EDWARD IV. of YORK.—1461 to 1483.
How the Yorkists beat Queen Margaret at Hexham; how the Queen and
Prince escaped to Flanders; why the Earl of Warwick was called the
King-maker; how Prince Edward was murdered by King Edward’s brothers;
how King Henry and the Duke of Clarence were put to death.
In those years, while there were two kings, nobody knew which king to
obey. Few people minded the laws, and the armies of the Lancastrians
and the Yorkists did a great deal of mischief in every part of the
country. A great many battles were fought, and many thousands of
Englishmen were killed.
After one of these battles, which was fought at Towton, in Yorkshire,
King Henry was obliged to hide himself for a long time in Scotland,
and the parts of England close to it. He sometimes slept in the
woods, and sometimes in caves, and was near dying of hunger.
At last Queen Margaret contrived to gather another army; but the
Yorkists beat her at Hexham, and King Henry was taken prisoner, and
sent to the Tower. Queen Margaret and the young prince escaped into a
wild forest. There they were met by some robbers, who took away the
queen’s necklace and her rings, and then began to quarrel about who
should have the most.
[Illustration: Escape of Queen Margaret.]
Queen Margaret took the opportunity of their quarrelling, and,
holding her little son by the hand, she began running through the
forest, in hopes of meeting some of her friends; but she only met
with another robber. She was afraid he would kill her and the little
prince, because they had nothing to give him. Margaret then fell
upon her knees, and owned she was the queen, and begged the robber to
protect his king’s son. The robber was surprised, indeed, to see the
queen and prince by themselves, half-starved, and weary with running
in that wild place. But he was a good-natured man, and took them
under his care; he got them some food, and took them to a cottage to
rest; after which he contrived to take them safely to the seaside,
where they got on board ship and went to Flanders.
Now that King Henry was safe in the Tower of London, and Queen
Margaret was gone abroad, everybody in England hoped there would be
an end to the civil wars, and King Edward of York married a beautiful
lady called Elizabeth Woodville, and he had many children, and there
was nothing but feasting and rejoicing.
But the king had two brothers, George Duke of Clarence, who was
rather foolish, and Richard, who was young, brave, and clever, but
deformed and wicked. The Duke of Clarence had married a daughter of
the Earl of Warwick, who had been very useful to the Yorkists. But he
was vexed with the king for marrying without asking his advice, so he
determined to begin the civil war again.
This Earl of Warwick was a very brave man, but he was very
changeable; at one time he fought for Edward of York, at another for
Margaret and Henry of Lancaster; so, as he chose to call first one
of them king, and then the other, he was nicknamed the King-maker.
Once Warwick forced King Edward to flee from England, and put Henry
on the throne again. But Edward came back, and Warwick was killed in
a battle at Barnet, near London, and poor Henry was sent back to the
Tower.
About three weeks after that battle of Barnet, there was another at
Tewkesbury, where Edward of York took Queen Margaret and her son
Edward prisoners; for they had come to England again, in hopes the
Earl of Warwick would get the kingdom back for the Lancastrians.
When they were brought before King Edward, he asked the boy how he
dared to come to England. The brave lad answered, that he came to try
to get back his father’s crown; upon which Edward cruelly struck him
on the face, and his brothers Clarence and Gloucester, and two other
lords, stabbed the poor prince till he died.
This was even more cruel than anything Margaret had ever done.
That miserable queen was sent to prison in the Tower immediately
afterwards, where her poor husband was a prisoner. But a very few
days after the battle of Tewkesbury, Henry was found dead in his
prison, and he was most likely murdered. The King of France paid
Edward a large sum of money to set Queen Margaret free.
Now, all Edward of York’s enemies being either dead or overcome,
he feasted and enjoyed himself, and was very wicked and cruel. His
foolish brother, the Duke of Clarence, quarrelled with the queen and
her relations, and also with the Duke of Gloucester. So Edward had
Clarence sent to the Tower, where he was put to death. Many people
thought that the Duke of Gloucester murdered King Henry the Sixth,
and caused the Duke of Clarence to be drowned in a cask of Malmsey
wine; but I am not sure of this.
About four years after this, King Edward the Fourth died, and left
two little sons and five daughters.
I can say very little good of him, except that he was brave and
handsome, and good-humoured in company; but then he was cruel and
revengeful, and, when the wars were over, he loved his own pleasure
and amusement too well to do anything good or useful for the people,
and he did them much wrong.