The Earl of Warwick gave the command of the Lancastrian right wing, which consisted of horse, to his brother, the Marquis Montague, [207d] and the Earl of Oxford; [207e] the left wing, also consisting in a great measure of horse, was under the command of the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Exeter; [207f] and the middle, which consisted principally of archers and bill-men, was commanded by the Duke of Somerset. [207g]
The battle commenced very early in the morning, Edward having between four and five o’clock, advanced his banners, and caused his trumpets to sound for battle; and as soon as the opposite forces got sight of each other, the conflict commenced with archery, and they shortly afterwards, encountered each other with hand blows. In consequence of the fog, the armies were inadvertently not drawn up exactly opposite each other; the Earl of Warwick’s right wing, under the command of the Earl of Oxford, extending a little beyond Edward’s left, which stood to the westward; and in consequence of it, that part of his army was rather overmatched; [207h] and we may readily believe, that from the same cause, Edward’s right wing outflanked Warwick’s left. By reason of that circumstance, and the fierceness and intrepidity, with which the Earl of Oxford attacked his enemies, he had at first a considerable degree of success; he broke a part of the ranks of the Yorkists, and several of the fugitives fled to London, and gave out that the Lancastrians were victorious. This, however, proved to be of no eventual advantage, and gave no encouragement to the other forces of Warwick, because the fog prevented their being fully aware of it; beside which, some of Oxford’s men commenced pillaging, instead of following up their first success. An unfortunate mistake also occurred in consequence of the fog: the device of the Earl of Oxford, a star with rays, being mistaken for that of Edward, the sun in splendour; [208] and the Lancastrian archers shot at Oxford’s troops, which caused Oxford and many of his men to suppose it to be the effect of treachery, and to quit the field.
The Duke of Gloucester gave proofs of the undaunted courage and daring spirit, for which he was always conspicuous, and which his enemies have never ventured to deny; he fought valiantly against the Lancastrians; and his two esquires, John Milwater and Thomas Parr, were slain at his feet.
Warwick, at the head of his troops, attacked the part of the Yorkist army, in which Edward was; and the battle was for a long time, obstinate and bloody. Edward, however, brought up his reserve at an opportune moment, and at length, the Earl of Warwick was slain, and a complete victory was obtained by Edward, over the Lancastrians. John Neville, Marquis Montague, and several knights, of whom Sir William Tyrrel was one, also perished. The Duke of Exeter was wounded, and left for dead upon the field, from seven in the morning, until four in the afternoon, when he was brought to the house of one of his servants named Ruthland, where he was attended by a surgeon; he was conveyed to sanctuary at Westminster, and afterwards went abroad. The Duke of Somerset and the Earl of Oxford fled, in the company of some northern men, towards Scotland; but changing their plans, Somerset made for Wales, in order to join Jasper Earl of Pembroke; and Oxford escaped to France, from whence, he not long afterwards returned, with some men, and seized the fortress of St. Michael’s Mount, on the coast of Cornwall, which he held for several months, against King Edward’s forces.
On King Edward’s side, there were slain, Lord Cromwell; [209a] Lord Saye; [209b] Sir Humphrey Bourchier, son of John Lord Berners; [209c] Sir John Lisle; [209d] and about 1500 men; but the loss on the Lancastrian side is said to have amounted to about double that number, Edward having given orders not to give any quarter. Most of the slain were buried on the plain where they had fallen, and where, according to Stow, a chapel was afterwards built, in memory of them, of which there are now no remains; but he states, that when he wrote, it was a dwelling-house, and the upper portions remained. Some of the bodies of the persons who had been of a higher rank, are said to have been removed, and interred in the church in Austin Friars, London.
The bodies of the Earl of Warwick, and the Marquis Montague, were conveyed in a cart to London, and for three days lay in Saint Paul’s Cathedral Church, with their faces exposed to view, so that no person could doubt their deaths; and they were then buried with their ancestors, in Bisham Abbey, in Berkshire, where they remained until the dissolution of monasteries, when the abbey was destroyed, and all knowledge of the exact spots where they were interred, is now forgotten.
Such was the end of the career of the great, valiant, and powerful Earl of Warwick, who has been not incorrectly described as the “proud setter-up and puller-down of Kings,” [210a] and who had been mainly instrumental in dethroning Henry VI. and making Edward IV. a King; and again, in dethroning Edward, and restoring Henry.
Warwick (wounded).—“For who liv’d King, but I could dig his grave?
And who durst smile, when Warwick bent his brow?
Lo, now my glory smear’d in dust and blood!
My parks, my walks, my manors that I had,
Even now forsake me; and of all my lands,
Is nothing left me, but my body’s length!”Shakespeare’s Henry VI. part iii. act v. scene 2.
(A Field of Battle near Barnet.)
From the accounts given by the old historians, [210b] it is clear that cannons or some other description of firearms were used at the battle of Barnet. Besides which, W. Hutton, F.S.A., states that the keeper of the Red Cow Tavern, near the obelisk after mentioned, preserved a ball of a pound and a half weight, which he dug out of the ground. [210c]
An obelisk of stone, apparently about eighteen or twenty feet high, commemorative of the battle, [210d] and of the place [210e] where it was fought, was erected by Sir Jeremy Sambroke, Bart., in 1740.