Meanwhile the Duke of Gloucester had led his troops to a furious attack on the enemy's left wing which was commanded by Warwick in person. The Duke himself plunged into the thickest of the fight. His two esquires, John Milwater[[13]] and Thomas Parr, were slain by his side. At the moment when the fate of the battle was still uncertain, and when the King heard that his young brother was hard pressed, the reserves were brought into action, just as Somerset's division began to waver. Victory then ceased to be doubtful, and soon there was complete rout all along the rebel line. The Earl of Warwick and his brother Montagu fell either in the battle or in attempting to escape. The accounts vary. Though enemies and traitors to the royal brothers, they were cousins, and had once been devoted friends. The King sincerely mourned the death of Montagu, and the depth of Richard's sorrow is proved by his subsequent intercession for Montagu's heirs. The bodies, after being laid for two days in St. Paul's Cathedral, were honourably interred in the burial place of their mother's family at Bisham. The losses on the King's side included Lord Saye, who had shared Edward's exile, Humphrey Bourchier Lord Cromwell,[[14]] another Sir Humphrey Bourchier,[[15]] son of Lord Berners, and the son and heir of Lord Mountjoy. The losses, on both sides, amounted to about 1,500 men.[[16]] King Edward and the Duke of Gloucester returned to London the same day, while their army rested for the night on the battlefield.
[[1]] Rot. Parl. vol. vi. p. 227. Halsted, i. 432.
[[2]] Sandford, p. 391.
[[3]] The tombs were desecrated in the time of Edward VI., when the college was granted to John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. Queen Elizabeth gave orders that they should be restored. The bones of Richard Duke of York, of the Duchess Cicely, and of Edmund Earl of Rutland, lapped in lead, were removed into the parish church. For the choir, where they rested under the beautiful shrine, had been destroyed. Mean monuments of plaster were then erected over them, and over the remains of Edward Duke of York, on either side of the altar. They are specimens of the taste of the Elizabethan age, fluted columns supporting a frieze and cornice, ornamented with the falcon and fetter-lock. In the inscriptions they have forgotten the name of young Edmund Earl of Rutland.
[[4]] Portrait at Windsor Castle. Dr. Parr, in a letter to Roscoe, speaking of the head of Lorenzo (the Magnificent) prefixed to Roscoe's biography, says: 'I am very much mistaken if, by invigorating a few traits, it would not make an excellent head of Richard III.'—Life of Roscoe, i. 178.
[[5]] Buck, p. 83.
[[6]] Paston Letters, ii. 357, 389.
[[7]] Comines.
[[8]] The ships of the towns belonging to the Hanseatic League, in the Baltic, and on the Elbe, were known in England by the name of Easterlings.
[[9]] Ravenspur appears, from the description of the writer in Fleetwood, to have been inside Spurn Head. He says: 'He landed within Humber on Holderness side, at a place called Ravenspoure.'