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Home Lancaster and York The Seizure of the Crown by the House of York |
The Seizure of the Crown by the House of YorkIn 1460 they returned, defeated the Lancastrians at Northampton, when Lord Grey de Ruthyn turned traitor and helped the Yorkists over the fortifications in the Lancastrian lines. Henry himself taken prisoner was the chief prize of the victory, and the Duke of York appearing in London began to set forward his claims to the throne. In the meantime Margaret and Lord Clifford were gathering fresh levies in the north. The Duke, marching north to meet them, was caught with an inferior force, defeated and killed at Wake-field. A paper crown set on his head over the gates of York was Margaret's derisive answer to his hopes of a kingdom.Wakefield fight cleared away two fathers to make room for two abler sons. Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, left his cause to his son Edward, Earl of March. Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, less fortunate even than his master, for he was taken prisoner and beheaded in cold blood, gave place to Richard his son, Warwick the Kingmaker. At first the Yorkist cause seemed desperate, Margaret's army, now swollen to a huge force, rotted southward plundering and burning. The Yorkists were scattered, Warwick struggling to cover London, Edward far away in the west, where he had been winning the battle of Mortimer's Cross. Margaret came on Warwick at St. Albans and beat him. Again treachery had much to do with the result; a Kentish squire named Lovelace went over to the Lancastrians, and left a gap in the Yorkist lines, through which the enemy passed. The Yorkists fled in confusion: next day Warwick had not above a sixth of his army with him. This crushing defeat coming on the top of Wakefield seemed fatal. The King had been once more taken prisoner - this time by his friends. Everyone expected that a few days would see Margaret in London and Henry VI on the throne again. The chance was lost. Margaret dawdled; London - accustomed to become the prize of war - was willing to yield if only it could escape being entered by the Northerners, and King Henry persuaded his wife to agree. The respite given allowed Warwick first to join Edward, and then to return at full speed to London. The Lancastrians retreated northwards, the first step in a lost cause. Year, were to pass before fate would be again kind and the wasted opportunity return. Less than six weeks saw the Lancastrian cause in the dust. Edward, now acknowledged King, pursued Margaret's army northwards and encountered it at Towton. Tin:. was the sternest fight in all the battles of the Roses. The numbers on each side were about equal, but a squall of wind and snow, blowing into the Lancastrians faces, carried the Yorkist arrows into their ranks, and prevented their return fire from reaching the enemy. Having shot away their shafts to no purpose the Lancastrians had to leave their ground and commit themselves to an attack up lull on the Yorkist lines. For hours the battle hung in the balance, till towards afternoon, a fresh Yorkist force under Norfolk coming up on the right, gradually pressed the Lancastrian left north-westwards. The result was disastrous, for to the north and west their retreat was cut off by the little river Cock, deep and sluggish, and at this time overflowing its banks. Nothing showed where the deep water lay, and hundreds of the Lancastrians, splashing through the flood, fell in headlong and were drowned. There was little chance for those who wore armour. The last to cross did so on the piled-up bodies of their drowned comrades. Late into the afternoon the Yorkists pressed a fiery pursuit, and when night came the Lancastrian army was annihilated. One thing would have made Towton absolutely decisive - the capture of Margaret. Margaret, however, escaped, and for the next three years kept up a desultory struggle in the north. She got help from the Scots and the French. The fighting went on round the great castles of Alnwick, Bamborough, and Dunstanborough. Warwick and his brother, John Neville, Marquis Montagu, at length captured these strongholds, and in the battles of Hedgeley Moor and Hexham shattered the last of the Lancastrians. After Hexham, Montagu enforced his victories by beheading all the Lancastrian leaders in his hands. Among them fell Henry Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. |
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