his throne, to be fent back to his former manfion.

Nothing now, therefore, remained to Warwick,but to cut fhort a ftate of anxious fufpenfe by hazarding a battle. Edward's fortune prevailed. They met at St. Albans, and the Lancaftrians were defeated, while Warwick himself, leading a chofen body of troops into the thickeft of the flaughter, fell in the midst of his enemies, covered with wounds.

Margaret, receiving the fatal news of the death of the brave Warwick, and the total deftruction of her party, gave way to her grief, for the first time, in a torrent of tears; and yielding to her unhappy fate, took fanctuary in the abbey of Beaulieu, in Hampshire.

She had not been long in this melancholy abode before the found fome few friends ftill willing to affift her fallen fortunes. Tudor, earl of Pembroke, Courtney, earl of Devonfhire, the lords Wenlock and St. John, with other men of rank, exhorted her ftill to hope for fuccefs, and offered to affift her to the laft. She had now fought battles in almoft every province in England; Tewkesbury-park was the last fcene that terminated her attempts. The duke of Somerfet headed her army; a man who had fhared her dangers, and had ever been fteady in her cause. He was valiant, generous, and polite; but rafh and headftrong. When Edward first attacked him in his intrenchments, he repulfed him with fuch vigour, that the enemy retired with precipitation; upon which the duke fuppofing them routed, pursued, and ordered lord Wenlock to fupport his charge. But unfortunately this lord difobeyed his orders; and Somerfet's forces were foon overpowered by numbers. In this dreadful exigence, the duke, finding that all was over, became ungovernable in his rage; and beholding Wenlock inactive, and remaining in the very place where he had firft drawn up his men,

giving

giving way to his fury, with his heavy battle-ax in both hands, he ran upon the coward, and with one blow dashed out his brains.

The

The queen and the prince were taken prifoners after the battle, and brought into the prefence of Edward. The young prince appeared before the conqueror with undaunted majefty; and being afked, in an infulting manner, how he dared to invade England without-leave, the young prince, more mindful of his high birth than of his ruined fortune, replied, "I have entered the dominions of my father, to revenge his injuries, and redress my own.' barbarous Edward, enraged at his intrepidity, ftruck him on the mouth with his gauntlet; and this served as a fignal for further brutality: the dukes of Gloucefter, Clarence and others, like wild beafts, rushing on the unarmed youth at once, ftabbed him to the heart with their daggers. To complete the tragedy, Henry himself, who had long been the paffive fpectator of all these horrors, was now thought unfit to live. The duke of Gloucefter, afterwards Richard the Third, entering his chamber alone, murdered him in cold blood. Of all thofe that were taken, none were fuffered to furvive but Margaret herself. It was perhaps expected that she would be ranfomed by the king of France; and in this they were not deceived, as that monarch paid the king of England fifty thoufand crowns for her freedom. This extraordinary woman, after having fuftained the caufe of her hufband in twelve battles, after having furvived her friends, fortunes, and children, died a few years. after in privacy in France, very miferable indeed; but with few other claims to our pity, except her courage and her distresses.

СНАР.

E

CHA P. XIX.

EDW A R D IV.

DWARD being now freed from great enemies, turned the punishment to thofe of leffer note; fo that the gibbets were hung with his adverfaries, and their eflates confifcated to his ufe.

While he was thus rendering himself terrible on the one hand, he was immerfed in abandoned pleafures on the other. Nature, it feems, was not unfavourable to him in that refpect; as he was univerfally allowed to be the most beautiful man of his time. His courtiers alfo feemed willing to encourage thofe debaucheries in which they had a fhare; and the clergy, as they themselves practifed every kind of lewdness with impunity, were ever ready to lerd abfolution to all his failings. The truth is, enormous vices had been of late fo common, that adultery was held but as a very flight offence. Among the number of his miftreffes was the wife of one Shore, a merchant in the city, a woman of exquifite beauty and good fenfe, but who had not virtue enough to refift the temptations of a beautiful man, and a monarch.

Among his other cruelties, that to his brother the duke of Clarence is the moft remarkable. The king hunting one day in the park of Thomas Burdet, a creature of the duke's, killed a white buck, which was a great favourite of the owner. Burdet, vexed at the lofs, broke into a paffion, and wifhed the horns of the deer in the belly of the person who had advifed the king to that infult. For this trifling exclamation Burdet was tried for his life, and publickly executed at Tyburn. The duke of Clarence, upon the death of his friend, vented his grief in renewed

4

reproaches

reproaches against his brother, and exclaimed against the iniquity of the fentence. The king highly offended with this liberty, or ufing that as a pretext against him, had him arraigned before the houfe of peers, and appeared in perfon as his accufer. In thofe times of confufion, every crime alledged by the prevailing party was fatal; the duke was found guilty; and being granted a choice of the manner in which he would die, he was privately drowned in a butt of malmsey in the tower; a whimsical choice, and im. plying that he had an extraordinary paffion for that liquor.

However, if this monarch's reign was tyrannical, it was but fhort; while he was employed in making preparations for a war with France, he was feized with a distemper, of which he expired in the fortyfecond year of his age, and (counting from the death of the late king) in the twenty-third of his reign.

HE duke of Gloucefter, who had been made protector of the realm, upon a pretence of guarding the perfons of the late king's children from danger, conveyed them both to the Tower.

Having thus fecured them, his next step was to fpread a report of their illegitimacy; and by pretended obftacles, to put off the day appointed for young Edward's coronation. His next aim was to dispatch lord Haftings, whom he knew to be warmly in the young king's intereft.

Having fummoned lord Haftings to a council in the Tower, he entered the room knitting his brows, biting his lips, and fhewing, by a frequent change of countenance, the figns of fome inward perturba

G

tion.

tion. A filence enfued for fome time; and the lords of the council looked upon each other, not without reafon, expecting fome horrid catastrophe. Laying bare his arm all thrivelled and decayed, he accufed Jane Shore and her accomplices of having produced this deformity by their forceries, upon which Haftings cried, "If they have committed fuch a crime, they deferve punishment." 66 If

cried the protector, with a loud voice, doft thou anfwer me with Ifs? I tell thee that they have conspired my death; and that thou, traitor, art an accomplice in the crime." He then ftruck the table twice with his hand; and the room was inftantly filled with armed men. "I arreft thee, continues he, turning to Haftings, for high treafon; and at the fame time gave him in charge to the foldiers. Haftings was obliged to make a fhort confeffion to the next priest that was at hand; the protector crying out, By St. Paul, that he would not dine till he had feen his head taken off. He was accordingly hurried out to the Little Green before the Tower-chapel, and there beheaded on a log of wood, that accidentally lay in the

way.

Jane Shore, the late king's mistress, was the next that felt his indignation. This unfortunate woman was an enemy too humble to excite his jealoufy; yet as he had accufed her of witchcraft, of which all the world faw fhe was innocent, he thought proper to make her an example, for those faults of which he was really guilty. Jane Shore had been formerly deluded from her husband, who was a goldfmith in Lombard Street, and continued to live with Edward, the most guiltless miftrefs in his abandoned court. It was very probable, that the people were not difpleafed at feeing one again reduced to former meanels, who had for a while been raised above them, and enjoyed the fmiles of a court, The charge against her was too notorious to be denied; fhe plead

ed