[[10]] The Tudor chroniclers, as is their wont, grossly exaggerate and misrepresent this incident: introducing imaginary details, including an oath before an altar, vows of allegiance to Henry VI., and other romances. These are the offspring of their zeal to please their Tudor paymasters, by traducing the House of York.
[[11]] Warkworth says that: 'each of them loosed guns at other all night.' Balls have been dug up weighing 1-½ lbs.
[[12]] The second Alberic de Vere, father of the first Earl of Oxford, was a crusader. In 1098 he was in a battle near Antioch when the infidels were defeated. During the chase, a silver star of five points was seen to descend from heaven and light on Alberic's shield, there shining excessively. It had ever since been borne in the first quarter of the Vere arms. This is the old tradition. Modern heralds suspect that the mullet was merely a mark of cadency adopted by the second brother of the second Earl, who retained it when he became third Earl.
[[13]] Mentioned in the letter of Edward and Edmund to their father.
[[14]] Ralph Cromwell, fourth Baron Cromwell, who was Lord Treasurer for Henry VI., and was the builder of Tattershall Castle, died childless in 1455. His sister Maud married Sir Richard Stanhope and had a daughter Maud, whose husband Sir Humphrey Bourchier, third son of Henry Bourchier Earl of Essex, by the Princess Isabel Plantagenet (aunt of Edward IV.), took the title of Lord Cromwell jure uxoris. This Lord Cromwell seems to have been a student of law as well as a soldier. There is a manuscript copy of the statutes of Edward III. in the Hunterian Library of Glasgow University which once belonged to him. At the beginning there is the following entry: 'Eximii et preclari militis liber, Johannis Markham capitalis just, de B. Regis, Liber Humfredi Bourchier dmus Cromwell ex dono supradicti'; and at the end: 'This boke is mine Humphrey Bourchier Lord Cromwell by the gift of the right noble and famous judge Sir John Markham Chief Justice of the King's Bench.'
[[15]] Sir John Bourchier, fourth son of William Bourchier Earl of Eu, by Anne, daughter of Thomas Duke of Gloucester, married the heiress of Sir Richard Berners, and was summoned to Parliament as Lord Berners in 1455 to 1472. The second Humphrey Bourchier who was slain at Barnet was his son. Fabyan and Habington call him 'Lord Barnes.'
[[16]] Fabyan gives the number at 1,500. Habington says 4,600. Hall is unreliable as usual. He says 10,000 on both sides. Although some writers say that the King's army was superior in numbers, it is probable that, while Edward only had 9,000 men, the forces of Warwick were very much more numerous.