Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/625

] the two armies met on the morning of Palm Sunday, March 29th, in the fields betwixt the villages of Saxton and Towton, about ten miles south of York. Edward issued orders that no quarter should be given, no prisoners should be taken; it was to be a war of extermination—a command in so young a man sufficiently demonstrative of the pitiless severity of his character. The action began at nine o'clock in the morning, under circumstances most unfortunate for the Lancastrians. A snowstorm was blowing full in their faces; and Lord Falconbridge seized at once on this circumstance by an adroit stratagem. He ordered the archers to advance, discharge their arrows, and again retire out of the reach of those of the enemy. The Lancastrians, believing themselves within bow-shot of the enemy, whose arrows did great execution amongst them, returned the compliment without being able to see where their arrows reached for the snow-flakes. The Yorkist archers were now out of their reach, and they fell useless. Again the Yorkists advanced and poured in a fresh flight with such effect that the Lancastrians, probably doubting of the success of their own arrows, rushed forward and came hand-to-hand with their opponents. It was now one terrible clash of swords, battleaxes, and spears, amid the thick-falling and blinding storm; and thus the two infuriated armies continued fighting desperately for nearly five hours. Towards evening the Lancastrians, disheartened by the fall of their principal commanders, broke and fled. They were pursued as far as Tadcastor with the fiercest impetuosity, and a fearful slaughter. It was one of the bloodiest battles ever fought in Britain. According to a contemporary historian, those who were employed to number and bury the dead, declared them to be 38,000.

Amongst persons of rank and fortune who fell were the Earls of Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Shrewsbury; the Lords Clifford, Beaumont, Neville, Willoughby, Wells, Roos, Scales, Gray, Dacres, and Molineux, besides an extraordinary number of knights and gentlemen. Within three months four pitched battles had now been fought, and no less than 60,000 people had perished in this question, which of two families should wear the crown.

The Dukes of Somerset and Exeter, when the battle was lost, rode full speed to York, attended by a considerable number of lords and gentlemen, and, announcing the overthrow, made all haste with the king, queen, and prince to secure themselves in Scotland. Edward, by no means satiated with the blood of 38,000 men, made haste to immolate others who fell into his hands. Amongst these were the Earl of Devonshire and Sir W. Hill, who were executed at York; the Earl of Ormond at Newcastle, and Sir Thomas Fulford at Hexham. The heads of York and Salisbury, which were withering on the walls of York, where Margaret was said to have bid the executioner place them wide apart to receive the heads of Edward and Warwick, which she declared she meant to set there, were now taken down, and those of Devonshire and Hill set up in their places.

After celebrating the feast of Easter at York, Edward marched to Newcastle, and there leaving Warwick to keep the north in order, returned to London on the 26th of June.

On reaching Scotland, Margaret placed Henry in a secure retreat at Kirkcudbright, and then hastened to Edinburgh, to try what could be done there towards renewing the contest, which no dispersion of her friends and forces could ever teach her to relinquish. There she found a boy sovereign, a divided court, and a country which had suffered by factions almost as deadly as her own. James I., who had seemed to return to his kingdom after his long captivity under such auspicious circumstances, full of intelligence and plans for the improvement of his country, married to the woman of his affections, and courted by both England and France, was soon murdered by the rude and lawless nobles whom he endeavoured to reduce to some degree of order and subordination. His son, James II., when arrived at years of maturity, endeavoured to recover from distracted England some of the places it had rest from Scotland formerly, but in besieging Roxburgh, in 1460, he was killed by the bursting of a cannon. His son was at this time a child of only eight years old, and the kingdom was governed by a council of regency; but the care of the king's person was committed to the queen mother, Mary of Guolders, who was ambitious of engrossing not only that duty, but the actual powers of the government. In this she was opposed by the powerful family of Douglas.

Margaret had no willing listeners amongst parties who wore occupied with their own schemes and feuds. She had the difficult task of appealing to their various interests; and she found no one thing capable of fixing their attention till she hit on the idea of proposing the surrender of Berwick as the price of Scotland's assistance. That key of the northern frontiers of England, the object for whose possession so much blood had been spilled from age to age, was an object, the recovery of which at once gave her the command of the ears of the whole court. In addition to this, she proposed a marriage betwixt her son Edward, Prince of Wales, and the oldest sister of the young King of Scotland. These treaties were carried into effect, and Berwick was put into the hands of the Scots on the 23th of April, 1461. For the fatal surrender of this important place, England never forgave the fugitive queen. In order to neutralise the effect of these treaties, Edward immediately entered into negotiations with the powerful and turbulent Earl of Ross, the lord of the isles, and commissioned Warwick to treat with Scotland for a truce. By these means he prevented Scotland taking up the cause of the exiled family as a nation, though he could not prevent many persons, of all ranks, embracing it. While Henry and Margaret remained in Scotland, in spite of the pecuniary aid afforded them by the court, they were so hard put to it that they were compelled to pawn such jewels and plate as they had with them.

Edward, on his return to London, was crowned on the 29th of June. He then summoned a Parliament to meet at Westminster on the 6th of July, but an invasion appearing not improbable, he prorogued it till the 4th of November. The sword and the scaffold had already so thinned the nobility, that only one duke, four earls, one viscount, and twenty-nine barons were summoned to this Parliament. The great battle of Towton, which had laid so many of them low, had rendered the rest very submissive. There was no longer any hesitating betwixt the two families, or seeking of those compromises which, in