Cassell's History of England, Vol. 2 (of 8) / From the Wars of the Roses to the Great Rebellion

by Anonymous

No sooner was the body of Warwick, stripped of its armour and covered with wounds, discovered on the field, than his forces gave way, and fled amain. Thus fell the great "king-maker," who so long had kept alive the spirit of contention, placing the crown first on one head and then on another. With him perished the power of his faction and the prosperity of his family. On the field with him lay all the chief lords who fought on his side, except the Earl of Oxford and the Duke of Somerset, who escaped into Wales, and joined Jasper Tudor, the Earl of Pembroke, who was in arms for Henry. The Duke of Exeter was taken up for dead, but being found to be alive, he was conveyed by his servants secretly to the sanctuary at Westminster; but the holiness of the sanctuary does not appear to have proved any defence against the lawless vengeance of Edward, for, some months after, his dead body was found floating in the sea near Dover. On the side of Edward fell the Lords Say and Cromwell, Sir John Lisle, the son of Lord Berners, and many other squires and gentlemen. The soldiers who fell on both sides have been variously stated at from 1,000 to 10,000; the number more commonly credited is about 1,500. The dead were buried where they fell, and a chapel was erected near the spot for the repose of their souls. The battle-field is now marked by a stone obelisk. The bodies of Warwick and Montague were exposed for three days, naked, on the floor of St. Paul's Church, as a striking warning against subjects interfering with kings and crowns. They were then conveyed to the burial-place of their family in the abbey of Bilsam, in Berkshire.

In the fall of Warwick Edward might justly suppose that he saw the only real obstacle to the permanency of his own power; but Margaret was still alive. She was no longer, however, the elastic and indomitable Margaret who had led her forces up to the battles of St. Albans, Northampton, Wakefield, Towton, and Hexham. On the day that she landed at Weymouth, imagining she had now nothing to do but to march in triumph to London, and resume with her husband their vacant throne, the fatal battle of Barnet was fought. The first news she received was of the total overthrow of her party and the death of Warwick. The life of the great king-maker might have caused her future trouble; his fall was her total ruin. Confounded by the tidings, her once lofty spirit abandoned her, and she sank on the ground in a swoon.

It was the plan of her generals to hasten to Pembroke; and, having effected a junction with him, to proceed to Cheshire, to render the army effective by a good body of archers. But Edward, always rapid in his movements, allowed them no time for so formidable a combination. He left London on the 19th of April, and reached Tewkesbury on the 3rd of May. Margaret and her company set out from Bath, and prepared to cross the Severn at Gloucester, to join Pembroke and Jasper Tudor. But the people of Gloucester had fortified the bridge, and neither threats nor bribes could induce them to let her pass. She then marched on to Tewkesbury, near which they found Edward already awaiting them.

The troops being worn down by the fatigue of a long and fearful march, Margaret was in the utmost anxiety to avoid an engagement, and to press on to their friends in Wales. But Somerset represented that such a thing was utterly impossible. For a night and a day the foot-soldiers had been plunging along for six-and-thirty miles through a foul country—all lanes, and stony ways, betwixt woods, and having no proper refreshment. To move farther in the face of the enemy was out of the question. He must pitch his camp in the park, and take such fortune as God should send.

The queen, as well as the most experienced officers of the army, were much averse from this, but the duke either could not or would not move, and Edward presented himself in readiness for battle. Thus compelled to give up the cheering hope of a junction with the Welsh army, Margaret and her son did all in their power to inspire the soldiers with courage for this most eventful conflict. The next morning, being the 4th of May, the forces were drawn out in order. The Duke of Somerset took the charge of the main body. The Prince of Wales commanded the second division under the direction of Lord Wenlock and the Prior of St. John's. The Earl of Devonshire brought up the rear. The Lancastrian army was entrenched in a particularly strong position on the banks of the Severn; having, both in front and on the flanks, a country so deeply intersected with lanes, hedges, and ditches, that there was scarcely any approaching it. This grand advantage, however, was completely lost by the folly and impetuosity of the Duke of Somerset, who, not content to defend himself against the superior forces and heavier artillery of Edward, rushed out beyond the entrenchments, where he was speedily taken in flank by a body of 200 spearsmen, and thrown into confusion. The Lancastrians were utterly defeated, and the Prince of Wales fell on the field, or, according to other accounts, was put to death immediately after the battle. Somerset was condemned and beheaded.

No fate can be conceived more consummately wretched than that of Margaret now—her cause utterly ruined, her only son slain, her husband and herself the captives of their haughty enemies. They who had thus barbarously shed the blood of the prince might, with a little cunning, shed that of her husband and herself. No such good fortune awaited Margaret. She was doomed to hear of the death of her imprisoned consort, and to be left to long years of grief over the utter wreck of crown, husband, child, and friends—a great and distinguished band.

Edward returned to London triumphant over all his enemies, and the next morning Henry VI. was found dead in the Tower. It was given out that he died of grief and melancholy, but nobody at that day doubted that he was murdered, and it was generally attributed to Richard of Gloucester, but probably without reason. The continuator of the chronicles of Croyland prays that the doer of the deed, whoever he was, may have time for repentance, and declares that it was done by "an agent of the tyrant" and a subject of the murdered king. Who was this? The chronicler in Leland points it out plainly. "That night," he says, "King Henry was put to death in the Tower, the Duke of Gloucester and divers of his men being there." Fabyan, also a contemporary, says, "Divers tales were told, but the most common fame went that he was sticked with a dagger by the hands of the Duke Gloucester."

To satisfy the people the same means were resorted to as in the case of Richard II. The body of the unfortunate king was conveyed on a bier, with the face exposed, from the Tower through Cheapside to St. Paul's. Four of the principal chroniclers of the day assert that the fresh blood from his wounds "welled upon the pavement," giving certain evidence of the manner of his death; and the same thing occurred when he was removed to Blackfriars. To get rid of so unsatisfactory a proof of Henry's natural death the body was the same day put into a barge with a guard of soldiers from Calais, and thus, says the Croyland chronicler, "without singing or saying, he was conveyed up the dark waters of the Thames at midnight, to his silent interment at Chertsey Abbey, where it was long pretended that miracles were performed at his tomb."

Henry's reputation for holiness during his life, and his tragical death, occasioned such a resort to his tomb, that Gloucester, on mounting the throne as Richard III., caused the remains of the poor king to be removed, it was said, to Windsor. Afterwards, when Henry VII. wished to convey them to Westminster, they could not be found, having been carefully concealed from public attention.

Margaret, who was conveyed to the Tower the very night on which her husband was murdered there, was at first rigorously treated. There had been an attempt on the part of the Bastard of Falconberg, who was vice-admiral under Warwick, to liberate Henry, during the absence of Edward and Gloucester, at the battle of Tewkesbury. He landed at Blackwall with a body of marines, and, calling on the people of Essex and Kent to aid him, made two desperate attempts to penetrate to the Tower, burning Bishopsgate, but was repulsed, and on the approach of Edward, retreated. To prevent any similar attempt in favour of Margaret she was successively removed to Windsor, and lastly to Wallingford. She remained a prisoner for five years, when at the entreaty of King Réné, she was ransomed by Louis of France, and retired to the castle of Reculé, near Angers. She died at the château of Dampierre, near Saumur, in 1482, in the fifty-third year of her age.