On Tuesday, while the scaffold was being erected in the market-place of Tewkesbury for the execution of those who had risked all in her cause, Margaret of Anjou was discovered in the religious house to which she had been conveyed from the field on which her last hopes were wrecked. The Lancastrian queen was brought to Edward by Sir William Stanley, still zealous on the Yorkist side, and little dreaming of the part he was to take at Bosworth in rendering the Red Rose finally triumphant. Margaret's life was spared; but her high spirit was gone, and, on being informed of her son's death, the unfortunate princess only gave utterance to words of lamentation and woe. Now that he around whom all her hopes had clustered was no more, what could life be to her? what the rival Roses? what the contentions of York and Lancaster? Her ambition was buried in the grave of her son, who had been her consolation and her hope.
Sir John Fortescue was among the Lancastrians whom the victory of Tewkesbury placed in Edward's power; and the great lawyer was in some danger of having to seal with his blood his devotion to the Red Rose. Fortescue, however, had no longings for a crown of martyrdom; and Edward, luckily for his memory, perceived that the house of York would lose nothing by sparing a foe so venerable and so learned. It happened that, when in Scotland, Fortescue had produced a treatise vindicating the claims of the house of Lancaster to the English crown, and the king consented to pardon the ex-chief-justice if he would write a similar treatise in favor of the claims of the line of York. The condition was hard; but that was an age when, to borrow old Fuller's phrase, it was present drowning not to swim with the stream; and Fortescue, consenting to the terms, applied himself to the arduous task. The difficulty was not insuperable. In his argument for Lancaster he had relied much on the fact of Philippa of Clarence having never been acknowledged by her father. In his argument for York he showed that Philippa's legitimacy had been proved beyond all dispute. On the production of the treatise his pardon was granted; and the venerable judge retired to spend the remainder of his days at Ebrington, an estate which he possessed in Gloucestershire.
About the time that Fortescue received a pardon, John Morton, who, like the great lawyer, had fought on Towton Field, and since followed the ruined fortunes of Lancaster, expressed his readiness to make peace with the Yorkist king. In this case no difficulty was interposed. Edward perceived that the learning and intellect of the "late parson of Blokesworth" might be of great service to the government. Morton's attainder was therefore reversed at the earliest possible period, and he soon after became Bishop of Ely.
Meanwhile, on the scaffold erected in the market-place of Tewkesbury, the Lancastrians were beheaded, the Prior of St. John appearing on the mournful occasion in the long black robe and white cross of his order. No quartering nor dismembering of the bodies, however, was practiced, nor were the heads of the vanquished set up in public places, as after Wakefield and Towton. The bodies of those who died, whether on the field or the scaffold, were handed over to their friends or servants, who interred them where seemed best. Most of them, including those of the Prince of Wales, Devon, Somerset, and John Beaufort, were laid in the abbey church; but the corpse of Wenlock was removed elsewhere, probably to be buried in the Wenlock Chapel, which he had built at Luton; and that of the prior was consigned to the care of the great fraternity of religious knights at Clerkenwell, of which he had been the head.
After wreaking his vengeance upon the conquered, Edward moved northward to complete his triumph, and forgot for a while the blood he had shed. Years after, however, when laid on his death-bed, the memory of those executions appears to have lain heavy upon his conscience, and he mournfully expressed the regret which they caused him. "Such things, if I had foreseen," said he, "as I have with more pain than pleasure proved, by God's Blessed Lady I would never have won the courtesy of men's knees with the loss of so many heads."
[CHAPTER XXXIII.]
WARWICK'S VICE-ADMIRAL.
One day in May, 1471, while Edward of York was at Tewkesbury, while Henry of Windsor was a captive in the Tower, and while Elizabeth Woodville and her family were also lodged for security in the metropolitan fortress—thus at once serving the purposes of a prison and a palace—a sudden commotion took place in the capital of England, and consternation appeared on the face of every citizen. The alarm was by no means causeless, for never had the wealth of London looked so pale since threatened by the Lancastrian army after the battle on Bernard's Heath.
Among the English patricians who, at the beginning of the struggle between York and Lancaster, attached themselves to the fortunes of the White Rose, was William Neville, son of Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland, brother of Cicely, Duchess of York, and uncle of Richard, Earl of Warwick. This Yorkist warrior derived from the heiress whom he had married the lordship of Falconbridge; and, after leading the van at Towton, he was rewarded by Edward with the earldom of Kent. Dying soon after, he was laid at rest, with obsequies befitting his rank, in the Priory of Gisborough, and his lands were inherited by his three daughters, one of whom was the wife of Sir John Conyers.