But Queen Margaret refused to see her son, Prince Edward, thus tamely
set aside. She raised an army and attacked the Yorkists. Richard,
Duke of York, whose forces were inferior to hers, had entrenched
himself in Sandal Castle near Wakefield, Yorkshire. Day after day
Margaret went up under the walls and dared him to come out.
At length, stung by her taunts, the Duke sallied from his strongold,
and the battle of Wakefield was fought (1460). Margaret was
victorious. Richard was slain, and the Queen, in mockery of his
claims to sovereignty, cut off his head, decked it with a paper crown,
and set it up over the chief gate of the city of York. Fortune now
changed. The next year (1461) the Lacastrians were defeated with
great slaughter at Towton, Yorkshire. The light spring snow was
crimsoned with the blood of thirty thousand slain, and the way strewn
with corpses for ten miles up to the walls of York.
The Earl of Warwick (S296), henceforth popularly known as "King
Maker," now place Edward, eldest son of the late Duke of York, on the
throne, with the title of Edward IV (S300, table). Henry and Margaret
fled to Scotland. The new government summoned them to appear, and as
they failed to answer, proclaimed them traitors.
Four years later Henry was taken prisoner and sent to the Tower of
London (S305). He may have been happier there than battling for his
throne. He was not born to reign, but rather, as Shakespeare makes
him say, to lead a shepherd's life, watching his flocks, until the
peacefully flowing years should--
"Bring white hairs unto a quiet grave."[1]
[1] See Henry's soliloquy on the field of Towton, beginning,
"O God! methinks it were a happy life
To be no better than a homely swain."
Shakespeare's "Henry VI," Part III,
Act II, scene v