THE ROYAL FAMILIES OF ENGLAND

Edward the Fourth

EDWARD IV though in possession of the crown, could not but be aware that his title must be maintained by force of arms, for as yet the losses and advantages on both sides were so equally balanced, that either party might with reason hope to be eventually triumphant. If he was acknowledged by the southern counties, his rival was as warmly supported in the north. In such a case, delays were more likely to prove dangerous to his cause, than to the long established throne of Henry, and the earl of Warwick, anxious to bring the matter to an issue, placed him self at the head of his veterans and marched from London. In a few days Edward followed with the main body, which swelled to almost fifty thousand men by the time he reached Pontefract. The preparations on the opposite side had been carried on with no less despatch and energy. In the neighbourhood of York, lay the duke of Somerset with sixty thousand infantry and cavalry, into whom the queen zealously laboured to infuse her own indomitable spirit, and to encourage the men yet more, remained with her son and husband within the city. Both armies moved towards Ferrybridge, the passage of which had been gained by lord Fitzwalter on the part of Edward. He was, however, surprised and slain by lord Clifford, who within a few hours met with a similar fate on the same spot, from the hands of lord Falconbery. On the next day, the grand battle, which for a while at least settled the respective claims of York and Lancaster, took place between the villages of Towton and Saxton. It commenced at nine in the morning, amidst a heavy fall of snow; and so equally were the opponents matched in skill and courage, if not in numbers, that it was full three in the afternoon, before it could be seen that either side bad the advantage. About that time the Lancastrians evidently began to waver, though at first their retreat was in good order, 'till it was interrupted by the river Cock. Then a sudden panic appears to have seized them.

With a ruthless determination to crush down his foes beyond all chance of again rising, Edward had commanded that no quarter should be given, and one half of the Lancastrians are said to have fallen in this sanguinary struggle. Northumberland and six barons perished on the field; the earls of Wiltshire and Devonshire were taken as they fled, and executed; Somerset and Exeter, more fortunate than their friends, reached York, whence they escaped with Henry and his family to the borders; but if the records of that age have not exaggerated, no less than thirty-eight thousand men remained on the battle field, besides those who perished in the river. Yet even this wholesale destruction did not satisfy Edward. On reaching York he put several more of his prisoners to death, and substituted their heads upon the walls for those of his father and brother. He then hastened to London, and was crowned at Westminster, when he created his younger brothers, George and Richard, dukes of Clarence and Gloucester.

On the meeting of parliament, the two houses did not hesitate to pronounce the reigns of the last three kings a tyrannical usurpation, and assigned to Edward the same rights that had been enjoyed by Richard the Second. Bills of attainder followed of so sweeping a kind as to comprehend almost every Lancastrian of the least note, including the king, queen, and prince, besides a hundred and thirty-eight knights, priests, and esquires. A double motive led to this monstrous and unexampled outrage upon the common feelings of humanity: first, it well nigh annihilated the party that else was to be dreaded; secondly, in the lands of the attained, Edward found an ample fund for the reward of those who had helped him to the crown.

Desperate as seemed the fortunes of the Lancastrians, Margaret never ceased for a moment in her efforts to retrieve them. By the surrender of Berwick she had acquired a good right to the friendship of the Scottish government; by the promise of an English dukedom and a grant of lands she had gained the powerful earl of Angus; and now she sailed from Kirkcudbright to enlist the knightly feelings of the continent in her behalf. The duke of Bretagne made her a present of twelve thousand crowns. Lewis the Eleventh of France, less sensible to the tears of beauty, would do nothing 'till she offered Calais as a security; then he lent her twenty thousand crowns, and allowed Brezè, the seneschal of Normandy, to follow her with two thousand men. With these scanty aids, after an absence of five months, she returned to England, having eluded the vigilance of the hostile fleet, and summoned her Scottish allies on the borders, and her adherents in Northumberland. Fortune once more seemed to smile on the Lancastrians.

But this slight gleam of success quickly vanished when War wick arrived with twenty thousand men, and news came that Edward was at hand with an equal number. Upon this the Lancastrians divided themselves in garrison among their con quests, while Margaret and her French allies retreated to their ships in the hope of an asylum which they did not find. Part of her fleet, with all her treasures, was lost in a storm upon the rocks; five hundred foreigners, who had intrenched themselves in Holy Island, were slain or captured by lord Ogle; Margaret and Brezè escaped in a fishing boat to Berwick. Nothing remained to vouch for her success except the three fortresses she had taken at first; and these Warwick besieged at the same time, in the absence of Edward, who proceeded no farther than Newcastle, being incapacitated by early disease, the fruit of his immoderate indulgence. Bamborough and Dunstanburgh surrendered, on condition that the duke of Somerset, sir Richard Percy, and some others should swear fealty to Edward, and recover their estates as well as honours; and that the earl of Pembroke, lord Roos, and the rest of the two garrisons, should be allowed to pass with safety into Scotland. Alnwick still held out. An army of Lancastrians advanced with the apparent purpose of relieving it, upon which Warwick prepared for battle, but Hungerford with a few knights having cut their way in a sally to their friends, the latter retreated, and the garrison, without leaders, was only too glad to capitulate. Somerset and Percy were well received by Edward. He repealed their attainders, restored their lands, pensioned Somerset, and reinstated Percy in the possession of Bamborough and Dunstanburgh. Greatly to the offence of sir Ralph Gray, a warm partizan of the Yorkists, and who had formerly won Alnwick for them, this fortress was now given by Edward to sir John Ashley.

During the winter campaign, the undaunted Margaret led a life of wild adventure, such as is usually thought to belong to the pages of romance. At one time among the mountains, while riding secretly with her son and seneschal, she was surprised by a party of banditti, who despoiled her of her money and jewels. Fortunately for the captives, the robbers quarrelled among themselves about the division of their plunder; from angry words they came to drawn swords, when Margaret, seizing a favourable moment, dashed with the young prince into the shelter of the forest. They had not, however, gone far, before they were met by another of the same occupation. Hopeless of escape by flight, the queen boldly advanced towards him, and taking her young Edward by the hand exclaimed, "Friend, I intrust to your loyalty the son of your king." The robber justified the boldness of her confidence. He conducted them safely to their friends, and accompanied by the duke of Exeter, Brezè, and many other exiles, she sailed to Sluys in Flanders; there she was warmly received by the impetuous count of Charolois, and with a show of distinction by his father the politic duke of Burgundy, who refused to espouse her husband's cause, but supplied her with a small sum of money, and forwarded the suppliant to the dutchy of Bar in Lorrain, belonging to her father. Henry, in the meanwhile, had been conveyed for his better safety to the castle of Hardlough in Merionethshire, commanded by David ap Jevan ap Eynion, who still held out against Edward, and though the latter prince had concluded truces both with France and Burgundy, the Lancastrians still breathed war and defiance. They called upon Henry to place himself at the head of a body of exiles and Scotch auxiliaries; Somerset, forgetting his late submission to Edward, hastened through Wales and Lancashire to join his friends; Percy summoned his family friends to aid in the same cause; and Gray, in resentment of the neglect he had experienced, surprised Ainwick in the cause of the Lancastrians. Such energetic measures might have proved successful, but for the promptitude of Nevil, lord Montague, warden of the east marches. He defeated and killed Percy at Hedgley moor near Wooller, and with four thousand men surprised Somerset in his camp on the banks of the Dilswater by Hexham, when the force of the latter did not exceed five hundred. Somerset attempted to fly, but was taken and beheaded the same day, his body being buried in the abbey. Soon afterwards the lords Roos and Hungerford were executed at Newcastle, where many of their followers also suffered, as well as in the city of York. Gray was besieged in Bamborough by the earl of Warwick. By an unfortunate accident a wall fell upon this enterprising commander, and the garrison, hopeless of his recovery, lost no time in saving themselves by surrender. As they had made no stipulations in his favour, he was carefully nursed for farther cruelty, and being conducted to the king at Don-caster, was condemned to a traitor's death through the mouth of Tiptof, earl of Worcester.

Although closely pursued, Henry, who had fled from Hexham before Montague's arrival, had the good fortune to escape, and found an asylum with the people of Lancashire and Westmoreland, whose fidelity enabled him for upwards of a twelvemonth to elude the vigilance of his enemies. The treachery of a monk of Abingdon at length betrayed him into the hands of sir John Harrington's servants, who captured him while at dinner in Waddington hall, Yorkshire. Warwick met the unfortunate king at Islington, and treated him with unpardonable barbarity. He ordered by proclamation, that none should dare to show him the least respect, tied his feet to the stirrups, made him pace three times about the pillory, and ended by conducting him to the Tower, where he was placed in close confinement.

This last blow completely crushed the Lancastrians. They no longer attempted to make head against their conqueror, who had now time to reward his adherents from the plunder of the defeated. Montague became earl of Northumberland, lord Herbert was created earl of Pembroke, and numerous attainders again supplied a fund to remunerate and confirm the fidelity of his followers. Foreign relations next engaged the attention of Edward. He had before this announced his succession to the pope, and explained the nature of his claims to the English throne, and if the answer of Pius II. was cautious, or even cold, it was wanting in none of the usual forms of outward civility and respect. Although that pontiff, who was much attached to Henry, carefully abstained from any expressions which might seem to recognise Edward's right to the crown, he yet congratulated him upon his elevation. With Scotland he concluded a peace for fifteen years, and afterwards prolonged it to fifty-five, a wise and politic measure, could it have been possible to bind men by seals and parchment for half the time, for Scotland had long been a place of refuge to his enemies. On the side of France he had little to fear. Whatever might have been the secret wishes of Louis, he had no leisure to interfere hastily in the affairs of England, his whole attention being occupied at home by the "war," as it was called, "of the public good." With Burgundy and Bretagne, Edward had made alliances both offensive and defensive. With Poland and Denmark he had done the same, thus securing himself in the north and east, while by similar treaties with Castile and Arragon, he protected himself in the south, so that England, for the first time during many years, might consider herself in a state of perfect peace as far as the leading powers of Europe were concerned. It may, however, be much doubted whether the wisdom of Edward him self had much to do with this promising appearance of affairs. Since the battle of Towton, he would seem to have resigned the reins of government in a great measure to the Nevils, men admirably adapted by their intelligence no less than by their courage to sustain so great a burthen. In the meanwhile he abandoned himself without restraint to the pursuits of pleasure, and now no longer hesitated to avow in public, a marriage which he had contracted in private some time before. His friends and advisers had often urged upon him the necessity of marrying into some royal or princely family, as one means of giving stability to his throne; but Edward would appear to have valued the throne only as it ministered to his pleasures, and had no mind to be fettered in his course by any matrimonial chains, forged by policy or expedience. Neither were foreign rulers very eager to seek an alliance with one whose possession of the crown was as yet a matter of some uncertainty.

It was under these circumstances that the amorous monarch chanced to visit at Grafton, Jacquetta, duchess of Bedford, and her husband Wydevile, lord Rivers; with them he also found their daughter Elizabeth, the relict of sir John Gray, a Lancastrian, who had perished in the second battle of St. Albans. This lady, a woman of great beauty and accomplishments, seized so favourable an opportunity to solicit him to reverse the attainder of her late husband in favour of her destitute children. Her tears or rather her charms easily prevailed with the susceptible Edward. But her virtue resisted all the arts of her royal lover, and to marry one so far beneath him, without the advice of his council, was a dangerous experiment while his power still remained so unsettled. To avoid this peril, and yet to gratify his passion, about the end of April, 1464, even at a time when the friends of Henry were assembling in Northumberland, he repaired to Stony Stratford, whence early on the morning of the first of May, he secretly stole to Grafton. Here the marriage ceremony was performed in the presence of the duchess of Bedford, of two female attendants, and the clerk of the officiating priest. Edward then returned to Stony Stratford, where he shut himself up under pretence of fatigue from hunting, and two days afterwards he invited himself to his bride's abode at her father's. The attention of the courtiers was diverted from the royal pair, by a constant succession of parties for the chace, and when they did meet, it was not 'till the duchess of Bedford had carefully ascertained that the whole house was at rest. After four days spent in this way, Edward departed for London, with intention to join the army, which he had ordered to join him in Yorkshire; but before he set out for the north the battles of Hedgley moor and Hexham had put an end to the war. His chief solicitude then was to break his marriage to the council, so as to secure their approbation: To attain this desired object, at Michaelmas he summoned a general council of the peers to meet him at Reading abbey, when, though Warwick and the duke of Clarence disapproved of the match, they took Elizabeth by the hand, and introduced her to the rest of the lords.

Whatever might have been the private feelings of the council, they welcomed her as queen in Edward's presence, and not long afterwards at a second meeting in Westminster, four thousand marks a year were settled on her. But when the first surprise of the thing had passed, many began to murmur. The king's friends endeavoured to excuse him on the plea of his inexperience, and unblushingly declared that he had since repented of his marriage. Edward, however, did nothing that could sanction the last of these pleas. On the contrary, to silence the objections to the meanness of her birth, he invited over her maternal uncle James of Luxemburgh, who attended at her coronation with a retinue of a hundred knights and gentlemen, and when, on the feast of the Ascension, he created thirty-eight knights of the Bath, four of them were selected from the citizens of London, in order to conciliate the city in her favour. The next day, the mayor, aldermen, and different companies went out to meet Elizabeth at Shooters Hill, whence they conducted her in procession to the Tower. The Sunday following she was crowned.

By the royal influence, her five sisters were married to the young duke of Buckingham, and to the heirs of the earl of Kent, the earl of Arundel, the earl of Essex, and the lord Herbert; her brother Anthony to the daughter of the late lord Scales, with whom he obtained the title and estate; her younger brother John, then in his twentieth year, to the wealthy dowager duchess of Norfolk in her eightieth; and her son Thomas, by her former husband, to the king's niece Anne, the daughter and heiress to the duke of Exeter. In these marriages lay the seeds of evil that only needed time to ripen them. They disappointed many, who had looked to such alliances for their own advancement, and more particularly the dangerous Warwick, who had solicited the hand of the king's niece for his own nephew. But the rapacity of the queen's family was insatiable. In addition to these lucrative alliances, lord Mountjoy, treasurer of England, was displaced to make room for her father, who was created earl Rivers, and subsequently lord high constable, on the resignation of the earl of Worcester. Perhaps, however, the Nevils, who had been the chief instruments in placing Edward upon the throne, had no great reason for complaint. George, the youngest of the three brothers, and bishop of Exeter, had, on Edward's accession, obtained the seals, Since when he had been raised to the see of York; lord Montague, the next in age, was warden of the east marches of Scotland, and, as a farther reward of his services, had received with the title of earl of Northumberland, the vast estates of the Percies; the earl of Warwick, the eldest, was warden of the west marches, chamberlain, and governor of Calais, an office as lucrative as it was important, in addition to which he had hitherto been the king's chief general, and most confidential minister. Yet, although, thus highly rewarded for their services, they could not help feeling the diminution of their own influence with Edward, and the increase of that of the Wydeviles.

However this may be, their coldness first became public about 1467, when the duke of Burgundy proposed a marriage between his son Charles, count of Charolois, and Edward's sister Margaret, for though sprung from the house of Lancaster, the Burgundian was willing to forget the obligations of kinship, if by so doing he could obtain an efficient ally against his adversary, the French monarch. Warwick had long been the enemy of Charles, and therefore would have had the king reject the proposal, advising rather a marriage with one of the French princes. On the other side it was urged that such an alliance would convert an enemy of the Yorkists into a friend, and advance the commercial intercourse between the Netherlands and England. With a dangerous refinement of insincere policy, Edward thought to get rid for awhile of a troublesome counsellor by sending Warwick to treat with the French king, who received him at Rouen as if he had been a sovereign prince instead of a mere subject. In the meantime, the bastard of Burgundy arrived in London, ostensibly for the purpose of jousting with lord Scales, but in reality to adjust a marriage between Charles and Margaret. The parliament assembled; the chancellor on a plea of sickness, real or pretended, did not attend; Edward, his suspicions already excited by Warwick's intimacy with the French king, went to the prelate's house, demanded the seals, and took from him the two manors that had been granted to him by the crown. At this crisis, however, the death of the duke of Burgundy broke off the negotiations, and Warwick returned, bringing with him ambassadors from France, who offered an annual pension to the English monarch from Louis, and his consent that their mutual claims to Normandy and Aquitaine, should be submitted to the pope's decision. From any motives rather than sound policy, Edward lent a cold ear to these proposals, and, suddenly quitting London, appointed one in a subordinate place to hear, or, to speak it more truly, to reject them. Warwick only paid the ambassadors so much the more attention, and when they left England he retired to his castle of Middleham in Yorkshire, not without having given public expression to his discontent. In his absence the princess gave her consent to the marriage in a great council of the peers at Ringston. Other causes quickly arose to excite the Suspicions of Edward. One of Margaret's emissaries, who had been taken in Wales, assured the king that in the French court Warwick was held to be a secret friend to the Lancastrians. The earl on being summoned refused to quit his castle, and was therefore confronted with his accuser at Middleham. The charge was found to be false, or at least was so declared. What the king in reality thought may best be inferred from the fact of his selecting a body guard of two hundred archers, with orders always to attend upon his person. A rupture was evidently at hand; their common friends interfered, and succeeded in bringing about an interview between the archbishop of York and Rivers at Nottingham, for the purpose of affecting a reconciliation. The mediators at length agreed. The archbishop conducted his brother to Coventry, where he was received by the king in all apparent honour and kindness; yet, amidst this outward show of love and confidence, hatred was rankling at the heart of either party.

We now come to a doubtful part of English history, in which the facts themselves are much more apparent than their springs and causes, and so disconnected are they often in all appearance from each other, that it is scarcely possible to bring them into a consistent whole.

George, the oldest of Edward's surviving brothers, had been created by him duke of Clarence, gifted with a proportionate income, and made lord lieutenant of Ireland, with permission, on account of his youth, to discharge the duties of that office by his deputy the earl of Worcester. Notwithstanding he was thus favoured, he showed a marked preference for the society of Warwick, perhaps because he had formed an attachment for the earl's daughter Isabella. As Clarence was the heir presumptive to the throne, Edward sought to prevent the marriage. In defiance of his opposition, the ceremony was performed in the church of St. Nicholas at Calais, by the bride's uncle, and at the very same time, an insurrection broke out in Yorkshire, that part of the kingdom in which the influence of the Nevils most predominated. There is not, it must be admitted, any necessary connection between the two events, and yet under all the circumstances, the coincidence looks suspicious. The insurrection arose among the Yorkshire farmers, who suddenly resisted the demand of a thrave of corn from every plough-land, made by the warden of St. Leonard's hospital, a demand which 'till then had been acquiesced in from the time of King Atheistan. The peasants to the number of fifteen thousand flew to arms when the officers attempted to enforce payment, and choosing for their leader Robert Hilyard, more usually known as Robin of Redesdale, they declared they would march to the south and reform the government. It may, perhaps, be doubtful how Warwick's brother Northumberland would have acted, had they not threatened York with destruction; to save the city he attacked and easily defeated them, executing their leader on the field of battle. So far this one at least of the Nevils would not seem to have participated in the designs of his family against Edward; yet now that he had broken the body of the rebels, he never attempted to disperse them, but allowed them to gather again under the Sons of the lords Fitzhugh and Latimer, the one being the nephew, the other the cousin german of Warwick. These young men, moreover, acted under the advice of sir John Conyers, an old officer of experience, who now declared their object was to meet the earl, that with him they might concert measures for removing the Wydeviles from the king's councils. In a few days the number of the rebels rose according to popular report to sixty thousand. Edward, who had summoned his retainers at the first intelligence of the tumult in Yorkshire, and had now fixed his head quarters at Fotheringay castle, was justly alarmed. As a precautionary measure the Wydeviles retired from his army to their different seats, while he himself fell back again upon Nottingham castle, whence he wrote with his own hands to Clarence, Warwick, and the archbishop, requesting them to come to him without delay, and accompanied by no more retainers than usually followed them in time of peace. But his chief hopes were in the lords Herbert and Stafford, lately created earls of Pembroke and Devon, the former of whom, having reduced Hardlough castle, hastened from Wales to his aid with a body of eight thousand men. The latter with five thousand more joined the royal forces at Banbury, and affairs would probably have found a very different termination, had he not been irritated in some dispute about quarters, and drawn off his troops to a village about twelve miles removed from the royal camp. The insurgents perceived, and resolved to avail themselves of, this advantage. The next day at Edgecote they attacked the king's forces, who unsupported by archers, and abandoned by so large a body of those upon whom they had relied, afforded an easy victory. Five thousand remained with their leader upon the field. Rivers and sir John Wydevile were discovered in the forest of Dean during the pursuit, and were executed at Northampton by the real or feigned orders of Clarence and Warwick. Stafford, the author of all this mischief to the royal cause, met with the fate he so justly deserved, being beheaded at Bridge-water, though it seems doubtful whether he suffered by the king's command, or by the fury of the people, who detested him for his known attachment to the Wydeviles. At this juncture Clarence, Warwick, and the archbishop of York, returned to England. Taking with them the primate, they proceeded to the king at Olney, whither he had retired in deep affliction. Deceived by the outward show of respect with which his visitors treated him, Edward did not hesitate to unburthen himself freely of his complaints and suspicions. It was not long, however, before he was for greater security conveyed to Middleham in charge of the archbishop. By a singular shifting of the scene and actors, Edward was saved from this apparently hopeless dilemma through the means of the Lancastrians, who yet had little thought of doing him any service. After the defeat at Hexham in 1464, sir Humphrey Nevil, one of the Lancastrian leaders, had fled for refuge to a cave opening into the river Derwent, where he contrived to live secreted for five years, but the present opportunity seeming favourable to the cause of Henry who was still a prisoner in the Tower, he unfurled his standard in the marshes of Scotland. Upon this, Warwick called upon the lieges of Edward to join him in putting down the rebels, but the people, so wiiling in general to rise at his summons, refused to fight in defence of a prince, whose real fate, whether dead or living, they knew nothing. He had therefore no choice but to exhibit the king in public at York, which however he made a means of obtaining from him a grant of all the dignities held by the late earl of Pembroke, including the office of justiciary of South Wales. Having thus taken care of his own immediate interests, he marched into the North, where with his usual good fortune he routed the Lancastrians, and brought their leader to Edward, who immediately sent him to the scaffold. 'What follows surprised all men at the time, and must even now be a subject of wonder. Edward persuaded his captor, in general so ruthless, to give him liberty. A private treaty being signed he was once again suffered to visit his capital, accompanied by these doubtful friends. A council of peers was then convoked, in which the earl and his son in law condescended to offer excuses and explanations; they were accepted by the king with apparent cheerfulness, and a general pardon issued to all who had borne arms against him.

As yet Edward had no son. His eldest daughter Elizabeth was only four years old, yet he already saw in her the means of raising up for himself a counter interest to that of Clarence in the potent family of the Nevils. With this view he consulted the lords how it would be best to dispose of the young princess in marriage, avowing that his own inclination was to give her to George, the son of Northumberland, and presumptive heir to all the Nevils. The lords approved of the choice, and the young nobleman was made duke of Bedford. For greater security a pardon was granted to Clarence and Warwick for all offences committed before the feast of Christmas. So complete was the outward show of reconciliation, that the French king, Louis XI., and his ambassadors were deceived by it. A singular event soon occurred to prove how fallacious was the new alliance. The archbishop had invited Edward to his seat at the Moor in Hertfordshire, for the purpose of meeting Clarence and Warwick at an entertainment he designed to give there. While the king washed his hands before supper, John Ratcliffe, afterwards lord Fitz-Walter, betrayed to him in a whisper that an ambush had been laid for him. A hundred armed men, said the ominous informant, are lying in wait to surprise, and convey him to a dungeon. There was little time for enquiring into the truth of the tale; Edward at once stole to the door, mounted a horse, and rode with all possible speed to Windsor. Fresh dissensions rose out of this ambiguous matter; at length a reconciliation was again effected, but as little sincere as those which had preceded it, and certainly, Edward had ample reason for his distrust. The commons in Lincolnshire rose in arms, urged thereto by the arts of Warwick and his son in law. In the midst of such jealousies, to the great surprise of every one, the king commissioned Clarence and the earl to levy troops for his service, and before he left London sent for lord Welles, who was the father of sir Robert, the insurgent leader.

Being caught by the bait of a pardon, lord Welles repaired to court, when Edward demanded that he should exercise the authority of a father, and insist upon his son's submitting to the royal clemency. If he really complied, his efforts were rendered fruitless by the underhand practices of Clarence and the earl. But the son's obstinacy cost the father dearly. When on reaching Stamford, Edward found that sir Robert was still in arms, he ordered both lord Welles and Dymock to be executed, and then despatched a second summons to sir Robert. Prompted alike by hatred and despair, the leader of the insurgents indignantly replied that he would never trust the man, who had so perfidiously murdered his father. Hereupon the king gave battle to his rebellious subjects at Erpingham in Rutlandshire, with such a superiority of force as made resistance hopeless. Their leaders were taken; and though the prisoners of less note were allowed to escape, sir Charles Delalaunde and sir Robert Welles were condemned, and executed. Nor did Worcester, who had been appointed lord constable, show himself more inclined to pity than the sovereign. He caused lord Willoughby to be beheaded at York, besides putting several knights and gentlemen to death in a way too cruel for repetition.

For the first time in his career of long-continued success Warwick found his calculations baffled. The defeat of the Lincolnshire insurgents had left him too weak to cope with Edward, and advancing into Yorkshire he, by proclamation, ordered all men able to bear arms, to hasten to his standard. By the time they reached Easterfield, the king was at Doncaster, a distance of about twenty miles. Drawing out his forces in battle array, he was yet willing to avoid the hazard of an appeal to force, and sent garter king-at-arms to summon them before him, that they might clear themselves of the things laid to their charge. Instead of accepting this doubtful invitation, the confederate nobles turned to the west, and marched to Manchester, to persuade lord Stanley, who had married Warwick's sister, to lend them his assistance. Fortunately for them, Edward, unable from want of provisions to follow in their pursuit, hastened to York, and issued a proclamation wherein he set forth their of-fences, exhorting them at the same time to return to their duty within a certain term, and declaring that he should listen with pleasure to their vindication, if they could offer any; even if they failed in doing so, he would yet remember that they had once been his friends, and were still his kinsmen. He did not, however, neglect the more stringent measures, which the necessity of the moment dictated. He took from Clarence the lieutenancy of Ireland, and gave it to the earl of Worcester; restored to Henry Percy the earldom of Northumberland, and the wardenship of the east marches, which had been held by Warwick's brother since the battle of Towton, and compensated the latter with the barren title of marquess Montague. In the meanwhile, the insurgents escaped to Calais; but on arriving at the expected port, the fugitives met with a repulse, upon which they had little calculated. Warwick had entrusted the government of the place in his absence to a gentleman of Gascony, by name Vauclerc, a knight of the garter; and this faithful deputy repaid his confidence by opening the batteries of the place upon him the moment he attempted to enter the harbour. When the earl sent an officer to expostulate, the traitor apologised by pretending the disaffection of the garrison, who, he said, would undoubtedly betray the fugitives if they landed; at the same time he sent a messenger to Edward, assuring him of his devoted loyalty, and that he would hold the place for him to the last.

Thus driven from their stronghold, the insurgents bent their course towards Normandy, captured every Flemish merchant that fell in their way, and arrived in safety at Harfleur. Hitherto Louis XI. had taken little interest in the cause of the Lancastrians, but the secession of Warwick and his friends from Edward, held out prospects of advantage not to be neglected. By his order the best accommodations were provided for them in the adjacent towns, and Clarence, with the earl, was invited to his court at Amboise. There they met with Henry's queen, Margaret of Anjou, and however serious might be the injuries they had formerly inflicted upon each other, they were now taught by a common interest to forget them. To complete the reconciliation between them, Anne, the second daughter of Warwick, was married to Margaret's son Edward, both parties agreeing to combine for the restoration of Henry to the throne, and that if the prince died without issue, the crown should devolve on the duke of Clarence. But this scheme, though it might cement the new union between the earl and Margaret, tended much to sever Clarence from the interests of his father-in-law. The prospect of succeeding to his brother's throne, had been the duke's greatest inducement for following the fortunes of that nobleman, and now he saw a remote, uncertain contingency substituted for a near and probable reversion. Such considerations had their full effect upon a mind already biased in the same direction, and he privately assured Edward that, when the opportunity served, he should find in him an affectionate brother.

It is difficult to reconcile the present conduct of Edward, with his usual activity and foresight when menaced by any danger. His whole time was devoted to pleasure, though none but himself doubted the result, if Warwick should effect a landing. To the best of his power, Burgundy sought to remedy this supineness of his brother-in-law. He despatched secret emissaries to Calais, with instructions to watch the conduct of Vauclerc; and blockaded the mouth of the Seine with a powerful squadron. This last act of vigilance was defeated by a violent storm, that drove off and dispersed his ships. Availing themselves of this happy chance, the exiles on the following day set sail under the protection of a French fleet, and having crossed the channel, landed at Plymouth and Dartmouth without opposition. The whole of the south now lay open to them, a well-devised feint having drawn off Edward to York; lord Fitzhugh, brother-in-law to Warwick, excited the king's alarm by raising the show of a rebellion in Northumberland, and when he had got him thus far in the north, made a hasty retreat before him, within the borders of Scotland. In other quarters similar signs of danger were hourly becoming apparent; the proclamation of Warwick, announcing his secession to the cause of the deposed monarch, drew numbers to his standard. When unsupported. by any regal sanction, he was formerly compelled to fly before Edward; now, aided by the name of Henry, men hourly flocked to join him, and with an increasing army, he took the directest line to Nottingham, where Edward was pleasing himself with the idea that he had nothing to dread from so feeble an enemy. This happy state of illusion was not fated to last long. While he was yet in bed, or at table—for the story has been variously told—news was brought of Warwick's advance. A detachment was immediately sent to secure a bridge in the neighbourhood, and Edward, after a hasty consultation with his friends, mounted his horse, and made for Lynn without stopping. In the harbour he was fortunate enough to find an English ship, and two Dutch brigs, aboard of which he embarked, with a few noblemen and eight hundred chosen followers, compelling the seamen to weigh anchor on the instant and steer for the coast of Holland.

Queen Elizabeth, in the meanwhile, feeling that the Tower was no longer a safe abode for her, fled with her mother and three daughters to the sanctuary at Westminster. Here she was in a short time afterwards delivered of a son, while the rival party was pursuing its easy course of triumph, unopposed by any one. On the arrival of Clarence and Warwick, Henry was conducted from the place of his former imprisonment to the bishop's palace. A parliament, that was soon afterwards summoned in his name, pronounced Edward an usurper, attained his adherents, repealed all the acts passed by his authority, and ratified the convention of Amboise. The crown was entailed by an act of settlement on the male issue of Henry VI., in default of whom it passed to Clarence and the heirs of his body, the same act appointing the duke and Warwick, protectors of the realm, during the minority of the present prince of Wales. In addition to all this, the former was made heir to his late father Richard, duke of York, promoted to the lieutenancy of Ireland, and gifted with several manors in place of those, which he had before, and which had been taken from the Lancastrians. Warwick also was rewarded with the same profuse bounty. But for once the triumph of the predominant party was not stained with innocent blood, no slight praise in those days of violence and ferocity. The only man who suffered, was the earl of Worcester, and some excuse may be found for the law's severity in the case of one whose cruelty in the exercise of his duties as constable had obtained for him the significant title of "the butcher."

Louis XI. had heard of the Lancastrian successes with infinite satisfaction. In compliment to Henry he sent a splendid embassy to London, and concluded with him a treaty of peace and commerce for fifteen years. Such was not the position of Burgundy. Edward, his brother in law, had solicited his aid, but at the same time the dukes of Exeter and Somerset had been sent to his court to remind him that he was descended from the same ancestor as Henry. Thus divided by natural considerations, he was not less so by those of interest. If he aided Edward he might provoke his rival to espouse the cause of Louis; by refusing his assistance he ran equal risk from the friendship between the two crowns. In this dilemma he bad recourse to the doubtful mask of deceit, forbidding his subjects under severe penalties to lend aid to the exile, while in secret he presented him with fifty thousand forms, equipped four large ships for his use at Vere in Holland, and hired from the Hanse towns fourteen vessels for the transport of his followers and war-munitions to England. The fleet thus provided made its appearance about the middle of Lent off the coast of Suffolk, but was deterred from coming near the land by the preparations that had been made for its reception under the active superintendence of a brother to the earl of Oxford. Edward then continued his course towards the north, entered the Humber, and disembarked with fifteen hundred men at Ravenspur. He now pretended that he had a safe conduct from Northumberland, that he came not to claim the throne but the inheritance of his late father the duke of York, wearing in his bonnet an ostrich feather, the device of the Lancastrian prince of Wales, and causing his followers to shout in every village, "long live king Henry !" At York, so strongly had the tide of public favour turned against him, that he was compelled at the city gates, and afterwards on the cathedral altar, to solemnly abjure all pretensions to the crown in presence of the clergy and corporation. Little encouraging as was this state of things to the hopes of Edward, he yet boldly pressed forward with a decision and energy that contrasts marvellously with the apathetic want of vigour, which a short time before had lost him the throne. Now, his former indifference seemed to have passed over to his adversaries. The marquess of Montague lay at Pontefract with an army sufficient to have crushed the invaders, yet though Edward advanced to within four miles of his adversary's head-quarters not a sword was drawn to oppose his progress.

The proverbial fickleness of popular opinion was here again made manifest. Without any apparent cause for such a change the face of things was wholly reversed, and men continued flocking to the exile as he marched on, 'till by the time he reached Nottingham his army had encreased to fifty or sixty thousand. He could once more throw off the mask with safety. In his proclamations he reassurned the title of king, and called upon all his loyal subjects to aid their sovereign. Clarence followed the example. He had raised a body of troops under a commission from Henry, but now he ordered them to wear the white rose over the gorgets, and the men seem to have exchanged their allegiance on the mere breath of another as easily as they would their doublets. With this welcome reinforcement he joined his brother near Coventry, where Warwick and Oxford had concentrated their forces, but pertinaciously refused the battle offered by Edward. The Yorkists then marched hastily to the capital. It had been entrusted to the archbishop, and he already began to waver in his new allegiance. In the morning he accompanied Henry through the streets of the city with all the honours due to a king; in the evening, by his order the recorder Worswick admitted Edward by a postern in the walls. Soon afterwards the two Lancastrian leaders followed on the track of their enemy, when fearful of the opposing party within the walls, Edward took Henry with him and sought them at Barnet. At a late hour on Easter eve the two armies found themselves in presence of each other. Before sunrise both were drawn up in the field, and a battle ensued that lasted with varied success for near six hours, and then terminated in favour of the Yorkists. Warwick and his brother Montagu were both slain; the duke of Exeter was left for dead, but, as he still breathed when his servants found him in the evening, they conveyed him to the sanctuary at Westminster. Oxford alone of all the Lancastrian leaders had the good fortune to escape, and joining Pembroke in Wales persisted in maintaining the cause of Henry. On Edward's side the loss does not appear great.

The death of Warwick, surnamed the "king-maker," from his long success in the trade of setting up and pulling down monarchs, was not the least valuable result to Edward of this victory. To satisfy the multitude, who might otherwise at some future time have been led into rebellion by the sanction of his name, his body with that of Montagu was publicly exposed for three days in St. Paul's church, and then deposited by the side of his forefathers in Bilsam abbey. Henry was remanded to the Tower. His more fortunate rival resumed the reins of power, which, however, he was not long suffered to hold in quiet. On the Sunday he had fought at Barnet; on the Friday following he was again called into the field by the news of Margaret's arrival at Plymouth with a body of French auxiliaries, after having been detained for weeks on the opposite coast by the roughness of the weather. She landed on the very day of that disastrous battle, and, upon intelligence of it reaching her, fed with her son to the sanctuary at Beaulieu. The Lancastrian lords, who still adhered to her cause with rare fidelity, persuaded her to go with them to Bath, and raised new forces. Unfortunately they found themselves baffled in their plan of joining the earl of Pembroke in Wales. The citizens of Gloucester had fortified the bridge over the Severn, and before she could reach Tewkesbury Edward was already there with far superior forces. Even under these disadvantages their cause might have triumphed, had not rashness lost to them all the benefit of a strong position. They had fixed themselves behind a lofty entrenchment, whence it was no difficult matter to beat back the assailants. Carried away by this first show of success, Somerset sallied out to harass their retreat; but the fear or the treachery of Wenlock made him restrain his men from following, and the Yorkists turned again upon the gallant few that had pursued them, putting most of them to the sword. From this one mistake a panic spread amongst the Lancastrians; the banners of Gloucester and of the king successively waved in the middle of their camp; and Somerset beat out the brains of lord Wenlock in resentment of his weakness or his treachery. Margaret and her son were made prisoners, when the latter being led to the king's tent and asked what had brought him to England, replied with more courage than prudence, "to preserve my father's crown and my own inheritance." With the ferocity of a barbarian, Edward struck his gauntlet in his face; some other hand, most probably that of Gloucester, despatched him.

The Lancastrians, having themselves always respected the right of sanctuary, looked for the same indulgence at the hands of their adversaries, and, instead of flying, when they might have done so, sought for safety in the church. Edward had no such scruples. Forgetting, or not choosing to recollect, that to the Lancastrians' reverence for such asylums he owed the lives of his wife, his children, and two thousand of his adherents, he would have forced his way, sword in hand, into the church; but a priest carrying the host in his hand ran to the door, and refused to move from it 'till the king had pledged himself to spare the lives of all who had taken refuge within. As usual this promise was not long observed. On the third day, Somerset and his companions were dragged by a party of armed men from their asylum, and being conveyed to the scaffold were executed in defiance alike of humanity and honour.

The murder of the young prince had given an importance to the life of Henry, which it did not possess before, for while the son lived to claim the crown, it would obviously have been a useless crime to shed the blood of the father. Now, on the contrary, by putting the deposed monarch to death, a great temptation to his adherents would be removed, and on the eve of the Ascension, when Edward made his entry into London, Henry perished in the Tower. Grief was the cause assigned for his death. What the people believed they dared not utter, but when the pens and tongues of men were loosened under another dynasty, the deed of blood was openly attributed to Richard, duke of Gloucester, the youngest of the royal brothers.

Edward was now in the quiet possession of the throne. His eldest son, also named Edward, who had been born in the sanctuary during his exile, was created prince of Wales and earl of Chester, and was recognised as heir apparent in a great council of peers and prelates. His negotiations with Scotland relieved him from all fears in that quarter. The Lancastrians were too much weakened by the sword and the axe, to be any longer a cause of apprehension. Still he was not without his disquietudes, and these chiefly grew out the insatiable rapacity of his two brothers, Clarence and Gloucester. The former, who had married Warwick's eldest daughter, grasped at the whole of his immense estates; Gloucester proposed to gain a share by marrying the younger, the relict of the late prince of Wales, to defeat which scheme Clarence hid the lady from his pursuit. After some months she was discovered in the disguise of a cook-maid, and conducted for safety to the asylum of St. Martin's, when Clarence could no longer prevent the match, but swore to keep the property. The king interfered; either pleaded his cause before him in council; arbitrators were appointed; and finally an award was made, assigning her portion to Anne, and giving the rest to Isabella the elder sister.

When this troublesome affair was thus brought to a conclusion, Edward turned his attention to the continent. Louis and Charles of Burgundy being at variance, each sought to obtain his friendship, the latter with his ally the duke of Bretagne inciting him to renew the dormant claims of England to the French crown. Resentment against Louis for his aids to the Lancastrians, and still more the advantage of employing those abroad, who else might be troublesome at home, induced Edward to enter into a romantic treaty with the duke, by which France would have been divided into two independent kingdoms. One half comprehending the northern and eastern provinces, was to belong to Burgundy, without any obligation of fealty or homage; the other was to be possessed by Edward. The clergy, the lords, and the commons, separately granted him a tenth of their income, to carry out this insane project; and the parliament, during the two years and a half that it continued to sit with various prorogations, voted supply upon supply for the same purpose with unexampled profusion. When all this proved insufficient, the king called the more wealthy citizens before him, and asked relief from each after the fashion of a sturdy beggar, who demands rather than requests. Shame, hope, or fear, prevailed with all according to the tempers of the donors, and Edward obtained a large supply of alms, or, as he was pleased to call it, a benevolence.

Notwithstanding the noise of these preparations, the expedition was annually postponed, and Edward employed himself more wisely in securing the amity of the Scotch monarch. A marriage was arranged between James's eldest son the duke of Rothsay, and Cecily the second daughter of Edward, and the princess's portion of twenty thousand marks, was to be paid by equal instalments in ten years, an ingenious device to attach James by making him the pensioner of England for the time stipulated. At length Edward sailed from Sandwich, with fifteen hundred men-at-arms, and ten times that number of archers, and, landing at Calais, invited Charles to join him according to their treaty. But causes of dissension soon arose between these ill-assorted allies.

According to the chivalrous laws then prevailing, Edward had sent garter king-at-arms to demand the French crown of Louis. To this the prudent monarch replied, by taking him into his closet, and expressing his great desire to live on friendly terms with his brother of England; at the same time he presented him with three hundred crowns, and promised him a thousand more on the conclusion of peace. Won over by such excess of liberality, garter advised his applying to lord Howard, or lord Stanley, both of whom were already opposed to war, besides being in high favour with the monarch. Of this useful hint Louis resolved to avail himself, and sent a herald to those nobles soliciting an introduction to the king, who, discontented as he then was with Burgundy, lent a ready ear to his excuses and insinuations. In a council of officers, it was agreed that Edward should return with his army to England, if Louis would immediately pay him seventy-five thousand crowns, settle on him a life annuity of fifty thousand more, conclude a truce and commercial treaty between the two nations for seven years, and marry his eldest son to Edward's eldest daughter; or, in the event of her death, to her sister Mary. The French king agreed to all that was demanded. In addition it was agreed, that Margaret of Anjou should be released on payment of fifty thousand crowns, and that all other differences should be settled by arbitration. The people, however, and the army, were by no means contented at this disappointment of their high-fed expectations. But the king put down all murmurers with a strong hand; and, carefully avoiding to exasperate the nation by new taxes, devised extraordinary means for supporting his household and the government, which, though often unjust, were much less dangerous.

The joy in the success from these plans, soon found an alloy in the growing discontent of his brother Clarence. The resumption of certain grants had first served to alienate him from the king, and soon an event of yet deeper interest made the breach still wider. When upon the death of Burgundy his immense possessions fell to his daughter, Mary, Clarence sought the hand of the heiress, and might have obtained it, but for the interference of Edward, who opposed it on two grounds; in the first place he feared lest the ambition of Clarence might induce him to use the power of Burgundy in obtaining the crown of England; he was anxious not to offend Louis, who had already seized a considerable portion of Mary's inheritance. While the brothers were in this state of mutual irritation, it so happened that Stacey, one of the duke's servants, was accused of accelerating by magic the death of lord Beauchamp. On the rack he implicated Thomas Burdett, a gentleman also in the duke's family, and both were condemned and executed. Clarence zealously championed their innocence, and the next day introduced to the council Dr. Godard, an eminent divine, to depose to their dying declarations. No sooner was this communicated to Edward, than he sent for the duke, and after many sharp upbraidings, committed him to the Tower. This was preparatory to his standing at the bar of the house of lords, charged with high treason. The king conducted the prosecution, opening up old offences that had been forgiven, and accusing him of new, to all of which Clarence replied with a warmth and bitterness that only did farther mischief to his cause. He was found guilty, and the duke of Buckingham, who had been created high steward for the occasion, pronounced on him the sentence of death. The king objected to a public execution. In about ten days it was rumoured that Clarence had died in the Tower, and the chroniclers of the day have lent their sanction to an idle tale of his being drowned in a butt of malmsey.

War again broke out between England and Scotland, attributable either to the intrigues of Louis, or to the policy of Edward, who wished to avail himself of the hot disputes between James and his nobles. The duke of Gloucester was placed at the head of the English army, James commanded his array in person; the borderers recommenced their old system of devastation; and yet two years elapsed before the war assumed a formidable appearance. The duke of Albany, under the pretence of his brother's illegitimacy, laid claim to the Scottish throne, and obtained a promise of assistance from Edward on condition he should surrender Berwick, should hold his crown as a fief of England, should abjure the national alliance, and should marry if the church would allow it—he had two supposed wives living—one of the English princesses. Accompanied by Gloucester, at the head of more than two and twenty thousand men, he laid siege to Berwick, but though the town surrendered, the castle made a desperate resistance. hi the meanwhile James advanced as far as Lauder, entirely ignorant of a much nearer peril. It was generally during a military expedition, when they were surrounded by their retainers, that the Scottish nobles, if they had any ground for complaints, united against their sovereign; and so it happened on this occasion; the barons, who had long been at variance with James, suddenly seized and hanged several of his favourites, disbanded the army, and conveyed himself to the castle of Edinburgh, with menaces of imprisonment for life unless he granted them a full pardon for the murder of his favourites.

Upon the news of this astounding event reaching the army before Berwick, Albany and Gloucester, putting themselves at the head of sixteen thousand men, marched at once to the northern metropolis, which opened its gates and welcomed them as friends. All men now looked to see the Scottish sceptre pass from the hands of James into the firmer grasp of his brother Albany; but to the surprize of every one the duke suddenly relinquished the crown he had so long been seeking, now that it was actually within his reach, nor has any sufficient reason ever been assigned for this unexpected change of policy. He signed an agreement with two Scottish peers and two prelates, binding himself to act the part of a faithful subject, while they, on the other hand, pledged themselves with no less solemnity to procure for him a full pardon without any exceptions, and the restoration of all the estates and honours that had been taken from him in consequence of the late disputes. To make the English king less dissatisfied with this unlooked-for arrangement, it was settled that the castle of Berwick should be surrendered to him, and that the provost and merchants of Edinburgh should become security for the repayment of all sums advanced on account of the marriage portion of the princess Cecily, unless Edward should prefer to continue the original contract. He however, chose the money, his profusion in all probability making the return of it desirable. Albany took by force the castle of Edinburgh, and having liberated his brother, they showed their reconciliation to the people by riding to Holy-rood house on one horse, and sleeping in the same bed. But this sudden revival of brotherly affection. did not last long. From some unknown cause the duke again became dissatisfied, and entered into fresh negotiations with Edward. This new treason being discovered, he made his escape a second time to France, when an act of attainder was passed against him by the Scottish parliament.

The matrimonial speculations of Edward for his family, were doomed to disappointment in another and more important quarter. It had been agreed, as the reader will no doubt recollect, that, when his daughter Elizabeth attained her twelfth year, she should be sent for to the French court, and have an annuity of sixty thousand francs settled upon her as the destined bride of the dauphin. She had now passed that age by four years, and still the expected summons had not come. Remonstrances were made, but for these Louis had always some plausible excuse, which served to qualify, though it could not altogether remove, suspicion. The parliament, less blinded by their own wishes, and therefore more alive to the truth, began to doubt the sincerity of the French court, and warned the king that he was being duped. Still Edward, whose heart was set upon the match, would not, or could not, suspect the truth of his good brother, 'till at length an event occurred that set the matter beyond all question. The Burgundian princess Mary, who had borne her husband two children, Philip and Margaret, was suddenly killed by a fall from her horse, and the moment the intelligence reached Louis, he demanded Margaret for the dauphin, as if no treaty to bar it had existed between himself and the English monarch. The father hesitated, but the people of Ghent, the strenuous advocates of freedom in their own persons, and to whose custody the children had been committed, would not allow him any choice; they extorted his consent, and delivered over Margaret to the commissioners of Louis, the provinces which that monarch had ravished from the mother being settled as a marriage portion upon the daughter. Edward received the news of this contract, as might be expected, with the utmost indignation, and vowed to take a signal vengeance on the French king for his perfidy. That he would have attempted to do so there can be little question; but his career was now rapidly drawing to its close. A slight ailment, which had been treated with neglect, on the sudden began to take on very alarming symptoms, his late paroxysms of anger acting dangerously on a body that was enfeebled by a life of vicious indulgence. He expired in the month of April, 1483, in the twenty-first year of his reign, and was buried with the usual pomp in the new chapel at Windsor.

It is impossible to give Edward the praise of a good or a great prince, though he is said to have been the most accomplished, as well as the handsomest, man of his age. The love of pleasure was his ruling passion, and to that he sacrificed all other considerations. Though never deficient in courage, he was always the last in the field, because he could not bring himself to postpone any indulgence to the serious business of the hour. Blood lie shed on all occasions without pity or remorse, destroying friend and foe alike if they happened to cross his path, so that he governed in the latter part of his reign simply by the terror of his early executions.

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