In July, 1468, his forces defeated the royalists with great slaughter at Edgecote, and a few days later he made Edward his prisoner. The Lancastrians at once rose again in favor of the aged King Henry; but Warwick, maintaining his allegiance to his royal captive, suppressed all revolts with an iron hand, and, having received renewed pledges of good faith, soon after restored Edward to his throne.

Two years later the king declared Warwick a rebel; and he was compelled to flee to France. Louis XI. used his influence in bringing Warwick and Margaret, wife of King Henry, together, and they agreed to forget their differences in the face of a common enemy. Clarence, the new king's brother, had previously married Warwick's daughter, and joined his party.

Once more the king-maker landed in England and advanced on London. Edward fled to Holland and Henry was again placed upon the throne. But ere long Edward secretly landed in England, raised an army, not without difficulty, and met Warwick at Barnet. The faithless Clarence had in the meantime deserted Warwick and joined his brother's army. The army of Warwick was composed of strangely different elements—old enemies fighting side by side as friends. The battle was lost mainly through a grievous blunder. In the heavy mist which hung around, the party of the Earl of Oxford were mistaken for the enemy and were attacked by their own friends. The cry of treachery was raised, and the whole army broke into utter rout. Warwick resisted till all hope was gone. He had fought on foot throughout the battle, and his heavy armor did not suffer him to escape. He was surrounded and slain, fighting manfully, April 14, 1471.

Thus fell on the field of battle Richard, Earl of Warwick, in the prime of his life, after sixteen years of deep intrigue and desperate fighting. Had he been born in a more peaceful time he would have been a great statesman, and have done much for the good of his country, for his talents were more political than military, and almost alone among the self-seeking rivals of the time, he shows something of the instincts of patriotism. Cast as he was in the troublous times of the Wars of the Roses, he stands out in character and genius above all those of his generation. He was the best beloved man in the kingdom. When he was away from England, says Hall, the common people thought the sun had gone out of the heavens. His personality cast a charm over even Louis XI. The heart of the Yorkist party, he was true to its cause till he found that his service was no longer desired. He was not the man to sit quietly under insult, and when it came from King Edward, who owed all that he was to him, it was more than he could endure. Yet it was only when he found his every project thwarted, and especially those that were dearest to his heart, that he was driven into open warfare with the king. His treason is capable of much justification: he cannot be accused of forsaking his master. He had in him the making of a great king, and how great and useful might have been his career had fortune placed him over the councils of a Charles VII. or a Henry VI.! As it is, he stands in worth and character far above any of his time, a figure that commands not merely admiration but affection.[Back to Contents]

HERNANDO CORTES[17]
By H. Rider Haggard
(1485-1547)

Among the millions that from age to age are born into this world there arise in every generation one or two pre-eminent men and women who are objects of the wonder and the envy, the admiration and the hatred of their contemporaries, and whose names, after their deaths, stand out as landmarks by which we shape a course across the dark and doubtful seas of history. Cæsar and Cromwell, Mahomet and Napoleon, to mention no others, were such men, and such a man was Hernando Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico. They have been called, and well called, Men of Destiny, since it is impossible in studying their lives and tracing their vast influence upon human affairs, to avoid the conclusion that they were raised up and endowed with great talents and opportunities in order that by their agency the ends of Providence might be shaped.

Hernando Cortes was born of a good family, at the town of Medellin in Spain, in 1485, and educated at the college of Salamanca. At the age of nineteen having proved himself unfit to follow the profession of the law to which his parents had destined him, he emigrated to the Indian Island of Hispaniola where he was appointed notary of the town of Acua, and in 1511 assisted in the conquest of Cuba under the command of Velasquez. Here after many curious adventures and vacillations he married a lady named Catalina Xuarez, and being created alcade of the settlement of St. Jago realized a moderate fortune by the practice of agriculture and mining. In 1518 there came to Cuba news of the discoveries made by Grijalva in Yucatan on the coast of the country now known as Mexico, and the Governor, Velasquez, determined to despatch a force to explore this new land. After much intriguing and in consideration of the payment of a considerable sum of money toward the expenses, Cortes whose ambitious spirit had already wearied of a life of peace and indolence, contrived to persuade Velasquez to appoint him Captain General of the expedition. Before the ships sailed, however, Velasquez repented him of the appointment, for in Cortes he recognized a servant who might well become his master, and made arrangements to invest some other hidalgo with the leadership of the expedition. Now it was that Cortes showed what manner of man he was. Many in his position on learning the wishes of their superior would have tamely yielded up their posts. Not so Cortes, who on the first hint that he was to be deprived of his authority, collected his men, and all unprepared as was his squadron, weighed anchor while the governor slept. At the town of Trinidad he landed to collect stores and volunteers, treating with contempt the orders that reached the commander of the town from Velasquez to depose him from his command and detain his person. Here it was that Cortes made his famous address to the volunteers, wherein he shows that although his instructions were to undertake a trading voyage and acquire information of the country, his real aim was far different, since he promises unimagined wealth to those who are true to him, and by a curious flash of prescience prophesies immortal renown to their enterprise. On February 10, 1519, he sailed to the conquest of Mexico, accompanied by some six hundred and fifty white men and a few Indians. Cortes was in his thirty-fourth year when he entered on this the greatest of his enterprises. He was pale faced and dark eyed, somewhat slender in build, but of an iron strength and constitution. In temper he was patient though liable to fits of passion, and in disposition frank, merry, and generous, but most determined. He dressed richly and was constant in his religious exercises. Such was the great captain, a man suited by circumstances and nature to the desperate undertaking which it was his destiny to bring to a successful issue.

Having touched at the island of Cozumel on the coast of Yucatan, Cortes sailed up the Tabasco River and began his work of conquest by attacking a great army of Indians in the neighborhood of that town. For a while the natives held their own notwithstanding their dismay at the sound and effects of fire-arms; but the appearance of the horsemen, whom they took to be strange animals, caused them to flee in terror leaving many hundreds of their warriors dead upon the field. On the morrow they made their submission, bringing women and other gifts as a peace-offering. Among these women was one named Malinche, or by the Spaniards Marina, whom Cortes took as a mistress and who is described by Camargo as having been "beautiful as a goddess." It was this lady, born to be the evil genius of her country, who instructed her lord and master in the habits, traditions, and history of the Aztecs, and of the land of Anahuac which they inhabited together with other tribes. She was Cortes' interpreter and confidante, whose business it was to gain information from the Indians, which he could use, and whose wit and devotion more than once saved him from disaster. So invaluable were her services to Cortes that it is doubtful if without her aid he would have succeeded in conquering Mexico, and it was from her that he acquired the name of Malinche by which he was known among the Indian races. Her reward, when she had served his purpose and he was weary of her, was to be given by him in marriage to another man.