The

headed. His own head, crowned in derision with a paper diadem, was impaled on the battlements of York; his younger son Rutland, being captured by Clifford, was brutally stabbed to death by his captor. As your father killed mine (in the first battle of S. Alban's) said Clifford, "I will kill you." Lancastrians had indeed revenged themselves forNorthampton. Collecting her forces, which were largely re-inforced by the victory, Margaret hastened south. It was this march which probably ruined the Lancastrian cause. Many of her men were moss-troopers whose lives were spent in border raids. They laid waste town and country alike, and spoiled friend and foe with reckless impartiality. So great was the terror they inspired, that their memory is said to have lingered on until the march of the Young Pretender in 1745. They entirely alienated the trading classes, and in the next great battle, Towton, townsmen are found engaged for the first time, and on the Yorkist side.

7. Margaret's southward march.

Second B. cf S.
Albans.

1461.

Warwick, all unprepared for this unexpected vigour, took the lead of the Yorkists. Rallying his forces, he led them out of London to check the Lancastrians' advance. He came in touch with them at S. Alban's and stretched his men in scattered detachments along a front of three miles. But communication was poorly kept up, and the scouting was bad. The Lancastrians attacked unexpectedly, and, though their right was driven back, treachery allowed them to pierce the line on the left. The King was re-captured and the Yorkist host Henry VI. re-taken scattered. The victors again as at Wakefield made their victory hideous with revolting cruelty, a feature which marked all future battles during the war.

London now seemed to lie at the Queen's mercy, and with the capture of the seat of government the war might have been over. But London did not fall. It may have been that Henry dreaded to see his capital fall into the hands of the marauding Northerners. In any case the failure to take London had important results.

by Lancastrians.

The Londoners thought their foes were afraid to strike a 8. Edward of York. decisive blow, and, while the marauders hesitated, the Earl of a, Mortimer's Cross. March, York's eldest son, who was in Wales, called out his followers. A strong force under Jasper Tudor, son of Owen Tudor and Queen Katharine, blocked his way at Mortimer's Cross, near Wigmore, but it was decisively beaten, and Edward marched on. He joined Warwick at Chipping Norton, and unopposed the two bands were welcomed by the Londoners, for, as the old rhyme ran,

He that had London forsake

They would no more to them take.

The King's forces lay at Dunstable and even now it was thought they would try to take the capital. To strengthen the

b, Edward IV.

Yorkist cause and give it some legitimate right now that Henry was again with the Lancastrians, Edward was crowned crowned King King of England amid the plaudits of the merchants and people of London. The Lancastrian army, finding the Londoners so definitely on the Yorkist side, drew back northwards, leaving a trail of blood and fire in its wake.

(Stubbs iii. 195.)

c, Towton 1461.

(Oman's Warwick

The usurpation was of course a restoration of the rightful line, but Edward had yet to establish his succession by a decisive victory. He lost no time in following the retreating army along the Great North Road, and overtook it in Yorkshire. It occupied a strong position behind the flooded Aire, near Towton. Carelessness enabled Fitzwalter to seize a bridge over the river at Ferrybridge, and though he was driven from his position by Clifford, the latter was unsupported and compelled to withdraw. Before he reached his main body his force was suddenly attacked by a detached column of Yorkists which had crossed unmolested and unsuspected at Castleford. He was routed, he himself being slain in the very act of bracing on his helmet.

At the Battle of Towton both sides were at their strongest. The Yorkists had over 48,000 men and the Lancastrians about 117-126; Green 285.) 60,000. The latter held a very strong position at the top of the northern slope out of Towton-dale, but their front was far too small to allow their numbers to be used effectively. It was about a mile and a half long, lying between the river Cock, flooded by winter rains, and impassable, on its right flank, and the high road on its left.

The Yorkists, though inferior in numbers, had to attack. Their plan was to engage the enemy till Norfolk could bring up his re-inforcements. Both Edward and Warwick had a father to avenge, and the loss of life which such a plan must entail weighed but little with them. Accordingly, before dawn on the bleak March morning of Palm Sunday, 1461, they led their forces up the slope in the teeth of wind and snow. Suddenly, as they neared the top, the wind veered round, and drove the snow right into the faces of their foes. Fauconbridge, Warwick's uncle, took advantage of this change to carry out a clever movement. He sent his archers forward with orders to fire a volley and then retire. This they did, and the enemy replied, as he expected, by pouring showers of arrows in the teeth of the blinding snow on to the spot which of course had just been abandoned. In this way they wasted their ammunition and did absolutely no damage.

When ammunition began to fail them Fauconbridge again advanced, and the harrassing effect of his arrows, to which it was impossible to make any effective reply, forced the whole Lancastrian line to leave its strong defensive position and take the aggressive. From five o'clock till twelve a close hand-tohand fight raged in the gloom and the snow, which showed, we

are told more red than white." The slaughter on both sides was enormous. At last the expected re-inforcements under Norfolk began to arrive. The Lancastrians were fully occupied, so the new-comers were able to surround them on their exposed left and rear, only leaving open the side where thundered the impassable Cock.

Then the whole Yorkist line began to press forward, while their adversaries, unable to face three ways at once, yet stubbornly contesting every step, were driven slowly but relentlessly into the river. Many were drowned in the floods. Hundreds were trodden down in the shallows by their flying comrades. The last who crossed did so over the corpses of their friends. Through the winter night and on into the morrow, almost to the gates of York, the Yorkists pressed the pursuit, and 30,000 corpses stained the snow.

Northumberland and many more of noble birth were slain, and Thomas Courtnay, Earl of Devon, being taken, lost his head by the hands of the executioner. King Henry, who had stayed to pray for his men in York Minster, for he was better at praying than at fighting (as an old Chronicler remarks), escaped with his wife and son, and five attendants, over the border. The Lancastrian power was destroyed, and Edward had secured his accession by the sure seal of victory. Thus ended the second Act of the War.

I. THE THIRD ACT IN THE WARS OF THE ROSES.

i. Edward's IV.'s title and character

ii. Continuation of Yorkist successes

a. Northern Castles

b. Battles of Hedgeley Moor and Hexham 1464 (Yorkist victories) iii. Alienation of Warwick

3. Welles's Rebellion and Warwick's flight 1470; Lose Coat Field 4. Warwick and the Lancastrians

a. Alliance with Margaret

b. His return to England

c. Edward IV.'s flight

d. Restoration of Henry VI. 1470

5. Return of Edward IV. 1471

a. Early successes

b. Battle of Barnet 1471 (Yorkist victory)

c. Battle of Tewkesbury 1471 (Yorkist victory)

iv. Edward IV. Supreme

1. Edward IV.'s ti

(Stubbs iii. 199 and 225; Green 292.)

1. Foreign Policy

a. Burgundy

b. France Treaty of Pecquigny 1475

2. Fall of Clarence

The new king was a descendant of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, tle and character. the second son of Edward III. He rested his claim to the throne on this descent. He was a popular king: young, handsome, and courageous, he easily won the hearts of his subjects. There were some solid reasons for his popularity. He was a clever soldier. He favoured trade and even took some personal part in mercantile ventures. He was the patron of Caxton and the New Learning. He was a statesman with a settled domestic and foreign policy. But as a man he was bad, vicious, cruel, and immoral: traits which became more marked as he grew more powerful.

(Barnard 277.)

Yorkist successes.

(Green 285.)

Though Edward had won such a decisive victory at Towton, I. Continuation of Lancastrian opposition was by no means crushed. Margaret and Henry had escaped to Scotland and tried to form an alliance there. By the bribe of Berwick the Scots were persuaded to besiege Carlisle, but they were driven off by Montagu. The Queen then applied to France. She persuaded Louis XI. to help her by promising to give up Calais to him. She went herself to direct affairs in Northumberland, and was undaunted by the terrors of shipwreck and other adventures which befell her. There three strong castles held out for her, a, Northern castles. Dunstanburgh, Bamborough, and Alnwick. But Warwick, to whom the duty of clearing the Lancastrians from the north had been given, soon caused the first two to surrender, whilst the third was given up to Hastings after the escape of the garrison. Most of the Lancastrian leaders, especially Somerset and Percy, now made their peace with the new king and were received into favour, for the Yorkist policy at this time was one of conciliation. Margaret fled to Flanders; Henry wandered about the borders; and at length Harlech alone held out for him.

and Hexham,

1464.

Suddenly however the war broke out again. Scotland was still on Henry's side. Percy turned once more, and the three castles in the north again became Lancastrian garrisons. Percy fell at Hedgeley Moor as he tried to bar Montagu's way b, Hedgeley Moor to Scotland. A peace for fifteen years was concluded with that country and the Lancastrians had no refuge on which to fall back. Somerset, conscience-stricken for his treachery, exasperated by the jeers of the Yorkists and the execrations of the Lancastrians, made a last desperate effort for Henry VI. at Hexham. Deserted and betrayed, he had only 500 men to face the enemy. The battle was a massacre. Somerset and his fellow lords were captured and promptly executed. The castles of the north, with no hope of support or relief, once again surrendered. The first phase of Edward's reign was over, and the new king seemed to be firmly seated on his throne.

Warwick.

The next period of the reign is chiefly noticeable for the III. Alienation of gradual alienation of Warwick, and it ends with his death on the field of Barnet.