Part 6
"Wast thou ordain'd, dear father, To lose thy youth in peace, and to achieve The silvery livery of advised age, And in thy reverence, and thy chair-days thus To die in ruffian battle? Even at this sight My heart is turn'd to stone; and while 'tis mine It shall be stony. York not our old men spares: No more will I their babes; tears virginal Shall be to me even as the dew to fire; And beauty, that the tyrant oft reclaims, Shall, to my flaming wrath, be oil and flax. Henceforth I will not have to do with pity Meet I an infant of the house of York, Into as many gobbets will I cut it As wild Medea young Absyrtus did. In cruelty will I seek out my fame. Come thou new ruin of old Clifford's house. (_Taking up the body._) As old Æneas did Anchises bear, So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders. But then Æneas bore a living load, Nothing so heavy as these woes of mine."
Although the Lancastrians fought bravely, nothing could withstand the superior number of the Yorkists, combined, as it was, with the military skill and impetuous valour of the Earl of Warwick, and in a short space of time there lay dead the Duke of Somerset and the Earls of Northumberland and Stafford; and the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond grievously wounded. Thus deprived of their chief leaders, the King being a mere cipher, the Lancastrians threw down their weapons and fled, Wentworth flinging down the Royal standard and spurring his horse in the direction of Suffolk. The poor King was captured; but York treated him with great courtesy and kindness, conducted him to St. Alban's Abbey, where they prayed together at the shrine of the martyr, and then went together, victor and vanquished, to London.
The Yorkists were now in the ascendant, but acted with great moderation. There were no executions and no attainders; so Clifford succeeded to the title and kept the estates. The King was again attacked by his old malady, and again was Richard of York appointed Protector; but Queen Margaret now began to exhibit her qualities, and to intrigue in politics. She was truly an able and brave woman, but vindictive and rash. She succeeded in ousting York from the Protectorship, and took measures for crushing him effectually; and again the flames of war broke out.
Lord Clifford did not, under these circumstances, sit at home brooding over his misfortunes and the bitterness of his hatred to the house of York. He was always on the alert, at London or elsewhere, attending on Councils of State or engaged in the field. He fought at Bloreheath, in 1459, and at Northampton, in 1460, on both of which occasions his party suffered a defeat; but Margaret, nothing daunted, raised an army of 18,000 men, and proceeded at their head into Yorkshire, in face of the frosts and snows of the December of 1460. The Duke of York, with a small army of 5,000 men, went from London and threw himself into Sandal Castle, by Wakefield, there to await the arrival of his son Edward, Earl of March, who was mustering forces in the Welsh Marches. The Queen came with her army upon Wakefield Green, with the Duke of Somerset, son of the slain Duke, in chief command, and Clifford and Wiltshire, son of the Earl who fell at St. Alban's, in command of ambuscades, one on each side. Then, aware of her numerical superiority, she appeared before Sandal, and summoned the Duke to come forth and fight her. "What, are you afraid of encountering an army led by a woman? Cowardly poltroon! can you be fit to wear the crown of England, who shut yourself up in a castle against a woman?" York called a council of war, and was earnestly dissuaded against running the hazard of a battle before the arrival of his son; but, taunted by the jeers of the Queen, he felt that his honour was concerned in fighting at once, despite the numerical odds, and forth he went with his small army, not one-third that of the Queen.
The Duke sallied forth and met Somerset, with a comparatively small force, on Wakefield Green, whom he attacked with great vigour, anticipating, with his better-disciplined men, an easy victory; but the ambuscades under Clifford and Wiltshire came out upon his flanks, whilst a contingent of Northern Borderers attacked his rear, and thus, completely surrounded, his small force succumbed, the White Rose drooped, and the Red, for the first time, was triumphant. This battle brought to an end the ambitious aspirations of Richard of York. He was one of the first to fall, and with him Sir Thomas Neville, Lord Salisbury's son, and Lord Harrington, the husband of Katherine Neville, his daughter. Lord Salisbury himself was wounded, but not sufficiently to prevent his galloping off from the scene. Clifford however, followed in hot pursuit, captured, and sent him to Pontefract Castle, where he was at once beheaded.
Previously, however, to his pursuit of the father, Clifford was guilty of that dastardly act upon his son, the Earl of Rutland, which has stamped his name with infamy, and has given significance to his sobriquet of "Black-faced Clifford." The Duke of York had with him, in Sandal Castle, his family, including the youthful Earl of Rutland. Boy-like, he must needs go and see the battle, and nothing could dissuade him. "I will go," said he, "and see my father kill the cruel Queen; and when I am a man I will go and fight, and kill his enemies too." "A battle is not a place, Lord Edmund," replied his tutor and chaplain, Sir Robert Aspall, "for boys. A stray arrow might kill you." "Think not, sir priest," replied the brave boy, "that a son of Richard of York is afraid of an arrow! Stay under shelter of these walls, like craven priest, if you will; I shall go and see the deeds of men who are men!" Seeing that nothing could turn the boy from his purpose, his tutor resolved to go with him to keep him out of harm's way, nothing loth himself to witness the conflict of arms. When the battle was over, and the vanquished flying, Sir Robert led his charge, away towards Sandal. They had not proceeded far, when they encountered a steel-clad warrior on horseback, with blood dropping from his sword. Perceiving from his apparel that he was a youth of distinction, the warrior dismounted, and, holding his horse by the reins, inquired who he was. "Then," as Hall says, "the young gentleman, dismayed, had not a word to speak, but kneeled on his knees, imploring mercy and desiring grace, both with holding up his hands and making dolorous countenance, for his speech was gone for fear. 'Save him,' said his chaplain, 'for he is a Prince's son, and peradventure may do you good hereafter.' With that word Lord Clifford marked him, and said, 'By God's blood! thy father slew mine, and so will I do to thee and all thy kin,' and with that word, struck the Earl to the heart with his dagger, and bade the chaplain bear the Earl's mother and brother word what he had done, and said, adding, 'By this act, Lord Clifford was accompted a tyrant and no gentleman.'"
Not satisfied with this cowardly act of vindictiveness, Lord Clifford resolved to carry his vengeful hatred on, by insulting the dead. He returned to the field, now strewn with corpses, sought for, and found that of the Duke of York, and cutting off his head, stuck it upon a lance and carried it, as the most acceptable trophy, to the tent of the Queen, who received it with ill-timed merriment and jest. She made a paper crown and placed it on the head, with an inscription--"This is he who would have been King of England," and gave directions for it to be conveyed, along with that of Salisbury, to York, and placed over one of the gates, adding, "Leave room for the head of my Lord of Warwick, for it shall soon bear them company!"
Queen Margaret, flushed with her victory, marched towards London, but met with the Earl of Warwick, in February, 1461, at St. Alban's, and there defeated him, after which the poor captive King was released and brought to his Queen in Lord Clifford's tent. But Edward, the quondam Earl of March, now Duke of York, had come up and joined Warwick, who, together, entered London and were welcomed by the citizens, who favoured the house of York. Margaret, fearing to meet their united forces, returned northward, her strongholds and most devoted friends being in the northern counties, especially on the Scottish borders, whither she was followed by Duke Edward. She had come to York, and lay there with 60,000 men, when she heard that York and Warwick had reached Pontefract with an army of 40,000 men. Anxious to prevent the passage of the Aire by the enemy, she moved to Towton, some eight miles off York, and there was fought the memorable and decisive battle which placed the crown on the head of Edward IV. The Lancastrians had seized Ferrybridge under Lord Fitzwalter, and Clifford, as courageous as he was cruel, undertook to dislodge him, which he accomplished. But Lord Falconbridge crossed the Aire three miles higher, at Castleford, and attacked Clifford in the flank with a superior force. Clifford fled towards the Queen's camp, and when he arrived at Dittingdale, two miles off Towton, feeling thirsty after his exertions, he removed his gorget and stooped to drink at a streamlet, when an arrow struck him in the throat, and the murderer of Rutland and insulter of the dead Richard of York fell to rise no more.
The Shepherd Lord.
For ever memorable in the annals of England will be Palm Sunday in the year 1461, and equally so the little hamlet of Towton, by Tadcaster. There and then was fought, in a blinding snowstorm, what Camden calls "the English Pharsalia," the greatest battle hitherto fought on English soil, where Englishman met Englishman, and kinsman kinsman, in deadly conflict, and in which quarter was neither asked nor given. The conflict lasted ten hours, and the pursuit of the fugitives was continued until the middle of Monday. 60,000 Lancastrians were met by 40,000 Yorkists, and 36,000 corpses and dying men lay that Sunday night on the snow of the fields, roads, and hillsides, whilst the river and streamlets ran with torrents of blood, and the snow became encrimsoned as it fell. The fight inclined in favour of the Red Rose, under the command of the Duke of Somerset, although York and Warwick performed prodigies of valour with their smaller forces, and the day must have gone against the White Rose, when, towards evening, the banner of the Mowbrays was seen approaching, and the Duke of Norfolk came up with a body of fresh troops, who made a vigorous attack on the Lancastrians, which at once turned the scale, and changed what seemed to be a defeat into a decisive victory, which was virtually the deposition of Henry VI., and the elevation of Edward IV. to the throne--a transference of the crown from the House of Lancaster to that of York.
The shades of evening were falling over the forest lands around Skipton, some week or ten days after the battle. The surrounding hills were covered with snow, and a fierce wind raged round the towers of the castle, whilst the boughs of the trees crashed against each other, and ever and anon a huge branch, reft from the parent stem, was flung with fury to the earth.
Within the castle, in a room overlooking the courtyard, sat the Lady Clifford, with her young children, two or three female attendants, and the chaplain of the household. It was very unlike a modern drawing-room, and, in these Sybarite days, would be looked upon as a very comfortless apartment; yet was it a fair specimen of the drawing-room of the period. Instead of Axminster or Aubusson carpets, the floors were strewn with rushes; instead of oil paintings from the hands of eminent masters, the walls were hung with tapestries of Arras, more to cover the rough nakedness of the stonework and exclude draughts than for æsthetic purposes; the furniture of the room consisted of a table, two or three chairs, and a few stools of rough carpentry, not in mahogany or rosewood, but of the native oak, hewn out of the woodlands of the demesne. On the hearthstone blazed a fire of wood, sputtering as the sleet fell into it down the wide open chimney. There was no grate, fender, or fire-irons, but beside the hearth lay a heap of fresh wood, to be thrown on the fire as required; and when the embers required stirring, a stick from the heap was used for that purpose.
Lady Clifford sat in silence, brooding in thought over her absent husband, with an occasional heavy-drawn sigh; the children were gambolling about the room in innocent unconsciousness of the perils to which their father was exposed; the chaplain joined in their romps, and amused them by telling them tales of Fairyland and the good deeds of holy saints; and the handmaidens were sitting apart, plying their distaffs and spinning-wheels, and indulging in the usual gossip of an isolated castle and the surrounding village, but maintained it in an undertone, so as not to disturb the meditations of their lady.
"What a fearful night it is," said Lady Clifford, as a terrific gust of wind came roaring round the towers of the castle, seeming almost to shake them to their foundations, stoutly as they were built. "It is terrible even here, sitting as we are under the protection of these strong walls; what must it be to those who are exposed to its fury, camped, perchance, on some wild moor, and surrounded by enemies?"
At this moment a trumpet summons for admittance to the castle was heard; and presently the seneschal entered the room, stating that a knight was without the gate with tidings of great importance.
"Who is he?" asked Lady Clifford. "Do you know him?"
"Yes, my lady, he is Sir John de Barnoldswick, who accompanied my lord, and I fear me he brings intelligence of evil import."
"Admit him instantly, and bring him hither."
The rattling of the chains of the drawbridge was heard, and the sound of opening the ponderous castle gates, followed by the tramping of a horse in the courtyard, and the heavy footsteps of a steel-clad warrior on the stone stairs, and a tall, martial-looking figure, but with melancholy gait and drooping head, entered the room and made a profound obeisance to the lady of the castle, but without speaking a word of salutation.
"Whence comest thou, Sir Knight, and what are thy tidings?" inquired Lady Clifford, in tremulous accents.
"I come from the field of battle, lady, and my tidings are evil."
"Let us hear them; I am a soldier's wife, and ought not to shrink from calamitous intelligence," she replied, although her nervous trembling belied her utterance.
"Know, then, lady, that a great and disastrous battle has been fought near Tadcaster, and the Lancastrian cause lost. I fought till the last under the Clifford banner; saw many a brave fellow of the Vale of Craven fall around me, and barely escaped to bring the news hither."
"And what of the King and the brave Queen Margaret?"
"Alas! I know not; they and the Prince of Wales were in York when the battle was fought. All I know is that Somerset and the King's troops were utterly defeated, and fled northward, with Warwick and the Duke of York in hot pursuit."
"And what of my lord? Fled he too? He would never turn his back to the foes of his King."
"He did not, lady; had he been present, the result might have been different. He was not in the engagement."
"What mean you by 'not in the engagement'? Surely he, of all men, would not stand aloof on such an occasion?"
"Alas! lady, I fear to tell you why."
"Speak, man! is he dead? or why was he absent?"
"It is too true, lady, that he can no longer fight in defence of his King."
"Then he is dead!" cried Lady Clifford, in an agony of despair.
"He fell, my lady, on the eve of the battle, after a glorious act of valour, by a random shot. Heaven rest his soul!"
"Heaven help my poor children!" cried Lady Clifford, and fell to the floor in a swoon, the mother's instinctive love for her offspring prevailing over her grief for her own loss. And truly, she had reason to fear for them. Her husband, "Black-faced Clifford," as he was called, had an inveterate hatred for the House of York; he had murdered, in cold blood, the young Duke of Rutland, brother of Edward of York; had cut off the head of Richard, Duke of York; and had caused the Earl of Salisbury, father of Warwick, to be executed at Pontefract; and it was tolerably certain that York, the future King, and Warwick, his General, would seek to take vengeance on the children of him who had committed those atrocities.
The Dukes of York and Warwick marched triumphantly to York, and were submissively received by the authorities, and there they celebrated the festival of Easter with great splendour. Hastings, Stafford, and others had been made Knights-Bannerets on the field; Devon and Wilts were decapitated by martial law, and their heads placed on the bar gate of York, whence those of Richard of York and the Earl of Salisbury, the fathers of York and Warwick, had been removed; and, after settling affairs in the north, the victors marched to London, and were welcomed by the citizens with loud demonstrations of joy, the Londoners being staunch Yorkists.
Lady Clifford prepared to meet her untoward fate, and took measures for the safety of her children. Her old friend, the venerable Prior of Bolton, who had made himself acquainted with all that had taken place since the battle of Towton, so far as could be learnt in that remote spot, mounted his mule and rode over to the Castle. He was received courteously and with dutiful reverence by Lady Clifford, and, moreover, with joy, as she wished to consult him, above all others, as to her future line of conduct.
"I am at a loss, holy father, to think what I can do. I suppose there is no hope of retrieval on the part of Queen Margaret?"
"I am afraid not. The Queen is endeavouring to raise another army in the north, but I fear with little chance of success."
"What, then, will be the effect upon the adherents of the House of Lancaster? I suppose executions, attainders, and confiscations?"
"Precisely so; and Lord Clifford, one of the most bitter foes of the House of York, will certainly be included in the first list, his title extinguished, and his estates confiscated."
"And my poor children will thus lose all their inheritance; but it is not that I dread this so much as the vengeance of the Duke--King now, I presume--and of the Earl of Warwick. I fear me that even if their lives are not sacrificed, they will be cast into dungeons, to languish out their lives."
"Your apprehensions, my daughter, are, unfortunately, but too well-founded, and we must consult on some measures for their safety. You need not fear molestation until Edward has seated himself securely on the throne, and will be safer within the walls of this castle than elsewhere. But it will be wise to make provision for removal to some secure retreat as soon as the Acts of Attainder have passed, and the King begins to take vengeance on his foes, for then Skipton will pass into other hands."
"I bethink me of such a place," said Lady Clifford. "Your council is wise. I can go to the mansion of my father, Lord Vesci, on his Londesborough estates, near Market Weighton, where it will be possible to reside as far removed from the world as if out of the world. There I could bring up my children, without notice, until the cloud had passed over, or until a change in the wheel of fortune shall restore the House of Lancaster to the throne."
After some further discussion, the Prior saw that this was the best plan that could be adopted; and it was arranged that measures should be taken for departure at any moment, when there should be indications of the towers of Skipton becoming untenable, and, after a parting benediction, the reverend Prior mounted his mule, and returned home.
King Edward lost no time in taking steps to paralyse effectually any further efforts on the part of the adherents of the rival House. He called together a Parliament, and one of the first measures laid before it was an Act of Attainder against all the nobles and men of rank who had appeared in arms against his legitimate claim to the crown, which, now that he had been successful, was deemed treason. The demesnes of John, Lord Clifford, extended for seventy miles, with an interval of ten, from Skipton into the heart of Westmoreland, with four castles--those of Brougham, Appleby, Brough, and Pendragon, besides that of Skipton. The Westmoreland estates, with the tenure Baronies of Vipont and Westmoreland, had been inherited by Robert de Clifford, third baron, from his great-aunt, Isabella, daughter and co-heiress of the last male heir of the family of De Vipont. By the Act of Attainder all these fair lands and castles were reft away from the family, the Barony of de Clifford was declared to be extinct for ever, and all the estates, forests, moors, castles, tenements, mills, and goods escheated to the Crown. In the fourth of the reign, the castle, manor, and lordship of Skipton, and the manor of Morton were granted in tail male to Sir Edward Stanley, but in the fifteenth year were transferred to the King's brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to hold till death.
It is proverbial that bad news flies rapidly, and it was not long ere news arrived at Skipton and Bolton of the Act of Attainder. The Prior had come over to the castle to advise with Lady Clifford. "You must take your departure at once," said he. "The agents of the usurper will be here anon and take possession in the name of the King, and it is not at all improbable that they will have instructions to remove your children from your care, and immure them in some place of captivity, if nothing worse befalls them, as the offspring of one of the most determined enemies of the House of York."
"I have sent a confidential servant," she replied, "to Lord Vesci, my father, who sends word back that preparation shall be made for my reception at Londesborough."
"Nothing remains, then," said the Prior, "but to secure your jewels and other portable articles of value, with such of the family papers as you may deem it wise to preserve, and to set off on your journey, with an escort sufficient for your protection, but not so large as to attract undue notice."
Lady Clifford had left the castle in charge of the seneschal, to deliver it into the King's hands, and rode forth on a palfrey, disguised as a farmer's wife. She was accompanied by three or four horsemen in similar disguise, with whom the children rode, and was followed at some distance by some half-dozen servitors clad as peasants, but bearing concealed weapons for the purpose of defence, if needful, as it was probable that they might meet with disbanded soldiers, who might not be over scrupulous in waylaying and robbing chance travellers. The party, as far as possible, went along by-ways, so as to escape observation, but these were sometimes so rough as to compel them to take the more beaten high roads, and, passing by Otley, Tadcaster, and York, arrived at Londesborough without any mishap or adventure of consequence.