A Child's History of England

by Dickens, Charles

  taken prisoner. They set him down in mock state on an ant-hill,

  and twisted grass about his head, and pretended to pay court to him

  on their knees, saying, 'O King, without a kingdom, and Prince

  without a people, we hope your gracious Majesty is very well and

  happy!' They did worse than this; they cut his head off, and

  handed it on a pole to the Queen, who laughed with delight when she

  saw it (you recollect their walking so religiously and comfortably

  to St. Paul's!), and had it fixed, with a paper crown upon its

  head, on the walls of York. The Earl of Salisbury lost his head,

  too; and the Duke of York's second son, a handsome boy who was

  flying with his tutor over Wakefield Bridge, was stabbed in the

  heart by a murderous, lord - Lord Clifford by name - whose father

  had been killed by the White Roses in the fight at St. Alban's.

  There was awful sacrifice of life in this battle, for no quarter

  was given, and the Queen was wild for revenge. When men

  unnaturally fight against their own countrymen, they are always

  observed to be more unnaturally cruel and filled with rage than

  they are against any other enemy.

  But, Lord Clifford had stabbed the second son of the Duke of York -

  not the first. The eldest son, Edward Earl of March, was at

  Gloucester; and, vowing vengeance for the death of his father, his

  brother, and their faithful friends, he began to march against the

  Queen. He had to turn and fight a great body of Welsh and Irish

  first, who worried his advance. These he defeated in a great fight

  at Mortimer's Cross, near Hereford, where he beheaded a number of

  the Red Roses taken in battle, in retaliation for the beheading of

  the White Roses at Wakefield. The Queen had the next turn of

  beheading. Having moved towards London, and falling in, between

  St. Alban's and Barnet, with the Earl of Warwick and the Duke of

  Norfolk, White Roses both, who were there with an army to oppose

  her, and had got the King with them; she defeated them with great

  loss, and struck off the heads of two prisoners of note, who were

  in the King's tent with him, and to whom the King had promised his

  protection. Her triumph, however, was very short. She had no

  treasure, and her army subsisted by plunder. This caused them to

  be hated and dreaded by the people, and particularly by the London

  people, who were wealthy. As soon as the Londoners heard that

  Edward, Earl of March, united with the Earl of Warwick, was

  advancing towards the city, they refused to send the Queen

  supplies, and made a great rejoicing.

  The Queen and her men retreated with all speed, and Edward and

  Page 132

  Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England

  Warwick came on, greeted with loud acclamations on every side. The

  courage, beauty, and virtues of young Edward could not be

  sufficiently praised by the whole people. He rode into London like

  a conqueror, and met with an enthusiastic welcome. A few days

  afterwards, Lord Falconbridge and the Bishop of Exeter assembled

  the citizens in St. John's Field, Clerkenwell, and asked them if

  they would have Henry of Lancaster for their King? To this they

  all roared, 'No, no, no!' and 'King Edward! King Edward!' Then,

  said those noblemen, would they love and serve young Edward? To

  this they all cried, 'Yes, yes!' and threw up their caps and

  clapped their hands, and cheered tremendously.

  Therefore, it was declared that by joining the Queen and not

  protecting those two prisoners of note, Henry of Lancaster had

  forfeited the crown; and Edward of York was proclaimed King. He

  made a great speech to the applauding people at Westminster, and

  sat down as sovereign of England on that throne, on the golden

  covering of which his father - worthy of a better fate than the

  bloody axe which cut the thread of so many lives in England,

  through so many years - had laid his hand.

  CHAPTER XXIII - ENGLAND UNDER EDWARD THE FOURTH

  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.

  Page 133

  Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England

  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.

  A reconciliation, though not a very sincere one, was patched up

  between the Earl of Warwick and the King, and lasted until the Earl

  married his daughter, against the King's wishes, to the Duke of

  Clarence. While the marriage was being celebrated at Calais, the

  people in the north of England, where the influence of the Nevil

  family was strongest, broke out into rebellion; their complaint

  was, that England was oppressed and plundered by the Woodville

  family, whom they demanded to have removed from power. As they

  Page 134

  Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England

  were joined by great numbers of people, and as they openly declared

  that they were supported by the Earl of Warwick, the King did not

  know what to do. At last, as he wrote to the earl beseeching his

  aid, he and his new son-in-law came over to England, and began to

  arrange the business by shutting the King up in Middleham Castle in

  the safe keeping of the Archbishop of York; so England was not only

  in the strange position of having two kings at once, but they were

  both prisoners at the same time.

  Even as yet, however, the King-Maker was so far true to the King,

  that he dispersed a new rising of the Lancastrians, took their

  leader prisoner, and brought him to the King, who ordered him to be

  immediately executed. He presently allowed the King to return to

  London, and there innumerable pledges of forgiveness and friendship

  were exchanged between them, and between the Nevils and the

  Woodvilles; the King's eldest daughter was promised in marriage to

  the heir of the Nevil family; and more friendly oaths were sworn,

  and more friendly promises made, than this book would hold.

  They lasted about three months. At the end of that time, the

  Archbishop of York made a feast for the King, the Earl of Warwick,

  and the Duke of Clarence, at his house, the Moor, in Hertfordshire.

  The King was washing his hands before supper, when some one

  whispered him that a body of a hundred men were lying in ambush

  outside the house. Whether this were true or untrue, the King took

  fright, mounted his horse, and rode through the dark night to

  Windsor Castle. Another reconciliation was patched up between him

  and the King-Maker, but it was a short one, and it was the last. A

  new rising took place in Lincolnshire, and the King marched to

  repress it. Having done so, he proclaimed that both the Earl of

  Warwick and the Duke of Clarence were traitors, who had secretly

  assisted it, and who had been prepared publicly to join it on the

  following day. In these dangerous circumstances they both took

  ship and sailed away to the French court.

  And here a meeting took place between the Earl of Warwick and his

  old enemy, the Dowager Queen Margaret, through whom his father had

  had his head struck off, and to whom he had been a bitter foe.

  But, now, when he said that he had done with the ungrateful and

  perfidious Edward of York, and that henceforth he devoted himself

  to the restoration of the House of Lancaster, either in the person

  of her husband or of her little son, she embraced him as if he had

  ever been her dearest friend. She did more than that; she married

  her son to his second daughter, the Lady Anne. However agreeable

  this marriage was to the new friends, it was very disagreeable to

  the Duke of Clarence, who perceived that his father-in-law, the

  King-Maker, would never make HIM King, now. So, being but a weakminded

  young traitor, possessed of very little worth or sense, he

  readily listened to an artful court lady sent over for the purpose,

  and promised to turn traitor once more, and go over to his brother,

  King Edward, when a fitting opportunity should come.

  The Earl of Warwick, knowing nothing of this, soon redeemed his

  promise to the Dowager Queen Margaret, by invading England and

  landing at Plymouth, where he instantly proclaimed King Henry, and

  summoned all Englishmen between the ages of sixteen and sixty, to

  join his banner. Then, with his army increasing as he marched

  along, he went northward, and came so near King Edward, who was in

  that part of the country, that Edward had to ride hard for it to

  the coast of Norfolk, and thence to get away in such ships as he

  could find, to Holland. Thereupon, the triumphant King-Maker and

  his false son-in-law, the Duke of Clarence, went to London, took

  the old Ki
ng out of the Tower, and walked him in a great procession

  to Saint Paul's Cathedral with the crown upon his head. This did

  Page 135

  Dickens, Charles - A Child's History of England

  not improve the temper of the Duke of Clarence, who saw himself

  farther off from being King than ever; but he kept his secret, and

  said nothing. The Nevil family were restored to all their honours

  and glories, and the Woodvilles and the rest were disgraced. The

  King-Maker, less sanguinary than the King, shed no blood except

  that of the Earl of Worcester, who had been so cruel to the people

  as to have gained the title of the Butcher. Him they caught hidden

  in a tree, and him they tried and executed. No other death stained

  the King-Maker's triumph.

  To dispute this triumph, back came King Edward again, next year,

  landing at Ravenspur, coming on to York, causing all his men to cry

  'Long live King Henry!' and swearing on the altar, without a blush,

  that he came to lay no claim to the crown. Now was the time for

  the Duke of Clarence, who ordered his men to assume the White Rose,

  and declare for his brother. The Marquis of Montague, though the

  Earl of Warwick's brother, also declining to fight against King

  Edward, he went on successfully to London, where the Archbishop of

  York let him into the City, and where the people made great

  demonstrations in his favour. For this they had four reasons.

  Firstly, there were great numbers of the King's adherents hiding in

  the City and ready to break out; secondly, the King owed them a

  great deal of money, which they could never hope to get if he were

  unsuccessful; thirdly, there was a young prince to inherit the

  crown; and fourthly, the King was gay and handsome, and more

  popular than a better man might have been with the City ladies.

  After a stay of only two days with these worthy supporters, the

  King marched out to Barnet Common, to give the Earl of Warwick

  battle. And now it was to be seen, for the last time, whether the

  King or the King-Maker was to carry the day.

  While the battle was yet pending, the fainthearted Duke of Clarence

  began to repent, and sent over secret messages to his father-inlaw,

  offering his services in mediation with the King. But, the

  Earl of Warwick disdainfully rejected them, and replied that

  Clarence was false and perjured, and that he would settle the