King Edward the Fourth was not quite
twenty-one years of age when he took that unquiet
seat upon the throne of England. The Lancaster
party, the Red Roses, were then assembling in great
numbers near York, and it was necessary to give them
battle instantly. But, the stout Earl of Warwick
leading for the young King, and the young King himself
closely following him, and the English people crowding
round the Royal standard, the White and the Red Roses
met, on a wild March day when the snow was falling
heavily, at Towton; and there such a furious battle
raged between them, that the total loss amounted to
forty thousand men all Englishmen, fighting,
upon English ground, against one another. The
young King gained the day, took down the heads of
his father and brother from the walls of York, and
put up the heads of some of the most famous noblemen
engaged in the battle on the other side. Then,
he went to London and was crowned with great splendour.
A new Parliament met. No fewer
than one hundred and fifty of the principal noblemen
and gentlemen on the Lancaster side were declared
traitors, and the King who had very little
humanity, though he was handsome in person and agreeable
in manners resolved to do all he could,
to pluck up the Red Rose root and branch.
Queen Margaret, however, was still
active for her young son. She obtained help
from Scotland and from Normandy, and took several important
English castles. But, Warwick soon retook them;
the Queen lost all her treasure on board ship in a
great storm; and both she and her son suffered great
misfortunes. Once, in the winter weather, as
they were riding through a forest, they were attacked
and plundered by a party of robbers; and, when they
had escaped from these men and were passing alone
and on foot through a thick dark part of the wood,
they came, all at once, upon another robber.
So the Queen, with a stout heart, took the little
Prince by the hand, and going straight up to that robber,
said to him, ’My friend, this is the young son
of your lawful King! I confide him to your care.’
The robber was surprised, but took the boy in his
arms, and faithfully restored him and his mother to
their friends. In the end, the Queen’s
soldiers being beaten and dispersed, she went abroad
again, and kept quiet for the present.
Now, all this time, the deposed King
Henry was concealed by a Welsh knight, who kept him
close in his castle. But, next year, the Lancaster
party recovering their spirits, raised a large body
of men, and called him out of his retirement, to put
him at their head. They were joined by some
powerful noblemen who had sworn fidelity to the new
King, but who were ready, as usual, to break their
oaths, whenever they thought there was anything to
be got by it. One of the worst things in the
history of the war of the Red and White Roses, is
the ease with which these noblemen, who should have
set an example of honour to the people, left either
side as they took slight offence, or were disappointed
in their greedy expectations, and joined the other.
Well! Warwick’s brother soon beat the
Lancastrians, and the false noblemen, being taken,
were beheaded without a moment’s loss of time.
The deposed King had a narrow escape; three of his
servants were taken, and one of them bore his cap of
estate, which was set with pearls and embroidered
with two golden crowns. However, the head to
which the cap belonged, got safely into Lancashire,
and lay pretty quietly there (the people in the secret
being very true) for more than a year. At length,
an old monk gave such intelligence as led to Henry’s
being taken while he was sitting at dinner in a place
called Waddington Hall. He was immediately sent
to London, and met at Islington by the Earl of Warwick,
by whose directions he was put upon a horse, with
his legs tied under it, and paraded three times round
the pillory. Then, he was carried off to the
Tower, where they treated him well enough.
The White Rose being so triumphant,
the young King abandoned himself entirely to pleasure,
and led a jovial life. But, thorns were springing
up under his bed of roses, as he soon found out.
For, having been privately married to ELIZABETH WOODVILLE,
a young widow lady, very beautiful and very captivating;
and at last resolving to make his secret known, and
to declare her his Queen; he gave some offence to the
Earl of Warwick, who was usually called the King-Maker,
because of his power and influence, and because of
his having lent such great help to placing Edward
on the throne. This offence was not lessened
by the jealousy with which the Nevil family (the Earl
of Warwick’s) regarded the promotion of the
Woodville family. For, the young Queen was so
bent on providing for her relations, that she made
her father an earl and a great officer of state; married
her five sisters to young noblemen of the highest rank;
and provided for her younger brother, a young man of
twenty, by marrying him to an immensely rich old duchess
of eighty. The Earl of Warwick took all this
pretty graciously for a man of his proud temper, until
the question arose to whom the King’s sister,
MARGARET, should be married. The Earl of Warwick
said, ‘To one of the French King’s sons,’
and was allowed to go over to the French King to make
friendly proposals for that purpose, and to hold all
manner of friendly interviews with him. But,
while he was so engaged, the Woodville party married
the young lady to the Duke of Burgundy! Upon
this he came back in great rage and scorn, and shut
himself up discontented, in his Castle of Middleham.
A reconciliation, though not a very
sincere one, was patched up between the Earl of Warwick
and the King, and lasted until the Earl married his
daughter, against the King’s wishes, to the Duke
of Clarence. While the marriage was being celebrated
at Calais, the people in the north of England, where
the influence of the Nevil family was strongest, broke
out into rebellion; their complaint was, that England
was oppressed and plundered by the Woodville family,
whom they demanded to have removed from power.
As they were joined by great numbers of people, and
as they openly declared that they were supported by
the Earl of Warwick, the King did not know what to
do. At last, as he wrote to the earl beseeching
his aid, he and his new son-in-law came over to England,
and began to arrange the business by shutting the
King up in Middleham Castle in the safe keeping of
the Archbishop of York; so England was not only in
the strange position of having two kings at once,
but they were both prisoners at the same time.
Even as yet, however, the King-Maker
was so far true to the King, that he dispersed a new
rising of the Lancastrians, took their leader prisoner,
and brought him to the King, who ordered him to be
immediately executed. He presently allowed the
King to return to London, and there innumerable pledges
of forgiveness and friendship were exchanged between
them, and between the Nevils and the Woodvilles; the
King’s eldest daughter was promised in marriage
to the heir of the Nevil family; and more friendly
oaths were sworn, and more friendly promises made,
than this book would hold.
They lasted about three months.
At the end of that time, the Archbishop of York made
a feast for the King, the Earl of Warwick, and the
Duke of Clarence, at his house, the Moor, in Hertfordshire.
The King was washing his hands before supper, when
some one whispered him that a body of a hundred men
were lying in ambush outside the house. Whether
this were true or untrue, the King took fright, mounted
his horse, and rode through the dark night to Windsor
Castle. Another reconciliation was patched up
between him and the King-Maker, but it was a short
one, and it was the last. A new rising took
place in Lincolnshire, and the King marched to repress
it. Having done so, he proclaimed that both the
Earl of Warwick and the Duke of Clarence were traitors,
who had secretly assisted it, and who had been prepared
publicly to join it on the following day. In
these dangerous circumstances they both took ship
and sailed away to the French court.
And here a meeting took place between
the Earl of Warwick and his old enemy, the Dowager
Queen Margaret, through whom his father had had his
head struck off, and to whom he had been a bitter foe.
But, now, when he said that he had done with the
ungrateful and perfidious Edward of York, and that
henceforth he devoted himself to the restoration of
the House of Lancaster, either in the person of her
husband or of her little son, she embraced him as
if he had ever been her dearest friend. She did
more than that; she married her son to his second
daughter, the Lady Anne. However agreeable this
marriage was to the new friends, it was very disagreeable
to the Duke of Clarence, who perceived that his father-in-law,
the King-Maker, would never make him King, now.
So, being but a weak-minded young traitor, possessed
of very little worth or sense, he readily listened
to an artful court lady sent over for the purpose,
and promised to turn traitor once more, and go over
to his brother, King Edward, when a fitting opportunity
should come.
The Earl of Warwick, knowing nothing
of this, soon redeemed his promise to the Dowager
Queen Margaret, by invading England and landing at
Plymouth, where he instantly proclaimed King Henry,
and summoned all Englishmen between the ages of sixteen
and sixty, to join his banner. Then, with his
army increasing as he marched along, he went northward,
and came so near King Edward, who was in that part
of the country, that Edward had to ride hard for it
to the coast of Norfolk, and thence to get away in
such ships as he could find, to Holland. Thereupon,
the triumphant King-Maker and his false son-in-law,
the Duke of Clarence, went to London, took the old
King out of the Tower, and walked him in a great procession
to Saint Paul’s Cathedral with the crown upon
his head. This did not improve the temper of
the Duke of Clarence, who saw himself farther off
from being King than ever; but he kept his secret,
and said nothing. The Nevil family were restored
to all their honours and glories, and the Woodvilles
and the rest were disgraced. The King-Maker,
less sanguinary than the King, shed no blood except
that of the Earl of Worcester, who had been so cruel
to the people as to have gained the title of the Butcher.
Him they caught hidden in a tree, and him they tried
and executed. No other death stained the King-Maker’s
triumph.
To dispute this triumph, back came
King Edward again, next year, landing at Ravenspur,
coming on to York, causing all his men to cry ’Long
live King Henry!’ and swearing on the altar,
without a blush, that he came to lay no claim to the
crown. Now was the time for the Duke of Clarence,
who ordered his men to assume the White Rose, and declare
for his brother. The Marquis of Montague, though
the Earl of Warwick’s brother, also declining
to fight against King Edward, he went on successfully
to London, where the Archbishop of York let him into
the City, and where the people made great demonstrations
in his favour. For this they had four reasons.
Firstly, there were great numbers of the King’s
adherents hiding in the City and ready to break out;
secondly, the King owed them a great deal of money,
which they could never hope to get if he were unsuccessful;
thirdly, there was a young prince to inherit the crown;
and fourthly, the King was gay and handsome, and more
popular than a better man might have been with the
City ladies. After a stay of only two days with
these worthy supporters, the King marched out to Barnet
Common, to give the Earl of Warwick battle.
And now it was to be seen, for the last time, whether
the King or the King-Maker was to carry the day.
While the battle was yet pending,
the fainthearted Duke of Clarence began to repent,
and sent over secret messages to his father-in-law,
offering his services in mediation with the King.
But, the Earl of Warwick disdainfully rejected them,
and replied that Clarence was false and perjured,
and that he would settle the quarrel by the sword.
The battle began at four o’clock in the morning
and lasted until ten, and during the greater part
of the time it was fought in a thick mist absurdly
supposed to be raised by a magician. The loss
of life was very great, for the hatred was strong
on both sides. The King-Maker was defeated, and
the King triumphed. Both the Earl of Warwick
and his brother were slain, and their bodies lay in
St. Paul’s, for some days, as a spectacle to
the people.
Margaret’s spirit was not broken
even by this great blow. Within five days she
was in arms again, and raised her standard in Bath,
whence she set off with her army, to try and join
Lord Pembroke, who had a force in Wales. But,
the King, coming up with her outside the town of Tewkesbury,
and ordering his brother, the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER, who
was a brave soldier, to attack her men, she sustained
an entire defeat, and was taken prisoner, together
with her son, now only eighteen years of age.
The conduct of the King to this poor youth was worthy
of his cruel character. He ordered him to be
led into his tent. ‘And what,’ said
he, ’brought you to England?’
‘I came to England,’ replied the prisoner,
with a spirit which a man of spirit might have admired
in a captive, ’to recover my father’s
kingdom, which descended to him as his right, and from
him descends to me, as mine.’ The King,
drawing off his iron gauntlet, struck him with it
in the face; and the Duke of Clarence and some other
lords, who were there, drew their noble swords, and
killed him.
His mother survived him, a prisoner,
for five years; after her ransom by the King of France,
she survived for six years more. Within three
weeks of this murder, Henry died one of those convenient
sudden deaths which were so common in the Tower; in
plainer words, he was murdered by the King’s
order.
Having no particular excitement on
his hands after this great defeat of the Lancaster
party, and being perhaps desirous to get rid of some
of his fat (for he was now getting too corpulent to
be handsome), the King thought of making war on France.
As he wanted more money for this purpose than the
Parliament could give him, though they were usually
ready enough for war, he invented a new way of raising
it, by sending for the principal citizens of London,
and telling them, with a grave face, that he was very
much in want of cash, and would take it very kind in
them if they would lend him some. It being impossible
for them safely to refuse, they complied, and the
moneys thus forced from them were called no
doubt to the great amusement of the King and the Court as
if they were free gifts, ‘Benevolences.’
What with grants from Parliament, and what with Benevolences,
the King raised an army and passed over to Calais.
As nobody wanted war, however, the French King made
proposals of peace, which were accepted, and a truce
was concluded for seven long years. The proceedings
between the Kings of France and England on this occasion,
were very friendly, very splendid, and very distrustful.
They finished with a meeting between the two Kings,
on a temporary bridge over the river Somme, where
they embraced through two holes in a strong wooden
grating like a lion’s cage, and made several
bows and fine speeches to one another.
It was time, now, that the Duke of
Clarence should be punished for his treacheries; and
Fate had his punishment in store. He was, probably,
not trusted by the King for who could trust
him who knew him! and he had certainly
a powerful opponent in his brother Richard, Duke of
Gloucester, who, being avaricious and ambitious, wanted
to marry that widowed daughter of the Earl of Warwick’s
who had been espoused to the deceased young Prince,
at Calais. Clarence, who wanted all the family
wealth for himself, secreted this lady, whom Richard
found disguised as a servant in the City of London,
and whom he married; arbitrators appointed by the
King, then divided the property between the brothers.
This led to ill-will and mistrust between them.
Clarence’s wife dying, and he wishing to make
another marriage, which was obnoxious to the King,
his ruin was hurried by that means, too. At
first, the Court struck at his retainers and dependents,
and accused some of them of magic and witchcraft, and
similar nonsense. Successful against this small
game, it then mounted to the Duke himself, who was
impeached by his brother the King, in person, on a
variety of such charges. He was found guilty,
and sentenced to be publicly executed. He never
was publicly executed, but he met his death somehow,
in the Tower, and, no doubt, through some agency of
the King or his brother Gloucester, or both.
It was supposed at the time that he was told to choose
the manner of his death, and that he chose to be drowned
in a butt of Malmsey wine. I hope the story may
be true, for it would have been a becoming death for
such a miserable creature.
The King survived him some five years.
He died in the forty-second year of his life, and
the twenty-third of his reign. He had a very
good capacity and some good points, but he was selfish,
careless, sensual, and cruel. He was a favourite
with the people for his showy manners; and the people
were a good example to him in the constancy of their
attachment. He was penitent on his death-bed
for his ‘benevolences,’ and other extortions,
and ordered restitution to be made to the people who
had suffered from them. He also called about
his bed the enriched members of the Woodville family,
and the proud lords whose honours were of older date,
and endeavoured to reconcile them, for the sake of
the peaceful succession of his son and the tranquillity
of England.