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No opposition had been anticipated, nor is any mentioned on the rolls; but we are told that the Bishop of Carlisle, to the astonishment of the Lancastrians, rose and demanded for Richard what ought not to be refused to the meanest criminal, the right of being confronted with his accusers; and for parliament what it might justly claim, the opportunity of learning from the King's own mouth whether the resignation of the crown, which had been attributed to him, were his own spontaneous act.
"I have half won the earl's army," he thought; "but it would be to lose all hold in their hearts again, if they knew that these unhappy Woodvilles were the cause of a second breach between us. Certes, the Lancastrians are making strong head! Certes, the times must be played with and appeased!
Edward, stung by the sharpness of this reply, was about to answer as became his majesty of king, when Warwick more deliberately resumed: "Yet think well; Henry of Windsor is thy prisoner, but his cause lives in Margaret and his son. There is but one power in Europe that can threaten thee with aid to the Lancastrians; that power is France.
But no, I have the king's solemn protestations of repentance; his guilty passion has burned into ashes, and he now sighs gay Edward for a lighter fere. I cannot join with Clarence, less can I join with the Lancastrians.
Though Montagu had obtained from Oxford some glimpse of the desire which the more sagacious and temperate Lancastrians already entertained for that alliance, and though Louis had already hinted its expediency to the earl, yet, till now, Warwick himself had naturally conceived that the prince shared the enmity of his mother, and that such a union, however politic, was impossible; but now indeed there burst upon him the full triumph of revenge and pride.
Edward, stung by the sharpness of this reply, was about to answer as became his majesty of king, when Warwick more deliberately resumed: "Yet think well; Henry of Windsor is thy prisoner, but his cause lives in Margaret and his son. There is but one power in Europe that can threaten thee with aid to the Lancastrians; that power is France.
Montagu's followers attacked the Lancastrian soldiers of Lord Oxford, whether as some said through an error which sprang from the similarity of his cognizance to that of Edward, or as the Lancastrians alleged while themselves in the act of deserting to the enemy. Warwick himself was charged with cowardly flight. In three hours the medley of carnage and treason was over.
The Duke of Burgundy "practised secretly," says Commines, "that King Edward might escape," and threatened to break off all trade with Flanders if he were not freed. Warwick could look for support only to the Lancastrians, but the Lancastrians demanded Henry's restoration as the price of their aid.
He then insisted on seeing after their evening meal, and vanished with his assistant. The worthy pair were now of the same mind; for guests known to Lord Hastings it was worth braving the threats of the tymbesteres; especially since Lord Hastings, it seems, had just beaten the Lancastrians.
The old fortress aimed at being impregnable in the days of bows and arrows; but the progress of guns and artillery somewhat changed the ideas with regard to their security. In the struggle between Yorkists and Lancastrians many a noble owner lost his castle and his head. Edward IV thinned down castle-ownership, and many a fine fortress was left to die.
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