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The Quarrel of York and Neville; Part 3

The Quarrel of York and Neville; Part 3

Then the wheel went round again. Edward gathered his men, and landed at Ravenspur. He had but 300 with him; Richard of Gloucester came to shore in the Humber mouth with another 200; Earl Rivers brought another handful. It seemed a hopeless enterprise to unmake the Kingmaker with so small a force. Yet Ravenspur was of good omen as a starting-point for a cast at a throne, "since even in the same place the usurper Henry of Derby landed after his exile". The parallel goes closer; even as Henry of Derby gave out that he came but to claim his rightful Duchy of Lancaster, so Edward of March announced that all he sought was his Dukedom of York; as the one adventurer became the fourth King Henry, the other established himself as the fourth King Edward.

Edward's march south shows what courage and fortune may do. Montagu missed him, and followed too tardily in pursuit. Warwick drew in Clarence, to stop him in the Midlands, but Clarence went over to his brother. The Kingmaker prepared to defend his own castle of Warwick; Edward marched straight to London. Then, as Warwick followed, Edward again came northwards, and met him at Barnet. The battle, fought in a dense fog, which caused the wing of each army to overlap the other, was decided more by chance than skill. The Earl of Oxford's Lancastrians, after driving off their Yorkist opponents, lost their way, and came back on the rear of their own force. Their badge, the "Radiant Star", was mistaken for Edward IVs badge, the "Sun with Rays", and they were greeted with a shower of arrows. At once a cry of "Treachery!" ran all down the line. Treachery was what all the array of Nevilles and Lancastrians had expected; none trusted the other, since times without number they had been foes. Immediately their ranks were broken. Warwick himself paid the usual penalty of a lost battle - being killed "something flying" in the chronicler's words. Heavy armour made battle safe, but defeat fatal.

Fortune indeed had turned her back on the Neville cause at last; for a month Margaret had been on the French shore waiting to cross; for a month a great storm had held her prisoner. She landed at Weymouth too late, on that same Easter Day which saw Warwick fight his last fight at Barnet. Her help, which would have changed the fate of that day, was now useless. She turned westwards, but on May 4 was overtaken and beaten at Tewkesbury. There, in the pursuit through the " Bloody Meadow", fell Prince Edward vainly begging for mercy. Somerset was taken prisoner and executed, adding one more victim to the roll of his luckless house. The father was killed at St. Albans; the elder son beheaded at Hex-ham; the third son killed at Tewkesbury; the second beheaded the next day after the battle. No male was left to the line of Beauforts, and the Yorkists may have rejoiced at the extinction of their hereditary enemies. They had still, however, to reckon with one descendant of the female line, a boy named Henry Tudor, then fourteen years old.

Tewkesbury ends the third acute phase of the Wars of the Roses. The first battle of St. Albans saw the allied houses of York and Neville triumph over the Beauforts; Towton marked their victory over King Henry; Barnet and Tewkesbury found the old allies at each other's throats, and ended in the downfall of the Neville power. The last phase traces the gradual break-up of the Yorkist power owing to the same cause that had exalted it - family ambition.

The remaining years of Edward IV's reign passed quietly. The king was personally popular; Henry VI had been put out of the way - he died on the day of Edward's triumphant return from Tewkesbury, probably murdered by Gloucester; most of the Lancastrian leaders were dead; those who survived were exiles, poor, and in misery. Parliament, when it met, was on the whole content to let the king rule according to his pleasure. And pleasure was the main thing Edward sought. He did indeed embark on a war with France; if it was not glorious, it was at any rate of more practical use than many of our wars, for Louis XI bought him off with the payment of 72,000 crowns down, and promises of a further annuity. Edward might look forward to many years of life; he had two sons to succeed him; it might be assumed that the house of York was secure.

The Quarrel of York and Neville; Part 3

Chronology