THE BATTLE OF BARNET.
Memorable was the spring of 1471 destined to be in the history of
England's baronage, and in the annals of the Wars of "the pale and the
purple rose."
From the day that the warriors of the White Rose--thanks to Montagu's
supineness in the cause of the Red--were allowed to pass the Trent on
their progress southward, a great battle between Edward and Warwick
became inevitable; and as the king, without any desire to avoid a
collision with the earl, led a Yorkist army toward London, the earl,
with every determination to insist on a conflict with the king,
mustered a Lancastrian army at Coventry.
England, it was plain, could not, for many days longer, hold both
Edward and Warwick. Each was animated by an intense antipathy to the
other, and both panted for the hour that was to bring their mortal feud
to the arbitrament of the sword. The circumstances were altogether
unfavorable to compromise or delay; and events hurried on with a
rapidity corresponding to the characters of the rival chiefs. While
Edward Plantagenet was taking possession of London, Richard Neville
was advancing, by the high northern road, toward the capital; and,
almost ere the king had time to do more than remove his spouse from
the sanctuary of Westminster to Baynard's Castle, the trumpet of war
summoned him to an encounter with the king-maker.
Warwick's rendezvous was Coventry; and to that city, at the earl's
call, hastened thousands of men, to repair the loss which he had
sustained by the defection of Clarence. Thither came Henry of Exeter
and Edmund Somerset; and John De Vere, Earl of Oxford, with a host of
warriors devoted to the house of Lancaster; and John Neville, Marquis
of Montagu, who, although not supposed to relish the company of
Lancastrians, appeared eager in his brother's quarrel to sacrifice the
prejudices of his life and redeem the fatal error he had committed at
Pontefract.
At this stage of affairs, the Duke of Clarence endeavored to open a
door for the earl's reconciliation to the king. Such an attempt was
indeed hopeless; but the duke, perhaps suffering some twinges of
conscience on account of his treachery, sent to excuse himself for
changing sides, and to entreat Warwick to make peace with Edward. His
message was treated with lofty scorn. "I would rather," said the earl,
"die true to myself, than live like that false and perjured duke; and I
vow not, until I have either lost my life or subdued mine enemies, to
lay down the sword to which I have appealed."
With a resolution not to be broken, Warwick, with Oxford leading his
van, marched from Coventry; and, hoping to arrest the Yorkist army
ere the king was admitted into London, he advanced southward with all
speed. Learning, however, that the archbishop had proved false, and
that the citizens had proved obsequious, the earl, on reaching St.
Albans, halted to allow his men to repose from their fatigues, and on
Saturday moved forward to Barnet, standing on a hill midway between
St. Albans and London. Here the earl, resolving to await the approach
of his royal foe, called a halt; and, having ordered his vanguard to
take possession of the little town, he encamped on a heath known as
Gladsmuir, and forming part of an extensive chase, stocked with beasts
of game.
The king did not long keep the earl waiting. No sooner did the martial
monarch hear that his great foe had left Coventry and was approaching
the metropolis, than he girded on his armor, with a heart as fearless
of the issue as had animated the mightiest of his ancestors when, on
a summer morning, he marched to Evesham to strike down the puissance
of Simon de Montfort. It was with no faint hopes of success, indeed,
that, at the head of an army devoted to his cause, Edward, clad
in magnificent armor, and mounted on a white steed, with crimson
caparisons, lined with blue and embroidered with flowers of gold, rode
out of London, cheered by the good wishes of the citizens, surrounded
by the companions of his exile, and attended by George of Clarence,
whom he could not prudently trust elsewhere, and by Henry of Windsor,
whom he could not safely leave behind.
On the afternoon of Saturday Edward left London, and late in the
evening of that day he reached Barnet. As the Yorkist army approached
the town, the king's outriders, meeting those of the earl, chased
them past the embattled tower of the church dedicated to St. John,
and advanced till, through the darkness, they perceived the army of
Warwick. On being informed that the earl was so near, the king ordered
his army to move through Barnet, and encamped in the darkness, close
to the foe, on Gladsmuir Heath. The king took up his quarters for the
night in the town, and his soldiers lay on the heath. They had no
sleep, however, for so near was the Lancastrian camp that the voices of
men and the neighing of horses were distinctly heard.
Both armies had artillery; and Warwick's guns were, during the night,
fired perseveringly at the foe. The king, it appears, did not reply to
this salutation. Indeed, Edward early discovered that the Lancastrians
were unaware of the exact position of the Yorkist army, and thanked
his stars that such was the case; for, though Edward's intention
had been to place his men immediately in front of their foes, the
darkness had prevented him from perceiving the extent of Warwick's
lines, and thus it happened that, while ranging his forces so as far
to outstride the earl's left wing, he had failed to place them over
against the right. Seldom has an error in war proved so fortunate for
a general. The earl happened to have all his artillery posted in the
right division of his army, and concluded that the Yorkists were within
reach. Edward, as the fire from Warwick's guns flashed red through the
darkness, saw the advantage he had unintentionally gained, and issued
strict orders that none of his guns should be fired, lest the enemy
"should have guessed the ground, and so leveled their artillery to his
annoyance." This precaution was successful, and the earl's gunners
thundered till daybreak without producing any effect.
Ere the first streak of day glimmered in the sky, the armies were
in motion; and when the morning of Easter Sunday dawned, a flourish
of trumpets and a solemn tolling from the bell of the Church of St.
John aroused the inhabitants of Barnet, and announced that the game
of carnage was about to begin. The weather was by no means favorable
for that display of martial chivalry which, in sunshine, the field
would have presented to the eyes of spectators. The morning was damp
and dismal. A thick fog overshadowed the heath; and the mist hung so
closely over both armies that neither Yorkists nor Lancastrians could
see their foes, save at intervals. The fighting men of that age were
as superstitious as their neighbors; and the soldiers on both sides
concluded that the mists had been raised to favor the king by Friar
Bungey, the potent magician whose spells were supposed to have raised
the wind that kept Margaret of Anjou from the shores of England.
Nevertheless, at break of day the earl ordered his trumpets to
sound, and proceeded to set his men in battle order. The task was
one of no small delicacy; but it seems to have been performed with
great judgment. Though Warwick was the soul and right arm of the
Lancastrian army, the battle was so arranged as to give no umbrage to
the time-tried champions of the Red Rose. The centre host, consisting
chiefly of archers and bill-men, was commanded by Somerset; Oxford, who
appears to have been trusted by the Lancastrians, shared the command
of the right wing with the conqueror of Hexham; and, in command of
the left, Exeter, who had helped to lose battle after battle, had the
distinction of participating with "the setter-up and plucker-down of
kings."
Meanwhile, Edward had roused himself from his repose, arrayed himself
royally for the battle, placed on his head a basnet surrounded with a
crown of ornament, mounted his white charger--in that age regarded as
the symbol of sovereignty--and taken the field to vindicate his right
to the throne of his two great namesakes who reposed at Westminster in
the Confessor's Chapel.
Edward, in marshaling his army, had to contend with none of the
difficulties that beset Warwick. The Yorkist army was devoted to his
cause, as the chief of the White Rose; and the captains shared each
other's political sympathies and antipathies. Moreover, they were
the king's own kinsmen and friends--kinsmen who had partaken of his
prosperity, and were eager to contribute to his triumph--friends who
had accompanied him into exile, and were ready to die in his defense.
Under such circumstances, the disposition of the Yorkist army was
easily made. Edward, keeping the fickle Clarence and the feeble Henry
in close attendance, took the command of the centre, and was opposed to
that part of the Lancastrian forces commanded by Somerset. At the head
of the right wing was placed Gloucester, though still in his teens, to
cope with Exeter, the husband of his sister, and Warwick, the sworn
friend of his sire. At the head of the left was posted Hastings, to
face his brothers-in-law, Oxford and Montagu. Besides these divisions,
the king kept a body of choice troops in reserve to render aid, as the
day sped on, where aid should be most required.
Agreeably to the custom of the period, the king and the earl addressed
their adherents, each asserting the justice of his cause--Edward
denouncing the patrician hero as rebel and traitor; while Warwick
branded his royal adversary as usurper and tyrant. This ceremony over,
the hostile armies joined battle. At first fortune with fickle smile
favored the Lancastrians. The error made by the Yorkists in taking
up their position on the previous evening now caused them serious
inconvenience. In fact, the Lancastrian right wing, composed of
horsemen, so overlapped the king's troops opposed to them that Oxford
and Montagu were enabled to crush Hastings as in a serpent's fold.
The Yorkist left wing was completely discomfited; and many of the men
spurred out of the fog, escaped from the field, dashed through Barnet,
galloped along the high north road to London, and excused their flight
by reporting that the earl had won the day.
The conclusion at which the fugitives had arrived was quite premature.
Indeed, could these doughty champions of the White Rose have seen what
was passing in other parts of the field, they would probably have
postponed their ride to the capital. Fearful difficulties encompassed
the right wing of the Lancastrian army. Gloucester was proving how
formidable a war-chief a Plantagenet could be even in his teens, and
enacting his part with such skill and courage as would have done
credit to warriors who had led the Yorkists to victory at Towton and
Northampton. With an eye that few things escaped, the boy-duke availed
himself of the advantage which Montagu and Oxford had turned to such
account in their struggle with Hastings; and, urging on the assault
with characteristic ferocity, he succeeded in placing his adversaries
in the unfortunate predicament to which the left wing of the Yorkists
had already been reduced. At the same time, the Lancastrians opposed
to Gloucester were dispirited by the fall of Exeter, who sunk to the
ground wounded with an arrow; and so dense continued the fog over
Gladsmuir Heath that they were not even consoled with the knowledge of
Oxford's signal success. Edward, however, early became aware that his
left wing had been destroyed, and charged the Lancastrian centre with
such vigor as threw Somerset's ranks into confusion.
The ignorance of the Lancastrians as to the success of their right
wing, was not the only disadvantage they suffered from the fog.
The soldiers considered the dense watery vapors not as ordinary
exhalations, but as supernatural means used by Friar Bungey to aid the
Yorkist cause; and, from the beginning, the gloom had been decidedly
favorable to Edward's operations. Ere the battle long continued, the
fog did better service to the king than could have been rendered to him
by hundreds of knights.
Among the retainers of feudal magnates of that age it was the fashion
to wear a badge to indicate the personage whose banner they followed.
From the time of the Crusades the badge of the house of De Vere had
been a star with streams; and from the morning of Mortimer's Cross,
the cognizance of the house of York had a sun in splendor. At Barnet,
Oxford's men had the star embroidered on their coats; Edward's men the
sun on their coats. The devices bore such a resemblance that, seen
through a fog, one might easily be mistaken for the other; and it
happened that on Gladsmuir Heath there was such a mistake.
When Oxford had pursued the Yorkists under Hastings to the verge of
the Heath, it occurred to him that he might render a signal service
to his party by wheeling round and smiting Edward's centre in the
flank. Unfortunately some Lancastrian archers, who perceived without
comprehending this movement, mistook De Vere's star, in the mist,
for Edward's sun, drew their bows to the head, and sent a flight of
shafts rattling against the mail of the approaching cavalry. Oxford's
horsemen instantly shouted "Treason! treason! we are all betrayed!" and
Oxford, amazed at such treatment from his own party, and bewildered
by the cry of "Treason!" that now came from all directions, concluded
that there was foul play, and rode off the field at the head of eight
hundred men.
The plight of the Lancastrians was now rapidly becoming desperate; and
Edward hastened their ruin by urging fresh troops upon their disordered
ranks. Warwick, however, showed no inclination to yield. "The Stout
Earl" in fact had been little accustomed to defeat; and such was the
terror of his name that, on former occasions, the cry of "A Warwick!
A Warwick!" had been sufficient to decide the fate of a field. But at
St. Albans, at Northampton, and at Towton Field, the earl's triumphs
had been achieved over Beauforts, Hollands, and Tudors, men of ordinary
courage and average intellect. At Barnet he was in the presence of a
warrior of prowess and a war-chief of pride, whose heart was not less
bold, and whose eye was still more skillful than his own.
Edward, in fact, could not help perceiving that nothing but a violent
effort was now required to complete his victory. Up to this stage he
appears to have issued commands to his friends with the skill of a
Plantagenet: he now executed vengeance on his foes with the cruelty of
a Mortimer. Mounted on his white steed, with his teeth firmly set, the
spur pressing his horse's side, and his right hand lifted up to slay,
he charged the disheartened Lancastrians, bearing down all opposition;
and, instead of crying, as on former occasions, "Smite the captains,
but spare the commons!" he said, "Spare none who favor the rebel earl!"
While the king's steed was bearing him over the field, and his arm was
doing fearful execution on the foe, the king-maker's operations were,
unfortunately for the Lancastrian cause, limited to a single spot.
In former battles, with a memorable exception, Warwick had fought on
horseback. When mounted, the earl had been in the habit of riding
from rank to rank to give orders, of breaking, with his sword or his
battle-axe in hand, into the enemy's lines, with the cry of "A Warwick!
A Warwick!" and encouraging his army by deeds of prowess, wherever the
presence of a daring leader was most necessary. At Barnet, however,
he had been prevailed on to dismount, and send his steed away, that
he might thus, as when he killed his horse at Towton, prove to his
adherents that he was determined never to leave the field till he was
either a conqueror or a corpse. Most unfortunate for the earl proved
this deviation from his ordinary custom, when the day wore on and the
men grew weary, and looked in vain for the presence of their chief to
cheer their spirits and sustain their courage.
It was seven o'clock when the fight began. Long ere noon both wings of
the Lancastrian army had vanished, and the chiefs of the Red Rose had
disappeared from the field. Oxford had fled to avoid being betrayed.
Somerset had fled to escape death. Exeter, abandoned by his attendants,
lay on the cold heath of Gladsmuir among the dead and dying. But
Warwick was resolved that the battle should only terminate with his
life; and, at the head of the remaining division, opposed to the
Yorkists whom Edward commanded in person, the earl posted himself for
a final effort to avert his doom. Montagu, it would appear, was by his
brother's side.
More furiously than ever now raged the battle; and far fiercer than
hitherto was the struggle that took place. Opposed more directly to
each other than they had previously been, the king and the earl exerted
their prowess to the utmost--one animated by hope, the other urged by
despair. The example of such leaders was not, of course, lost; and men
of all ranks in the two armies strained every nerve, and struggled hand
to hand with their adversaries.
"Groom fought like noble, squire like knight,
As fearlessly and well."
On both sides the slaughter had been considerable. On Edward's side
Lord Say and Sir John Lisle, Lord Cromwell and Sir Humphrey Bourchier,
with about fifteen hundred soldiers, bit the dust. On Warwick's side
twenty-three knights, among whom was Sir William Tyrrel, and three
thousand fighting men fell to rise no more. At length, after a bloody
and obstinate contest had been maintained, Edward saw that the time
had arrived to strike a sure and shattering blow. There still remained
a body of Yorkists who had been kept in reserve for any emergency.
The king ordered up these fresh troops, and led them to the assault.
Warwick fronted this new peril with haughty disdain; and, in accents
of encouragement, appealed to his remaining adherents to persevere.
"This," said he, "is their last resource. If we withstand this one
charge the field will yet be ours." But the earl's men, jaded and
fatigued, could not encounter such fearful odds with success; and
Warwick had the mortification of finding that his call was no longer
answered by his friends, and that his battle-cry no longer sounded
terrible to his foes.
Warwick could not now have entertained any delusions as to the issue
of the conflict. He was conquered, and he must have felt such to be
the case. The disaster was irremediable, and left him no hope. The
descendant of Cospatrick did not stoop to ask for mercy, as Simon de
Montfort had done under somewhat similar circumstances, only to be
told there was none for such a traitor; nor did he, by a craven flight,
tarnish the splendid fame which he had won on many a stricken field.
Life, in fact, could not any longer have charms for him; and, ceasing
to hope for victory, he did not feel any wish to survive defeat. A
glorious death only awaited the king-maker--such a death as history
should record in words of admiration and poets celebrate in strains of
praise.
Under such circumstances, the great earl ventured desperately into the
thickest of the conflict; and, sword in hand, threw himself valiantly
among countless enemies. Death, which he appeared to seek, did not shun
him; and he faced the king of terrors with an aspect as fearless as he
had ever presented to Henry or to Edward. The king-maker died as he had
lived. In the melancholy hour which closed his career--betrayed by the
wily archbishop; deserted by the perjured Clarence; abandoned on the
field by his new allies; and conquered by the man whom he had set on a
throne--even in that hour, the bitterest perhaps of his life, Warwick
was Warwick still; and Montagu, perhaps caring little to survive the
patriot earl, rushed in to his rescue, and fell by his side.
Naturally enough, the Yorkists breathed more freely after Warwick's
fall; and, with some reason, they believed that the last hopes of
Lancaster had been trodden out on the field of Barnet. Edward, as he
rode from the scene of carnage toward London, imagined his throne
absolutely secure; and, not dreaming that ere a few days he would have
to gird on his armor for a struggle hardly less severe than that out of
which he had come a conqueror, the king made a triumphal entry into the
capital, repaired to St. Paul's, presented his standard as an offering,
and returned thanks to GOD for giving him such a victory over his
enemies.
The bodies of Warwick and Montagu were placed in one coffin, conveyed
to London, and exposed for three days at St. Paul's, that all who
desired might assure themselves that the great earl and his brother no
longer lived. Even Warwick's death did not appease Edward's hatred; and
he would have cared little to refuse interment befitting the earl's
rank to the corpse of the departed hero. The king, however, mourned
the death of Montagu; and, from regard to the memory of the marquis,
he ordered that both brothers should be laid among their maternal
ancestors.
During the fourteenth century, one of those Earls of Salisbury,
whose name is associated with the era of English chivalry and with
the noblest of European orders, had founded an abbey at Bisham, in
Berkshire. This religious house, which stood hard by the River Thames,
and had become celebrated as the sepulchre of the illustrious family
which the king-maker, through his mother, represented, was chosen
as the last resting-place of Warwick and of the brother who fought
and fell with him at Barnet. At the Reformation, Bisham Abbey was
destroyed; and, unfortunately, nothing was left to mark the spot where
repose the ashes of "The Stout Earl," whom Shakspeare celebrates as the
"proud setter-up and puller-down of kings."