Battle of Barnet (From a M. S. at Ghent)
Warwick had at first his artillery on his extreme right, and this fired through the gloom, but with no effect, as Edward’s right wing did not extend so far, and was overlapped by the Lancastrians. This army was commanded by the Earl of Oxford, who led the van, and by the Marquis of Montagu, who led the second line; the left wing was commanded by the Duke of Exeter—both wings being largely composed of cavalry. The extreme left was occupied by archers and pikemen entrenched or palisaded in a small wood. This probably extended at that time from Wrotham Park to the column now marking the site of the battle, and near which tradition says Warwick fell. The centre, consisting of bows and pikes, was commanded by the Duke of Somerset; and behind this there appears to have been a reserve under Lord St. John, Sir John Conyers, and, for a time at least, Warwick himself.
The order of march of the host was with the right wing leading and the left closing the column of march. On the other side, Edward from his initial dispositions similarly outflanked the left of his antagonist, opposite which was the Duke of Gloucester commanding that wing, and presumably the artillery, if any. The left wing was led by the Marquis of Hastings; and, as in the Lancastrian army, both wings were mainly composed of cavalry. In the centre were the Londoners, infantry armed with bows and bills, and in general reserve was a force commanded by Edward himself. Some writers speak as if the armies were formed in three parallel lines, but it would seem that the formation customary for long after Barnet was that of two wings and a centre. It is impossible otherwise to account for the curiously isolated and impulsive attacks on either side by Oxford and Gloucester. Still, it is practically certain that each of the three bodies into which the army was divided was more than one line deep. Thus from the outset these dispositions show a tendency to employ infantry in battle with cavalry and artillery on the flanks, but the feudal idea still preponderated, and paramount importance was still attached to the mounted arm, which on both sides, as in all cavalry actions, simultaneously took the offensive.
One point, however, is especially noteworthy, and that is, the appearance of London citizens in Edward’s fighting line. Though not strong in numbers, they none the less represented the beginning of a new era, which was to see a citizen soldiery formed of London trained bands even more important in the next civil war, and which was to find its climax in the later citizen soldiery, the Volunteer Army of modern England. The natural result of such a primary disposition of the troops on either side was that the right wings of both armies, practically equal in number, gained a temporary success. The battle began by Oxford’s attack on the wing opposite him, which actually routed it and dispersed it; but the value of a reserve in the hand of the general was never more clearly evidenced than when, during Oxford’s absence and ill-advised, because too prolonged pursuit, Edward launched his reserve against Warwick’s then exposed flank and the left centre. To the suddenness of the attack was added the demoralisation caused by imagined treachery. On that misty Easter morning it was difficult to distinguish between the badges and banners of one side and the other. The dress was not a different-coloured uniform, as later on; it had only the uniforms of iron and steel. A false war-cry was easily raised, the Oxford banner with a “star” not readily distinguishable from that of Edward with the “sun.” So that when Oxford returned to the fray, he fell on his own centre and produced the cry of “Treachery!” which was always likely to be raised in an army composed of selections from two factions deadly hostile to one another, and in which the Lancastrians especially looked with something more than doubt on their new friends, once the followers of hated York. So that confusion began and spread. Somerset did little, and soon the centre and right dissolved, and only on the left assembled round Warwick the relics of the beaten host, and defended the entrenched wood. Here it was essentially a foot encounter, with London archers and bills against Lancastrian bows and pikes, aided by dismounted cavalry and supported by mounted troops, threatening the flanks and rear. It is said even that Edward’s artillery was brought up close to aid in destroying the defences; but the defence only delayed the inevitable end. The battle was lost already, but it wanted yet one death to make it a type of the death of a system. When Warwick dismounted of his own will, and after slaying his favourite charger, so that no retreat should be possible, took up his position with his friends and personal retainers in the wood at Wrotham, and fell there, axe in hand, he did something more than destroy the last practical hope of Lancaster, for with him fell the feudalism of which he was so magnificent an exemplar. No such man or soldier was ever afterwards to hold from his own remarkable personality such a position as his. Cromwell’s resembles it only in his becoming a great and prominent leader in a civil war. Warwick, and nobles such as he, fought as much for their order as their king; all succeeding soldiers fought more for a cause than either.
Meanwhile, Margaret and her son had landed in the West at Plymouth, to be present at the fatal fight at Tewkesbury where defeat was followed by the death of her son, whom Edward struck before subservient attendant lords and stabbed to death, the imprisonment of the queen, and, later on, the death of Henry VI. in the Tower. Neither he nor all the house of Lancaster had been able to save his order from decay.
Edward, too, according to his views, had unconsciously aided its downfall. His death was illumined only by the lurid light of an ill-spent life. However enthusiastic in bygone years was the following of the Earl of March, he played the game so badly that with him the feudal spirit practically disappeared. No son of his succeeded. No kindly thought clung round the last of the Yorkist line. For he was practically the last, inasmuch as his son was king but in name, his brother Richard but a transient star. When on Bosworth field Richard III. died, with him finished the civil wars of mediæval England and the feudalism that had accompanied them. In Henry VII., a personality of no great merit, though he certainly instituted a nucleus of the future army in raising the “Yeomen of the Guard,” fifty archers strong, was united the two Roses; and then was born the nation that in the next civil troubles laid the foundation as far as England is concerned of modern life, modern armies, and modern war.
Never had a class suffered so severely as that of the nobles in this prolonged struggle. Many of the royal princes, half of the nobility and gentry of England, and quite a hundred thousand men had fallen in the great wars. At Barnet the loss was accentuated by Edward’s own orders. So many of the leaders of the great houses had been killed, murdered, or beheaded, that the very decimation of the aristocracy rendered the growth of the middle class more easy, its fusion with the higher class, as time went on and wealth increased, more possible. The knighthood of men of low degree was rare in feudal days; the Tudors were to extend it to the merchant princes who developed English commerce sword in hand, and taught foreign nations the prowess of the English race.
Formation of Lines of Battle at Barnet 14th April 1471.