The Wars of the Roses

The position of the Yorkists was the reverse of pleasant. The Lancastrian army was greatly superior in number, and Audley had the advantage of being posted by the side of a stream, of which the banks were particularly steep. But Salisbury was not to be baffled. Seeing that there was little prospect of success in the event of his crossing to attack, the earl resolved on a military stratagem, and gave orders that his army should encamp for the night.

Early on the morning of Sunday – it was St. Tecla's Day – Salisbury set his men in motion; and, having caused his archers to send a flight of shafts across the river toward Audley's camp, feigned to retreat. Audley soon showed that he was no match for such an enemy. Completely deceived, the Lancastrian lord roused his troops to action, caused his trumpets to sound, and gave orders for his army passing the river. His orders were promptly obeyed. The men of Cheshire, who composed the van, dashed into the water, and plunged through the stream; but scarcely had they commenced ascending the opposite banks when Salisbury turned, and attacked them with that degree of courage against which superiority of numbers is vain. The battle was, nevertheless, maintained for hours, and proved most sanguinary. The loss of the Yorkists was indeed trifling,[4 - "But the earl's two sons – the one called Sir John Neville, and the other Sir Thomas – were sore wounded; which, slowly journeying into the north country, thinking there to repose themselves, were in their journey apprehended by the queen's friends, and conveyed to Chester. But their keepers delivered them shortly, or else the Marchmen had destroyed the jails. Such favor had the commons of Wales to the Duke of York's band and his affinity, that they could suffer no wrong to be done, nor evil word to be spoken of him or of his friends." —Hall's Union of the Families of Lancaster and York.] but more than two thousand of the Red Rose warriors perished in the encounter. Audley himself was slain, and with him some of the foremost gentlemen of Cheshire and Lancashire, among whom were the heads of the families of Venables, Molyneux, Legh, and Egerton. The queen, who witnessed the defeat of her adherents from the tower of a neighboring church, fled back to digest her mortification at Eccleshall.

The Earl of Salisbury soon found that his success was calculated to convert neutrals into allies. Lord Stanley, on receiving the queen's message, had gathered a force of two thousand men; but, being reluctant to commit himself on either side, he contrived, on the day of battle, to be six miles from the scene of action. On hearing of the result, however, he sent a congratulatory letter to his father-in-law; and Salisbury, showing the epistle to Sir John Harrington, and others of his knights, said, jocosely, "Sirs, be merry, for we have yet more friends."

The contest between York and Lancaster now assumed a new aspect. Salisbury, rejoicing in a victory so complete as that of Bloreheath, formed a junction with York at Ludlow; and the duke, perceiving that moderation had been of so little avail, and believing that his life would be in danger so long as Margaret of Anjou ruled England, resolved henceforth upon pursuing a bolder course. He could not help remembering that he was turned of forty, an age at which, as the poet tells us, there is no dallying with life; and he began to consider that the time had arrived to claim the crown which was his by hereditary right.

Having resolved no longer, by timidity in politics, to play the game of his enemies, York set up his standard and summoned his friends to Ludlow. Fighting men came from various parts of England, and assembled cheerily and in good order at the rendezvous; while, to take part in the civil war, Warwick brought from Calais those veterans who, in other days, had signalized their valor against foreign foes. The projects of the Yorkists seemed to flourish. Salisbury's experience, knowledge, and military skill were doubtless of great service to his friends; and having thrown up intrenchments, and disposed in battery a number of bombards and cannon, they confidently awaited the enemy.

Meanwhile, the Lancastrians were by no means in despair. The king, having, with the aid of the young Dukes of Somerset and Exeter, drawn together a mighty army at Worcester, sent the Bishop of Salisbury to promise the Yorkists a general pardon if they would lay down their arms. The Yorkists, however, had learned by severe experience what the king's promises were worth, and received the bishop like men who were no longer to be deluded. "So long," said they, "as the queen has supreme power, we have no faith in the king's pardon; but," they added, "could we have assurance of safety, we should express our loyalty, and humbly render ourselves at the king's service."

The king, having received the answer of the insurgent chiefs, advanced on the 13th of October to the Yorkist camp, and made proclamation, that whoever abandoned the duke should have the royal pardon. Though this appeared to be without effect, the king's army did not commence the attack. Indeed, the Yorkist ranks were most imposing, and the duke's guns wrought considerable havoc in the Lancastrian lines. Observing the formidable attitude of his foes, the king resolved to delay the assault until the morrow; and, ere the sun again shone, an unexpected incident had changed the face of matters, and thrown the Yorkists into utter confusion.

Among those who heard the king's proclamation was Andrew Trollope, captain of the veterans whom Warwick had brought from Calais. This mighty man-at-arms had served long in the French wars, and cared not to draw his sword against the son of the Conqueror of Agincourt. After listening to the king's offers of pardon, and considering the consequences of refusing them, Trollope resolved upon deserting; and, at dead of night, he quietly carried off the Calais troops, and making for the royal camp, revealed the whole of York's plans.

When morning dawned, and Trollope's treachery was discovered, the adherents of the White Rose were in dismay and consternation. Every man became suspicious of his neighbor; and the duke was driven to the conclusion that he must submit to circumstances. No prospect of safety appearing but in flight, York, with his second son, the ill-fated Earl of Rutland, departed into Wales, and thence went to Ireland; while Salisbury and Warwick, with the duke's eldest son, Edward, escaped to Devonshire, bought a ship at Exmouth, sailed to Guernsey, and then passed over to Calais.

The king, on finding that his enemies had fled, became very bold; and having spoiled the town and castle of Ludlow, and taken the Duchess of York prisoner, he called a Parliament. As measures were to be taken to extinguish the Yorkists, no temporal peer, unless known as a stanch adherent of the Red Rose, received a summons; and Coventry was selected as the scene of revenge; for, since the unfortunate result of the Commission at Guildhall, the queen looked upon London as no place for the execution of those projects on which she had set her heart. Away from the metropolis, however, Margaret found herself in a position to do as she pleased; and at Coventry Bloreheath was fearfully avenged. With little regard to law, and still less regard to prudence, the most violent courses were pursued: York, Salisbury, Warwick, and their friends, were declared traitors; and their estates, being confiscated, were bestowed on the queen's favorites. The chiefs of the White Rose appeared utterly ruined; and England was once more at the feet of "The Foreign Woman."

CHAPTER X

THE BATTLE OF NORTHAMPTON

In the month of June, 1460, while the Duke of York was in Ireland, while Margaret of Anjou was with her feeble husband at Coventry, and while Henry Holland, Duke of Exeter, York's son-in-law, was, as lord high admiral, guarding the Channel with a strong fleet, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, sailed from Calais for the shores of England. It was in vain that Exeter endeavored to do his duty as admiral; for on the sea as on the land, "The Stout Earl" was a favorite hero, and the sailors refused to haul an anchor or hoist a sail to prevent his landing. At Sandwich he safely set foot on English ground, and prepared to strike a shattering blow at the house of Lancaster.

Warwick was accompanied by the Earl of Salisbury and the Earl of March; but the army with which he came to change the dynasty did not consist of more than fifteen hundred men. The earl, however, was not dismayed at the weakness of his force. Indeed, his own great name was a tower of strength; and when, on landing, he proclaimed that his motive for taking up arms was to deliver his countrymen from oppression, and to maintain the ancient laws and liberties of England, he knew that the people would rally around his banner. Ere this, the White Rose, in addition to being the emblem of hereditary right, had become identified with the cause of civil and religious freedom.

The earl's confidence in the people of England was not misplaced. As he marched toward London, the fighting men of Kent and of all the south flocked to his standard, and on reaching Blackheath he was at the head of thirty thousand men. As the patrician hero entered the capital he was hailed with enthusiasm, and cheered with the hope of crowning his enterprise with success.

The king and queen were still at Coventry when informed of Warwick's landing, and Margaret lost no time in taking measures to resist the Yorkist invasion. Money was borrowed from the Lancastrian clergy and nobles, and troops, under Percies, Staffords, Beauforts, Talbots, and Beaumonts, gathered rapidly to the royal standard. The respect which, on his heroic father's account, people still entertained for Henry, and the fear with which Margaret inspired them, were powerful motives; and a great army having been assembled, the Lancastrian king and his haughty spouse, accompanied by Somerset and Buckingham, removed to Northampton, and took up their quarters in the Friary.

Meanwhile, leaving his father in London to defend the city and besiege the Tower, still held for the king by Lord Scales, Warwick marched through the midland counties. Having taken up a position between Towcester and Northampton, he sent the Bishop of Salisbury to the king with pacific overtures. The bishop returned without satisfaction, and Warwick, having thrice ineffectually attempted to obtain an audience of the king, gave the Lancastrians notice to prepare for battle.

The queen was not less willing than the earl to try conclusions. Believing the Lancastrians equal to an encounter with the army of Warwick, she addressed her partisans, and encouraged them with promises of honors and rewards. Confident in their strength, she ordered them to cross the Nene; and, Lord Grey de Ruthin leading the van, the royal army passed through the river, and encamped hard by the Abbey of Delapré in the meadows to the south of the town. There the Lancastrians encompassed themselves with high banks and deep trenches; and, having fortified their position with piles, and sharp stakes, and artillery, they awaited the approach of the Yorkist foe.

Warwick was not the man to keep his enemies long waiting under such circumstances. After charging his soldiers to strike down every knight and noble, but to spare the common men, he prepared for the encounter; and, ere the morning of the 9th of July – it was gloomy and wet – dawned on the towers and turrets of the ancient town on the winding Nene, his army was in motion. Setting their faces northward, the Yorkists passed the cross erected two centuries earlier in memory of Eleanor of Castile, and in feudal array advanced upon the foe – "The Stout Earl" towering in front, and Edward of March, York's youthful heir, following with his father's banner.[5 - "At that period, the men-at-arms, or heavy cavalry, went to battle in complete armor; each man carried a lance, sword, dagger, and occasionally a mace or battle-axe; his horse, also, was, to a certain extent, in armor. A considerable part of an English army consisted of archers, armed with long bows and arrows; and another part consisted of men armed with bills, pikes, pole-axes, glaives, and morris-pikes." —Brooke's Visits to Fields of Battle.]

At news of Warwick's approach, the Lancastrian chiefs aroused themselves to activity, donned their mail, mounted their steeds, set their men in battle order, and then alighted to fight on foot. The king, in his tent, awaited the issue of the conflict; but Margaret of Anjou repaired to an elevated situation, and thither carried her son, to witness the fight. Her hopes were doubtless high, for gallant looked the army that was to do battle in her cause, and well provided were the Lancastrians with the artillery which had, in the previous autumn, rendered the Yorkists so formidable at Ludlow.

By seven o'clock the Yorkists assailed the intrenched camp at Delapré, and the war-cries of the Lancastrian leaders answered the shouts of Warwick and March. At first the contest was vigorously maintained; but, unfortunately for the queen's hopes, the rain had rendered the artillery incapable of doing the service that had been anticipated. In spite of this disheartening circumstance, the warriors of the Red Rose bravely met their antagonists, and both Yorkists and Lancastrians fought desperately and well. But, in the heat of action, Lord Grey de Ruthin, betraying his trust, deserted to the enemy. Consternation thereupon fell upon the king's army, and the Yorkists having, with the aid of Lord Grey's soldiers, got within the intrenchments, wrought fearful havoc. The conflict was, nevertheless, maintained with obstinacy till nine o'clock; but after two hours of hard fighting the king's men were seen flying in all directions, and many, while attempting to cross the Nene, were drowned in its waters.

In consequence of Warwick's order to spare the commons, the slaughter fell chiefly on the knights and nobles. The Duke of Buckingham, the Earl of Shrewsbury, Thomas Percy, Lord Egremont, and John, Viscount Beaumont, were among the slain. Somerset narrowly escaped, and fled after the queen in the direction of North Wales.

When intelligence of Warwick's victory reached London, the populace broke loose from all restraint. Lord Scales, who, while keeping the Tower, had incurred their hatred, disguised himself and endeavored to escape. The watermen, however, recognized him, and, notwithstanding his threescore years, cut off his head and cast the body carelessly on the sands. Thomas Thorpe, one of the barons of the Exchequer, met a similar fate. While attempting to fly, he was captured and committed to the Tower; but afterward he was taken possession of by the mob, and executed at Highgate. With such scenes enacting before their eyes, the citizens recognized the necessity of a settled government; and the adherents of the White Rose intimated to their chief the expediency of his immediate return from Ireland.

King Henry, after the defeat of his adherents at Northampton, was found in his tent, lamenting the slaughter. As at St. Albans, he was treated by the victors with respectful compassion, and by them conducted, with the utmost deference, to London.

CHAPTER XI

YORK'S CLAIM TO THE CROWN

On the 7th of October, 1460, a Parliament, summoned in King Henry's name, met at Westminster, in the Painted Chamber, for centuries regarded with veneration as the place where St. Edward had breathed his last, and with admiration on account of the pictures representing incidents of the Confessor's life and canonization, executed by command of the third Henry to adorn the walls.

On this occasion the king sat in the chair of state; and Warwick's brother, George Neville, Bishop of Exeter, who, though not yet thirty, had been appointed chancellor, opened the proceedings with a notable declamation, taking for his text, Congregate populum, sanctificate ecclesiam. The Houses then entered upon business, repealed all the acts passed at Coventry, and declared that the Parliament there held had not been duly elected.

While this was going on, the Duke of York, who had landed at Chester, came toward London; and three days after the meeting of Parliament, accompanied by a splendid retinue, all armed and mounted, he entered the capital with banners flying, trumpets sounding, and a naked sword carried before him. Riding along with princely dignity, the duke dismounted at Westminster, and proceeded to the House of Lords. Walking straight to the throne, he laid his hand on the cloth of gold, and, pausing, looked round, as if to read the sentiments of the peers in the faces. At that moment the Archbishop of Canterbury, who had been with Henry, entered the house, and made the usual reverence to the duke.

"Will not my Lord of York go and pay his respects to the king?" asked the archbishop.

"I know no one," answered York, coloring, "to whom I owe that title."

The archbishop, on hearing the duke's answer, went back to the king; and York, following, took possession of the palace. Then, returning to the house, and standing on the steps of the throne, he claimed the crown of England as heir of Lionel of Clarence. When the duke concluded his speech, the peers sat motionless as graven images; and perceiving that not a word was uttered nor a whisper exchanged, York sharply asked them to deliberate. "Think of this matter, my lords," said he; "I have taken my course, take yours."

The duke left the house in some chagrin, and the peers took his request into consideration. After discussing the claim to the crown as calmly as if it had been an ordinary peerage case, they resolved that the question should be argued by counsel at the bar.

Most of the lords were under essential obligations to the house of Lancaster, and therefore in no haste to take York's claim into consideration. When a week elapsed, therefore, the duke deemed it politic to send a formal demand of the crown, and to request an immediate answer. The peers, somewhat startled, replied that they refused justice to no man, but in this case could decide nothing without the advice and consent of the king. Henry was consulted; and he recommended that the judges should be summoned to give their opinion. These legal functionaries, however, declined to meddle with a matter so dangerous, and the peers were under the necessity of proceeding without the aid of their learning and experience. The duke was then heard by his counsel; and, an order having been made "that every man might freely and indifferently speak his mind without fear of impeachment," the question was debated several days.

All this time York lodged in the palace of Westminster, where Henry then was, but refused to see his royal kinsman, or to hold any communication with him till the peers had decided on the justice of his claim; he knew no one, he said, to whom he owed the title of king.

At length the peers arrived at a decision; and the youthful chancellor, by order of the house, pronounced judgment. It was to the effect that Richard Plantagenet had made out his claim; but that, in consideration of Henry having from infancy worn the crown, he should be allowed to continue king for life, and that York, who meanwhile was to hold the reins of government, should ascend the throne after his royal kinsman's death. This compromise of a delicate dispute seemed to please both parties. On the vigil of the feast of All Saints, York and two of his sons appeared in Parliament, and took an oath to abide by the decision; on All Saints Day the heir of John of Gaunt and the heir of Lionel of Clarence rode together to St. Paul's in token of friendship; and on the Saturday following the duke was, by sound of trumpet, proclaimed Protector of the realm and heir to the crown.

The king appeared quite unconcerned at the turn which affairs had taken, and York had no apprehensions of a man who was never happy but when giving himself up to devotional exercises. The duke, however, was not indifferent to the enmity of Margaret of Anjou, and he felt anxious to secure himself against her hostility. He therefore sent a summons to bring her son without delay to Westminster, intending in case of disobedience to banish her from among a people on whom she had brought so many misfortunes. The Protector, it soon appeared, had under-estimated the resources, the energy, the terrible enthusiasm of the daughter of King René. He sent his messengers, as it were, to hunt a wild-cat, and he found, to his cost, that they had roused a fierce tigress.

CHAPTER XII

THE QUEEN'S FLIGHT AND RETURN

When Margaret of Anjou, from the rising ground at Northampton, saw her knights and nobles bite the dust, and descried the banner of Richard Plantagenet borne in triumph through the broken ranks of the Lancastrian army, she mounted in haste and fled with her son toward the bishopric of Durham. Changing her mind, however, the unfortunate queen drew her rein, turned aside, and made for North Wales.

The way was beset with danger. As Margaret was passing through Lancashire she was robbed of her jewels; and while, with bitter feelings, pursuing her flight through Cheshire she was attacked by a retainer of Sir William Stanley. Having escaped these perils, and been joined by Somerset, the fair Anjouite sought refuge in Harleck Castle, which had been built on the site of an ancient British fortress by the first Edward, and which was held for that mighty monarch's feeble descendant by a Welsh captain who rejoiced in the name of Davydd ap Jefan ap Einion.

The Castle of Harleck stood on a lofty cliff, the base of which was then washed by the ocean, though now a marshy tract of ground intervenes. From the sea, with such a rock to scale, the strong-hold was well-nigh impregnable; while on the land side it was defended by massive walls, by a large fosse, and by round towers and turrets, which covered every approach. Owen Glendower had, during four years, maintained the place against the fifth Henry; and the sturdy "Davydd" would not have shrunk from defending it against a Yorkist army, even if led by Warwick in person.

At Harleck Margaret passed months, brooding over the past, uncertain as to the present, and anxious about the future. At times, indeed, she must have forgotten her misfortunes, as, from the battlements of the castle, she gazed with the eye of a poetess over the intervening mountains to where the peaks of Snowdon seem to mingle with the clouds. At length she was startled by intelligence of the settlement made by Parliament, and by a summons from York, as Protector, to appear at Westminster with her son.

Margaret might well crimson with shame and anger. The terms on which the dispute between York and Lancaster had been compromised recalled all the injurious rumors as to the birth of her son; and her maternal feelings were shocked at the exclusion of the boy-prince from the throne he had been born to inherit.[6 - "One of the greatest obstacles to the cause of the Red Rose, was the popular belief that the young prince was not Henry's son. Had that belief not been widely spread and firmly maintained, the lords who arbitrated between Henry VI. and Richard, Duke of York, in October, 1460, could scarcely have come to the resolution to set aside the Prince of Wales altogether, to accord Henry the crown for his life, and declare the Duke of York his heir." —Sir E. B. Lytton's Last of the Barons.] Submission was, under these circumstances, impossible to such a woman. She was not yet thirty, decidedly too young to abandon hope; and she was conscious of having already, in seasons of danger, exhibited that energy which is hope in action. The idea of yet trampling in the dust the three magnates by whom she had been humbled, took possession of her mind; and, unaided save by beauty, eloquence, and those accomplishments which, fifteen years earlier, had made her famous at the courts of Europe, she started for the north with the determination of regaining the crown which she had already found so thorny. The distressed queen embarked on the Menai; and her destination was Scotland.

One day in the autumn of 1460, James, King of Scots, the second of his name, while attempting to wrest Roxburgh Castle from the English, was killed by the bursting of a cannon, and succeeded by his son, a boy in his seventh year. The obsequies of the deceased monarch were scarcely celebrated, when intelligence reached the Scottish court that Margaret of Anjou had, with her son, arrived at Dumfries; that she had met with a reception befitting a royal personage; and that she had taken up her residence in the College of Lincluden.

Mary of Gueldres, the widowed Queen of Scots, was about Margaret's own age. Moreover, Mary was a princess of great beauty, of masculine talent, and of the blood royal of France. Surrounded by the iron barons of a rude country, her position was not quite so pleasant as a bed of roses; and she could hardly help sympathizing with the desolate condition of her distant kinswoman. Hastening with her son to Dumfries, she held a conference that lasted for twelve days.

At the conference of Lincluden every thing went smoothly. Much wine was consumed. A close friendship was formed between the queens. A marriage was projected between the Prince of Wales and a princess of Scotland. Margaret's spirit rose high; her hopes revived; and encouraged by promises of aid, she resolved on no less desperate an adventure than marching to London and rescuing her husband from the grasp of "the Triumvirate."

The enterprise decided on, no time was lost. An army was mustered in the frontier counties with a rapidity which, it would seem, York and his friends had never regarded as possible. The great barons of the north, however, had never manifested any tenderness for the White Rose; and they remembered with indignation that hitherto their southern peers had carried every thing before them. Eager to vindicate their importance, and inspired by Margaret with an enthusiasm almost equal to her own, the Nevilles of Westmoreland, the Percies of Northumberland, and the Cliffords of Cumberland, summoned their fighting men, and at the same time endeavored, by promises of plunder south of the Trent, to allure the foraying clans to their standard.

The Borderers boasted that their property was in their swords; and they were seldom slow to ride when the prospect of booty was presented to their imaginations. They went to church as seldom as the twenty-ninth of February comes into the calendar, and never happened to comprehend that there was a seventh commandment. When on forays, they took every thing that was not too heavy; and were sometimes far from satisfied with the exception. Such men hailed with delight the prospect of plundering the rich South. From peels and castellated houses they came, wearing rusting armor, and mounted on lean steeds, but steady of heart, stout of hand, and ready, without thought of fear, to charge against knight or noble, no matter how proof his mail or high his renown in arms. The Borderers cared nothing for York or Lancaster; and would have fought as readily for the White Rose as the Red. But the spoil south of the Trent was a noble prize; and they gathered to the queen's standard like eagles to their prey.

Finding herself at the head of eighteen thousand men, Margaret of Anjou pressed boldly southward. Even the season was such as would have daunted an ordinary woman. When operations commenced, the year 1460 was about to expire; the grass had withered; the streams were darkened with the rains of December; the leaves had fallen; and the wind whistled through the naked branches of the trees. Margaret, far from shrinking, defied all hardships; and the spectacle of a queen, so young and beautiful, enduring fatigue and daring danger, excited the admiration and increased loyalty of her adherents. With every inclination to execute a signal revenge, she appeared before the gates of York; and marched from that city toward Sandal Castle.