CHAPTER XV.

BEFORE TOWTON.

On the 3d of March, 1461, while Margaret of Anjou was leading her army toward the Humber, and the citizens of London were awakening from fearful dreams of northern men plundering their warehouses with lawless violence, and treating their women with indelicate freedom, Edward of York entered the capital at the head of his victorious army. Accompanied by the Earl of Warwick, by whom he had been joined at Chipping Norton, the conqueror of the Tudors rode through the city, and was welcomed with the utmost enthusiasm. It was long since London had been the scene of such loyal excitement. From Kent and Essex came crowds to gaze on the handsome son of Richard, Duke of York; and many were the predictions that, as a native of Rouen, Edward would reconquer Normandy, and retrieve those losses which, under the government of Margaret of Anjou, the English had sustained on the Continent.

Whatever he might pretend, Edward had none of the moderation that characterized his father, and he was determined without delay to ascend the throne, which he had been taught to consider his by hereditary right. Anxious, however, to have the popular assent to the step he was about to take, the heir of the Plantagenets resolved to test the loyalty of the Londoners. With this object a grand review, in St. John's Fields, was proclaimed by William Neville, Lord Falconbridge; and the wealthy citizens, as well as the multitude, assembled to witness the military pageant. Suddenly availing himself of a favorable moment, Warwick's brother, the Bishop of Exeter, addressed the crowd on the great dynastic dispute, and asked them plainly whether they would any longer have Henry to reign over them. "Nay, nay," answered the crowd. Warwick's uncle, Lord Falconbridge, having then spoken in praise of Edward's valor and wisdom, asked if they would have him for king. "Yea, yea--King Edward, King Edward," shouted the populace, with one accord, cheering and clapping their hands.

The Yorkist chiefs were satisfied with the result of their experiment in St. John's Fields; and next day a great council was held at Baynard's Castle. After due deliberation, the peers and prelates declared that Henry, in joining the queen's army and breaking faith with Parliament, had forfeited the crown; and the heir of York, after riding in royal state to Westminster, offered at St. Edward's shrine, assumed the Confessor's crown, ascended the throne, explained the nature of his claim, and harangued the people. His spirit and energy inspired the audience with enthusiasm, and he was frequently interrupted with shouts of "Long live King Edward."

On the day when the young Plantagenet took possession of the English throne at Westminster, he was proclaimed king in various parts of London. Edward was not, however, so intoxicated with the applause with which the men of the south had greeted his arrival in the metropolis as to delude himself into the idea that his triumph was complete. He knew that the lords of the north would again rise in arms for the Red Rose, and that battles must be won, and fortresses taken, ere the crown of St. Edward could sit easily on his head.

Nothing, however, could be gained by delay; and Warwick was well aware of the danger of procrastination at such a crisis. The young king and the king-maker, therefore, resolved upon marching forthwith against the Lancastrians, to achieve, as they hoped, a crowning victory; and, having sent the Duke of Norfolk to recruit in the provinces, they made preparations to go in search of their foes.

No time was wasted. Indeed, within three days of entering London, Warwick marched northward with the van of the Yorkist army; and the infantry having meanwhile followed, Edward, on the 12th of March, buckled on his armor, mounted his war-steed, and rode out of Bishopgate to conquer or die. By easy marches the royal warrior reached Pontefract, memorable as the scene of the second Richard's murder; and, having, while resting there, enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing his army swell to the number of forty-nine thousand, he dispatched Lord Fitzwalter, with a band of tall men, to keep the passage over the Aire at Ferrybridge.

Nor had Margaret failed to prepare for the inevitable conflict. When, at St. Albans, the Lancastrian queen found that her foes were still unsubdued, she speedily bore back to the northern counties, and commenced recruiting her army on the banks of the Humber, the Trent, and the Tyne. Her spirit, ever highest in the time of trouble, sustained the courage of her adherents; and the men of the north, who now, without entering into the delicate questions of hereditary right and parliamentary settlement, sympathized with the dethroned queen, came from towers by the wayside, and shealings on the moor, till around the Lancastrian banner at York mustered an army of sixty thousand.

On hearing of Edward's approach the queen resolved to remain, with Henry and the young prince, at York, to await the issue of the battle impending. But she could hardly dream of defeat as she inspected that numerous army, headed by knights and nobles arrayed in rich armor and mounted on prancing steeds, who had gathered to her standard in the capital of the north. Somerset, Northumberland, and Clifford, appeared in feudal pride, determined at length to avenge the slaughter of their sires at St. Albans; and the Duke of Exeter, with John, Lord Neville, brother to the Earl of Westmoreland, and Thomas Courtenay, Earl of Devon, without the death of sires to avenge, came to fight for the Red Rose; the first against his brother-in-law, King Edward, the second against his kinsmen, the Lords Warwick and Falconbridge, and the third against the house of York, of which his father had been one of the earliest adherents. Many other stanch Lancastrians, bearing names celebrated in history and song, had assembled; as Leo, Lord Welles, James Butler, Earl of Wiltshire, Ralph, Lord Dacre of the north, and Thomas, Lord De Roos, heir of that great Anglo-Norman baron of the twelfth century, whose effigy is still to be seen in the Temple Church. Among the Percies, Beauforts, and Cliffords figured Sir John Heron, of the Ford, a stalwart Borderer, who, in his day, had laid lance in rest against the Homes and Cranstouns; and Andrew Trollope, that mighty man of war, whose betrayal of the Yorkists at Ludlow had, for a year, delayed the exile of Margaret of Anjou. Even a venerable lawyer and a subtle churchman might have been seen in the Lancastrian ranks; for Sir John Fortescue had left the Court of King's Bench to fight for the cause which he believed to be that of truth and justice; and John Morton had deserted the parsonage of Blokesworth to win preferment, if possible, by the arm of flesh. Such were the chiefs, devoted heart and hand to the house of Lancaster, who, at the head of the northern men, awaited the coming of the Yorkist king and the king-maker.