Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/556

542 her standard; and she was able, in a few week, to assemble an army of sixty thousand men. Edward and the earl of Warwick hastened with forty thousand, to check her progress. The two armies met at Towton; and, after an obstinate conflict, the battle terminated in a total victory on the side of the Yorkists. Edward would give no quarter, and the routed army was pursued as far as Tadcaster, with great bloodshed and confusion. Above thirty-six thousand men are said to have fallen in the battle and pursuit. Henry and Margaret had remained at York during the action; but learning the defeat of their army, fled with great precipitation into Scotland. The queen of England however found there a people little less divided by faction than those she had left. Their king being a minor, and the regency disputed by two opposite parties. They agreed however to assist them, on her offering to deliver up to them the important fortress of Berwick, and to contract her son to a sister of their king. The dauntless Margaret, stimulated by natural ambition with her northern auxiliaries, and the succours from France, ventured once more to take the field, and make an inroad into England. But she was able to penetrate no farther than Hexham. There she was attacked by lord Montacute, brother to the earl of Warwick, and warden of the marches, who totally routed her motley army, and all who were spared in the field suffered on the scaffold.

The fate of this unfortunate heroine, after this overthrow, was equally singular and affecting. She fled with her son into a forest, where she endeavoured to conceal herself; but was beset during the darkness of the night by robbers, who despoiled her of