The inhabitants of Bristol had manifested much loyalty to Edward, when, during the harvest-time of 1462, the young Yorkist king appeared within their walls, and executed Sir Baldwin Fulford and other Lancastrians. Since that event, celebrated by Chatterton as "The Bristowe Tragedy," well-nigh nine years had elapsed, and, during that time, their attention had been attracted from the Wars of the Roses to a war nearer home. It is probable that the contentions of York and Lancaster had excited less interest than the feud between the houses of Berkeley and Lisle; and that the field of Barnet had created less excitement than that of Nibley Green, where, one March morning in 1470, William Lord Berkeley and Thomas Talbot, Lord Lisle, fought that battle known as "The English Chevy Chase."
But, however loyal the citizens of Bristol might be to Edward of York, they knew that Margaret of Anjou was not a woman to be trifled with; and, however little they might relish the spectacle of Lancastrian warriors crowding their streets, they were ready enough to furnish the Red Rose chiefs with money, provisions, and artillery. After receiving these supplies, the Lancastrian queen, anxious to cross the Severn, relieved Bristol of her presence on the 2d of May—it was a Thursday—and led her army toward that valley which, of old, had been depicted by William of Malmesbury as rich in fruit and corn, and abounding in vineyards.
The king's pursuit of his enemies had, in the mean time, been at once absorbing as a game of chess and exciting as a fox-hunt. For a time, he was unable to comprehend their movements, and forced to act with extreme caution. Indeed, Edward was not unaware that the Lancastrian leaders were exercising their utmost energy to outwit him; and he knew full well that one false step on his part would, in all likelihood, decide the campaign in their favor. At length, becoming aware that they were spreading rumors of their intention to advance to London by Oxford and Reading, the king concluded that their real intention was to march northward; and, leading his army forth from Windsor, he encamped at Abingdon, a town of Berkshire, on the River Thames. Learning, at Abingdon, that Margaret and her captains were still at Wells, he moved a little northward to Cirencester, in Gloucestershire, and was then informed that the Lancastrians were about to leave Bath and give him battle on the 1st of May—the anniversary of his ill-judged and ill-starred marriage.
Eager for a conflict, the king marched his army out of the town of Cirencester, and, encamping in the neighboring fields, awaited the arrival of his foes. Edward soon found, however, that he had been deceived; and, in hopes of finding them, marched to Malmesbury, in Wiltshire. Learning, at that town, that the Lancastrians had turned aside to Bristol, he went to Sodbury, a place about ten miles distant from the emporium of the west: and, at Sodbury, from the circumstances of his men, while riding into the town to secure quarters, encountering a body of the enemy's outriders, and the Lancastrians having sent forward men to take their ground on Sodbury Hill, he believed that their army was at no great distance. Eager for intelligence, Edward sent light horsemen to scour the country, and encamped on Sodbury Hill. About midnight on Thursday, scouts came into the camp, and Edward's suspense was terminated. It appeared beyond doubt that the Lancastrians were on full march from Bristol to Gloucester; and the king, awake to the crisis, lost no time in holding a council of war. A decision was rapidly arrived at; and a messenger dispatched post-haste to Richard, Lord Beauchamp of Powicke, then Governor of Gloucester, with instructions to refuse the Lancastrians admittance and a promise to relieve the city forthwith in case of its being assailed.
Events now hastened rapidly onward. The king's messenger had no time to lose; for the Lancastrian army, having marched all night, was pushing on toward the vale of Gloucester. The vale, as the reader may be aware, is semicircular—the Severn forming the chord, the Cotswold Hills the arc; and Cheltenham, Gloucester, and Tewkesbury making a triangle with its area. Into the second of these towns Margaret expected to be admitted; and she calculated on being enabled, under the protection of its walls and castle, to pass the Severn without interruption, and to form a junction with Jasper Tudor, who was all bustle and enthusiasm in Wales.
A grievous disappointment awaited the Lancastrian army—a bitter mortification the Lancastrian queen. On Friday morning, a few hours after sunrise, Margaret of Anjou, with the warriors of the Red Rose, appeared before Gloucester. But Beauchamp, having received Edward's message, positively refused to open the gates; and when Margaret, with a heavy heart, turned aside and proceeded toward Tewkesbury, he still farther displayed his Yorkist zeal by hanging on the rear of the Lancastrians and doing them all the mischief he could. Even Somerset must have confessed that the aspect of affairs was now the reverse of bright; and, after leaving Gloucester behind, every thing began to go wrong. The march lay through woods and lanes, and over stony ground; and the soldiers, hungry and foot-sore, were oppressed with the heat of the weather. Moreover, the peasantry, inclined, for some reason or other, to oppose the progress of the Lancastrians, secured the fords by which the Severn might have been crossed; and Beauchamp not only harassed the rear of the queen's army, but succeeded in capturing some artillery, which she was in no condition to spare. At length, on Friday afternoon, after having marched thirty-six miles, without rest, and almost without food, the Lancastrians, weary and dispirited, reached Tewkesbury, a little town standing on the left bank of the Severn, and deriving some dignity from a Norman abbey, known far and wide as the sepulchre of a mighty race of barons, whose chiefs fought at Evesham and fell at Bannockburn. At this place, which had been inherited from the De Clares, through Beauchamps and Despensers, by the Countess of Warwick, the Lancastrian leaders halted to refresh their men.
Early on that morning, when the queen and her captains appeared before Gloucester, Edward left Sodbury, and led his army over the Cotswolds, whose sheep and shepherds old Drayton has celebrated. His soldiers suffered much from heat, and still more for want of water; only meeting, on their way, with one brook, the water of which, as men and horses dashed in, was soon rendered unfit for use. Onward, however, in spite of heat and thirst, as if prescient of victory, pressed Edward's soldiers, sometimes within five miles of their enemies—the Yorkists in a champaign country, and the Lancastrians among woods—but the chiefs of both armies directing their march toward the same point. At length, after having marched more than thirty miles, the Yorkists reached a little village situated on the River Chelt, secluded in the vale of Gloucester, and consisting of a few thatched cottages forming a straggling street near a church with an ancient spire, which had been erected in honor of St. Mary before the Plantagenets came to rule in England. At this hamlet, which the saline springs, discovered some centuries later by the flight of pigeons, have metamorphosed into a beautiful and luxurious city, Edward halted to recruit the energies and refresh the spirits of his followers. At Cheltenham the king received intelligence that the foe was at Tewkesbury; and, marching in that direction, he encamped for the night in a field hard by the Lancastrian camp.
Ere the king reached Cheltenham the Lancastrians had formed their plans. On arriving at Tewkesbury, Somerset, aware that the Yorkists were fast approaching, intimated his intention to remain and give Edward battle. Margaret, as if with the presentiment of a tragic catastrophe, was all anxiety to cross the Severn; and many of the captains sympathized with their queen's wish. Somerset, however, carried his point; and, indeed, it is not easy to comprehend how the Lancastrians could, under the circumstances, have attempted a passage without exposing their rear to certain destruction. Somerset's opinion on any subject may not have been worth much; but he does not appear to have been in the wrong when he decided on encamping at Tewkesbury, and when he declared his intention there to abide such fortune as God should send.
So at Tewkesbury, through that summer night, within a short distance of each other, the armies of York and Lancaster, under the sons of those who, years before, had plucked the roses in the Temple Garden, and encountered with mortal hatred in the streets of St. Albans, animated moreover by such vindictive feelings as the memory of friends and kinsmen slain in the field and executed on the scaffold could not fail to inspire, awaited the light of another day, to fight their twelfth battle for the crown of England.