The Wars of the Roses were in more ways than one the outcome of the great French war. Formally they were an appeal to arms to decide a disputed succession to the crown: substantially they were a revolt against a weak and discredited government, of whose incompetence the unsuccessful conduct of the war in France had been the most conspicuous evidence. Henry VI., or those who bore rule in his name, had neither the sagacity to make peace and save some portion of the French territory at the price of abandoning claim to the whole, nor the energy to carry on the conflict vigorously. The absurdly scanty numbers of the English troops in France during the last fifteen or twenty years of the war testify alike to the feebleness of the government at home, and to the respect which English military skill and prowess inspired abroad. The marriage of Henry VI. was arranged in the hope of propping up his failing cause in France. And the personality of Margaret of Anjou is on the whole the most important in the Wars of the Roses. On the one hand her energy and daring alone sustained the cause of Lancaster, which without her would have collapsed; on the other hand her extreme unpopularity helped the cause of York. The accident that she was eight years a wife before becoming a mother contributed to the same end. The duke of York had so long been in the position of next in succession to the crown,[40] that when a direct heir was born to Henry VI. the disappointed partisans of York began to say that in strict hereditary right he ought to take precedence of the boy. They could not bear to see the predominance of the hated French queen assured, and her offspring barring for ever the hopes of their leader and themselves. This was perfectly natural under the circumstances, but it does not therefore follow that the claim of York was sound. Those disaffected to an actual king naturally look for a rival claimant, the support of whom may serve to disguise rebellion. There can be no doubt that, on the principles of succession now legally established, the next heir to Richard II. was the young earl of March, or that his claim passed eventually to the duke of York. On the other hand it is equally certain that in the fifteenth century there was no established law of succession, and that the substitution of Henry of Lancaster for his cousin was in accordance with the traditional rule of election. If Henry V. had lived to old age, nothing would ever have been heard of the pretensions of the house of York. Those pretensions were in accordance with the legitimist ideas which were then gaining ground elsewhere, as the natural corollary of absolutism, but which have never been really accepted in England except by Jacobite fanatics.

When the war at length broke out, ample material for the armies was supplied by the soldiers whose occupation in France was gone, by the overplus of a population not industrially prospering, and most of all by the personal following of the nobles. Though on the whole the cause of York was favoured by the towns, by the merchants, by the most prosperous and civilised elements of the nation, while the backward regions of the north and west supported Lancaster, yet the differences were not deep enough to affect the conduct of the war. Both sides were equipped and fought after the same fashion; both used cannon more or less; both knew the deadly effect of the cloth-yard arrow, and therefore sought to come to close quarters; both fought with the obstinacy of their race, and often with the special fury which civil war is apt to engender. Hence there is much similarity between the battles, and not much interest, in spite of the remarkable vicissitudes of fortune, except in the three great battles won by Edward IV. in person. To what extent Edward deserves the credit of Towton, the first and greatest of them, cannot be determined; he had the co-operation of the earl of Warwick, and he was still very young. Barnet and Tewkesbury were clearly his own.

Late in 1460, as the result of a Yorkist victory at Northampton, a compromise was arranged by which Henry VI. was to retain the crown for his life, and Richard duke of York was recognised as his successor. Queen Margaret, however, would not surrender the rights of her son without a struggle: the nobles of the north rose in arms again, and the duke of York was obliged to march against them. On December 30 he was defeated and slain at Wakefield; his second son, and his brother-in-law the earl of Salisbury, Warwick's father, perished with him. The victory cost the Lancastrians dear: the barbarity of decapitating York's dead body, and placing the head, crowned in mockery with a paper diadem, over the gate of York, strengthened the feeling of hatred and contempt for the north-countrymen, as little better than savages, already growing in the south. Moreover, York, who had displayed no particular capacity, was replaced by his son Edward, who, with all his faults, proved the best soldier of the war. Warwick also, who was an abler man than his father, and who already held the great inheritance of the Beauchamps through marriage with the heiress, succeeded to his father's wide domains, and so concentrated in his own hands by far the greatest independent power ever possessed by an English subject. Margaret advanced southwards, won a battle at St. Albans, but found London unassailable, and was obliged to return to Yorkshire, her soldiers plundering and destroying on the way in a manner ruinous to her cause. Meanwhile the young duke of York, after crushing the Lancastrians of the Welsh border at Mortimer's Cross, had reached London, and had been proclaimed king as Edward IV. Without delay he and Warwick marched northwards to bring the contest to a decisive issue, and fought on Palm Sunday 1461 the greatest battle, in respect of the numbers engaged, ever fought on English soil.[41]

The great north road, dating back to Roman times, crosses the river Aire at Ferrybridge, and the Wharfe at Tadcaster, twelve or thirteen miles further north, and nine miles from York. The Lancastrians intended to defend the passage of the Aire, and encamped near Towton, between the two rivers, but fully nine miles from the Aire. They were apparently in complete ignorance of the rapid advance of the Yorkists, who seized the important bridge unopposed. Somerset, who commanded the Lancastrian army, if any one can be said to have had supreme command, sent forward Lord Clifford to attempt to regain Ferrybridge. The Yorkists still more inexcusably were in their turn surprised and cut to pieces. Again Somerset blundered, and left Clifford unsupported. The Yorkist vanguard, under Lord Falconbridge, was sent up the Aire, and crossed it unopposed by the ford, difficult and dangerous in spring when the rivers are full, three miles up at Castleford. Clifford, in danger of being cut off, retreated on the main army, the enemy making no attempt to pursue him: but within little more than a mile of the camp his force was surprised and annihilated by Falconbridge. When we remember that English armies had been fighting in France down to 1453, under conditions which ought to have developed the utmost care in never neglecting a precaution or an opportunity, and that they had been fighting at home almost ever since, it seems scarcely credible that such a series of astonishing blunders should have been committed by both sides.

The Yorkists, marching by the two roads from Ferrybridge and Castleford, which unite at the village of Towton, halted on the evening of Saturday March 28, a couple of miles from the Lancastrian position. The one thing which every Englishman who pretended to be a general in that age understood, was how to take up a position tactically strong for standing on the defensive. Somerset's army was however far too large for his capacity: he drew up his 60,000 men on a front of a mile, thereby throwing away his advantage in numbers. For a third of his force, awaiting [105]
[106]
[107]an attack from a fairly equal enemy, the position would have been excellently chosen, assuming that he was not going to be forced to retreat. The Lancastrian army was posted facing south on a plateau, their right resting on a little stream, the Cock, which in summer is a mere thread of water, but was at that season in flood, and quite impassable. In rear of their left was Towton village, to which the great road ran at the bottom of a tolerably steep slope of from 50 to 80 feet from the edge of the plateau: the slope down to the Cock on the other flank was impracticably steep. In front was a slight depression known as Towton Dale, from which the ground rose again on the south to a similar plateau. Thus the right was perfectly secure; if the enemy attempted to turn the left they would have to attack up a steep ascent: even in front they would have the ground against them. Somerset had only to place some of the useless thousands that overcrowded his line of battle in observation on the plain east of the high-road, ready to strike at the enemy's flank, and he could hardly have been assailed successfully. The weak point of the position was that the Cock bends round the rear of it, a serious obstacle in its flooded state to retreat in case of need, the more so as the old road from Towton descended very steeply to the only bridge. The country being at that date all open, retreat was possible north-eastwards, in rear of the left, without crossing the Cock, more or less in the direction of the modern road, which only crosses the Cock close to its junction with the Wharfe, very near Tadcaster. Obviously, however, should the enemy turn or defeat the left of the army, this resource would be cut off, and defeat would mean destruction.

Warwick and Edward advanced at dawn on the Sunday morning, though their rearguard, under the duke of Norfolk, delayed by the crossing of the Aire, was still some miles off. Their numbers, though far inferior to those of the enemy,[42] were amply sufficient for covering a front of a mile.

The Lancastrians, having chosen their ground, naturally did not oppose the Yorkists' advance. The latter climbed the southern slope, and marched across the plateau, a fall of snow preventing either party seeing the other until they faced each other at a distance of a quarter of a mile across Towton Dale. From this time, if not before, the snow was driving in the faces of the Lancastrians, and Falconbridge utilised this advantage very cleverly. He ordered his archers to advance and begin shooting at the enemy, whom they could dimly see: as soon as the Lancastrians, annoyed by the arrows which they could not see coming, began to reply, he withdrew his men a short distance, and let the enemy waste their shafts on the open ground. Presently the hail of Lancastrian arrows slackened, as the supply ran short, and Falconbridge once more sent his archers forward, and so galled the defenceless enemy that they advanced to come to close quarters. The Lancastrians had thus to attack up-hill through the blinding snow, instead of compelling their antagonists to assail them at a disadvantage. A hand-to-hand conflict all along the line followed. Both sides fought stubbornly: orders had been given on both sides, so the chronicler says, to give no quarter. How long this continued it is hard to say: the armies may very well have been face to face by seven in the morning, though one account names nine o'clock. The losses on the victorious side, enormous for a hand-to-hand battle, in which the front lines only can fall, prove that it must have lasted a long while. About noon Norfolk, coming up at length from Ferrybridge by the great road, took the Lancastrians in flank. Still it was only gradually that they gave way: the battle had lasted for ten hours before the Lancastrians finally broke and fled by the only way open to them, towards the narrow bridge over the Cock. The swollen stream was scarcely fordable, the bridge was soon blocked, thousands were trampled down in the water, till the latest fugitives escaped over a causeway of their comrades' bodies. In modern times many thousands of the defeated army would have been taken prisoners, as happened at Blenheim when Marlborough pinned the French right against the Danube. The fury of civil war in the fifteenth century allowed very few prisoners to be made. Over 30,000 corpses are said to have been buried near Towton, of whom about a quarter were Yorkists. How many more found their last resting-place in the river cannot be guessed; all we know is that the Lancastrian army was to all intents and purposes annihilated.

After the battle of Towton the Lancastrians would never again have been able to shake Edward's throne, had he continued on good terms with his great supporter Warwick. It would be irrelevant to discuss the causes of the quarrel between them: it suffices to say that the breach ultimately became irreparable, and that Warwick determined to restore Henry VI. Before the vast power of the house of Neville, in alliance with the Lancastrian party, and strengthened by others whom Edward's conduct had offended, the king was helpless, and fled the country without striking a blow. For some months Warwick reigned in the name of the imbecile Henry VI.; but in March 1471 Edward was enabled by his brother-in-law, the duke of Burgundy, to land with a small force at the mouth of the Humber. He deliberately perjured himself by solemnly swearing in York Minster that he would never again claim the crown, and that he only came to claim his ancestral lands, and then marched southwards to try his luck. He conducted his enterprise with great skill and audacity, but his enemies also played completely into his hands. Northumberland, perhaps out of jealousy of the Nevilles, made no attempt to move southwards with the forces he raised in the extreme north. Montagu, Warwick's brother, who held Pontefract, apparently did not deem himself strong enough to attack Edward without Northumberland's co-operation. The earl of Oxford moved from the eastern counties upon Newark, but shrunk back in alarm when Edward turned to attack him. Somerset was far away in the south-west. Warwick was doing his best to gather an army in the midlands, and was at Coventry when Edward, who had by this time accumulated a respectable army, moved from Leicester. As he knew that Montagu was following Edward from the north, and Oxford threatening him from the east, as he was every day expecting his son-in-law the duke of Clarence to join him from the west, Warwick chose to play a cautious game, and let Edward pass Coventry without fighting. The next news that Warwick heard was that Clarence had joined Edward: without principle to keep him true to any cause, without judgment to discern his own best interest, Clarence was always ready to plunge into a new treason. Edward now deemed himself strong enough to march on London, where his cause had always been popular, and on April 11 took possession of the capital without a blow. Hearing that Warwick was approaching, he moved out on the 13th to meet him, and on that night the two armies bivouacked opposite each other north of the little town of Barnet. Warwick had been joined not only by Montagu and Oxford, but also by Somerset: Edward had drawn considerable reinforcements from Essex. Of the numbers on each side very conflicting accounts are given, but from the narrative of the battle it would seem that there was no very great disparity, though probably Warwick had some little superiority; neither side can well have had 20,000 men, possibly much less.

The contemporary narratives are not more valuable than most mediÆval chronicles in determining topography with precision, and the battle-field of Barnet has now been so much enclosed and built over that little can be discovered from examination of the ground. In the fifteenth century Gladsmuir Heath, as it was then called, was open ground, as the name implies: nor is there any trace in the narratives of the battle having extended over the rough broken ground which lies east of the great north road towards Monk's Hadley. The only topographical point made in the official Yorkist narrative is that Warwick, who was first on the field, arranged his men more than half-a-mile north of Barnet "under an hedge-side." There can nowhere have been a great length of hedge, sufficient to protect even a large part of Warwick's front; but he may well have taken up a line of which the southern boundary of Wrotham Park would form nearly the centre.[43] Nothing however turns on the exact shape of the ground: the battle was, like most others of the age, a straightforward engagement all along the line. Edward was anxious to make sure of fighting on the morrow: he had nothing to gain by delay, and might lose much, for Lancastrian forces were gathering in Kent. He therefore under cover of the darkness moved up so near to Warwick's line, that it would be impossible for either party to retire without engaging. So near did he venture that Warwick's guns, which were kept firing during the night, sent their shot harmlessly over the heads of the Yorkists. When day dawned on Easter Sunday, April 14, Gladsmuir Heath was enveloped in so thick a mist that neither party discovered at first that each army outflanked the other on the right.[44] The battle began in the usual way with an ineffective cannonade and some flights of arrows, and then they came to close quarters. As might be expected, Montagu and Oxford on the Lancastrian right defeated Edward's left, which fled through Barnet, pursued by Oxford, though Montagu seems not to have quitted the line of battle. In the centre the king in person engaged in an obstinate struggle with Somerset, and slowly gained some advantage. Warwick on the left was partially outflanked by Gloucester, but held his ground fairly well, though he was gradually forced back on the centre. In the thick fog nothing could be seen a few hundred yards off: thus Warwick remained ignorant of the success of Oxford, who, in his turn, was so completely bewildered by the fog that when he turned back, after driving his own immediate opponents through Barnet, he lost his way completely, and instead of taking Edward in rear as he presumably aimed at doing, went past the contending lines, and came upon the reserve of his own side. Here occurred the fatal mistake which ruined Warwick's chance of victory. In the mist the silver star of the De Veres was mistaken for Edward's cognizance, a sun with rays: Oxford's men were received with a volley of arrows. Instantly the notion of treachery arose: the jealousy between the old Lancastrians and Warwick's supporters blazed out. Oxford fled at once: Somerset followed his example. Some of the old Lancastrians turned their arms against the Nevilles, and Montagu, it would seem, was killed by his own friends. Warwick saw that all was lost: but in determining to fight on foot, in his heavy armour, he had made flight impossible, and he was beaten down and killed, apparently unrecognised. When Edward saw that the victory was gained, his one anxiety was to know whether Warwick had fallen. The corpses of Warwick and Montagu were found, and exposed for three days in St. Paul's Cathedral, in order that there might be no doubt about the great earl being really dead. Edward was quite right: the cause of Henry VI. was bound up with Warwick's life. Unlike as Warwick was in personal character to the typical feudal noble, he was in a very real sense "the last of the Barons." The quasi-despotic monarchy of the Tudors and Stuarts was founded on the field of Barnet.

On the day of the battle of Barnet, queen Margaret with her son landed at Weymouth. She soon learned the fatal news, and was joined by Somerset and other fugitives. The Beauforts and Courtenays, strong in their hereditary influence in the west, were far from believing that their cause was ruined: and the fact that Edward waited at Windsor till he was sure that they were not moving eastwards towards London, implies that he at least thought them not too weak to attempt it. The ultimate and undoubtedly more prudent resolution of the Lancastrian leaders was to make for Gloucester, and form a junction with the earl of Pembroke, who was raising forces in Wales; but their purpose was not certainly apparent until they left Bath, and instead of seeking battle with the king, who was by this time at Cirencester, moved on Bristol. Still it was not quite certain that they were avoiding battle. On May 2, Edward, who was well served by his scouts, was informed that the enemy were in position at Sodbury, some dozen miles north of Bristol. He hastily moved towards them, but on reaching Sodbury towards evening found no trace of the enemy. The Lancastrians marched all night, and on the forenoon of May 3 approached Gloucester, hoping to occupy the town and there cross the Severn. The governor of Gloucester was however a Yorkist, and refused them admission, and the wearied Lancastrians had to continue their march, for they knew that Edward was not far off. There was no bridge over the Severn nearer than Worcester: but if the Avon could be crossed at Tewkesbury they might hope to reach Worcester unattacked, or even to pass the Severn by boats at some nearer point. Accordingly they struggled on ten miles further to Tewkesbury, and there halted for the night, utterly overcome by fatigue, after marching forty-four miles since the preceding morning. All day Edward had been marching along the Cotswolds on a line parallel to that followed by the Lancastrians, but some distance in rear, though gradually gaining on them. Towards evening, in passing through Cheltenham, he heard positively that the enemy were in Tewkesbury; and he also halted for the night about three miles off.

The author of the Arrivall of King Edward, who obviously accompanied his master to Tewkesbury, takes great pains to describe what he saw. Like many other writers, he has no names but "hill" and "valley" for trifling inequalities of ground, but otherwise he writes with unusual precision, and there is no reason whatever for distrusting his authority. The Lancaster position, he says, was "in a close, even at the towne's end, the towne and abbey at their backs, afore them, and upon every hand of them, fowle lanes and depe dikes with hills and valleys, a ryght evill place to approache." Their leaders doubtless deemed it impossible to escape across the Avon without fighting, and as they were certainly not seriously outmatched in numbers,[45] they had no reason to avoid a battle. As usual in that age they took up a position well chosen for fighting on the defensive; but it had a muddy brook between them and Tewkesbury, and the Avon beyond the town, so that defeat involved total destruction. Sir John Ramsay[46] gives a very good map, which shows all the ancient lanes, as well as the modern road and other things which have materially altered the ground. It is of course impossible to discover exactly which enclosures are ancient, and there are now no "depe dikes." The small numbers engaged could not have covered nearly the length of front possible according to the topography; but the left flank must have been near the easternmost of the ancient lanes, for the author of the Arrivall speaks of Somerset having "passyd a lane" in his attempted turning movement in the battle, which can have been no other. Whatever the exact position of the Lancastrian line, king Edward brought his own troops up opposite to them, except that he posted two hundred spears "near a quarter of a myle from the fielde," to watch a wood by means of which he thought his right flank might be threatened. The battle began with some cannonading and "shott of arrows," in both of which the Yorkists had rather the advantage. The position was however very difficult to assail at close quarters, and the Lancastrians might apparently have held it successfully, had not Somerset attempted a counter-stroke. He, we are told, "somewhat asydehand the king's vaward, and by certain paths and ways therefore afore purveyed, and to the king's party unknown, departed out of the fielde, passyd a lane, and came into a faire place or close even afore the king where he was embattailed, and from the hill that was in that one of the closes, he set right fiercely upon the end of the king's battaile." There must have been a gap between the king's division in the centre and the vaward, or right, for this to be possible. However the centre and right united in pushing back this attack, and the two hundred spears above-mentioned, falling unexpectedly on Somerset's flank, completed his defeat. The king was then able to advance, attack in flank the Lancastrian centre, and so rout the whole army, which broke and fled in all directions. The only local name that survives as a memorial of the battle is the "Bloody Meadow" by the Avon below Tewkesbury: this may well mark a place where many fugitives of the right wing, cut off from the only escape into the town, were slaughtered by the victors. Prince Edward, the last heir of Lancaster, was killed in the battle or the pursuit—there seems no foundation for the story which Shakespeare used, that he was taken prisoner and killed in cold blood. Somerset, Devon, nearly all the remaining Lancastrians of note were killed, or were executed after the battle. Except for the Tudor interest in Wales, the Lancastrian party was annihilated. It required the early death of Edward IV., and the murder of his nephews by Richard of Gloucester, before Henry of Richmond could resuscitate it.

INTERMEDIATE NOTE
GUNPOWDER

The invention of gunpowder was slower in making itself felt than most of the other great discoveries which have turned the course of history. There is no intrinsic impossibility in the statement of a contemporary Italian writer, that Edward III. had cannon at Crecy, though in the absence of any other testimony it is not generally believed. He had them at the siege of Calais immediately afterwards, though they were of little use. The earliest firearms were of very clumsy make, slow and difficult to load, short in range and allowing no accuracy of aim. From the nature of the case, cannon[47] were made practically useful earlier than hand weapons. As soon as ever gun-carriages of a tolerably movable form were devised, it was possible at least to use them on the battle-field, though a very long time had still to elapse before they became important; in the battles of the English civil war of the seventeenth century artillery plays a very minor part. Naturally they were much more effective in sieges, where mobility was not required, and the slowness of fire less important. By the end of the fifteenth century, if not sooner, it was perceived that gunpowder had effected a revolution in this branch of warfare. In the early middle ages a well-walled town or castle was proof against such modes of battering as were then in use. Unless escalading proved possible, the besiegers could only reduce the place by starvation. With that inevitable reservation the defence was stronger than the attack. Hence a feudal noble, possessed of a well-situated castle, could defy the crown, for a time at least; hence in Italy the cities could make themselves independent. With the introduction of cannon all this was changed. The crown, and as a rule the crown only, could afford to maintain artillery that could be used against a fortified city or castle, and with its aid could reduce with certainty every place which had walls of the mediÆval type. To fortify in a fashion that would give a reasonable chance against cannon was out of the power of most nobles. Thus artillery contributed largely, perhaps more than any other single agency, to the great political change which marks the close of the middle ages, by which the crown becomes, at least as against the nobles, virtually absolute.

Firearms to be used by hand were far slower in their development, as was natural, owing to their greater complication. The earliest were mere tubes, elevated on a stand, miniature cannon in fact. For a very long while they could not be fired from the shoulder, but required to be supported on iron rests fixed into the ground, which added seriously to the weight to be carried. Musketeers, if one may apply the term to the soldiers who bore the earlier firearms before the musket properly so called was invented, were quite incapable of standing alone. They might fire one volley at charging cavalry, but long before they could be ready for a second, the horsemen would be cutting down their defenceless ranks. Hence pikemen, who should do the defensive part of the work, were a necessary adjunct to musketeers: obviously also the pikemen alone could come to close quarters in attacking. It was not until the invention of the bayonet enabled the musketeer to be, so to speak, his own pikeman, that infantry equipped with firearms could become the real backbone of an army.

It is doubtful whether a musket bullet[48] was ever so deadly a missile as the clothyard arrow, all points taken into account. If a bullet struck armour obliquely, it would penetrate, instead of glancing, at a greater angle than an arrow point.[49] And it would also be likely to make worse wounds, by driving in bits of the metal. On the other hand the arrow was noiseless and smokeless, merits which are reckoned important by modern authorities who are seeking after smokeless powder. It had greater range than the musket bullet, admitted of much greater accuracy of aim, and had probably at least equal direct penetrating power, except at very short distances. England however was the only country in the latter middle ages which used a missile weapon that would bear comparison even with the clumsiest firearms. Naturally musketeers, with their pikemen, were developed rather on the continent than in England, though everywhere the development was slow, and the process of superseding armour and hand-to-hand weapons very gradual.

The ultimate political tendency of the invention of gunpowder was obvious. By rendering discipline more necessary for the efficiency of the soldier, it threw power into the hands of the state, which alone could maintain and organise bodies of trained men, as against individuals. By making infantry the one indispensable arm, it tended to make oppression less easy: the class which furnishes the fighting strength of a nation will in the long run have at least its full share of political power. It may be only a coincidence, but it is at any rate symbolical, that England, the country in which, thanks to the long-bow, infantry became earliest of paramount importance in war, is also the country in which aristocratic privileges in the strict sense of the word, as distinguished from aristocratic influences, were of least extent and soonest reduced to insignificance. It is also the country in which the nation as a whole earliest felt its strength, and taught its kings to respect the national will.