Page:Cassell's Illustrated History of England vol 1.djvu/628

614 some considerable forces of Scotch, and French, when Warwick approached with 20,000 men, and news was received that Edward was advancing with an equal number. Edward halted at Newcastle, but Warwick advancing, divided his forces into three bodies, and simultaneously invested the three strongholds. Somerset surrendered Bamborough on condition that himself and Sir Ralph Percy, and some others, should be allowed to take the oath of fealty to Edward, and be restored to all their honours and estates; and that the rest of the two garrisons, with the Earl of Pembroke, the Lord de Roos, and some others, whose lands had been conferred on Edward's friends, and could not, therefore, be now restored, should be conveyed in safety to Scotland. This defection of her chief supporters was a dreadful blow to the queen; and, to add to her misfortunes, 500 of her French followers, who had established themselves in Holy Island, were attacked and cut to pieces by Sir Robert Ogle. Alnwick Castle still held out in the hands of the brave De Brezé and Lord Hungerford; but the Earl of Angus coming up with a party of relief, the besieged took the opportunity to make a sally and escape from the castle to their friends. Bamborough and Dunstanburgh were restored by the king to Lord Percy; but Alnwick he gave to Sir John Ashley, to the great offence of Sir Ralph Gray, who had formerly won it for Edward, and now expected to have had it.

It might have been supposed that all hope of ever restoring the Lancastrian cause was now at an end. But in the soul of Margaret hope never seemed to die. With an admirable and indomitable resolution, she again turned all her efforts to reconstruct a fresh army. She traversed Scotland, drew together her scattered friends, joined them to her French auxiliaries, whom she again mustered on the Continent; and by the spring of 1464 was in a condition once more to march into England. For some time her affairs wore a promising aspect. She re-took the castles of Alnwick, Bamborough, and Dunstanburgh. Somerset, Sir Ralph Percy, and the rest who had made their peace with Edward, hearing of her successes, again flew to hor standard. Sir Ralph Gray, who resented the preference given to Sir John Ashley by Edward in the disposal of Alnwick, came over to her, and was made commander of Bamborough.

Edward, on the news of these reverses, dispatched the Lord Montacute into the north to raise his forces there, and make head against the never-resting queen. He met with Sir Ralph Percy on Hedgley Moor, near Wooller, on the 25th of April, defeated his forces, and killed Sir Ralph. Having received fresh reinforcements from the south, he advanced towards Margaret's main army, and encamped on a plain, called the Levels, near Hexham. There, on the 10th of May, the two armies came to a general action, and, after a long and bloody conflict, the Lancastrians were again completely routed. Poor King Henry fled for his life, and this time managed not to be left in the hands of his enemies. "He was the host horseman of that day," says Hall; "for he fled so fast that no one could overtake him; yet he was so closely pursued, that three of his horsemen, or body guard, with their horses trapped in blue velvet, were taken, one of them wearing the unfortunate monarch's cap of state, called a bicocket, embroidered with two crowns of gold. and ornamented with pearls." The Duke of Somerset, the Lords Roos and Hungerford, were taken in the pursuit. Somerset was immediately beheaded in Hexham, and Roos and Hungerford suffered the same fate on the Sandhills at Newcastle. Many of their followers were successively executed in that town, and at York. Sir Ralph Gray reached his castle of Bamborough, but Warwick came up and besieged him. Bamborough was deemed an impregnable fortress; and Sir Ralph congratulated himself in that opinion; for he knew that he had no mercy to expect from Edward, if he fell into his hands. His confidence proved vain. Warwick brought up the king's two largest cannon, called Newcastle and London, a brass piece called Dysson, and with these made such breaches that the garrison was compelled to surrender. Gray was dragged forth from beneath a piece of the fallen wall more than half dead; but he was preserved with great care by the victors, that he might be presented to Edward, as an especial gratification to his love of revenge. Accordingly, Gray was brought before him at Doncaster, where Edward had been lying, to recover from the effects of his dissolute life; and then, Gray's spurs being hacked off by his own cook with his cleaver, his coat-of-arms torn off his back and reversed, he was drawn to the town's end, and there beheaded.

Meantime Margaret and her son, with a few attendants, were flying wildly through the neighbouring forests from the tender mercies of this sanguinary young king. She was endeavouring to reach the Scottish borders, when they were met by a party of marauders, with which the border country abounded.

The whole of Margaret's adventures in this memorable flight have so much the air of romance, that some historians have doubted their truth; but as these recitals are made by Chastellain in his "Chronique des Ducs de Burgoyne," who declares that he heard them related by Margaret herself to the Duchess de Bourbon at St. Pol, and as they are confirmed by Monstrellet and Prevost, there is no reason to doubt them. According to these accounts, the robbers seized the queen and her son, their attendants fleeing at the first sight of them. The queen, it appears, was carrying with her a number of the crown jewels, and some large vessels of gold and silver, as a resource during their abode in Scotland. The thieves, fired by the sight of the rich dresses of the queen and her son, which were probably of cloth of gold or silver, ornamented with precious stones—articles which only princely persons were allowed by the sumptuary laws of the times to wear—and of the gold and silver articles, dragged them from their horses, and threatened them, with drawn swords, with death and all manner of indignities. The queen on her knees implored mercy, and avowed who she was; but the villains who had hold of her, seeing their associates busy dividing the rich booty, turned to them, and she seized the opportunity, while they were quarrelling over it, to fly with her son. The fugitives rushed onward, not knowing whither they were going, till night overtook them. Nearly fainting with terror, fatigue, and hunger, as the moon broke through the clouds they beheld a huge man, armed, and with threatening gestures hastening towards them. Imagining that it was one of the band who had robbed them who had now overtaken her^ she expected nothing but death: