Although Henry VI. was beloved by his subjects, he was subjected to the vicissitudes of the Wars of the Roses. His Queen, Margaret of Anjou, was unpopular with the people, her favourite minister, William De la Pole, was hated of the nobles, and nobles and commons were alike exasperated by the loss of the French possessions.

Richard, Duke of York, a brave soldier, and popular with the people, was the lineal heir to the throne, and he was determined to assert his claim.

The first battle was fought at St. Albans, on the 23rd May, 1455. The royalists maintained the town, being commanded by Lord Clifford, the Dukes of Buckingham and Somerset, and the Earls of Northumberland and Stafford. York fiercely attacked, being supported by Norfolk, Salisbury and Warwick. The Northern archers poured their shafts into the town, and inflicted great slaughter, and the Earl of Warwick, “seizing his opportunity, moved to the garden side of the town, and attacking it at the weakest side, forced the barriers.” A desperate conflict ensued, Somerset, Northumberland, and Clifford were slain, and King Henry, Stafford, Buckingham, and Dudley were wounded by arrows. Abbot Wethemstede states that he saw, “here one lying with his brains dashed out, here another without his arm; some with arrows sticking in their throats, others pierced in their chests.”

The King was defeated and captured, and the Yorkists divided the government. The Duke was created Constable of the Kingdom, Salisbury Lord Chancellor, and Warwick governor of Calais.

Each party watched the other, and the pious King attempted to reconcile the leaders in 1458, when they went in solemn procession to St. Paul’s, the Duke of York leading the Queen, and the opposing barons being paired accordingly.

A few weeks later, and Warwick fled into Yorkshire, the two factions being put into opposition by a brawl between the servants of Warwick and Queen Margaret.

In September, 1459, the Yorkists were again in arms, and Salisbury, feigning to fly before Lord Audley and the royalists, turned upon them as they were crossing a brook on Bloreheath, and bore them down with lance and bill. The conflict was somewhat desultory, and lasted five hours, the victory remaining with the Yorkists. Lord Audley was slain, and with him 2,400 men, including the good knights Thomas Dutton, John Dunne, Hugh Venables, Richard Molineaux, and John Leigh.

Henry and York met at Ludlow, when Sir Andrew Trollope carried his command over to the King, and the Yorkists, panic-stricken by this defection, dispersed.

The Duchess of York, and two of her sons, fell into Henry’s hands, and was sent to her sister, Anne, Duchess of Buckingham. At Coventry, November 20th, Parliament attainted and confiscated the estates of “the duke of York, the earl of March, the duke of Rutland, the earl of Warwick, the earl of Salisbury, the lord Powis, the lord Clinton, the countess of Salisbury, sir Thomas Neville, sir John Neville, sir Thomas Harrington, sir Thomas Parr, sir John Conyers, sir John Wenlock, sir William Oldhall, Edward Bourchier, sq., and his brother, Thomas Vaughan, Thomas Colt, Thomas Clay, John Dinham, Thomas Moring, John Otter, Master Richard Fisher, Hastings, and others.” On the submission of Lord Powis he received the King’s grace, but lost his goods.

Warwick, March, and Salisbury fled to Calais, and Somerset, the newly-appointed governor, proceeded to attempt the reduction of the fortress; but, by a clever counter-stroke, Warwick captured the fleet, Lord Rivers and his son being surprised before they could leave their bed. Rivers “was brought to Calais, and before the lords, with eight-score torches, and there my lord Salisbury rated him, calling him ‘knave’s son, that he should be so rude to call him and these other lords traitors; for they should be found the King’s true liege-men, when he would be found a traitor.’ And my lord Warwick rated him, and said, ‘that his father was but a squire, and brought up with King Henry V., and since made himself by marriage, and also made a lord; and that it was not his part to hold such a language to lords, being of the king’s blood.’ And my lord March rated him likewise. And Sir Anthony was rated for his language of all the three lords in likewise.” A notable scene, and picturesque: making easy the mental transition to a later period, when these fierce lords called for block and headsmen, and their prisoners made short shrift. Indeed the period was very near. Osbert Mountford, despatched to reinforce Somerset, was captured at Sandwich, carried to Calais, and beheaded on the 25th June, 1460.

On the 5th June Salisbury and Warwick landed at Sandwich, and reached London with 25,000 men arrayed under their banners. Margaret strove to shut them out of the city, but in vain; and Lord Scales discharged the Tower guns against them.

On the 19th of July the two armies engaged at Northampton. Margaret, with a strong escort, watched the conflict with the keenest anxiety. The heavy rains rendered the King’s artillery inoperative, yet, after five hours of sanguinary fighting, the battle was decided by the treachery of Lord Grey, of Ruthin, who carried his command over to the Yorkists.

King Henry was captured, and carried, in honourable captivity, to London. Margaret fled to Scotland, accompanied by Somerset and the young Prince of Wales.

Richard of York entered London, appeared before the peers, and advanced to the throne, placing his hand upon the canopy. This mute claim was received in silence, that was broken by the Archbishop of Canterbury, as he enquired whether the Duke would not wait upon the King. York haughtily replied, “I know of none in this realm than ought not rather to wait upon me,” and turning his back upon the peers, retired.

It was admitted by the lords that Richard was the lineal heir to the throne, but Parliament had elected Henry IV. to the crown, Henry V. had succeeded, and his son, the present King, had been accepted by the lords and commons, and, but for the ambition of York, his title would have remained unquestioned. The peers passed over the claims of the young Prince of Wales, and decided that the King should retain the crown, but that, on his death, York and his heirs should inherit it.

Margaret was immediately summoned to London, and prepared for the journey by raising her standard. Before she appeared upon the scene the battle of Sandal was fought.

The Yorkists now freely dipped their hands in blood. Lords Hungerford and Scales were allowed to pass out of the Tower free men, but the soldiers and officers had “to abide by the law.” Lord Scales was murdered within the week by mariners serving Warwick and March. He was seen “lying naked in the cemetery of the church of St. Mary Overy, in Southwark. He had lain naked, being stripped of his clothes, for several hours on the ground, but afterwards on the same day he was honourably interred by the earls of March, Warwick, and others.” In the same month, July, Sir Thomas Blount, of Kent, with five others of the household of the Duke of Exeter, were accused before “the Earl of Warwick and the other justiciaries of the King, of illegally holding the Tower,” and “were drawn to Tyburn and beheaded, and shortly afterwards John Archer, who was in the councils of the duke of Exeter, shared the same fate.”

Duke Richard was declared heir-apparent on the 9th of November, with the present title of Lord Protector, and an allowance of £10,000 to maintain the dignity. The Yorkshire royalists were in arms, and “had destroyed the retainers and tenants of the Duke of York and Earl of Salisbury.” Salisbury and York immediately marched for the North.

Their vanguard struck Somerset’s army at Worksop, and was cut off. On the 21st December York occupied his Castle of Sandal. His army consisted of 6,000 men, too few to cope with the enemy lying at Pontefract under Somerset and Northumberland. The Duke might have maintained the defensive until the Earl of March came up from the Welsh borders, but on the 30th of December he sallied out to rescue a foraging party from the Lancastrians. With so numerous an army to feed, and in a position so remote from succour, Richard might reasonably risk something to protect his foragers.

Vainly Sir David Hall argued against so perilous an adventure. The drawbridge was lowered, and York’s banner was given to the wintry wind. It bore for device a Falcon volant, argent, with a fetter-lock, or. The bird was depicted in the effort of opening the lock, typical of the crown.

Behind the falcon-banner marched 4,000 veterans. With the Duke there rode to his last battle, Salisbury and the good knights, Thomas Neville, David Hall, John Parr, John and Hugh Mortimer, Walter Limbrike, John Gedding, Eustace Wentworth, Guy Harrington, and other notable men-at-arms.

Raising the war-cry of York, and sounding trumpets, they charged through the drifting snow-flakes, and awoke the fury of the battle. The Duke was outnumbered and surrounded, but fought stubbornly, being nobly seconded by his heroic army. Lord Clifford hotly attacked him, exerting every effort to cut off his retreat. Duke Richard valiantly attempted to cut his way through and retire into Sandal, but Clifford as sternly drew around him the iron bonds of war, prevented all retreat, and held him to the trial. The battle was extremely sanguinary, and the Lancastrians fought as though they were the red-handed arbiters of the whole dispute, and, like avenging angels, must wash out the treason of York in streams of blood. As Mountford fought at Evesham so fought the Lord Protector that day—exacting the heaviest price for his doomed life. Weapons whirled before his face, rang on his mail, and probed the jointed armour with point and edge until the good steel harness was dinted and stained with gore. Many warriors perished around him, and he, too, fell, sorely stricken, and died in his blood, amid the trampling of iron-clad feet, and the clash of crossing swords, as friends and foes fought hand-to-hand above his body. The crisis came. The falcon-banner fell, and the pursuing swords maimed and slew the fugitives, burdening the old year with the sorrows of the widow and the orphan. In the triumphant van, in the moment of victory, Richard Hanson, Mayor of Hull, laid down his life for Queen Margaret and her fair son. Salisbury won his way through the press, to fall by headsman’s axe. Rutland broke away from the slaughter, reached Wakefield Bridge, to perish by the steel of Clifford, happy in his early death that saved him from the infamy of bloody years that tarnished the fame of his brothers, March, Clarence, and Gloucester.

Some chroniclers represent the Queen as commanding her army in person, and as luring the Duke to meet her in open field. Dissuaded from the encounter by his friends, he declared that: “All men would cry wonder, and report dishonour, that a woman had made a dastard of me, whom no man could even to this day report as a coward! And surely my mind is rather to die with honour than to live with shame! Advance my banners in the name of God and of St. George.” This is not the York of history.

Rutland is represented as a boy, aged twelve years, a spectator, not a combatant, and accompanied by his tutor, Aspall. Clifford overtook him, and demanded his name. “The young gentleman dismayed, had not a word to speak, but kneeled on his knees, craving mercy and desiring grace, both with holding up his hands and making a dolorous countenance—for his speech was gone for fear.” “Save him,” cried Aspall, “he is a prince’s son, and peradventure may do you good hereafter.” Said Clifford, “By God’s blood thy father slew mine, and so will I thee and all thy kin,” and so smote him to the heart with his dagger, and bade the chaplain, “Go, bear him to his mother, and tell her what thou hast seen and heard.” Doubtless Clifford was as red-handed a sinner as any of the barons, but probably no worse. He is said to have cut off the Duke’s head, crowned it with paper, and carried it upon a pole to the Queen, exclaiming, “Madam, your war is done: here I bring your King’s ransom.”

Such are some popular errors, perpetuated by historians who have followed the romantic versions of Grafton and Hall. Margaret did not lure York to his fate, for she was in Scotland when the battle was fought, and he did not sally out to fight a battle, but to rescue his foragers. The execution of Yorkist prisoners was simply a retaliation for the treason and blood-guiltiness of the Yorkists, and was carried out without the Queen’s knowledge. Clifford may have vowed to avenge his father’s death upon the house of York, and Rutland may have fallen to his sword: but the duke was in his eighteenth year, and no doubt an approved man-at-arms. As recorded, he had been attainted of treason a few months prior to his death. We may safely conclude that there were no schoolboys on Wakefield-Green on the 30th of December, 1460, and the only tutors there were tutors in arms.

William of Wyrcester’s account of the battle may be considered the most probable, and best authenticated:—“The followers of the Duke of York, having gone out to forage for provisions on the 29th of December, a dreadful battle was fought at Wakefield between the Duke of Somerset, the Earl of Northumberland and Lord Neville, and the adverse party, when the Duke of York, Thomas Neville, son of the Earl of Salisbury, Thomas Harrington, Thomas Parr, Edward Bourchier, James Pykering, and Henry Rathforde, with many other knights and squires, and soldiers to the amount of two thousand, were slain in the field. After the battle, Lord Clifford slew the young Earl of Rutland, the son of the Duke of York, as he was fleeing across the bridge at Wakefield; and in the same night the Earl of Salisbury was captured by a follower of Sir And. Trollope, and on the morrow beheaded by the Bastard of Exeter at Pontefract, where at the same time the dead bodies of York, Rutland, and others of note who fell in the battle, were decapitated, and their heads affixed in various parts of York, whilst a paper crown was placed in derision on the head of the Duke of York.” Thus perished Duke Richard in his fiftieth year.

Edward, Earl of March, Richard’s eldest son, was at Gloucester when the news reached him of the disaster before Sandal Castle. He promptly advanced his army to intercept the Lancastrians, and dispute their advance upon the capital.

Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, harassed his rear with a tumultuary army of Welsh and Irish troops. Marching to engage an army, and alarmed by a powerful enemy in the rear, was too critical a position for Edward not to appreciate its danger. On the 2nd of February, 1461, he turned furiously upon the enemy, at Mortimer’s Cross, Herefordshire, and defeated Pembroke with a loss of 3,800 men.

At Hereford Edward halted, and handed over to the headsman Owen Tudor, Sir John Throckmorton, and eight of the Lancastrian captains—the captives of his sword and lance at Mortimer’s Cross.

London threw open its gates to the victor on the 4th of March, and he was proclaimed King, under the title of Edward IV.