The Wars of the Roses

Somerset, on seeing the ruin his rashness had brought on his friends, fled from the scene of carnage. The duke ought not, perhaps, to have avoided the destruction to which he had allured so many brave men. The chief of the Beauforts, however, had no ambition to die like the great earl whom he had deserted at Barnet, nor to fall on the field to which he had challenged his hereditary foe. It is wonderful, indeed, that a man who had known little of life save its miseries should have cared to survive such a defeat; but Somerset, whatever his other qualities, had none of that spirit which, at Bannockburn, prompted Argentine to exclaim, "'Tis not my wont to fly!" At Hexham and at Barnet, Somerset's principal exploits had consisted of availing himself of the speed of his horse to escape the foe; and at Tewkesbury he rushed cravenly from the field, on which, a few hours earlier, he had boastfully declared that he would abide such fortune as God should send. The Prior of St. John, Sir Gervase Clifton, Sir Thomas Tresham, and a number of knights and esquires likewise sought safety in flight.

The Prince of Wales had hitherto fought with courage; and there is some reason to believe that he fell fighting manfully on the field where so much blood was shed to vindicate his claims to the crown of England. Poets, novelists, and historians have, however, told a different tale, and produced an impression that, when the heir of Lancaster found himself abandoned by Somerset, and perceived the fortune of the day decidedly adverse to the Red Rose, he followed the multitude, who, shrinking from the charge of Edward on his berry-brown steed, and of Gloucester with his boar's-head crest, fled confusedly toward the town.

But, however that may have been, all the warriors of the Red Rose did not fly. Destruction, indeed, awaited every man who stood his ground; but even the certainty of death can not daunt those who are inspired by honor. Knights and nobles, after fighting with courage, fell with disdainful pride, and hundreds upon hundreds of the Lancastrians of inferior rank lost their lives in the cause for which, at the summons of their chiefs, they had taken up arms. There fell the Earl of Devon; and John Beaufort, the brother of Somerset, and, save the duke, the last male heir of the house of Beaufort; and Sir John Delves, the chief of a family long settled at Doddington, in the County Palatine of Chester; and Sir William Fielding, whose descendants, in the time of the Stuarts, became Earls of Denbigh; and Sir Edmund Hampden, one of that ancient race which had flourished in the eleventh century, and which, in the sixteenth, produced the renowned leader of the Long Parliament.

At length, when three thousand Lancastrians had perished on the field of Tewkesbury, the resistance and carnage came to an end; and Edward, having knighted Warwick's cousin, George Neville, the heir of Lord Abergavenny, sheathed his bloody sword, and Gloucester laid aside his lance; and the king and the duke rode to the abbey church to render thanks to God for giving them another victory over their enemies.

CHAPTER XXXII
THE VICTOR AND THE VANQUISHED

While Edward of York was smiting down his foes on the field of Tewkesbury, and the blood of the Lancastrians was flowing like water, a chariot, guided by attendants whose looks indicated alarm and dread, might have been observed to leave the scene of carnage, and pass hurriedly through the gates of the park. In this chariot was a lady, who appeared almost unconscious of what was passing, though it had not been her wont to faint in hours of difficulty and danger. The lady was Margaret of Anjou, but with a countenance no longer expressing those fierce and terrible emotions which, after Northampton, and Towton, and Hexham, had urged her to heroic ventures in order to regain for her husband the crown which her son had been born to inherit. Pale, ghastly, and rigid – more like that of a corpse than of a being breathing the breath of life – was now that face, in which the friends of the Lancastrian queen had in such seasons often read, as in a book, resolutions of stern vengeance to be executed on her foes.

Fortune, indeed, had at length subdued the high spirit of Margaret of Anjou, and she made no effort to resist her fate. When witnessing the battle, and becoming aware that her worst anticipations were being realized, the unfortunate queen appeared reckless of life, and abandoned herself to despair. Alarmed, however, at the dangers which menaced the vanquished, Margaret's attendants placed their royal mistress in a chariot, conveyed her hastily from the field, and made their way to a small religious house situated near the left bank of the silver Severn: there she found the Princess of Wales and several Lancastrian ladies, who had followed the fortunes of the Red Rose and shared the perils of their kinsmen. No need to announce to them that all was lost. Even if the disastrous intelligence had not preceded her arrival, they would have read in Margaret's pale face and corpse-like aspect the ruin of her hopes and of their own.

The religious house in which the queen found a temporary resting-place was not one which could save her from the grasp of the conquering foe. But so sudden had been the rout of one party, and so signal the victory of the other, that the vanquished had no time to think of escaping to a distance. The abbey church was the point toward which most of the fugitives directed their course, and within the walls of that edifice Somerset, the Prior of St. John, Sir Henry de Roos, Sir Gervase Clifton, Sir Thomas Tresham, many knights and esquires, and a crowd of humble adherents of the Red Rose, sought refuge from the sword of the conquerors. Unhappily for the Lancastrians, the church did not possess the privilege of protecting rebels, and Edward was in no humor to spare men who had shown themselves his bitter foes. Without scruple, the victor-king, on finding they had taken refuge in the abbey, attempted to enter, sword in hand; but at this point he found himself face to face with a power before which kings had often trembled. At the porch, a priest, bearing the host, interposed between the conqueror and his destined victims, and protested, in names which even Edward durst not disregard, against the sacred precincts being made the scene of bloodshed. Baffled of his prey, Edward turned his thoughts to the heir of Lancaster, and issued a proclamation, promising a reward to any who should produce the prince, dead or alive, and stating that in such a case the life of the royal boy would be spared.

Among the warriors who fought at Tewkesbury was Sir Richard Croft, a Marchman of Wales. This knight was husband of a kinswoman of the Yorkist princes, and had figured as Governor of Ludlow when Edward, then Earl of March, was residing during boyhood in that castle with his brother, the ill-fated Rutland. Passing, after the battle of Tewkesbury, between the town and the field, Croft encountered a youthful warrior, whose elegance arrested his attention, and whose manner was like that of one strange to the place. On being accosted, the youth, in an accent which revealed a foreign education, acknowledged that he was the heir of Lancaster; and, on being assured that his life was in no hazard, he consented to accompany the stalwart Marchman to the king.

Toward the market-place, a triangular space where met the three streets that gave to Tewkesbury the form of the letter Y, Croft conducted his interesting captive. Tewkesbury has little changed since that time; but the old Town Hall, which then stood in the market-place, has disappeared. It was to a house in the neighborhood of this building, however, that the king had repaired after the battle, and there, surrounded by Clarence and Gloucester, Hastings and Dorset, the captains who had led his host to victory, sat Edward of York when Edward of Lancaster was brought into his presence.

The king had that morning gained a victory which put his enemies under his feet, and had since, perhaps, washed down his cravings for revenge with draughts of that cup to which he was certainly too much addicted. It is not difficult to believe those historians who tell that, under such circumstances, satiated with carnage, and anxious for peace and repose, he was in a frame of mind the reverse of unfavorable to his captive, nor even to credit an assertion that the wish of Edward of York was to treat the heir of the fifth Henry as that king had treated the last chief of the house of Mortimer, to convert the prince from a dangerous rival into a sure friend, and to secure his gratitude by bestowing upon him the Duchy of Lancaster and the splendid possessions of John of Gaunt. To the vanquished prince, therefore, the victor-king "at first showed no uncourteous countenance." A minute's conversation, however, dissipated the king's benevolent intentions, and sealed the brave prince's fate.

"What brought you to England," asked Edward, "and how durst you enter into this our realm with banner displayed?"

"To recover my father's rights," fearlessly answered the heir of Lancaster; and then asked, "How darest thou, who art his subject, so presumptuously display thy colors against thy liege lord?"

At this reply, which evinced so little of that discretion which is the better part of valor, Edward's blood boiled; and, burning with indignation, he savagely struck the unarmed prince in the mouth with his gauntlet. Clarence and Gloucester are said to have then rushed upon him with their swords, and the king's servants to have drawn him into another room and completed the murder. In the house where, according to tradition, this cruel deed was perpetrated, marks of blood were long visible on the oaken floor; and these dark stains were pointed out as memorials of the cruel murder of the fifth Henry's grandson, by turns the hope, the hero, and the victim of the Lancastrian cause.

Having imbrued his hands in the blood of the only rival whom he could deem formidable, and too fearfully avenged the murder of Rutland, Edward appears to have steeled his heart to feelings of mercy, and to have determined on throwing aside all scruples in dealing with his foes. It was only decent, however, to allow Sunday to elapse ere proceeding with the work of vengeance. That day of devotion and rest over, the Lancastrians were forcibly taken from the church. Those of meaner rank were pardoned; but Somerset, the Prior of St. John, Sir Henry de Roos, Sir Gervase Clifton, Sir Thomas Tresham, John Gower, and the other knights and esquires, were brought to trial. Gloucester and John Mowbray, the last of the great Dukes of Norfolk, presided, one as Constable of England, the other as Earl-marshal; and the trial being, of course, a mere form, the captives were condemned to be beheaded.

On Tuesday, while the scaffold was being erected in the market-place of Tewkesbury for the execution of those who had risked all in her cause, Margaret of Anjou was discovered in the religious house to which she had been conveyed from the field on which her last hopes were wrecked. The Lancastrian queen was brought to Edward by Sir William Stanley, still zealous on the Yorkist side, and little dreaming of the part he was to take at Bosworth in rendering the Red Rose finally triumphant. Margaret's life was spared; but her high spirit was gone, and, on being informed of her son's death, the unfortunate princess only gave utterance to words of lamentation and woe. Now that he around whom all her hopes had clustered was no more, what could life be to her? what the rival Roses? what the contentions of York and Lancaster? Her ambition was buried in the grave of her son, who had been her consolation and her hope.

Sir John Fortescue was among the Lancastrians whom the victory of Tewkesbury placed in Edward's power; and the great lawyer was in some danger of having to seal with his blood his devotion to the Red Rose. Fortescue, however, had no longings for a crown of martyrdom; and Edward, luckily for his memory, perceived that the house of York would lose nothing by sparing a foe so venerable and so learned. It happened that, when in Scotland, Fortescue had produced a treatise vindicating the claims of the house of Lancaster to the English crown, and the king consented to pardon the ex-chief-justice if he would write a similar treatise in favor of the claims of the line of York. The condition was hard; but that was an age when, to borrow old Fuller's phrase, it was present drowning not to swim with the stream; and Fortescue, consenting to the terms, applied himself to the arduous task. The difficulty was not insuperable. In his argument for Lancaster he had relied much on the fact of Philippa of Clarence having never been acknowledged by her father. In his argument for York he showed that Philippa's legitimacy had been proved beyond all dispute. On the production of the treatise his pardon was granted; and the venerable judge retired to spend the remainder of his days at Ebrington, an estate which he possessed in Gloucestershire.

About the time that Fortescue received a pardon, John Morton, who, like the great lawyer, had fought on Towton Field, and since followed the ruined fortunes of Lancaster, expressed his readiness to make peace with the Yorkist king. In this case no difficulty was interposed. Edward perceived that the learning and intellect of the "late parson of Blokesworth" might be of great service to the government. Morton's attainder was therefore reversed at the earliest possible period, and he soon after became Bishop of Ely.

Meanwhile, on the scaffold erected in the market-place of Tewkesbury, the Lancastrians were beheaded, the Prior of St. John appearing on the mournful occasion in the long black robe and white cross of his order. No quartering nor dismembering of the bodies, however, was practiced, nor were the heads of the vanquished set up in public places, as after Wakefield and Towton. The bodies of those who died, whether on the field or the scaffold, were handed over to their friends or servants, who interred them where seemed best. Most of them, including those of the Prince of Wales, Devon, Somerset, and John Beaufort, were laid in the abbey church; but the corpse of Wenlock was removed elsewhere, probably to be buried in the Wenlock Chapel, which he had built at Luton; and that of the prior was consigned to the care of the great fraternity of religious knights at Clerkenwell, of which he had been the head.

After wreaking his vengeance upon the conquered, Edward moved northward to complete his triumph, and forgot for a while the blood he had shed. Years after, however, when laid on his death-bed, the memory of those executions appears to have lain heavy upon his conscience, and he mournfully expressed the regret which they caused him. "Such things, if I had foreseen," said he, "as I have with more pain than pleasure proved, by God's Blessed Lady I would never have won the courtesy of men's knees with the loss of so many heads."

CHAPTER XXXIII
WARWICK'S VICE-ADMIRAL

One day in May, 1471, while Edward of York was at Tewkesbury, while Henry of Windsor was a captive in the Tower, and while Elizabeth Woodville and her family were also lodged for security in the metropolitan fortress – thus at once serving the purposes of a prison and a palace – a sudden commotion took place in the capital of England, and consternation appeared on the face of every citizen. The alarm was by no means causeless, for never had the wealth of London looked so pale since threatened by the Lancastrian army after the battle on Bernard's Heath.

Among the English patricians who, at the beginning of the struggle between York and Lancaster, attached themselves to the fortunes of the White Rose, was William Neville, son of Ralph, Earl of Westmoreland, brother of Cicely, Duchess of York, and uncle of Richard, Earl of Warwick. This Yorkist warrior derived from the heiress whom he had married the lordship of Falconbridge; and, after leading the van at Towton, he was rewarded by Edward with the earldom of Kent. Dying soon after, he was laid at rest, with obsequies befitting his rank, in the Priory of Gisborough, and his lands were inherited by his three daughters, one of whom was the wife of Sir John Conyers.

The Earl of Kent left no legitimate son to inherit his honors; but he left an illegitimate son, named Thomas Neville, and known, after the fashion of the age, as "The Bastard of Falconbridge." The misfortune of Falconbridge's birth, of course, prevented him from becoming his father's heir; but, being "a man of turbulent spirit and formed for action," he had no idea of passing his life in obscurity. His relationship to Warwick was not distant; and "The Stout Earl," duly appreciating the courage and vigor of his illegitimate kinsman, nominated him vice-admiral, and appointed him to prevent Edward receiving any aid from the Continent.

While Warwick lived, Falconbridge appears to have executed his commission on the narrow seas with fidelity and decorum. But when Barnet had been fought, and the vice-admiral had no longer the fear of the king-maker before his eyes, the narrow seas saw another sight. Throwing off all restraint, he took openly to piracy, and, joined by some malcontents from Calais, went so desperately to work, that in a marvelously short space of time he made his name terrible to skippers and traders. Falconbridge was not, however, content with this kind of fame. He had always believed himself destined to perform some mighty achievement, and he now found his soul swelling with an irresistible ambition to attempt the restoration of Lancaster. The peril attending such an exploit might, indeed, have daunted the boldest spirit; but the courage of the Bastard was superlative, and his audacity was equal to his courage.

The enterprise of Falconbridge was not at first so utterly desperate as subsequent events made it appear. The Lancastrians were not yet quite subdued. Oxford was still free and unsubdued; Pembroke was in arms on the marches of Wales; and the men of the north, on whom Edward's hand had been so heavy, were arming to take revenge on their tyrant, and liberate from his grasp the woman who, with her smiles and tears, had in other days tempted them to do battle in her behalf. If, under these circumstances, Falconbridge could take Henry out of prison, proclaim the monk-monarch once more in London, and send northward the news of a Lancastrian army being in possession of the capital, he might change the destiny of England, and enroll his own name in the annals of fame.

No time was lost in maturing the project. Landing at Sandwich, Falconbridge was admitted into Canterbury, and prepared to march upon the metropolis. His adventure soon began to wear a hopeful aspect. Indeed, his success was miraculous; for, as he made his way through Kent, the army, which originally consisted of the desperadoes of the Cinque Ports and the riff-raff of Calais, swelled till it numbered some seventeen thousand men. Posting this formidable host on the Surrey side of the Thames, and, at the same time, causing his ships to secure the river above St. Katherine's, Falconbridge demanded access to the city, that he might take Henry out of the Tower, and then pass onward to encounter the usurper.

The mayor and aldermen, however, sorely perplexed, determined to stand by the house of York, and sent post-haste to inform the king that London was menaced by land and water, and to implore him to hasten to the relief of his faithful city. Edward, who, to awe the northern insurgents, had proceeded as far as Coventry, forthwith sent fifteen hundred men to the capital; and, on meeting the Earl of Northumberland, who came to assure him of the peace of the north, the king turned his face southward, and hurried toward London.

Meanwhile the patience of Falconbridge had given way. Enraged at the refusal of the Londoners to admit his army, and anxious to gratify the appetite of his followers for plunder, the Bastard expressed his intention of passing the Thames with his army at Kingston, destroying Westminster, and then taking revenge on the citizens of London for keeping him without their gates. Finding, however, that the wooden bridge at Kingston was broken down, and all the places of passage guarded, he drew his forces into St. George's Fields, and from that point prepared to carry London by assault.

His plan thus formed, Falconbridge commenced operations with characteristic energy. After carrying his ordnance from the ships, he planted guns and stationed archers along the banks of the Thames. At first considerable execution was done. Many houses were battered down by the ordnance, and London experienced much inconvenience from the flight of arrows; but the citizens soon showed that this was a game at which two parties could play. Having brought their artillery to the river-side, and planted it over against that of their assailants, they returned the fire with an effect so galling, that the adherents of the vice-admiral found their position intolerable, and retreated in confusion from their guns.

Falconbridge was not the man to despair early of the enterprise upon which he had ventured. Seeing his men fall back in dismay, he resolved on prosecuting the assault in a more direct way, and on going closely to work with his antagonists. He resolved, moreover, on making a great attempt at London Bridge, and, at the same time, ordered his lieutenants – Spicing and Quintine – to embark three thousand men, pass the Thames in ships, and force Aldgate and Bishopgate. The desperadoes, crossing the river, acted in obedience to their leader's orders, and London was at once assailed suddenly at three separate points. But the Londoners continued obstinate. Encouraged by the news of Edward's victory, and incited to valor by the example of Robert Basset and Ralph Jocelyne, aldermen of the city, they faced the peril with fortitude, and offered so desperate a defense, that seven hundred of the assailants were slain. Repulsed on all points, and despairing of success, the Bastard was fain to beat a retreat.

Baffled in his efforts to take the capital by storm, Falconbridge led his adherents into Kent, and encamped on Blackheath. His prospects were not now encouraging; and for three days he remained in his camp without any new exploits. At the end of that time he learned that Edward was approaching, and doubtless felt that the idea of trying conclusions at the head of a mob with the army that had conquered at Barnet and Tewkesbury was not to be entertained. The undisciplined champions of the Red Rose, indeed, dispersed at the news of Edward's coming, as pigeons do at the approach of a hawk; and their adventurous leader, having taken to his ships, that lay at Blackwall, sailed for Sandwich.

On Tuesday, the 21st of May, seventeen days after Tewkesbury, Edward of York, at the head of thirty thousand men, entered London as a conqueror, and in his train to the capital came Margaret of Anjou as a captive. The broken-hearted queen found herself committed to the Tower, and condemned as a prisoner of state to brood, without hope and without consolation, over irreparable misfortunes and intolerable woes.

On Wednesday morning – it was that of Ascension Day – the citizens of London, who some hours earlier had been thanked for their loyalty to Edward of York, were informed that Henry of Lancaster had been found dead in the Tower, and soon after the corpse was borne bare-faced, on a bier, through Cheapside to St. Paul's, and there exposed to the public view. Notwithstanding this ceremony, rumors were current that the dethroned king had met with foul play. People naturally supposed that Falconbridge's attempt to release Henry precipitated this sad event; and they did not fail to notice that on the morning when the body was conveyed to St. Paul's the king and Richard of Gloucester left London.¹³

A resting-place beside his hero-sire, in the Chapel of St. Edward, might have been allowed to the only king since the Conquest who had emulated the Confessor's sanctity. But another edifice than the Abbey of Westminster was selected as the place of sepulture; and, on the evening of Ascension Day, the corpse, having been placed in a barge guarded by soldiers from Calais, was conveyed up the Thames, and, during the silence of midnight, committed to the dust in the Monastery of Chertsey. It was not at Chertsey, however, that the saintly king was to rest. When years had passed over, and Richard had ascended the throne, the mortal remains of Henry were removed from Chertsey to Windsor, and interred with much pomp in the south side of the choir in St. George's Chapel, there to rest, it was hoped, till that great day, for the coming of which he had religiously prepared by the devotion of a life.

After consigning Margaret to the Tower and Henry to the tomb, Edward led his army from London, marched to Canterbury, and prepared to inflict severe punishment on Falconbridge. Meanwhile, as vice-admiral, Falconbridge had taken possession of Sandwich, where forty-seven ships obeyed his command. With this naval force, and the town fortified in such a way as to withstand a siege, the Bastard prepared for resistance; but, on learning that the royal army had reached Canterbury, his heart began to fail, and he determined, if possible, to obtain a pardon. With this object, Falconbridge dispatched a messenger to Edward; and the king was, doubtless, glad enough to get so bold a rebel quietly into his power. At all events, he determined on deluding the turbulent vice-admiral with assurances of safety and promises of favor; and Gloucester was empowered to negotiate a treaty.

Matters at first went smoothly. The duke rode to Sandwich to assure his illegitimate cousin of the king's full forgiveness, and about the 26th of May Falconbridge made his submission, and promised to be a faithful subject. Edward then honored him with knighthood, and confirmed him in the post of vice-admiral. At the same time, the king granted a full pardon to the Bastard's adherents; and they, relying on the royal word, surrendered the town of Sandwich, with the castle, and the ships that lay in the port. "But how this composition was observed," says Baker, "may be imagined, when Falconbridge, who was comprised in the pardon, was afterward taken and executed at Southampton. Spicing and Quintine, the captains that assailed Aldgate and Bishopgate, and were in Sandwich Castle at the surrender thereof, were presently beheaded at Canterbury, and their heads placed on poles in the gates; and, by a commission of Oyer and Terminer, many, both in Essex and Kent, were arraigned and condemned for this rebellion."

About Michaelmas, Falconbridge expiated his ill-fated ambition; and the citizens had the satisfaction, in autumn, of seeing his head exposed to warn malcontents to beware of Edward of York. "Thomas Falconbridge, his head," says Paston, "was yesterday set upon London Bridge, looking Kentward, and men say that his brother was sore hurt, and escaped to sanctuary to Beverley." So ended the ambitious attempt of Warwick's vice-admiral to play the part of king-maker.