Red Rose, was now braving poverty and exile for the House of Lancaster; but the Duchess had not deemed it necessary to make any such sacrifice. Being a daughter of the Duke of York, she remained quietly at the Court of King Edward, her brother, and, while enjoying the estates of her banished husband, acquired the right to dispose of his daughter’s hand.

The heiress of the Hollands was, of course, a prize much coveted; and Warwick thought her hand so desirable, that he solicited her in marriage for his nephew, young George Neville, the son of Lord Montagu. The Queen, however, was determined to obtain this heiress for her eldest son, Thomas Grey, who had been created Marquis of Dorset. The Duchess of Exeter was, accordingly, dealt with, and in such a fashion that the Earl was disappointed, while the Queen congratulated her son on having obtained a bride worthy of the rank to which he had been elevated.

Warwick was nephew of the Duchess of York, and both had already a grievance of which to complain. They were now to have their family pride wounded in a manner, which, to souls so haughty, must have been wellnigh intolerable.

Long ere the wars of the Roses were thought of, Katherine Neville, elder sister of the proud Duchess, and aunt of “The Stout Earl,” was espoused by John Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. The Duke departed this life in 1433, and Katherine gave her hand to an esquire named Strangways. When time passed on, and Strangways died, she consoled herself with a third husband in the person of Viscount Beaumont. The Viscount went the way the Duke and the esquire had gone, and Katherine found herself a third time a widow. But the dowager had buried her share of husbands; she had passed the age of eighty; and as to a fourth dash at matrimony, that was surely a subject which could never have entered into her head.

The Woodvilles were aware of the existence of the old Duchess of Norfolk, and knew that the venerable dame was rich; and the Queen’s youngest brother remained to be provided for. Setting decency at defiance, they resolved upon a match; and though the wealthy Dowager had considerably passed the age of fourscore, and John Woodville had just emerged from his teens, a marriage was solemnised. The nation was deeply disgusted with the avarice manifested on this occasion. Even Sir John Howard must now have confessed that the King’s alliance with the Woodvilles was not quite so satisfactory to the people as he had predicted. The clamour raised was too loud and general to be either disregarded or suppressed. The Nevilles must have writhed under the ridicule to which their aged kinswoman was exposed. Other adherents of the White Rose must have blushed for the disgrace reflected on Edward of York from his. wife’s family; and the Lancastrian exiles, wearing threadbare garments and bearing fictitious names, as they climbed narrow stairs and consumed meagre fare in the rich cities of Flanders, must have felt hope and taken heart, when to their ears came tidings of the shout of indignation which all England was raising against the new “Queen’s kindred.”