Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/189

 in a more martial mood than usual, and he replied simply by an offer of pardon to all who would lay down their arms within six days, excepting only a few persons who were proclaimed after the death of Lord Audley at Bloreheath. On the 12th the Yorkists were deserted by Andrew Trollope and a number of the best soldiers of Calais. Seeing that it was hopeless to fight next day, York, with his second son, the Earl of Rutland, withdrew into Wales, breaking down the bridges behind them, while his eldest son, the Earl of March, with Salisbury and Warwick, made their way into Devonshire, where they found shipping for Guernsey, and afterwards for Calais. York left his duchess and younger children at Ludlow in the power of the royalists. The lady of course submitted to the king, who placed her and her children in charge of her brother-in-law and sister, the Duke and Duchess of Buckingham, by whom ‘she was kept full strait’ for nine months after, with ‘many a great rebuke.’ But the king on 20 Dec. following granted her a considerable portion of her husband's lands for her life (Pat. Roll, 38 Hen. VI, pt. ii. m. 9).

The Duke's town of Ludlow was sacked by the royal forces. A parliament was hastily and irregularly summoned to Coventry on 20 Nov. A long bill of attainder was passed against York, March, Salisbury, Warwick, and their adherents. But the Yorkists were by no means crushed. York crossed from Wales about the end of the year to Ireland, where he was all powerful. Even in Wales, moreover, after he had left the country, Denbigh Castle held out for him till March against Jasper Tudor, earl of Pembroke. In Ireland, though attainted by the Coventry parliament, he held a parliament at Drogheda on 7 Feb. 1460, in which his office of lord-lieutenant was confirmed, and it was made high treason to attempt anything against his life (Liber Hiberniæ, vi. 3). The authority of English writs to arrest traitors in Ireland was disallowed.

About the end of February Warwick arrived from Calais to take counsel with the duke about future action, and the two sailed together with twenty-six ships to Waterford, where they landed on 16 March (, Cal. Miscell. p. 471). After arranging a plan of action, Warwick returned to Calais, while York remained in Ireland until after his allies, the Earls March, Warwick, and Salisbury, won the battle of Northampton (10 July 1460). His name was at the head of the manifesto put forth by the earls on setting out, and after the king was brought to London the earls procured commissions for him ‘to sit in divers towns coming homeward,’ among others in Ludlow, Shrewsbury, Hereford, Leicester, and Coventry, and punish law-breakers. The Duchess of York, released after the battle from her sister's custody, occupied the town house of the recently deceased Sir John Fastolf in Southwark until her husband's arrival. The parliament summoned by the earls in the king's name met at Westminster on 7 Oct., and on the 10th the duke arrived with a body of five hundred armed men. He had landed near Chester about the Nativity of Our Lady (8 Sept.), and had gone on to Ludlow, and reached London through Abingdon, where he ‘sent for trumpeters and clarioners to bring him to London, and there he gave them banners with the whole arms of England, and commanded his sword to be borne upright before him.’ On reaching the king's palace at Westminster he entered, with his armed men behind him, and with great blowing of trumpets. Passing on into the great hall where parliament was assembled, he advanced to the throne, and laid his hand upon the cushion as if about to take possession. Archbishop Bourchier went up to him, and asked if he desired to see the king. He replied that he knew of no one in the kingdom who ought not rather to wait on him. Then passing on to the king's apartments, he broke open doors and locks, the king having retreated into the queen's chambers, and settled himself in Westminster Palace for some days.

He had thus at last shown that he claimed the crown as his own by right. On the 16th he laid before the lords the particulars of his hereditary title, showing how the Mortimer family had been unjustly set aside by Henry IV. On the 17th he requested that they would give him their opinion on the subject. The lords went in a body to the king, who desired them to consider what could be objected to the duke's claim. On the 18th they sought the advice of the judges, who, with the crown lawyers, declined to give any. The lords drew up a set of objections, to which the duke replied. They then admitted that his title ‘could not be defeated,’ but were unwilling to dethrone a king to whom they had all sworn allegiance, and on Saturday, 25 Oct., the lord chancellor proposed a compromise, which the lords agreed he should press upon the king himself, viz. that Henry should retain the crown for life, the duke being assured of the succession to himself and his heirs immediately after. Henry had no mind to resist, and the settlement was solemnly ratified in parliament on the 31st. The attainders of the