BEFORE TOWTON.
On the 3d of March, 1461, while Margaret of Anjou was leading her
army toward the Humber, and the citizens of London were awakening
from fearful dreams of northern men plundering their warehouses with
lawless violence, and treating their women with indelicate freedom,
Edward of York entered the capital at the head of his victorious army.
Accompanied by the Earl of Warwick, by whom he had been joined at
Chipping Norton, the conqueror of the Tudors rode through the city,
and was welcomed with the utmost enthusiasm. It was long since London
had been the scene of such loyal excitement. From Kent and Essex came
crowds to gaze on the handsome son of Richard, Duke of York; and many
were the predictions that, as a native of Rouen, Edward would reconquer
Normandy, and retrieve those losses which, under the government of
Margaret of Anjou, the English had sustained on the Continent.
Whatever he might pretend, Edward had none of the moderation that
characterized his father, and he was determined without delay to ascend
the throne, which he had been taught to consider his by hereditary
right. Anxious, however, to have the popular assent to the step he
was about to take, the heir of the Plantagenets resolved to test the
loyalty of the Londoners. With this object a grand review, in St.
John's Fields, was proclaimed by William Neville, Lord Falconbridge;
and the wealthy citizens, as well as the multitude, assembled to
witness the military pageant. Suddenly availing himself of a favorable
moment, Warwick's brother, the Bishop of Exeter, addressed the crowd on
the great dynastic dispute, and asked them plainly whether they would
any longer have Henry to reign over them. "Nay, nay," answered the
crowd. Warwick's uncle, Lord Falconbridge, having then spoken in praise
of Edward's valor and wisdom, asked if they would have him for king.
"Yea, yea--King Edward, King Edward," shouted the populace, with one
accord, cheering and clapping their hands.
The Yorkist chiefs were satisfied with the result of their experiment
in St. John's Fields; and next day a great council was held at
Baynard's Castle. After due deliberation, the peers and prelates
declared that Henry, in joining the queen's army and breaking faith
with Parliament, had forfeited the crown; and the heir of York,
after riding in royal state to Westminster, offered at St. Edward's
shrine, assumed the Confessor's crown, ascended the throne, explained
the nature of his claim, and harangued the people. His spirit and
energy inspired the audience with enthusiasm, and he was frequently
interrupted with shouts of "Long live King Edward."
On the day when the young Plantagenet took possession of the English
throne at Westminster, he was proclaimed king in various parts of
London. Edward was not, however, so intoxicated with the applause with
which the men of the south had greeted his arrival in the metropolis as
to delude himself into the idea that his triumph was complete. He knew
that the lords of the north would again rise in arms for the Red Rose,
and that battles must be won, and fortresses taken, ere the crown of
St. Edward could sit easily on his head.
Nothing, however, could be gained by delay; and Warwick was well aware
of the danger of procrastination at such a crisis. The young king and
the king-maker, therefore, resolved upon marching forthwith against
the Lancastrians, to achieve, as they hoped, a crowning victory; and,
having sent the Duke of Norfolk to recruit in the provinces, they made
preparations to go in search of their foes.
No time was wasted. Indeed, within three days of entering London,
Warwick marched northward with the van of the Yorkist army; and the
infantry having meanwhile followed, Edward, on the 12th of March,
buckled on his armor, mounted his war-steed, and rode out of Bishopgate
to conquer or die. By easy marches the royal warrior reached
Pontefract, memorable as the scene of the second Richard's murder; and,
having, while resting there, enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing his
army swell to the number of forty-nine thousand, he dispatched Lord
Fitzwalter, with a band of tall men, to keep the passage over the Aire
at Ferrybridge.
Nor had Margaret failed to prepare for the inevitable conflict.
When, at St. Albans, the Lancastrian queen found that her foes were
still unsubdued, she speedily bore back to the northern counties,
and commenced recruiting her army on the banks of the Humber, the
Trent, and the Tyne. Her spirit, ever highest in the time of trouble,
sustained the courage of her adherents; and the men of the north, who
now, without entering into the delicate questions of hereditary right
and parliamentary settlement, sympathized with the dethroned queen,
came from towers by the wayside, and shealings on the moor, till around
the Lancastrian banner at York mustered an army of sixty thousand.
On hearing of Edward's approach the queen resolved to remain, with
Henry and the young prince, at York, to await the issue of the battle
impending. But she could hardly dream of defeat as she inspected that
numerous army, headed by knights and nobles arrayed in rich armor
and mounted on prancing steeds, who had gathered to her standard in
the capital of the north. Somerset, Northumberland, and Clifford,
appeared in feudal pride, determined at length to avenge the slaughter
of their sires at St. Albans; and the Duke of Exeter, with John, Lord
Neville, brother to the Earl of Westmoreland, and Thomas Courtenay,
Earl of Devon, without the death of sires to avenge, came to fight for
the Red Rose; the first against his brother-in-law, King Edward, the
second against his kinsmen, the Lords Warwick and Falconbridge, and the
third against the house of York, of which his father had been one of
the earliest adherents. Many other stanch Lancastrians, bearing names
celebrated in history and song, had assembled; as Leo, Lord Welles,
James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire, Ralph, Lord Dacre of the north, and
Thomas, Lord De Roos, heir of that great Anglo-Norman baron of the
twelfth century, whose effigy is still to be seen in the Temple Church.
Among the Percies, Beauforts, and Cliffords figured Sir John Heron,
of the Ford, a stalwart Borderer, who, in his day, had laid lance in
rest against the Homes and Cranstouns; and Andrew Trollope, that mighty
man of war, whose betrayal of the Yorkists at Ludlow had, for a year,
delayed the exile of Margaret of Anjou. Even a venerable lawyer and a
subtle churchman might have been seen in the Lancastrian ranks; for
Sir John Fortescue had left the Court of King's Bench to fight for the
cause which he believed to be that of truth and justice; and John
Morton had deserted the parsonage of Blokesworth to win preferment, if
possible, by the arm of flesh. Such were the chiefs, devoted heart and
hand to the house of Lancaster, who, at the head of the northern men,
awaited the coming of the Yorkist king and the king-maker.