Margaret of Anjou had the honour of defeating the famous Warwick. Thus Wyrcester:—“After the battle of Wakefield Queen Margaret came out of Scotland to York, where it was decided by the Council of the Lords to proceed to London and to liberate King Henry out of the hands of his enemies by force of arms. Shortly after the Feast of the Purification, the Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Dukes of Exeter and Somerset, the Earls of Northumberland, Devonshire, and Shrewsbury, the Lords Roos, Grey of Codnor, Fitzhugh, Graystock, Welles and Willoughby, and many others, amounting in all to 24,000 men, advanced upon St. Albans, and at Dunstable destroyed Sir Edward Poyning, and 200 foot.”

Margaret’s tumultuary army consisted of English, Irish, Welsh, and Scotch troops, and their excesses tended to the ruin of the Lancastrian cause.

On the 17th of February the second battle of St. Albans was fought. At first the Lancastrians fell back before Warwick’s archers, but, renewing the attack, they fought their way to St. Peter’s Street, driving the enemy before them. On reaching the heath at the north end of the town, the Yorkists made a stand, and, after a furious struggle, were put to the rout. Warwick lost Sir John Grey of Groby, and 2,300 men. King Henry was rescued from the hands of Warwick, but Margaret ungenerously executed his warders, Lord Bonville, and the veteran Sir Thomas Kyriel, although the King had pledged his word for their safety.

Margaret reached Barnet, but London feared her and her rude army. When she sent for “victuals and Lenten stuff,” the mayor and sheriffs obeyed her orders, but the commons stopped the carts at Cripplegate. March and Warwick were drawing near, London would not admit her army, and Margaret “fled northward, as fast as she might, towards York.”

Henry was deposed by the Yorkists, and the Earl of March declared King in his stead. Edward IV. carried on the war with vigour. Norfolk visited his estates to raise troops; Warwick marched out with the vanguard, the infantry followed, and lastly, on the 12th of March, Edward issued out of Bishopgate with the rear-guard.

On the 28th of March Lord Fitzwalter secured Ferrybridge, but at daybreak the Lancastrians fell on: Fitzwalter was slain as he issued from his tent, in his night gear, to quell, as he thought, a quarrel of his rude soldiery. Clifford pressed the fugitives furiously, and they carried a panic into the camp of Edward, that was only arrested when Warwick slew his horse, swearing upon the cross-hilt of his sword, that, “Who would might flee; but he would tarry with all who were prepared to stand and fight the battle out.”

The troops recovered courage, and Edward proclaimed freedom to depart for all who desired to quit before the battle; threatening severe punishments to any who, remaining, manifested fear in the presence of the enemy. Such cowards were to be slain by their companions. No man accepted the permission to retire.

Lord Fauconbridge then fell upon Clifford, defeated him, and recovered the post. During the retreat Clifford paused, to remove his gorget, and was struck on the throat, and slain, by a headless arrow.

Edward crossed the river, and confronted the enemy on Towton field. The Lancastrians were formed on an elevated ridge between Towton and Saxton, and presenting a front some two miles in extent. The Yorkists occupied a neighbouring ridge. A broad battle-space lay between the two armies.

The villagers were at mass in Saxton Church when “the celebration with palms and spears began,” for it was Palm Sunday. The heavy clouds hung low in the sombre sky, and as the wind arose the snow began to fall heavily, and was driven full into the faces of the Lancastrians.

It was nine o’clock when, from the heavy masses of Edward’s army, looming portentiously through the thickened air, the flight arrows descended upon the Lancastrians, and mingled with the wind-driven snow. In an instant the snow was red with blood, and dead and wounded men encumbered the ground.

Falconberg having advanced his archers, and struck the first blow, retired them, drawing the Lancastrian fire. The Queen’s archers shot fierce and fast, but uselessly exhausted their quivers, when the Yorkists took a terrible revenge, pouring a deadly sleet of arrows upon their enemies. It is said that they drew the Lancastrian arrows from the soil, leaving a few to impede the Queen’s advance.

Somerset determined to close, and ordered a general advance. Knights dashed from point to point along the lines; Northumberland and Trollope closed their decimated ranks, and moved to the attack. Edward’s army had suffered little, and was kept well in hand. It advanced steadily to meet the tide of war that surged madly forward through the mirk air and falling snow.

King Edward commanded the centre: the lion of England crested his helmet, he carried a long lance, with a peculiar vamplate, and the crimson velvet housings of his steed were powdered with suns and white roses. When the armies joined battle, he dismounted, and fought on foot. Warwick commanded the right wing, Lord Falconberg the left, and Sir John Denman and Sir John Venloe were in charge of the rear-guard

“As if battle were the gate of Paradise, and the future an incomprehensible dream, they raised against each other a tumultuous shout of execration and defiance.” The front ranks struck, with shivering of knightly lances on the wings, and with deadly play of mauls, of bills and pikes in the van. The slaughter was dreadful: the moans of the dying were drowned in the clashing of steel, fierce war-cries, and the rush of stormy winds. Savagely assailed, and beaten by the pitiless, incessant snow, the Lancastrians valiantly maintained their ground, although their original superiority in numbers was more than balanced by their first losses and their exposed position. The front ranks fought desperately, for Edward of York had issued orders that no quarter should be extended to the vanquished. The archers of York poured their last arrows into the rear of the Queen’s army.

Norfolk should have commanded the van, but, seized with a sudden sickness, he had remained at Pontefract with the rear-guard. His orders were to bring forward his command, with any reinforcements that might reach him. Edward anxiously awaited his arrival. The battle raged for hours; the imprisoned peasantry in Saxton Church fearfully awaited the end; and Edward was scarcely less anxious, for the murderous butchery of the hand-to-hand fight favoured neither army. Norfolk was steadily marching through the wintery weather with his hardy soldiers, and messenger after messenger reached him requesting him to hurry up the reserves.

The form of battle was lost, as the two hosts were locked in the sanguinary struggle. The dark and stormy day was glooming to a wild and early night, when a louder tumult of battle rose on the Lancastrian left flank at North Acres. Norfolk was on the field, and had struck his enemy. The Lancastrians could not bear up under the augmented storm, and the retreat commenced. In the confusion the retiring wings struck each other, and the difficulties of the position were increased. Edward urged his infuriated soldiery to unsparing vengeance, and the Lancastrians turned again and again upon their pursuers. Ere they reached the river Cock—a tributary of the Wharfe—the Lancastrian army had merged into a dense and tumultuary crowd of fugitives, upon whose flank and rear the Yorkists hung with the blood-thirsty fury of barbarians. On reaching the stream the massacre became frightful, and the waters were tinged with gore and darkened with the slain, and are stated to have communicated their dreadful burthen and sanguinary stains to the Wharfe. For three days the Lancastrians were hunted out and butchered by the victors.

On the gloomy night of that fatal 29th of March, 1461, a stormy rout of knights and men-at-arms urged their jaded war-horses through the narrow streets of York, calling loudly upon the King and Queen to mount in hot haste and ride for their lives. That night the King and Queen, with the young prince, rode through Bootham, through the gloom of Galtres forest, fugitives, en route for Scotland.

The total loss was computed at 40,000 souls, the Lancastrians being heavily in excess. The death-roll contains the names of the Earls of Northumberland, Westmoreland, and Shrewsbury; of Lords Dacres and Wells, and Sir Andrew Trollope.

At York Edward executed the Earls of Devonshire and Ormond, Sir Baldwin Fulford, Sir William Talboys, and Sir William Hill. The Earl of Wiltshire suffered at Newcastle on the 1st of May. The heads of York and Salisbury were replaced by those of Devonshire and Hill.

According to tradition, “The Lord Dacres was slain in Nor-acres.” Having removed his gorget he was shot in the throat by the cross-bow bolt of a lad lurking behind a burtree, or elder-bush.

The blood and snow froze on the field of Towton, and when the thaw came the furrows overflowed with mingling blood and water. The slain were buried in vast pits; and there is a strange legendary belief that the roses which so persistently flourish upon the field, and the petals of which are pure white, slightly flushed with red, sprang from the commingling blood of the partisans of the red and white roses.

Edward was duly crowned, but his throne was threatened by the plots of the Lancastrians, although he kept the headsman’s axe steadily at work. In 1462 the Scots caused some trouble in the North; and, towards the close of the year, Margaret appeared in arms, but precipitately retired without being able to make head against the King.

In 1464 Margaret again appeared in the North, when the gallant Sir Ralph Percy was slain on Hedgeley Moor, fighting for the red rose. The battle of Hexham followed a rout of the Lancastrians, whose leaders, Somerset, Ross, and Hungerford, were executed.

Sir Ralph Grey having betrayed Bamborough Castle to the Queen, and then defended it against Edward, was executed at Doncaster.

Margaret escaped, but Henry ultimately fell into Edward’s hands, and was committed to the Tower.