The earls of Salisbury and Warwick join the duke of York; the Lancastrians, headed by the queen, advance to Ludlow against him, when Sir Andrew Trolloped deserts to them, Oct. 13; a pardon is offered, and the duke's army disbands.

A parliament held at Coventry, in which the duke of · York and his chief adherents are attainted, Nov. 20.

A.D. 1460. The Yorkist lords at Calais, invited by the people of Kent, land at Sandwich, about Midsummer; they enter London with a large army, July 2.

The queen raises a force, which is totally defeated by the Yorkists at Northampton, July 10; the duke of Buckingham, the queen's general, is killed, the king taken prisoner, and the queen and her son obliged to flee to Scotland.

James II. of Scotland is killed by the bursting of a cannon at the siege of Roxburgh, Aug. 3; he is succeeded by his son James III., a child not seven years old. The parliament assembles, Oct. 7.

The duke of York returns from Ireland, Oct. 9; he makes a formal claim of the crown, Oct. 16.

A compromise is effected, that Henry shall retain the crown for life, and be succeeded by the duke of York; the proceedings of the parliament at Coventry in 1459 are set aside as illegal, [39 Hen. VI. c. 1].

The queen raises an army in the north, and advances

4 He was killed on the Lancastrian side at Towton.

He fled with one of his sons (the earl of Rutland) to Ireland; the earls of March, Salisbury, and Warwick escaped to Calais, and ravaged the English coast with their ships, capturing on one occasion Lord Rivers and other Lancastrians, who were assembling a force against them at Sandwich.

against the Yorkists; the duke of York leaves London to oppose her.

The duke of York is besieged by Margaret in Sandal castle, near Wakefield; he sallies out, and attacks her army, but is defeated and killed, Dec. 31. His son, the earl of Rutland, is taken and butchered in cold blood by Lord Clifford'; and the earl of Salisbury and several other prisoners beheaded without trial at Pontefract, the next day.

A.D. 1461. The young duke of York (afterwards Edward IV.) defeats the earl of Pembrokes at Mortimer's Cross (near Wigmore), Feb. 2. The earl's father and several other prisoners are beheaded on the field.

The queen advances southward, and defeats the earl of Warwick at St. Alban's, Feb. 17, and rescues the king. Her partisans ravage the country, when she is

John, lord Clifford, had been commissary-general of the Scottish marches, and from his fierce and lawless character bore the name of "the butcher." His father, Thomas,

who was the nephew of Hotspur, had fallen on
the Lancastrian side at the first battle of
St. Alban's, and he himself was killed at Tow-
ton. He was so obnoxious to the Yorkists,
that his son Henry owed his life to being
brought up as a shepherd, in which state
he remained until the accession of Henry
VII., who restored his title and estates; he
served at the battle of Flodden, and died
in 1535. Robert, a younger son of "the
butcher," was employed by Henry VII. as
a spy, and his treachery proved fatal to Sir
and many others.

Arms of Clifford.

William Stanley

Jasper Tudor, second son of Owen Tudor and Queen Katherine. He escaped from the field, and though by marriage nearly allied to the House of York, (his wife was sister to the queen of Edward IV) lived an exile for years, carrying about with him his young nephew, afterwards Henry VII. He died in 1496, then having the title of duke of Bedford. Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, was his grandson.

refused admission into London, and obliged to retire to the north.

The duke of York enters London, Feb. 28. His army being mustered in St. John's Fields on Sunday, March 2, the Lord Falconbridge1 addresses the citizens in favour of the duke's right to the crown.

The duke urges his claim before a council of such peers, prelates, and chief citizens as can be collected, who declare him king, March 3.

h William Neville, a younger brother of the earl of Salisbury; like him, he obtained his title by marrying an heiress. In 1462 he was created earl of Kent, and died soon after. A natural son of the preceding lord, called the Bastard of Falconbridge, was admiral of Warwick's navy when Henry VI. was restored; he in May, 1471, attempted to seize the Tower, where Edward's queen and young family resided: being repulsed from London, he lived awhile by piracy, having at one time a fleet of near 50 ships at Sandwich, but was at last captured and beheaded.

IONEL of Antwerp, duke of Clarence and earl of Ulster, the third son of Edward III., was the ancestor of this house, as his younger brother John was of the usurping Lancastrians. His wife was Elizabeth, heiress of William de Burgh, who had been killed by some of his fellow Anglo-Irish chiefs, and it was to recover her patrimony, which had been shared according to the native laws, that his expeditions to Ireland were mainly undertaken. Their only daughter, Philippa, became the wife of Edmund, and the mother of Roger Mortimer, earl of March and Ulster, who was in 1385 declared presumptive heir to the throne, and was killed in Ireland in 1398. He had married Eleonora, the daughter of Thomas Holland, earl of Kent, (half-brother of Richard II..) and left a son and two daughters. His son Edmund See vol. i. p. 393.

was the true heir to the throne, but was set aside by the parliament, and died without issue in 1424. His daughter Anne had in the meanwhile married Richard, earl of Cambridge, (second son of Edmund of Langley, duke of York,) and was by him the mother of one son, Richard, who, though he never bore the title, is justly to be regarded as the first king of the House of York".

Neither the place nor the date of Richard's birth have been fully ascertained, but he cannot have been more than five years of age when his father was put to death. He was placed in the guardianship of Joan, countess of Westmoreland, whose youngest daughter, Cicely, he afterwards married. In 1425 he was relieved from corruption of blood, and succeeded to the estates and titles of his uncles, Edward, duke of York, and Edmund, earl of March. In 1430 the important office of constable was bestowed on him; in 1432, though very young, he was employed to guard the coasts of Normandy, and in 1436 he advanced almost to the gates of Paris. He was recalled in the following year, and though sent again in 1439 as lieutenant and captain to Normandy, he was again superseded by Beaufort, marquis of Dorset, who weakly or treacherously suffered himself to be expelled by the French, and then returning to England shared with Queen Margaret the direction of public affairs. York firmly opposed him, and in order to remove such an obstacle to their pro

In the first parliament of his son's reign an act was passed [1 Edw. IV. c. 1], in which he is styled "the right noble and famous prince of worthy memory, Richard, late duke of York... in his life very king in right of the realm of England, singular protector, lover and defensour of the good governance, policy, commonweal, peace and tranquillity thereof." • See p. 35.