KING EDWARD THE FOURTH was not quite twenty-one years of age when he took that unquiet seat upon the throne of England.The Lancaster party,the Red Roses,were then assembling in great numbers near York,and it was necessary to give them battle instantly.But,the stout Earl of Warwick leading for the young King,and the young King himself closely following him,and the English people crowding round the Royal standard,the White and the Red Roses met,on a wild March day when the snow was falling heavily,at Towton;and there such a furious battle raged between them,that the total loss amounted to forty thousand men-all Englishmen,fighting,upon English ground,against one another.
The young King gained the day,took down the heads of his father and brother from the walls of York,and put up the heads of some of the most famous noblemen engaged in the battle on the other side.
Then,he went to London and was crowned with great splendour.
A new Parliament met.No fewer than one hundred and fifty of the principal noblemen and gentlemen on the Lancaster side were declared traitors,and the King-who had very little humanity,though he was handsome in person and agreeable in manners-resolved to do all he could,to pluck up the Red Rose root and branch.
Queen Margaret,however,was still active for her young son.She obtained help from Scotland and from Normandy,and took several important English castles.But,Warwick soon retook them;the Queen lost all her treasure on board ship in a great storm;and both she and her son suffered great misfortunes.Once,in the winter weather,as they were riding through a forest,they were attacked and plundered by a party of robbers;and,when they had escaped from these men and were passing alone and on foot through a thick dark part of the wood,they came,all at once,upon another robber.So the Queen,with a stout heart,took the little Prince by the hand,and going straight up to that robber,said to him,'My friend,this is the young son of your lawful King!I confide him to your care.'The robber was surprised,but took the boy in his arms,and faithfully restored him and his mother to their friends.
In the end,the Queen's soldiers being beaten and dispersed,she went abroad again,and kept quiet for the present.
Now,all this time,the deposed King Henry was concealed by a Welsh knight,who kept him close in his castle.But,next year,the Lancaster party recovering their spirits,raised a large body of men,and called him out of his retirement,to put him at their head.They were joined by some powerful noblemen who had sworn fidelity to the new King,but who were ready,as usual,to break their oaths,whenever they thought there was anything to be got by it.One of the worst things in the history of the war of the Red and White Roses,is the ease with which these noblemen,who should have set an example of honour to the people,left either side as they took slight offence,or were disappointed in their greedy expectations,and joined the other.Well!Warwick's brother soon beat the Lancastrians,and the false noblemen,being taken,were beheaded without a moment's loss of time.The deposed King had a narrow escape;three of his servants were taken,and one of them bore his cap of estate,which was set with pearls and embroidered with two golden crowns.However,the head to which the cap belonged,got safely into Lancashire,and lay pretty quietly there (the people in the secret being very true)for more than a year.
At length,an old monk gave such intelligence as led to Henry's being taken while he was sitting at dinner in a place called Waddington Hall.He was immediately sent to London,and met at Islington by the Earl of Warwick,by whose directions he was put upon a horse,with his legs tied under it,and paraded three times round the pillory.Then,he was carried off to the Tower,where they treated him well enough.
The White Rose being so triumphant,the young King abandoned himself entirely to pleasure,and led a jovial life.But,thorns were springing up under his bed of roses,as he soon found out.
For,having been privately married to ELIZABETH WOODVILLE,a young widow lady,very beautiful and very captivating;and at last resolving to make his secret known,and to declare her his Queen;
he gave some offence to the Earl of Warwick,who was usually called the King-Maker,because of his power and influence,and because of his having lent such great help to placing Edward on the throne.
This offence was not lessened by the jealousy with which the Nevil family (the Earl of Warwick's)regarded the promotion of the Woodville family.For,the young Queen was so bent on providing for her relations,that she made her father an earl and a great officer of state;married her five sisters to young noblemen of the highest rank;and provided for her younger brother,a young man of twenty,by marrying him to an immensely rich old duchess of eighty.
The Earl of Warwick took all this pretty graciously for a man of his proud temper,until the question arose to whom the King's sister,MARGARET,should be married.The Earl of Warwick said,'To one of the French King's sons,'and was allowed to go over to the French King to make friendly proposals for that purpose,and to hold all manner of friendly interviews with him.But,while he was so engaged,the Woodville party married the young lady to the Duke of Burgundy!Upon this he came back in great rage and scorn,and shut himself up discontented,in his Castle of Middleham.