A noble hart ought not the sooner yeelde,
Nor shrinke a backe for any weale or woe,
But for his prince lie bleeding in the feelde:
If priuy spight at any time mee helde,
The price is paide: and greeuous is my guerdon,
As for the rest God (I trust) will pardon.
G. F.[947]
[After this tragedy ended, one sayd: “Seeing this duke hath so vehemently exclaimed against the duke of Yorke’s practises, it were well done to heare what hee can say for himselfe. For after the first battaile at Sainct Albane’s he was[948] made protectour,[949] which so much greeued queene Margaret and her complices, that priuy grutches and open dissembling neuer ceased till the duke and his allyes were fayne to flie both field and realme, hee into Ireland, and they to Calais. Whence they came againe with an army, whereof Richard Neuill earle of Salisbury was leder, and marched toward Couentry, where the king was, and had gathered an army to subdue them, and encountred them at Northampton on the 10 day of Iuly in the yeare of grace 1460, fought with them, lost the fielde, and was taken himselfe and many of his friendes slaine, as Humfrey Stafford duke of Buckingham, Iohn Talbot the second of that name earle of Shrewesbury, Iohn vicount Beaumont, Thomas lord Egremont, sir William Lucy and diuers other. But ouerpassing all these and many moe because they were honorably slaine in the fielde, let vs come to him who was the chiefe cause thereof, that is to say, Richard Plantagenet duke of Yorke slaine in the battayl at Wakefield on Christmas euen, and Edmund earle of Rutland his yong sonne, who was there murdered by the lord Clifford as hee would have fled into the towne to haue saued himselfe.
Therefore imagine that you see a tall man’s body full of fresh woundes, but lacking a head, holding by the hand a goodly childe, whose breast was so wounded that his heart might be seene, his louely face and eyes disfigured with dropping teares, his haire through horror standing vpright, his mercy crauing handes all to bee mangled, and all his body embrued with his owne bloud. Out of the wesand pipe of which headles body came a shreking voice saying as followeth.”]