taken prisoner. They set him down in mock state on an ant-hill,
and twisted grass about his head, and pretended to pay court to him
on their knees, saying, 'O King, without a kingdom, and Prince
without a people, we hope your gracious Majesty is very well and
happy!' They did worse than this; they cut his head off, and
handed it on a pole to the Queen, who laughed with delight when she
saw it (you recollect their walking so religiously and comfortably
to St. Paul's!), and had it fixed, with a paper crown upon its
head, on the walls of York. The Earl of Salisbury lost his head,
too; and the Duke of York's second son, a handsome boy who was
flying with his tutor over Wakefield Bridge, was stabbed in the
heart by a murderous, lord - Lord Clifford by name - whose father
had been killed by the White Roses in the fight at St. Alban's.
There was awful sacrifice of life in this battle, for no quarter
was given, and the Queen was wild for revenge. When men
unnaturally fight against their own countrymen, they are always
observed to be more unnaturally cruel and filled with rage than
they are against any other enemy.
But, Lord Clifford had stabbed the second son of the Duke of York -
not the first. The eldest son, Edward Earl of March, was at
Gloucester; and, vowing vengeance for the death of his father, his
brother, and their faithful friends, he began to march against the
Queen. He had to turn and fight a great body of Welsh and Irish
first, who worried his advance. These he defeated in a great fight
at Mortimer's Cross, near Hereford, where he beheaded a number of
the Red Roses taken in battle, in retaliation for the beheading of
the White Roses at Wakefield. The Queen had the next turn of
beheading. Having moved towards London, and falling in, between
St. Alban's and Barnet, with the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of
Norfolk, White Roses both, who were there with an army to oppose
her, and had got the King with them; she defeated them with great
loss, and struck off the heads of two prisoners of note, who were
in the King's tent with him, and to whom the King had promised his
protection. Her triumph, however, was very short. She had no
treasure, and her army subsisted by plunder. This caused them to
be hated and dreaded by the people, and particularly by the London
people, who were wealthy. As soon as the Londoners heard that
Edward, Earl of March, united with the Earl of Warwick, was
advancing towards the city, they refused to send the Queen
supplies, and made a great rejoicing.
The Queen and her men retreated with all speed, and Edward and
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Warwick came on, greeted with loud acclamations on every side. The
courage, beauty, and virtues of young Edward could not be
sufficiently praised by the whole people. He rode into London like
a conqueror, and met with an enthusiastic welcome. A few days
afterwards, Lord Falconbridge and the Bishop of Exeter assembled
the citizens in St. John's Field, Clerkenwell, and asked them if
they would have Henry of Lancaster for their King? To this they
all roared, 'No, no, no!' and 'King Edward! King Edward!' Then,
said those noblemen, would they love and serve young Edward? To
this they all cried, 'Yes, yes!' and threw up their caps and
clapped their hands, and cheered tremendously.
Therefore, it was declared that by joining the Queen and not
protecting those two prisoners of note, Henry of Lancaster had
forfeited the crown; and Edward of York was proclaimed King. He
made a great speech to the applauding people at Westminster, and
sat down as sovereign of England on that throne, on the golden
covering of which his father - worthy of a better fate than the
bloody axe which cut the thread of so many lives in England,
through so many years - had laid his hand.
CHAPTER XXIII - ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FOURTH
KING EDWARD THE FOURTH was not quite twenty-one years of age when
he took that unquiet seat upon the throne of England. The
Lancaster party, the Red Roses, were then assembling in great
numbers near York, and it was necessary to give them battle
instantly. But, the stout Earl of Warwick leading for the young
King, and the young King himself closely following him, and the
English people crowding round the Royal standard, the White and the
Red Roses met, on a wild March day when the snow was falling
heavily, at Towton; and there such a furious battle raged between
them, that the total loss amounted to forty thousand men - all
Englishmen, fighting, upon English ground, against one another.
The young King gained the day, took down the heads of his father
and brother from the walls of York, and put up the heads of some of
the most famous noblemen engaged in the battle on the other side.
Then, he went to London and was crowned with great splendour.
A new Parliament met. No fewer than one hundred and fifty of the
principal noblemen and gentlemen on the Lancaster side were
declared traitors, and the King - who had very little humanity,
though he was handsome in person and agreeable in manners -
resolved to do all he could, to pluck up the Red Rose root and
branch.
Queen Margaret, however, was still active for her young son. She
obtained help from Scotland and from Normandy, and took several
important English castles. But, Warwick soon retook them; the
Queen lost all her treasure on board ship in a great storm; and
both she and her son suffered great misfortunes. Once, in the
winter weather, as they were riding through a forest, they were
attacked and plundered by a party of robbers; and, when they had
escaped from these men and were passing alone and on foot through a
thick dark part of the wood, they came, all at once, upon another
robber. So the Queen, with a stout heart, took the little Prince
by the hand, and going straight up to that robber, said to him, 'My
friend, this is the young son of your lawful King! I confide him
to your care.' The robber was surprised, but took the boy in his
arms, and faithfully restored him and his mother to their friends.
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In the end, the Queen's soldiers being beaten and dispersed, she
went abroad again, and kept quiet for the present.
Now, all this time, the deposed King Henry was concealed by a Welsh
knight, who kept him close in his castle. But, next year, the
Lancaster party recovering their spirits, raised a large body of
men, and called him out of his retirement, to put him at their
head. They were joined by some powerful noblemen who had sworn
fidelity to the new King, but who were ready, as usual, to break
their oaths, whenever they thought there was anything to be got by
it. One of the worst things in the history of the war of the Red
and White Roses, is the ease with which these noblemen, who should
have set an example of honour to the people, left either side as
they took slight offence, or were disappointed in their greedy
expectations, and joined the other. Well! Warwick's brother soon
beat the Lancastrians, and the false noblemen, being taken, were
beheaded without a moment's loss of time. The deposed King had a
narrow escape; three of his servants were taken, and one of them
bore his cap of estate, which was set with pearls and embroidered
with two golden crowns. However, the head to which the cap
belonged, got safely into Lancashire, and lay pretty quietly there
(the people in the secret being very true) for more than a year.
At length, an old monk gave such intelligence as led to Henry's
being taken while he was sitting at dinner in a place called
Waddington Hall. He was immediately sent to London, and met at
Islington by the Earl of Warwick, by whose directions he was put
upon a horse, with his legs tied under it, and paraded three times
round the pillory. Then, he was carried off to the Tower, where
they treated him well enough.
The White Rose being so triumphant, the young King abandoned
himself entirely to pleasure, and led a jovial life. But, thorns
were springing up under his bed of roses, as he soon found out.
For, having been privately married to ELIZABETH WOODVILLE, a young
widow lady, very beautiful and very captivating; and at last
resolving to make his secret known, and to declare her his Queen;
he gave some offence to the Earl of Warwick, who was usually called
the King-Maker, because of his power and influence, and because of
his having lent such great help to placing Edward on the throne.
This offence was not lessened by the jealousy with which the Nevil
family (the Earl of Warwick's) regarded the promotion of the
Woodville family. For, the young Queen was so bent on providing
for her relations, that she made her father an earl and a great
officer of state; married her five sisters to young noblemen of the
highest rank; and provided for her younger brother, a young man of
twenty, by marrying him to an immensely rich old duchess of eighty.
The Earl of Warwick took all this pretty graciously for a man of
his proud temper, until the question arose to whom the King's
sister, MARGARET, should be married. The Earl of Warwick said, 'To
one of the French King's sons,' and was allowed to go over to the
French King to make friendly proposals for that purpose, and to
hold all manner of friendly interviews with him. But, while he was
so engaged, the Woodville party married the young lady to the Duke
of Burgundy! Upon this he came back in great rage and scorn, and
shut himself up discontented, in his Castle of Middleham.
A reconciliation, though not a very sincere one, was patched up
between the Earl of Warwick and the King, and lasted until the Earl
married his daughter, against the King's wishes, to the Duke of
Clarence. While the marriage was being celebrated at Calais, the
people in the north of England, where the influence of the Nevil
family was strongest, broke out into rebellion; their complaint
was, that England was oppressed and plundered by the Woodville
family, whom they demanded to have removed from power. As they
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were joined by great numbers of people, and as they openly declared
that they were supported by the Earl of Warwick, the King did not
know what to do. At last, as he wrote to the earl beseeching his
aid, he and his new son-in-law came over to England, and began to
arrange the business by shutting the King up in Middleham Castle in
the safe keeping of the Archbishop of York; so England was not only
in the strange position of having two kings at once, but they were
both prisoners at the same time.
Even as yet, however, the King-Maker was so far true to the King,
that he dispersed a new rising of the Lancastrians, took their
leader prisoner, and brought him to the King, who ordered him to be
immediately executed. He presently allowed the King to return to
London, and there innumerable pledges of forgiveness and friendship
were exchanged between them, and between the Nevils and the
Woodvilles; the King's eldest daughter was promised in marriage to
the heir of the Nevil family; and more friendly oaths were sworn,
and more friendly promises made, than this book would hold.
They lasted about three months. At the end of that time, the
Archbishop of York made a feast for the King, the Earl of Warwick,
and the Duke of Clarence, at his house, the Moor, in Hertfordshire.
The King was washing his hands before supper, when some one
whispered him that a body of a hundred men were lying in ambush
outside the house. Whether this were true or untrue, the King took
fright, mounted his horse, and rode through the dark night to
Windsor Castle. Another reconciliation was patched up between him
and the King-Maker, but it was a short one, and it was the last. A
new rising took place in Lincolnshire, and the King marched to
repress it. Having done so, he proclaimed that both the Earl of
Warwick and the Duke of Clarence were traitors, who had secretly
assisted it, and who had been prepared publicly to join it on the
following day. In these dangerous circumstances they both took
ship and sailed away to the French court.
And here a meeting took place between the Earl of Warwick and his
had his head struck off, and to whom he had been a bitter foe.
But, now, when he said that he had done with the ungrateful and
perfidious Edward of York, and that henceforth he devoted himself
to the restoration of the House of Lancaster, either in the person
of her husband or of her little son, she embraced him as if he had
ever been her dearest friend. She did more than that; she married
her son to his second daughter, the Lady Anne. However agreeable
this marriage was to the new friends, it was very disagreeable to
the Duke of Clarence, who perceived that his father-in-law, the
King-Maker, would never make HIM King, now. So, being but a weakminded
young traitor, possessed of very little worth or sense, he
readily listened to an artful court lady sent over for the purpose,
and promised to turn traitor once more, and go over to his brother,
King Edward, when a fitting opportunity should come.
The Earl of Warwick, knowing nothing of this, soon redeemed his
promise to the Dowager Queen Margaret, by invading England and
landing at Plymouth, where he instantly proclaimed King Henry, and
summoned all Englishmen between the ages of sixteen and sixty, to
join his banner. Then, with his army increasing as he marched
along, he went northward, and came so near King Edward, who was in
that part of the country, that Edward had to ride hard for it to
the coast of Norfolk, and thence to get away in such ships as he
could find, to Holland. Thereupon, the triumphant King-Maker and
his false son-in-law, the Duke of Clarence, went to London, took
the old Ki
ng out of the Tower, and walked him in a great procession
to Saint Paul's Cathedral with the crown upon his head. This did
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not improve the temper of the Duke of Clarence, who saw himself
farther off from being King than ever; but he kept his secret, and
said nothing. The Nevil family were restored to all their honours
and glories, and the Woodvilles and the rest were disgraced. The
King-Maker, less sanguinary than the King, shed no blood except
that of the Earl of Worcester, who had been so cruel to the people
as to have gained the title of the Butcher. Him they caught hidden
in a tree, and him they tried and executed. No other death stained
the King-Maker's triumph.
To dispute this triumph, back came King Edward again, next year,
landing at Ravenspur, coming on to York, causing all his men to cry
'Long live King Henry!' and swearing on the altar, without a blush,
that he came to lay no claim to the crown. Now was the time for
the Duke of Clarence, who ordered his men to assume the White Rose,
and declare for his brother. The Marquis of Montague, though the
Earl of Warwick's brother, also declining to fight against King
Edward, he went on successfully to London, where the Archbishop of
York let him into the City, and where the people made great
demonstrations in his favour. For this they had four reasons.
Firstly, there were great numbers of the King's adherents hiding in
the City and ready to break out; secondly, the King owed them a
great deal of money, which they could never hope to get if he were
unsuccessful; thirdly, there was a young prince to inherit the
crown; and fourthly, the King was gay and handsome, and more
popular than a better man might have been with the City ladies.
After a stay of only two days with these worthy supporters, the
King marched out to Barnet Common, to give the Earl of Warwick
battle. And now it was to be seen, for the last time, whether the
King or the King-Maker was to carry the day.
While the battle was yet pending, the fainthearted Duke of Clarence
began to repent, and sent over secret messages to his father-inlaw,
offering his services in mediation with the King. But, the
Earl of Warwick disdainfully rejected them, and replied that
Clarence was false and perjured, and that he would settle the