THE FIELD OF TEWKESBURY.
On Saturday the 4th of May, 1471, ere the bell of Tewkesbury Abbey
tolled "the sweet hour of prime," or the monks had assembled to sing
the morning hymn, King Edward was astir and making ready to attack the
Lancastrians.
Mounted on a brown charger, with his magnificent person clad in Milan
steel, a crown of ornament around his helmet, and the arms of France
and England quarterly on his shield, the king set his men in order for
the assault. The van of the Yorkist army was committed to Richard, Duke
of Gloucester, whose skill and courage on the field of Barnet had made
him, at nineteen, the hero among those of whom, at thirty, he was to
be the headsman. The centre host Edward commanded in person; and by
the side of the royal warrior figured the ill-starred Clarence, never
again to be fully trusted by his brother. The rear was intrusted to
the guidance of Lord Hastings, and to Elizabeth Woodville's eldest
son, Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset. Thus arrayed, flushed with recent
victory over mighty adversaries, the Yorkist warriors, in all the
pride of valor, and all the confidence of victory, prepared to advance
upon their foes.
Meanwhile, the Red Rose chiefs were not idle. Having encamped south
of the town of Tewkesbury, on some rising ground, part of which is
still known as "Queen Margaret's Camp," the Lancastrians appear to
have made the most of their advantages. Defended as they were in their
rear by the Abbey, and in front and on both sides by hedges, lanes,
and ditches, they intrenched their position strongly, in the hope
of keeping Edward at bay till the arrival of Jasper Tudor, who was
believed to be rapidly approaching; and, at the same time, they left
openings in their intrenchments, through which, should such a course
seem expedient, they might sally forth upon the assailing foe.
Their camp thus fortified, the Lancastrian leaders disposed the army
of the Red Rose in three divisions. Of the first of these Somerset,
aided by his brother, John Beaufort, took the command; the second was
committed to the auspices of Edward, Prince of Wales, the Prior of St.
John, and Lord Wenlock, who, having shared the Lancastrian defeat at
St. Albans and the Yorkist triumph at Towton, had once more, in an evil
hour, placed Queen Margaret's badge on his gorget; and the third was
confided to the Earl of Devon, the youngest of three brothers, two of
whom, after wearing the coronet of the Courtenays, had died on the
scaffold for their fidelity to the Red Rose.
While the Lancastrians were forming their line of battle, King Edward
gave the order to advance; and, with banners displayed, with clarions
and trumpets sounding a march, and with Gloucester leading the van, and
perhaps even then dreaming of a crown, the Yorkist army moved forward,
gay with knights and nobles in rich armor and broidered vests, their
lances gleaming in the merry sunshine, their plumes and pennons dancing
in the morning breeze, and their mailed steeds, with chaffrons of
steel projecting from barbed frontals, caracoling at the touch of the
spur. Within a mile of the Lancastrian camp Edward halted his men; and
his large blue eye, which took in the whole position of his enemies,
wandered jealously to the park of Tewkesbury, which was situated to the
right of Somerset's division. Suspicious of an ambuscade, the Yorkist
king dispatched two hundred spearmen from his army to proceed in that
direction, and ordered them, in case of their not finding any foe
lurking in the wood, to take such part in the battle as circumstances
should render expedient. Having satisfied himself with this precaution,
the king ordered his banners to advance, and his trumpets to sound an
onset.
When the hour of conflict drew nigh, Margaret of Anjou, accompanied
by the heir of Lancaster, rode along the lines and addressed the
adherents of the Red Rose. Never, perhaps, had the daughter of King
René looked more queenly than on the field of Tewkesbury; never had
she enacted her part with more art than she did on the eve of that
catastrophe which was to plunge her to the depths of despair. Though
sick at heart, and more than doubtful as to the issue of the field, she
assumed the aspect of perfect confidence, and spoke as if inspired with
the hope of victory. Years of trouble had, of course, destroyed those
exquisite charms which in youth had made Margaret famous as the beauty
of Christendom, but had not deprived her of the power of subduing
men to her purposes, even against their better judgment. Though her
countenance bore traces of the wear and tear of anxious days and
sleepless nights, her presence exercised on the partisans of the house
of Lancaster an influence not less potent than it had done in days when
she possessed a beauty that dazzled all eyes and fascinated all hearts.
Nor did the heir of Lancaster appear, by any means, unworthy of such a
mother, as, armed complete in mail, he accompanied her along the lines,
his standard borne by John Gower. Imagine the boy-warrior, gifted as he
was with all the graces of rank and royalty, frankness and chivalry;
his eye sparkling with the pride and valor of the Plantagenets; the
arms of France and England blazoned on his shield, his tabard, and the
caparisons of his horse, and it will not be difficult to conceive the
influence which, in spite of his foreign accent, such a grandson of
the conqueror of Agincourt, uttering sentiments worthy of the pupil of
Fortescue in language worthy of the son of Margaret of Anjou, exercised
on the Lancastrian host when about to encounter the partisans of the
White Rose.
Margaret of Anjou was not unaware of the effect produced by the fair
face and graceful figure of the Prince of Wales. Glancing, with
maternal pride, at the royal boy, who rode at her right hand, she
reined in her palfrey, and, having with a gesture obtained an audience,
she encouraged her partisans, in a voice promising victory, to do their
duty valiantly against Edward of York and prove their courage on the
crests of the usurper's adherents. "It remained for them, the soldiers
of the Red Rose," said the queen, in accents which quickened the pulse
and nerved the arm of the listeners, "to restore an imprisoned king
to liberty and his throne, and to secure for themselves, not only
safety, but distinctions and rewards. Did the inequalities of number
daunt them? She could not doubt that their stout hearts, animated by
the justice of their cause, would enable them to overcome in spite
of disparity. Did they lack motives to be valiant against the foe?
Let them look upon the Prince of Wales, and fight for him, their
fellow-soldier, who was now to share their fortune on the field; and
who, once in possession of his rights, would not forget those to whose
courage he owed the throne. The kingdom of England should be their
inheritance, to be divided among them; the wealth of the rebellious
cities should be their spoil; they should be rewarded for their
devotion with all those titles which their enemies now proudly wore;
and, above all, they should enjoy lasting fame and honor throughout the
realm."
An enthusiastic response arose from the ranks of the Lancastrians as
their heroic queen concluded her spirit-stirring address; and the
warriors of the Red Rose indicated, by signs not to be mistaken, their
alacrity to fight to the death for the rights of such a mother and such
a son. Perhaps, at that moment, Margaret, infected with the excitement
which her own eloquence had created, almost persuaded herself to hope.
No hour was that, however, to indulge in day-dreams. Ere the enthusiasm
of the Lancastrians had time to die away, Richard of Gloucester had
advanced his banner to their camp, and the troops under the young duke
were storming the intrenchments.
Gloucester, as leader of the Yorkist van, found himself opposed to the
Lancastrians whom Somerset commanded in person; and, the ferocity of
his nature being doubtless inflamed by the hereditary antipathy of the
house of York to the house of Beaufort, he made a furious assault. The
onslaught of the stripling war-chief, however, proved of no avail;
for the nature of the ground was such as to prevent the Yorkists from
coming hand to hand with their foes, while the Lancastrians, posted
among bushes and trees, galled their assailants with showers of arrows.
Gloucester was somewhat cowed, but his guile did not desert him. He
assumed the air of a man who was baffled, pretended to be repulsed,
and, retiring from the assault, contented himself with ordering the
artillery, with which the Yorkists were better provided than their
foes, to play upon the Lancastrian ranks.
The aspect of the battle was now decidedly in favor of the Red Rose,
and such as to cause the Yorkists some degree of anxiety. What the
Lancastrians wanted was a war-chief of courage and experience, and
Somerset neither had the talents nor the experience requisite for the
occasion. At the head of that host on the banks of the Severn, such a
man as the fifth Henry, or John, Duke of Bedford, might, by a decisive
victory, have won back Margaret's crown. But the grandson of Katherine
Swynford had not been intended by GOD and nature to cope with the royal
warrior who laid Warwick low.
Somerset had still to learn his incapacity for the part he had
undertaken to enact. As yet he was under the influence of such a degree
of vanity as prompted him to the rashest courses. Elate at Gloucester's
retreat, and concluding that a determined effort would render the
Lancastrians victorious, the shallow duke led his men through the
openings that had been left in their intrenchments. Descending from the
elevated ground, he charged Edward's centre host with violence, drove
that part of the Yorkist army back, and then, with infinitely less
prudence than presumption, followed the wily Gloucester into the open
meadows.
Once fairly away from his intrenchments, the Lancastrian leader found
too late the error he had committed. Gloucester's stratagem had been
attended with a success which even he could hardly have anticipated.
Suddenly wheeling round and shouting their battle-cry, the boy-duke and
the Yorkists turned upon their pursuers with the fury of lions; and,
at the same time, the two hundred spearmen who had been sent to guard
against an ambuscade in Tewkesbury Park came rushing to the conflict,
and made a vigorous attack upon Somerset's flank. Taken by surprise,
the Lancastrian van fled in disorder. Some made for the park; some ran
toward the meadows; others flung themselves into the ditches; and so
many were beaten down and slain where they fought, that the greensward
was crimsoned with gore.
Gloucester did not pause in the work of destruction. After cheering
on his men to the carnage, he pursued Somerset up the hill, availed
himself of the Lancastrians' confusion to force his way through their
intrenchments, and carried into their camp that terror with which his
grisly cognizance seldom failed to inspire his enemies.
The plight of the Lancastrians now became desperate. Somerset, having
lost his followers, lost his temper, and with it every chance of
victory. Indeed, the duke appears to have acted the part of a madman.
On reaching the camp, flushed and furious, he looked around for a
victim to sacrifice to his rage, and made a selection which was
singularly unfortunate for the Lancastrians. Lord Wenlock, it seems,
had not left the camp to support Somerset's charge; and the duke,
bearing in mind how recently that nobleman had been converted from the
Yorkist cause, rushed to the conclusion that he was playing false. A
fearful scene was the result. Riding to the centre division of the
Lancastrians, the exasperated Beaufort reviled Lord Wenlock in language
too coarse to have been recorded, and, after denouncing the aged
warrior as traitor and coward, cleft his skull with a battle-axe.
No incident could have been more unfavorable to the fortunes of
the Red Rose than Wenlock's fall by the hand of Somerset. A panic
immediately seized the Lancastrians; and, ere they could recover from
their confusion, King Edward perceived his advantage, cheered his men
to the onslaught, spurred over hedge and ditch, and dashed, on his
brown charger, fiercely into the intrenched camp. Irresistible we can
well imagine the onset of that horse and that rider to have been--the
strong war-steed, with his frontal of steel, making a way through the
enemy's disordered ranks, and the tall warrior dispersing all around
with the sweep of his terrible sword. Vain was then the presence of
the Prince of Wales, gallant as the bearing of the royal boy doubtless
was. Indeed, all the princes of John of Gaunt's lineage could not now
have turned the tide of fight. After a faint struggle, the Lancastrians
recoiled in consternation; and, throwing down their arms, fled before
Edward and his knights as deer before the hunters. The rout was rapid
and complete. The field presented a fearful scene of panic, confusion,
and slaughter. Some of the vanquished ran for refuge into Tewkesbury;
others betook themselves for safety to the abbey church; and many,
hotly pursued and scarcely knowing whither they went, were drowned "at
a mill in the meadow fast by the town."
Somerset, on seeing the ruin his rashness had brought on his friends,
fled from the scene of carnage. The duke ought not, perhaps, to have
avoided the destruction to which he had allured so many brave men. The
chief of the Beauforts, however, had no ambition to die like the great
earl whom he had deserted at Barnet, nor to fall on the field to which
he had challenged his hereditary foe. It is wonderful, indeed, that a
man who had known little of life save its miseries should have cared
to survive such a defeat; but Somerset, whatever his other qualities,
had none of that spirit which, at Bannockburn, prompted Argentine to
exclaim, "'Tis not my wont to fly!" At Hexham and at Barnet, Somerset's
principal exploits had consisted of availing himself of the speed of
his horse to escape the foe; and at Tewkesbury he rushed cravenly from
the field, on which, a few hours earlier, he had boastfully declared
that he would abide such fortune as GOD should send. The Prior of St.
John, Sir Gervase Clifton, Sir Thomas Tresham, and a number of knights
and esquires likewise sought safety in flight.
The Prince of Wales had hitherto fought with courage; and there is some
reason to believe that he fell fighting manfully on the field where so
much blood was shed to vindicate his claims to the crown of England.
Poets, novelists, and historians have, however, told a different tale,
and produced an impression that, when the heir of Lancaster found
himself abandoned by Somerset, and perceived the fortune of the day
decidedly adverse to the Red Rose, he followed the multitude, who,
shrinking from the charge of Edward on his berry-brown steed, and of
Gloucester with his boar's-head crest, fled confusedly toward the town.
But, however that may have been, all the warriors of the Red Rose did
not fly. Destruction, indeed, awaited every man who stood his ground;
but even the certainty of death can not daunt those who are inspired
by honor. Knights and nobles, after fighting with courage, fell with
disdainful pride, and hundreds upon hundreds of the Lancastrians of
inferior rank lost their lives in the cause for which, at the summons
of their chiefs, they had taken up arms. There fell the Earl of Devon;
and John Beaufort, the brother of Somerset, and, save the duke, the
last male heir of the house of Beaufort; and Sir John Delves, the
chief of a family long settled at Doddington, in the County Palatine
of Chester; and Sir William Fielding, whose descendants, in the time
of the Stuarts, became Earls of Denbigh; and Sir Edmund Hampden, one
of that ancient race which had flourished in the eleventh century,
and which, in the sixteenth, produced the renowned leader of the Long
Parliament.
At length, when three thousand Lancastrians had perished on the field
of Tewkesbury, the resistance and carnage came to an end; and Edward,
having knighted Warwick's cousin, George Neville, the heir of Lord
Abergavenny, sheathed his bloody sword, and Gloucester laid aside his
lance; and the king and the duke rode to the abbey church to render
thanks to GOD for giving them another victory over their enemies.