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If the Lancastrians can be pitied, the Earl of Warwick must be condemned!" "Unkind!" said Anne, shedding tears; "I can pity woe and mischance, without blaming those whose hard duty it might be to achieve them." "In good sooth cannot I! Thou wouldst pity and pardon till thou leftst no distinction between foeman and friend, leife and loathing. Be it mine, like my great father, to love and to hate!"
The Lancastrians were here totally defeated; the Earl of Devonshire and Lord Wenlock were killed in the field; the Duke of Somerset and about twenty other persons of distinction, having taken shelter in a church, were surrounded, dragged out, and immediately beheaded; about three thousand of their side fell in battle; and the army was entirely dispersed.
So saying, he kissed the king's hand, and was retiring, when he remembered his kinsman, whose humble interests in the midst of more exciting topics he had hitherto forgotten, and added, "May I crave, since you are so merciful to the Lancastrians, one grace for my namesake, a Nevile whose father repented the side he espoused, a son of Sir Guy of Arsdale?"
The Lancastrians had endeavoured to puzzle him as to their intended movements by sending parties out in various directions; but as soon as he had gathered a force, numerically small, but composed of veteran soldiers, he hurried west, determined to bring on a battle at the earliest opportunity.
As thousands of French Neutrals from Georgia to Massachusetts Bay sighed away their lives with grieving for their lost Acadie, so we know Abijah Willard, so long as he lived, looked westward with yearning heart toward that elm-shaded home so familiar to all Lancastrians. On the coast of the Bay of Fundy, not far west of St. John, is a locality yet called Lancaster.
In July, 1468, his forces defeated the royalists with great slaughter at Edgecote, and a few days later he made Edward his prisoner. The Lancastrians at once rose again in favor of the aged King Henry; but Warwick, maintaining his allegiance to his royal captive, suppressed all revolts with an iron hand, and, having received renewed pledges of good faith, soon after restored Edward to his throne.
The Percies were all Lancastrians, though Sir Ralph Percy changed sides twice. The castle fell into the hands of the Yorkists, and the great Earl of Warwick, the "King-maker" himself, made it his headquarters for a time, while he superintended the sieges of Alnwick, Dunstanborough, and Bamburgh, which were all invested at the same time.
"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!
The captain's low voice grew terrible as he uttered the last words. The savage rose, and without a word stalked away. "Look you, my masters," said Robin, turning to the rest, "soldiers must plunder a hostile country. While York is on the throne, England is a hostile country to us Lancastrians. Rob, then, rifle, if ye will; but he who takes life shall lose it. Ye know me!"
Thrown into confusion, the Lancastrians were routed, and confusion was rendered worse confounded by another impetuous act on the part of the fiery young duke. As he and his flying soldiers fell back upon the town of Tewkesbury, and reached the market place, they found Lord Wenlock and his men sitting idle and motionless there, as if there was no work for them to do.
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