The Queen clasped her darling in her arms, and bent her fair head low upon his darker locks.
"Mon chéri, mon mignon!" she cried tenderly, in her own language, not often used now, for English had become almost the mother-tongue to the woman who had been Queen of England since she was a maiden of sixteen years. "Aye, my streak of sunlight, I have thee!—and never will I let thine inheritance calmly fall into the hands of thine enemies! Come, let us be up and doing. When, on the day of mine espousals, I set the Rose of England in my bosom, did I not know that I must wear it with all its thorns?"[#]
[#] The last sentence is in the actual words of the Queen, though not spoken on this occasion.
The momentary sensation of irresolute hopelessness was passed, and Marguerite was herself again. She held a council of war, at which it was decided that they should march on the western provinces, which were more loyal than the midland wherein Warwick had held sway, or the northern of which Edward was Duke. The ladies were to be left behind in sanctuary, except the one or two in personal attendance on the Queen, who knew well enough that whoever might constitute the body of the Lancastrian party, she was and had always been its soul: and that however her forces might acquit themselves with her, they were not likely to do well without her. The Countess of Warwick, with her daughter of Clarence and their suites, had crossed the Channel separately from the Queen, and had taken refuge at Beaulieu Abbey. But nothing would tempt the young Princess of Wales to join them. Whether in life or in death, where her heart's lord was, there also would she be.
The Countess of Devon, in attendance on the Queen, and Lady Katherine Vaux, in waiting on the Princess, were the sole women who accompanied the army. From Bath they marched on to Bristol, intending to join the Earl of Pembroke, Jaspar Tudor, who was coming from Gloucester with his men. But when the Queen's army attempted to pass the Severn, they found themselves intercepted by the men of Gloucester, who urged their necessary "obeissance to their Duke." Marguerite turned aside, and went on to Tewkesbury.
Perhaps few places in England are less changed than Tewkesbury from the appearance they presented in the fifteenth century. Not only the grand old Abbey (alas! restored), but the Bell Inn within a stone's throw, the old winding High Street and its hostelry the Bear, are very little altered in outward seeming from what they were on that night of the third of May, when Marguerite of Anjou drew up her troops in "the Bloody Field" outside the town. Edward was at Tewkesbury in person, awaiting what either side felt instinctively would be the last and decisive battle in the Wars of the Roses.
Early the next morning, the Prince of Wales, who was to command the army, took leave of the royal ladies.
Clasp him close, poor mother! cling to him, young wife! You will do it never, never any more. It was no act of the Prince, whether of commission or omission, that lost the day. Victory hung yet in the balance, when Somerset, traitor to his last breath, fled from his young gallant master, followed by Hugh Courtenay: and from that moment the field was King Edward's.
The Prince was taken. The craven Somerset fled to the sanctuary of a church, and he was followed by Humphrey Audley (who had York blood in his veins), Henry de Ros, James Gower, the Prince's standard-bearer, and many more. But Prince Edward, most valuable prisoner of all, was taken before the conqueror in his royal pavilion. What followed is well known,—King Edward's contemptuous query—
"How camest thou, young man, to bear sword against me?"