But, notwithstanding Edward's achievements, and the confidence with which the soldiers fought under Warwick's leadership, hours passed, and thousands upon thousands fell, without the prospect of a Yorkist victory. Still the northern war-cries rose upon the gale; still Andrew Trollope hounded the northern men upon their foes; and still terrible proved the sweep of those long lances with which, at Wakefield, Herons and Tunstalls and Whartons had scattered the chivalry of York as the wind scatters leaves. No easy victory could, by any warriors, be won against such foes; and in spite of all the young king's courage, and "The Stout Earl's" sagacity, it appeared too likely that Trollope, with fortune as well as numbers on his side, would conquer, and that the bloodiest day England had ever seen would close in a Lancastrian triumph.
Meanwhile the aspect of the field was too terrible even to be described without a shudder. All on the ridge between Towton and Saxton were heaps of dead, and wounded, and dying; and the blood of the slain lay caked with the snow that covered the ground, and afterward, dissolving with it, ran down the furrows and ditches for miles together. Never, indeed, in England, had such a scene of carnage been witnessed as that upon which the villagers of Towton and Saxton looked out from their lowly cottages, and of which the citizens of York heard flying rumors, as, in common with Christendom, they celebrated the festival commemorative of our Redeemer's entry into Jerusalem.
At length, when the battle had lasted well-nigh ten hours, and thousands had fallen in the sanguinary conflict, fortune so far favored the Red Rose that it seemed as if those long Border spears, so seldom couched in vain, were destined to win back the crown of St. Edward for Henry of Windsor. The Yorkists were, in fact, giving way; and Warwick must have felt that his charger had been sacrificed in vain, and that his head was not unlikely to occupy a place between those of York and Salisbury over the gates of the northern capital, when, through the snow which darkened the air and drifted over the country, another army was seen advancing from the south; and into the field, fresh and in no humor to avoid the combat, came the fighting men of Norfolk, under the banner of the princely Mowbrays, to the aid of Edward's wavering ranks. This new arrival of feudal warriors speedily turned the scale in favor of York; and while Edward animated his adherents, and Warwick urged the Yorkists to renewed exertion, the Lancastrians, after an attempt to resist their fate, at first slowly and frowning defiance on their foes, but gradually with more rapid steps, commenced a retreat northward.
Among the thousands who, on that stormy Palm Sunday, took the field with Red Roses on their gorgets, there was no better or braver knight than Ralph, Lord Dacre. From his castle of Naworth, in Cumberland, Dacre had brought his riders, arrayed under the ancestral banner—
"That swept the shores of Judah's sea,
And waved in gales of Galilee"—
and mounted to strike for King Henry; not, perhaps, without some presentiment of filling a warrior's grave. But death by a mean hand the lordly warrior would not contemplate; and with a spirit as high as his progenitor, who fought at Acre with Richard Cœur de Lion, he could hardly dream of falling by a weapon less renowned than Warwick's axe, or Edward's lance, or the sword of William Hastings, who, in the young king's track, slaughtering as he rode, was winning golden spurs and broad baronies. No death so distinguished, however, awaited Lord Dacre of the North. While in a large field, known as the North Acre, and still in rustic tradition and rhyme associated with his name, the haughty Borderer, probably making a last effort to rally the beaten and retreating Lancastrians, was mortally wounded with an arrow shot by a boy out of an auberry-tree, and prostrated among dead and dying on the miry ground.
"All is lost," groaned Exeter and Somerset, in bitter mood, as together they spurred over mounds of slain, and galloped toward York, to warn the queen that her foes were conquerors. And well, indeed, might the Lancastrian dukes express themselves in accents of despair, for never before had an English army been in a more hapless plight than that which they were now leaving to its fate. At first, the retreat of the Lancastrians was conducted with some degree of order; but, ere long, their ranks were broken by the pursuing foe, and every thing was confusion as they fled in a mass toward Tadcaster. No leader of mark remained to direct or control the ill-fated army in the hour of disaster. John Heron, and Leo, Lord Welles, were slain. Andrew Trollope, after having "done marvelous deeds of valor," lay cold on the ground; Northumberland stooped his lofty crest as low as death; Devon and Wiltshire were heading the flight, and in vain endeavoring to place themselves beyond the vengeance of the victors. Resistance was hopeless; quarter was neither asked nor given; the carnage was so frightful that the road to York was literally red with the blood and strewn with the bodies of the slain; and the pursuit was so hot and eager that multitudes were drowned in attempting to cross the rivulet of Cock, while the corpses formed a bridge over which the pursuers passed. The brook ran purple with blood, and crimsoned, as it formed a junction with, the waters of the Wharfe.
Evening closed, at length, over the field of Towton, but without putting an end to the work of destruction. Till the noon of Monday the pursuit was keenly urged, and a running fight, kept up beyond the Tyne, caused much bloodshed.[7] The Chief Justice of England and the Parson of Blokesworth escaped. But Devon and Wiltshire were less fortunate. One was taken near York, the other seized near Cockermouth by an esquire named Richard Salkeld; and both were executed by martial law.
After his signal victory on Towton Field, Edward knighted Hastings, Humphrey Stafford, and others, and then rode in triumph to York. Henry, with Queen Margaret and the prince, having fled from the city, the inhabitants received him with humble submission; and, having taken down the heads of his kinsmen from the gates, and set up those of Devon and Wiltshire instead, Edward remained at York, and kept the festival of Easter with great splendor. After visiting Durham, and settling the affairs of the north, the young king turned his face toward London.