=Source.=--Hall's _Chronicle_, pp. 250, 251. (London: 1809.)
[+Note.+--Hall's _Chronicle_ was first published in 1542, and
therefore the following extract is by no means contemporary with the
events it describes. But it is the only account of the battle of
Wakefield, and it derives some authority from the fact that Hall had an
ancestor who was slain in the fight.]
The duke of York with his people descended down the hill in good order
and array and was suffered to pass forward, toward the main battle:
but when he was in the plain ground between his castle and the town
of Wakefield, he was environed on every side, like a fish in a net or
a deer in a buckstall: so that he, manfully fighting, was within half
an hour slain and dead, and his whole army discomfited.... While this
battle was in fighting a priest called Sir Robert Aspall, chaplain
and schoolmaster to the young earl of Rutland, second son to the
abovenamed duke of York, of the age of twelve years, a fair gentleman
and a maidenlike person, perceiving that flight was more safeguard than
tarrying, both for him and his master, secretly conveyed the earl out
of the field ... but or he could enter into a house the lord Clifford
espied, followed and taken, and by reason of his apparell demanded
what he was. The young gentleman, dismayed, had not a word to speak,
but kneeled on his knees imploring mercy and desiring grace both with
holding up his hands and making dolorous countenance, for his speech
was gone for fear. "Save him," said the Chaplain, "for he is a prince's
son, and peradventure may do you good hereafter." With that word the
Lord Clifford marked him and said, "By God's blood, thy father slew
mine, and so will I do thee and all thy kin," and with that word stuck
the earl to the heart with his dagger, and bade the chaplain bear
the earl's mother and brother word what he had done.... This cruel
Clifford and deadly blood-supper, not content with this homicide or
child-killing, came to the place where the dead corpse of the duke of
York lay, and caused his head to be stricken off, and set on it a crown
of paper and so fixed it on a pole and presented it to the Queen, not
lying far from the field, in great despite and much derision, saying,
"Madame, your war is done; here is your King's ransom."