House of York Triumphant – for Now

All the hopes of the house of Lancaster seemed now to be utterly extinguished.

Continuing Wars of the Roses,
our selection from History of England From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 by David Hume published in 1762. The selection is presented in fourteen easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Wars of the Roses.

Time: 1455-1485
Place: England

The King, therefore, found himself in a condition to face the Earl of Warwick, who, being reënforced by his son-in-law the Duke of Clarence, and his brother the Marquis of Montagu, took post at Barnet, in the neighborhood of London. Warwick was now too far advanced to retreat, and, as he rejected with disdain all terms of peace offered him by Edward and Clarence, he was obliged to hazard a general engagement. The battle was fought with obstinacy on both sides. The two armies, in imitation of their leaders, displayed uncommon valor; and the victory remained long undecided between them. But an accident threw the balance to the side of the Yorkists. Edward’s cognizance was a sun; that of Warwick a star with rays; and the mistiness of the morning rendering it difficult to distinguish them, the Earl of Oxford, who fought on the side of the Lancastrians, was by mistake attacked by his friends and chased off the field of battle. Warwick, contrary to his more usual practice, engaged that day on foot, resolving to show his army that he meant to share every fortune with them, and he was slain in the thickest of the engagement; and as Edward had issued orders not to give any quarter, a great and undistinguished slaughter was made in the pursuit. There fell about one thousand five hundred on the side of the victors.

The same day on which this decisive battle was fought, Queen Margaret and her son, now about eighteen years of age and a young prince of great hopes, landed at Weymouth, supported by a small body of French forces. When this Princess received intelligence of her husband’s captivity, and of the defeat and death of the Earl of Warwick, her courage, which had supported her under so many disastrous events, here quite left her; and she immediately foresaw all the dismal consequences of this calamity. At first she took sanctuary in the Abbey of Beaulieu; but being encouraged by men of rank, who exhorted her still to hope for success, she resumed her former spirit and determined to defend to the utmost the ruins of her fallen fortunes. She advanced through the counties of Devon, Somerset, and Gloucester, increasing her army on each day’s march, but was at last overtaken by the rapid and expeditious Edward at Tewkesbury, on the banks of the Severn. The Lancastrians were here totally defeated; the Earl of Devonshire and Lord Wenlock were killed in the field; the Duke of Somerset and about twenty other persons of distinction, having taken shelter in a church, were surrounded, dragged out, and immediately beheaded; about three thousand of their side fell in battle; and the army was entirely dispersed.

Queen Margaret and her son were taken prisoners and brought to the King, who asked the Prince, after an insulting manner, how he dared to invade his dominions. The young Prince, more mindful of his high birth than of his present fortune, replied that he came thither to claim his just inheritance. The ungenerous Edward, insensible to pity, struck him on the face with his gauntlet; and the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, Lord Hastings, and Sir Thomas Gray, taking the blow as a signal for further violence, hurried the Prince into the next apartment and there dispatched him with their daggers. Margaret was thrown into the Tower; King Henry expired in that confinement a few days after the battle of Tewkesbury; but whether he died a natural or violent death is uncertain. It is pretended, and was generally believed, that the Duke of Gloucester killed him with his own hands; but the universal odium which that Prince had incurred, perhaps inclined the nation to aggravate his crimes without any sufficient authority.

All the hopes of the house of Lancaster seemed now to be utterly extinguished. Every legitimate prince of that family was dead; almost every great leader of the party had perished in battle or on the scaffold; the Earl of Pembroke, who was levying forces in Wales, disbanded his army when he received intelligence of the battle of Tewkesbury, and he fled into Brittany with his nephew, the young Earl of Richmond. The bastard of Falconberg, who had levied some forces, and had advanced to London during Edward’s absence, was repulsed; his men deserted him; he was taken prisoner and immediately executed; and peace being now fully restored to the nation, a parliament was summoned, which ratified, as usual, all the acts of the victor, and recognized his legal authority.

This Prince, who had been so firm and active and intrepid during the course of adversity, was still unable to resist the allurements of a prosperous fortune; and he devoted himself, as before, to pleasure and amusement, after he became entirely master of his kingdom. But while he was thus indulging himself in pleasure, he was roused from his lethargy by a prospect of foreign conquests. He passed over to Calais, 1475, with an army of one thousand five hundred men-at-arms and fifteen thousand archers, attended by all the chief nobility of England, who, prognosticating future successes from the past, were eager to appear on this great theatre of honor. But all their sanguine hopes were damped when they found, on entering the French territories, that neither did the constable open his gates to them nor the Duke of Burgundy bring them the smallest assistance. That Prince, transported by his ardent temper, had carried all his armies to a great distance, and had employed them in wars on the frontiers of Germany and against the Duke of Lorraine; and though he came in person to Edward, and endeavored to apologize for this breach of treaty, there was no prospect that they would be able this campaign to make a conjunction with the English. This circumstance gave great disgust to the King and inclined him to hearken to those advances which Louis continually made him for an accommodation.

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