Lancastrians, imagining that they were gotten within reach of the opposite army, discharged all their arrows, which thus fell short of the Yorkists.* After the quivers of the enemy were emptied, Edward advanced his line, and did execution with impunity on the dismayed Lancastrians: the bow, however, was soon laid aside, and the sword decided the combat, which ended in a total victory on the side of the Yorkists. Edward issued orders to give no quarter. The routed army was pursued to Tadcaster with great bloodsned and confusion; and above thirty-six thousand men are computed to have fallen in the battle and pursuit: among these were the earl of Westmoreland, and his brother Sir John Nevil, the earl of Northumberland, the Lords Dacres and Welles, and Sir Andrew Trollop. The earl of Devonshire, who was now engaged in Henry's party, was brought a prisoner to Edward; and was soon after beheaded by martial law at York. His head was fixed on a pole erected over a gate of that city; and the head of Duke Richard and that of the earl of Salisbury were taken down, and buried with their bodies. Henry and Margaret had remained at York during the action; but learning the defeat of their army, and being sensible that no place in England could now afford them shelter, they fled with great precipitation into Scotland. They were accompanied by the duke of Exeter, who, though he had married Edward's sister, had taken part with the Lancastrians; and by Henry, duke of Somerset, who had commanded in the unfortunate battle of Touton, and who was the son of that nobleman killed in the first battle of St. Albans. Notwithstanding the great animosity which prevailed between the kingdoms, Scotland had never exerted itself with vigor, to take advantage either of the wars which England carried on with France, or of the civil commotions which arose between the contending families. James I., more laudably employed in civilizing his subjects, and taming them to the salutary yoke of law and justice, avoided all hostilities with foreign nations; and though he seemed interested to maintain a balance between France and England, he gave no further assistance to the former kingdom in its greatest dis tresses, than permitting, and perhaps encouraging, his subjects *Hall, fol. 186. Holingshed, p. 665. Grafton, p. 656. + Habington, p. 432. Hist. Croyl. Cont. p. 533. to enlist in the French service. After the murder of that excellent prince, the minority of his son and successor, James II., and the distractions incident to it, retained the Scots in the same state of neutrality; and the superiority visibly ac quired by France, rendered it then unnecessary for her ally to interpose in her defence. But when the quarrel commenced between the houses of York and Lancaster, and became absolutely incurable but by the total extinction of ore party, James, who had now risen to man's estate, was tempted to seize the opportunity, and he endeavored to recover those places which the English had formerly conquered from his arcestors. He laid siege to the Castle of Roxburgh in 1460, and had provided himself with a small train of artillery for that enterprise : but his cannon were so ill framed, that one of them burst as he was firing it, and put an end to his life in the flower of his age. His son and successor, James III., was also a minor on his accession: the usual distractions ensued in the government: the queen dowager, Anne of Gueldres, aspired to the regency: the family of Douglas opposed her pretensions: and Queen Margaret, when she fled into Scotland, found there a people little less divided by faction, than those by whom she had been expelled. Though she pleaded the connections between the royal family of Scotland and the house of Lancaster, by the young king's grandmother, a daughter of the earl of Somerset, she could engage the Scottish council to go no further than to express their good wishes in her favor; but on her offer to deliver to them immediately the important fortress of Berwick, and to contract her son in marriage with a sister of King James, she found a better reception; and the Scots promised the assistance of their arms to reinstate her family upon the throne.* as the danger from that quarter seemed not very urgent to Edward, he did not pursue the fugitive king and queen into their retreat; but returned to London, where a parliament was summoned for settling the government. But On the meeting of this assembly, Edward found the good effects of his vigorous measure in assuming the crown, as well as of his victory at Touton, by which he had secured it: the parliament no longer hesitated between the two families or proposed any of those ambiguous decisions which could only serve to perpetuate and inflame the animosities of party. * Hall, fol. 137. Habington, p. 434. They recognized the title of Edward, by hereditary descent, through the family of Mortimer; and declared that he was king by right, from the death of his father, who had also the same lawful title; and that he was in possession of the crown from the day that he assumed the government, tendered to him by the acclamations of the people.* They expressed their abhorrence of the usurpation and intrusion of the house of Lancaster, particularly that of the earl of Derby, otherwise called Henry IV.; which, they said, had been attended with every kind of disorder, the murder of the sovereign, and the oppression of the subject. They annulled every grant which had passed in those reigns; they reinstated the king in all the possessions which had belonged to the crown at the pretended deposition of Richard II.; and though they confirmed judicial deeds and the decrees of inferior courts, they reversed all attainders passed in any pretended parliament; particularly the attainder of the earl of Cambridge, the king's grandfather; as well as that of the earls of Salisbury and Glocester, and of Lord Lumley, who had been forfeited for adhering to Richard II.+ Many of these votes were the result of the usual violence of party: the common sense of mankind, in more peaceable times, repealed them: and the statutes of the house of Lancaster, being the deeds of an established government, and enacted by princes long possessed of authority, have always been held as valid and obligatory. The parliament, however, in subverting such deep foundations, had still the pretence of replacing the government on its ancient and natural basis: but in their subsequent measures, they were more guided by revenge, at least by the views of convenience, than by the maxims of equity and justice. They passed an act of forfeiture and attainder against Henry VI. and Queen Margaret and their infant son Prince Edward: the same act was extended to the dukes of Somerset and Exeter; to the earls of Northumberland, Devonshire, Pembroke, Wilts; to the Viscount Beaumont; the Lords Roos, Nevil, Clifford, Welles, Dacre, Gray of Rugemont, Hungerford; to Alexander Hedie, Nicholas Latimer, Edmond Mountfort, John Heron, and many other persons of distinction. The parliament vested the *Cotton, p. 670. + Cotton, p. 672. Statutes at large, 1 Edward IV cap. i. estates of all these attainted persons in the crown, though their sole crime was the adhering to a prince whom every individual of the parliament had long recognized, and whom that very king himself, who was now seated on the throne, had acknowledged and obeyed as his lawful sovereign. The necessity of supporting the government established will more fully justify some other acts of violence; though the method of conducting them may still appear exceptionable. John, earl of Oxford, and his son Aubrey de Vere, were detected in a correspondence with Margaret, were tried by martial law before the constable, were condemned and executed.* Sir William Tyrrel, Sir Thomas Tudenham, and John Montgomery were convicted in the same arbitrary court; were executed, and their estates forfeited. This introduction of martial law into civil government was a high strain of prerogative; which, were it not for the violence of the times, would probably have appeared exceptionable to a nation so jealous of their liberties as the English were now become.t It was impossible but such a great and sudden revolution must leave the roots of discontent and dissatisfaction in the subject, which would require great art, or, in lieu of it, great violence, to extirpate them. The latter was more suitable to the genius of the nation in that uncultivated age. But the new establishment still seemed precarious and uncertain; not only from the domestic discontents of the people, but from the efforts of foreign powers. Lewis, the eleventh of the name, had succeeded to his father, Charles, in 1460; and was led, from the obvious motives of national interest, to feed the flames of civil discord among such dangerous neighbors, by giving support to the weaker party. But the intriguing and politic genius of this prince was here checked by itself: having attempted to subdue the independent spirit of his own vassals, he had excited such an opposition at home, as prevented him from making all the advantage, which the opportunity afforded, of the dissensions among the English. He sent, however, a small body to Henry's assistance under Varenne, seneschal of Normandy; ‡ [1462.] who landed in Northumberland, and got possession of the Castle of Alnwick; but as the indefatigable Margaret went in person to *W. Wyrcester, p. 492. Hall, fol. 189. Grafton, p. 658. Fabian, S. 215. Fragm. ad finem T. Sproti. † See note R, at the end of the volume. Monstrelet, vol. iii. p. 95. France, where she solicited larger supplies; and promised Lewis to deliver up Calais, if her family should by his means be restored to the throne of England; he was induced to send along with her a body of two thousand men at arms, which enabled her to take the field, and to make an inroad into England. [1464.] Though reënforced by a numerous train of adventurers from Scotland, and by many partisans of the family of Lancaster, she received a check at Hedgley-more from Lord Montacute, or Montague, brother to the earl of Warwick, and warden of the east marches between Scotland and England. Montague was so encouraged with this success, that, while a numerous reënforcement was on their march to join him by orders from Edward, he yet ventured, with his own troops alone, to attack the Lancastrians at Hexham ; and he obtained a complete victory over them. The duke of Somerset, the Lords Roos and Hungerford, were taken in the pursuit, and immediately beheaded by martial law at Hexham. Summary justice was in like manner executed at Newcastle on Sir Humphrey Nevil, and several other gentlemen. All those who were spared in the field, suffered on the scaffold; and the utter extermination of their adversaries was now become the plain object of the York party; a conduct which received but too plausible an apology from the preceding practice of the Lancastrians. The fate of the unfortunate royal family, after this defeat, was singular. Margaret, flying with her son into a forest, where she endeavored to conceal herself, was beset, during the darkness of the night, by robbers, who, either ignorant or regardless of her quality, despoiled her of her rings and jewels, and treated her with the utmost indignity. The partition of this rich booty raised a quarrel among them; and while their attention was thus engaged, she took the opportunity of making her escape with her son into the thickest of the forest, where she wandered for some time, overspent with hunger and fatigue, and sunk with terror and affliction. While in this wretched condition, she saw a robber approach with his naked sword; and finding that she had no means of escape, she suddenly embraced the resolution of trusting entirely for protection to his faith and generosity. She advanced towards him; and presenting to him the young prince, called out to him, "Here, my friend, I commit to your care the safety of your ring's son." The man, whose humanity and generous spirit /ad been obscured, not entirely lost, by his vicious course of |