THE DOWNFALL OF LANCASTER.
A.D. 1470-1471
Position of Richard.--The Duke of Burgundy.--His cunning.--Secret
communication with Clarence.--Warwick's plans to secure
Clarence.--Edward and Richard sail for England.--Stratagems
of war.--Reception of Edward at York.--The roses.--Public
opinion.--Warwick.--Position of Clarence.--His double
dealing.--Clarence goes over to Edward's side.--Edward
triumphant.--Henry again sent to the Tower.--Warwick refuses to
yield.--Preparations for a battle.--Edward victorious.--Warwick
slain.--King Henry.--Margaret and the Prince of Wales.--Meeting
of the armies.--Two boys to command.--The killing of Lord
Wenlock.--End of the battle.--Murder of the Prince of Wales.--The
queen's refuge.--Edward in the church.--Margaret taken.--Conducted
a prisoner to London.--Henry is put to death in the Tower.--Burial
of Henry VI.--The Lancastrian party completely subdued.
It was in the month of October, 1470, that old King Henry and his
family were restored to the throne. Clarence, as we have seen, being
allied to Warwick by being married to his daughter, was induced to go
over with him to the Lancastrian side; but Gloucester--that is,
Richard--remained true to his own line, and followed the fortunes of
his brother, in adverse as well as in prosperous times, with
unchanging fidelity. He was now with Edward in the dominions of the
Duke of Burgundy, who, you will recollect, married Margaret, Edward's
sister, and who was now very naturally inclined to espouse Edward's
cause.
The Duke of Burgundy did not, however, dare to espouse Edward's cause
too openly, for fear of the King of France, who took the side of Henry
and Queen Margaret. He, however, did all in his power secretly to
befriend him. Edward and Richard began immediately to form schemes for
going back to England and recovering possession of the kingdom. The
Duke of Burgundy issued a public proclamation, in which it was
forbidden that any of his subjects should join Edward, or that any
expedition to promote his designs should be fitted out in any part of
his dominions. This proclamation was for the sake of the King of
France. At the same time that he issued these orders publicly, he
secretly sent Edward a large sum of money, furnished him with a fleet
of fifteen or twenty ships, and assisted him in collecting a force of
twelve hundred men.
While he was making these arrangements and preparations on the
Continent, Edward and his friends had also opened a secret
communication with Clarence in England. It would, of course, very much
weaken the cause of Edward and Richard to have Clarence against them;
so Margaret, the wife of the Duke of Burgundy, interested herself in
endeavoring to win him back again to their side. She had herself great
influence over him, and she was assisted in her efforts by their
mother, the Lady Cecily, who was still living in the neighborhood of
London, and who was greatly grieved at Clarence's having turned
against his brothers. The tie which bound Clarence to the Earl of
Warwick was, of course, derived chiefly from his being married to
Warwick's daughter. Warwick, however, did not trust wholly to this.
As soon as he had restored Henry to the throne, he contrived a cunning
plan which he thought would tend to bind Clarence still more strongly
to himself, and to alienate him completely from Edward. This plan was
to induce the Parliament to confiscate all Edward's estates and confer
them upon Clarence.
"Now," said Warwick to himself, when this measure had been
accomplished, "Clarence will be sure to oppose Edward's return to
England, for he knows very well that if he should return and be
restored to the throne, he would, of course, take all these estates
back again."
But, while Edward was forming his plans on the Continent for a fresh
invasion of England, Margaret sent messengers to Clarence, and their
persuasions, united to those of his mother, induced Clarence to change
his mind. He was governed by no principle whatever in what he did, but
only looked to see what would most speedily and most fully gratify his
ambition and increase his wealth. So, when they argued that it would
be much better for him to be on the side of his brothers, and assist
in restoring his own branch of the family to the throne, than to
continue his unnatural connection with Warwick and the house of
Lancaster, he allowed himself to be easily persuaded, and he promised
that though, for the present, he should remain ostensibly a friend of
Warwick, still, if Edward and Richard would raise an expedition and
come to England, he would forsake Warwick and the Lancasters, and join
them.
Accordingly, in the spring, when the fleet and the forces were ready,
Edward and Richard set sail from the Low Country to cross the Channel.
It was early in March. They intended to proceed to the north of
England and land there. They had a very stormy passage, and in the end
the fleet was dispersed, and Edward and Richard with great difficulty
succeeded in reaching the land. The two brothers were in different
ships, and they landed in different places, a few miles apart from
each other. Their situation was now extremely critical, for all
England was in the power of Warwick and the Lancastrians, and Edward
and Richard were almost entirely without men.
They, however, after a time, got together a small force, consisting
chiefly of the troops who had come with them, and who had succeeded at
last in making their way to the land. At the head of this force they
advanced into the country toward the city of York. Edward gave out
every where that he had not come with any view of attempting to
regain possession of the throne, but only to recover his own private
and family estates, which had been unjustly confiscated, he said, and
conferred upon his brother. He acquiesced entirely, he said, in the
restoration of Henry to the throne, and acknowledged him as king, and
solemnly declared that he would not do any thing to disturb the peace
of the country.
All this was treacherous and false; but Edward and Richard thought
that they were not yet strong enough to announce openly their real
designs, and, in the mean time, the uttering of any false declarations
which they might deem it good policy to make was to be considered as a
stratagem justified by usage, as one of the legitimate resources of
war.
So they went on, nobody opposing them. They reached, at length, the
city of York. Here Edward met the mayor and aldermen of the city, and
renewed his declaration, which he confirmed by a solemn oath, that he
never would lay any claim to the throne of England, or do any thing to
disturb King Henry in his possession of it. He cried out, in a loud
voice, in the hearing of the people, "Long live King Henry, and Prince
Edward his son!" He wore an ostrich feather, too, in his armor, which
was the badge of Prince Edward. The people of York were satisfied
with these protestations, and allowed him to proceed.
His force was continually increasing as he advanced, and at length, on
crossing the River Trent, he came to a part of the country where
almost the whole population had been on the side of York during all
the previous wars. He began now to throw off his disguise, and to avow
more openly that his object was again to obtain possession of the
throne for the house of York. His troops now began to exhibit the
white rose, which for many generations had been the badge of the house
of York, as the red rose had been that of Lancaster.[F] In a word, the
country was every where aroused and excited by the idea that another
revolution was impending, and all those whose ruling principle it was
to be always with the party that was uppermost began to make
preparations for coming over to Edward's side.
[Footnote F: It was in consequence of this use of the roses, as the
badges of the two parties respectively, that the civil wars between
these two great families are often called in history the Wars of the
Roses.]
In the mean time, however, Warwick, alarmed, had come from the
northward to London to meet the invaders at the head of a strong
force. Clarence was in command of one great division of this force,
and Warwick himself of the other. The two bodies of troops marched at
some little distance from each other. Edward shaped his course so as
to approach that commanded by Clarence. Warwick did all he could to
prevent this, being, apparently, somewhat suspicious that Clarence was
not fully to be relied on. But Edward succeeded, by dint of skillful
manoeuvring, in accomplishing his object, and thus he and Clarence
came into the neighborhood of each other. The respective encampments
were only three miles apart. It seems, however, that there were still
some closing negotiations to be made before Clarence was fully
prepared to take the momentous step that was now before him. Richard
was the agent of these negotiations. He went back and forth between
the two camps, conveying the proposals and counter-proposals from one
party to the other, and doing all in his power to remove obstacles
from the way, and to bring his brothers to an agreement. At last every
thing was arranged. Clarence ordered his men to display the white rose
upon their armor, and then, with trumpets sounding and banners flying,
he marched forth to meet Edward, and to submit himself to his command.
When the column which he led arrived near to Edward's camp, it halted,
and Clarence himself, with a small body of attendants, advanced to
meet his brother; Edward, at the same time, leaving his encampment, in
company with Richard and several noblemen, came forward too. Thus
Edward and Clarence met, as the old chronicle expresses it, "betwixt
both hosts, where was right kind and loving language betwixt them two.
And then, in like wise, spoke together the two Dukes of Clarence and
Gloucester, and afterward the other noblemen that were there with
them; whereof all the people that were there that loved them were
right glad and joyous, and thanked God highly for that joyous meeting,
unity and concord, hoping that thereby should grow unto them
prosperous fortune in all that they should after that have to do."
Warwick was, of course, in a dreadful rage when he learned that
Clarence had betrayed him and gone over to the enemy. He could do
nothing, however, to repair the mischief, and he was altogether too
weak to resist the two armies now combined against him; so he drew
back, leaving the way clear, and Edward, at the head now of an
overwhelming force, and accompanied by both his brothers, advanced
directly to London.
He was received at the capital with great favor. Whoever was uppermost
for the time being was always received with favor in England in those
days, both in the capital and throughout the country at large. It was
said, however, that the interest in Edward's fortunes, and in the
succession of his branch of the family to the throne, was greatly
increased at this time by the birth of his son, which had taken place
in the sanctuary, as related in the last chapter, soon after Queen
Elizabeth sought refuge there, at the time of Edward's expulsion from
the kingdom. Of course, the first thing which Edward did after making
his public entry into London was to proceed to the sanctuary to rejoin
his wife, and deliver her from her duress, and also to see his
new-born son.
Queen Margaret was out of the kingdom at this time, being on a visit
to the Continent. She had her son, the Prince of Wales, with her; but
Henry, the king, was in London. He, of course, fell into Edward's
hands, and was immediately sent back a prisoner to the Tower.
Edward remained only a day or two in London, and then set off again,
at the head of all his troops, to meet Warwick. He brought out King
Henry from the Tower, and took him with the army as a prisoner.
Warwick had now strengthened himself so far that he was prepared for
battle. The two armies approached each other not many miles from
London. Before commencing hostilities, Clarence wished for an
opportunity to attempt a reconciliation; he, of course, felt a strong
desire to make peace, if possible, for his situation, in case of
battle, would be painful in the extreme--his brothers on one side, and
his father-in-law on the other, and he himself compelled to fight
against the cause which he had abandoned and betrayed. So he sent a
messenger to the earl, offering to act as mediator between him and his
brother, in hopes of finding some mode of arranging the quarrel; but
the earl, instead of accepting the mediation, sent back only
invectives and defiance.
"Go tell your master," he said to the messenger, "that Warwick is not
the man to follow the example of faithlessness and treason which the
false, perjured Clarence has set him. Unlike him, I stand true to my
oath, and this quarrel can only be settled by the sword."
Of course, nothing now remained but to fight the battle, and a most
desperate and bloody battle it was. It was fought upon a plain at a
place called Barnet. It lasted from four in the morning till ten.
[Illustration: DEATH OF WARWICK ON THE FIELD OF BARNET.]
Richard came forward in the fight in a very conspicuous and prominent
manner. He was now about eighteen years of age, and this was the first
serious battle in which he had been actually engaged. He evinced a
great deal of heroism, and won great praise by the ardor in which he
rushed into the thickest of the fight, and by the manner in which he
conducted himself there. The squires who attended him were both
killed, but Richard himself remained unhurt.
In the end, Edward was victorious. The quarrel was thus decided by the
sword, as Warwick had said, and decided, so far as the earl was
concerned, terribly and irrevocably, for he himself was unhorsed upon
the field, and slain. Many thousands of soldiers fell on each side,
and great numbers of the leading nobles. The bodies were buried in one
common trench, which was dug for the purpose on the plain, and a
chapel was afterward erected over them, to mark and consecrate the
spot.
It is said in respect to King Henry, who had been taken from the Tower
and made to accompany the army to the field, that Edward placed him in
the midst of the fight at Barnet, in the hope that he might in this
way be slain, either by accident or design. This plan, however, if it
were formed, did not succeed, for Henry escaped unharmed, and, after
the battle, was taken back to London, and again conveyed through the
gloomy streets of the lower city to his solitary prison in the Tower.
The streets were filled, after he had passed, with groups of men of
all ranks and stations, discussing the strange and mournful
vicissitudes in the life of this hapless monarch, now for the second
time cut off from all his friends, and immured hopelessly in a dismal
dungeon.
[Illustration: STREET LEADING TO THE TOWER.]
On the very day of the battle of Barnet, Queen Margaret, who had
hastened her return to England on hearing of Edward's invasion, landed
at Plymouth, in the southwestern part of England. The young Prince of
Wales, her son, was with her. When she heard the terrible tidings of
the loss of the battle of Barnet and the death of Warwick, she was
struck with consternation, and immediately fled to an abbey in the
neighborhood of the place where she had landed, and took sanctuary
there. She soon, however, recovered from this panic, and came forth
again. She put herself, with her son, at the head of the French troops
which she had brought with her, and collected also as many more as
she could induce to join her, and then, marching slowly toward the
northward, finally took a strong position on the River Severn, near
the town of Tewkesbury. Tewkesbury is in the western part of England,
near the frontiers of Wales.
Edward, having received intelligence of her movements, collected his
forces also, and, accompanied by Clarence and Gloucester, went forth
to meet her. The two armies met about three weeks after the battle of
Barnet, in which Warwick was killed. All the flower of the English
nobility were there, on one side or on the other.
Queen Margaret's son, the Prince of Wales, was now about eighteen
years of age, and his mother placed him in command--nominally at the
head of the army. Edward, on his side, assigned the same position to
Richard, who was almost precisely of the same age with the Prince of
Wales. Thus the great and terrible battle which ensued was fought, as
it were, by two boys, cousins to each other, and neither of them out
of their teens.
The operations were, however, really directed by older and more
experienced men. The chief counselor on Margaret's side was the Duke
of Somerset. Edward's army attempted, by means of certain evolutions,
to entice the queen's army out of their camp. Somerset wished to go,
and he commanded the men to follow. Some followed, but others remained
behind. Among those that remained behind was a body of men under the
command of a certain Lord Wenlock. Somerset was angry because they did
not follow him, and he suspected, moreover, that Lord Wenlock was
intending to betray the queen and go over to the other side; so he
turned back in a rage, and, coming up to Lord Wenlock, struck him a
dreadful blow upon his helmet with his battle-axe, and killed him on
the spot.
In the midst of the confusion which this affair produced, Richard, at
the head of his brother's troops, came forcing his way into the
intrenchments, bearing down all before him. The queen's army was
thrown into confusion, and put to flight. Thousands upon thousands
were killed. As many as could save themselves from being slaughtered
upon the spot fled into the country toward the north, pursued by
detached parties of their enemies.
The young Prince of Wales was taken prisoner. The queen fled, and for
a time it was not known what had become of her. She fled to the church
in Tewkesbury, and took refuge there.
[Illustration: CHURCH AT TEWKESBURY.]
As for the Prince of Wales, the account of his fate which was given
at the time, and has generally been believed since, is this: As soon
as the battle was over, he was brought, disarmed and helpless, into
King Edward's tent, and there Edward, Clarence, Gloucester, and others
gathered around to triumph over him, and taunt him with his downfall.
Edward came up to him, and, after gazing upon him a moment in a fierce
and defiant manner, demanded of him, in a furious tone, "What brought
him to England?"
"My father's crown and my own inheritance," replied the prince.
Edward uttered some exclamation of anger, and then struck the prince
upon the mouth with his gauntlet.[G]
[Footnote G: The gauntlet was a sort of iron glove, the fingers of
which were made flexible by joints formed with scales sliding over
each other.]
At this signal, Gloucester, and the others who were standing by, fell
upon the poor helpless boy, and killed him on the spot. The prince
cried to Clarence, who was his brother-in-law, to save him, but in
vain; Clarence did not interfere.
Some of the modern defenders of Richard's character attempt to show
that there is no sufficient evidence that this story is true, and they
maintain that the prince was slain upon the field, after the battle,
and that Richard was innocent of his death. The evidence, however,
seems strongly against this last supposition.
Soon after the battle, it was found that the queen, with her
attendants, as has already been stated, had taken refuge in a church
at Tewkesbury, and in other sacred structures near.
Edward proceeded directly to the church, with the intention of hunting
out his enemies wherever he could find them. He broke into the sacred
precincts, sword in hand, attended by a number of reckless and
desperate followers, and would have slain those that had taken refuge
there, on the spot, had not the abbot himself come forward and
interposed to protect them. He came dressed in his sacerdotal robes,
and bearing the sacred emblems in his hands. These emblems he held up
before the infuriated Edward as a token of the sanctity of the place.
By these means the king's hand was stayed, and, before allowing him to
go away, the abbot exacted from him a promise that he would molest the
refugees no more.
[Illustration: QUEEN MARGARET BROUGHT IN PRISONER AT COVENTRY.]
This promise was, however, not made to be kept. Two days afterward
Edward appointed a court-martial, and sent Richard, with an armed
force, to the church, to take all the men that had sought refuge
there, and bring them out for trial. The trial was conducted with
very little ceremony, and the men were all beheaded on the green,
in Tewkesbury, that very day.
Queen Margaret and the ladies who attended her were not with them.
They had sought refuge in another place. They were, however, found
after a few days, and were all brought prisoners to Edward's camp at
Coventry; for, after the battle, Edward had begun to move on with his
army across the country.
The king's first idea was to send Margaret immediately to London and
put her in the Tower; but, before he did this, a change in his plans
took place, which led him to decide to go to London himself. So he
took Queen Margaret with him, a captive in his train. On the arrival
of the party in London, the queen was conveyed at once to the Tower.
Here she remained a close prisoner for five long and weary years, and
was then ransomed by the King of France and taken to the Continent.
She lived after this in comparative obscurity for about ten years, and
then died.
As for her husband, his earthly troubles were brought to an end much
sooner. The cause of the change of plan above referred to, which led
Edward to go directly to London soon after the battle of Tewkesbury,
was the news that a relative of Warwick, whom that nobleman, during
his lifetime, had put in command in the southeastern part of England,
had raised an insurrection there, with a view of marching to London,
rescuing Henry from the Tower, and putting him upon the throne. This
movement was soon put down, and Edward returned from the expedition
triumphant to London. He and his brothers spent the night after their
arrival in the Tower. The next morning King Henry was found dead in
his bed.
The universal belief was then, and has been since, that he was put to
death by Edward's orders, and it has been the general opinion that
Richard was the murderer.
The body of the king was put upon a bier that same day, and conveyed
to St. Paul's Church in London, and there exhibited to the public for
a long time, with guards and torch-bearers surrounding it. An immense
concourse of people came to view his remains. The object of this
exposition of the body of the king was to make sure the fact of his
death in the public mind, and prevent the possibility of the
circulation of rumors, subsequently, by the partisans of his house,
that he was still alive; for such rumors would greatly have increased
the danger of any insurrectionary plans which might be formed against
Edward's authority.
In due time the body was interred at Windsor, and a sculptured
monument, adorned with various arms and emblems, was erected over the
tomb.
[Illustration: TOMB OF HENRY VI.]
The remaining leaders on the Lancaster side were disposed of in a very
effectual manner, to prevent the possibility of their again acquiring
power. Some were banished. Others were shut up in various castles as
hopeless prisoners. The country was thus wholly subdued, and Edward
was once more established firmly on his throne.