Part 19 (1/2)

[Footnote 14: For the situation of Blore Heath, see map.]

[Sidenote: Decorations.]

Audley had ten thousand men under his command. The soldiers were all adorned with red rosettes, the symbol of the house of Lancaster. The officers wore little silver swans upon their uniform, such as Prince Edward had distributed.

[Sidenote: Battle lost.]

The queen watched the progress of the battle with intense anxiety, and soon, to her consternation and dismay, she saw that it was going against her. She kept her eyes upon Audley's banner, and when, at length, she saw it fall, she knew that all was lost. She hurried down from the tower, and, with a few friends to accompany her, she fled for her life to a strong-hold belonging to her friends that was not at a great distance.

[Sidenote: Feeble condition of the king.]

The king, too, had to be removed, in order to prevent his being taken prisoner. He was, however, too feeble to know much or to think much of what was going on. When they came to take him on his pallet to carry him away, he looked up and asked, feebly, ”who had got the day,” but beyond this he gave no indication of taking any interest in the momentous events that were transpiring.

[Sidenote: Spirit and temper of the queen.]

[Sidenote: 1460.]

[Sidenote: Success of her efforts.]

This defeat, instead of producing a discouraging and disheartening effect upon Margaret's mind, only served to arouse her to new vigor and determination. She had been somewhat timid and fearful in the earlier part of her troubles, when she had only a husband to think of and to care for. But now she had a son; and the maternal instinct seemed to operate in her case, as it has done in so many others, to make her fearless, desperate, and, in the end, almost ferocious, in protecting her offspring from harm, and in maintaining his rights. She immediately engaged with the utmost zeal and ardor in raising a new army. She did not trust the command of it to any general, but directed all the operations of it herself. There is not s.p.a.ce to describe in detail the campaigns that ensued, but the result was a complete victory. Her enemies were, in their turn, entirely defeated, and the two great leaders, the Duke of York and the Earl of Warwick, were actually driven out of the kingdom. The Duke of York retreated to Ireland, and the Earl of Warwick went across the Straits of Dover to Calais, which was still in English possession, and a great naval and military station.

[Sidenote: The Earl of Warwick.]

[Sidenote: His successful advance.]

In a very short time after this, however, Warwick came back again with a large armed force, which he had organized at Calais, and landed in the southern part of England. He marched toward London, carrying all before him. It was now his party's turn to be victorious; for by the operation of that strange principle which seems to regulate the ups and downs of opposing political parties in all countries and in all ages, victory alternates between them with almost the regularity of a pendulum. The current of popular sentiment, which had set so strongly in favor of the queen's cause only a short year before, appeared to be now altogether in favor of her enemies. Every body flocked to Warwick's standard as he marched northwardly from the coast toward London, and at London the people opened the gates of the city and received him and his troops as if they had been an army of deliverers.

[Sidenote: Northampton.]

[Sidenote: The king made captive.]

Warwick did not delay long in London. He marched to the north to meet the queen's troops. Another great battle was fought at Northampton.

Margaret watched the progress of the fight from an eminence not far distant. The day went against her. The result of the battle was that the poor king was taken prisoner the second time and carried in triumph to London.

The captors, however, treated him with great consideration and respect--not as their enemy and as their prisoner, but as their sovereign, rescued by them from the hands of traitors and foes. The time had not even yet come for the York party openly to avow their purpose of deposing the king. So they conveyed him to London, and lodged him in the palace there, where he was surrounded with all the emblems and marks of royalty, but was still, nevertheless, closely confined.

[Sidenote: Parliament summoned.]

[Sidenote: The king.]

The Duke of York then summoned a Parliament, acting in the king's name, of course, that is, requiring the king to sign the writs and other necessary doc.u.ments. It was not until October that the Parliament met. During the interval the king was lodged in a country place not far from London, where every effort was made to enable him to pa.s.s his time agreeably, by giving him an opportunity to hunt, and to amuse and recreate himself with other out-door amus.e.m.e.nts. All the while, however, a strict watch was kept over him to prevent the possibility of his making his escape, or of the friends of the queen coming secretly to take him away.

As for the queen and the little prince, none knew what had become of them.

[Sidenote: The duke's pretensions.]

When Parliament met, a very extraordinary scene occurred in the House of Lords, in which the Duke of York was the princ.i.p.al actor, and which excited a great sensation. Up to this time he had put forward no actual claim to the throne in behalf of his branch of the family, but in all the hostilities in which he had been engaged against the king's troops, his object had been, as he had always said, not to oppose the king, but only to save him, by separating him from the evil influences which surrounded him. But he was now beginning to be somewhat more bold.