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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.
But an accident threw the balance to the side of the Yorkists. Edward's cognizance was a sun; that of Warwick a star with rays; and the mistiness of the morning rendering it difficult to distinguish them, the Earl of Oxford, who fought on the side of the Lancastrians, was by mistake attacked by his friends and chased off the field of battle.
And not the great barons whom it will suit Edward's policy to win from the Lancastrians, not the Exeters and the Somersets, but the craven varlets, and lackeys, and dross of the camp false alike to Henry and to Edward are to be fondled into lordships and dandled into power. Young man, I am speaking hotly. Richard Neville never lies nor conceals; but I am speaking to a kinsman, am I not?
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.
"Lovell," he said to one of the gentlemen who attended him, and who was among the few admitted to his more peculiar intimacy, "that man is of the North." "Well, my lord?" "The North was always well affected to the Lancastrians. Master Warner hath been accused of witchcraft. Marry, I should like to see his device um; Master Catesby, come hither, approach, sir.
So far, Clarence and Isabel accompanied him; while Margaret and her son, with Lady Warwick and the Lady Anne, remained at Amboise. Then the very elements seemed to war against the Lancastrians. The restoration came about in October 1470. Margaret was due in London in November, but for nearly six months the state of the Channel was such that she was unable to cross it.
Albans, in 1455, defeated the royalists, capturing the king. This was the opening of the War of the Roses, so called because as badges the Lancastrians wore a red rose and the Yorkists a white rose. This war lasted over thirty years, and killed off the nobility like sheep. They were, it is said, virtually annihilated, and thus a better class of nobility was substituted.
But the Lancastrians, as if they had but waited for a signal, shouted loudly in answer; and began to close at a run upon the barrier, the horsemen still hanging back, with visors lowered. Then followed an obstinate and deadly struggle, hand to hand. The assailants, wielding their falchions with one hand, strove with the other to drag down the structure of the barricade.
The imprisonment of Henry, the expulsion of Margaret, the execution and confiscation of all the most eminent Lancastrians, seemed to give full security to Edward's government. But his amorous temper led him into a snare, which proved fatal to his repose and to the stability of his throne.
The battle was turned at last by the arrival of the Duke of Norfolk with a fresh force from the Eastern Counties, and at noon the Lancastrians gave way. A river in their rear turned the retreat into a rout, and the flight and carnage, for no quarter was given on either side, went on through the night and the morrow. Edward's herald counted more than 20,000 Lancastrian corpses on the field.
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