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lecting an army in the midland counties, should join him. It is doubtful to which side Montacute was faithful, or if to either: for, though great companies were assembled, they kept out of sight of the king's march, and allowed him to pass quietly. Their force was far superior to his; but there were many reasons which made them stand aloof: a belief that his claim to the duchy was lawful; a doubt whether his claim to the crown, though not as yet avowed, might not be well founded also · and, what to them was of greater importance, successful. They knew, also," says Holinshed, "that not only he himself, but likewise his company, were minded to sell their lives dearly, before they would shrink an inch from any that was to encounter them; and it may be that divers of the captains, although outwardly they showed to be against him, yet in heart they bore him right good will." By this Montacute had written "to all the towns of Yorkshire, and to the city also, commanding all men, on the king's behalf, to be ready in harness, and to shut their gates against the king's enemies.' He nevertheless proceeded, without let or hinderance, till, when he was within three miles of York, the recorder, Thomas Coniers, and other deputies, came to him with word from the citizens that they were armed to defend their gates, and earnestly admonished him not to approach nearer. The message was not delivered in a lukewarm spirit, nor by one of questionable fidelity; and Edward was not a little troubled by it, for he had to choose between two chances, both highly perilous. Should he turn back, "he feared lest the rural and common people, for covetousness of prey and spoil, should fall on him," as one that was taking flight: "if he should proceed, then might the citizens of York issue out with all their power, and suddenly circumvent and take him." He determined, however, to go forward; but not with army nor with weapon: lowly language and gentle entreaties were the instruments that served his purpose best. So, with fair words and flattering speech,

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he repeated his protestations that he sought only to recover the duchy, his old inheritance; and he protested that if, by means of the citizens of York, he might recover it, so great a benefit should never be by him forgotten. Having thus dismissed the messengers, he followed them with such good speed, that he was at the gates almost as soon as they. The citizens, influenced by his answer, and by his appearance, were much mitigated and cooled." They parleyed with him from the walls, and assured him that, if he would without delay convey himself to some other place, he should have no hurt; "but he gently speaking to all men, and especially to such as were aldermen, whom he called worshipful, and by their proper names them saluted," entreated that, by their friendly permission, he might enter into his own town, from which he had both his name and title. All the whole day was consumed in doubtful communication and earnest interlocution." But at length the citizens, "partly won by his fair words, and partly by hope of his large promises, fell to this pact, that if he would swear to entertain his citizens of York after a gentle sort, and hereafter to be obedient and faithful to king Henry, they would receive him into their city, and aid and comfort him with money.'

Oaths never yet impeded an ambitious man. The duke of York, as he now called himself, and as the citizens called him, presented himself the next morning at the gate. A priest was in readiness there to say mass; and he, at that mass, "receiving the body of our blessed Saviour," solemnly swore to what had been agreed, "when it was far unlike that he intended to observe the oath; and all men afterward evidently perceived that he took no more study or diligence for any one earthly thing, than he did to persecute king Henry, and to spoil him of his kingdom." And here the English chroniclers remark, that this solemn and wilful perjury did not pass unpunished, for the sins of the father were visited upon the children; and no family ever more hea

* Hall, 292. Holinshed, 304, 305.

vily or more deservedly experienced that judgement than the Plantagenets. When Edward had thus deluded the citizens, he set a garrison in the city to prevent them from rising against him, and then, by means of this money, gathered a great host. Montacute allowed him, when he marched for London, to pass unmolested by, though within four miles of his camp. The mar

quis distrusted his own men as much as he was himself distrusted; and by his inaction at this critical time was thought to have done Edward as good service as if he had joined him with his army. Yet Edward was joined by few till he drew near Nottingham, where sir William Parr, sir James Harrington, sir Thomas Burgh, and sir Thomas Montgomery, came to him with their friends and dependants. They added to him greater strength than any army which they could have raised, by declaring that they would serve no man but a king: upon this encouragement, he reassumed the title, and, casting away all dissemblance, issued his royal proclamation - not more to the "shame and dolour of the citizens of York, who then perceived how grossly they had been deluded, than to the comfort of those who, either from the spirit of party, or from a clear conviction of its justice, were attached to the Yorkite "The white rose thus having bloomed, the red falling its leaves, all flocked to Edward, whose train, as he passed," says Speed, was like a river that in the running is ever increased with new springs." He entered London on Holy Thursday, the Lancastrians, in their dismay, making no attempt to resist him, so that the gates were open; and Henry, who in the morning had been paraded as king through the streets of his capital, found himself before night a prisoner in Edward's hands. This extraordinary success, against all seeming probabilities, Comines says, was accounted for by three circumstances. Above 2000 Yorkites had taken refuge in the different sanctuaries within the walls when Edward fled the kingdom: among them were 300 or 400 knights or squires, persons of condition and

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influence, ready and able to act with effect upon such an opportunity as was here presented. Their numbers were dreaded by the other party, who probably overestimated them; and further strength was added to their cause by popular feeling, then strongly excited in favour of Edward's queen, who, now herself in sanctuary, had recently been delivered of a son. The second cause which Comines indicates was, that Edward owed many debts in London, and the merchants to whom he was indebted were greatly interested in his success. The third was, that a young and handsome and licentious king, who had courted the women within his sphere or his reach for widely different purposes, found zealous partisans in them at this critical hour, and they incited all whom they could influence to appear in his behalf. Each of these causes had, no doubt, its effect; but the truth is, that that revolution, like all such revolutions, was the effect of audacity on the one side, and irresolution and timidity on the other. When it was known that Clarence had forsaken his father-in-law, Warwick, and joined the king his brother, "such a fear," says Hall, "rose suddenly among the citizens, that they were driven to their wits' ends, not knowing either what to do or to say; but at the last very fear compelled them to take king Edward's part."

When Clarence sent by some of his friends to Warwick excuses for his own conduct, and exhortations that the earl would come to some good accord with king Edward while he might, the king-maker returned this reply, "that he would liever be always like himself, than like a false and perjured duke; and that he was fully determined never to cease from the contest till he had either lost his own life, or utterly extinguished and put under his enemies." In that determination he marched against the king, and the battle of Barnet was fought: in that battle the king appears to have shown more military skill than his great opponent. The accidents of war and of the weather were in the king's favour; and * Hall, 291–294. Holinshed, 305-314. Speed, 682. Comines, 170.

Warwick, the last of those great barons who were powerful enough to enthral the sovereign and transfer the crown, came to that end which, when the day went against him, he sought, and which, probably for himself and certainly for the nation, was the best that could have befallen him. "After so many strange fortunes and perilous chances by him escaped, death did for him one thing that life could not do; for by death he had rest, peace, quietness, and tranquillity, which his life ever abhorred, and could not suffer nor abide."* The battle of Tewkesbury soon followed, and the fruits of victory were secured to Edward, by the murder, in his presence, of the prince of Wales, who had been brought before him as a prisoner, upon the king's promise that his life should be saved. The bitterness of that murder, it has been properly observed, some of the actors, in their latter days, tasted and assayed by the very rod of justice and punishment of God."+

Edward ordered three days' thanksgiving for his final success, and following up that success with just such measures as his enemies would have taken had the victory fallen to their part, he visited the towns and places where the Lancastrians had first assembled, and there, "to the pain and punishment of no small number," provided for his own security. All opposition within the kingdom was effectually put down; but an alarm reached him from the sea. Warwick had appointed his kinsman, Thomas Nevil, the bastard son of Thomas lord Falconbridge, his vice-admiral; and, in expectation of maintaining the ascendency which he then held, charged him so to keep the seas, and especially the passage between Dover and Calais, as that none of the Yorkites "should escape untaken or undrowned." The bastard is described as being, "for his evil conditions, such an apt person, that a more meeter could not be chosen to set all the world in a broil, much more easily then might he put this realm on an ill hazard." Upon Warwick's fall, the boldest course seemed to him the best: * Hall, 297. † Idem.