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-in-law,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 quarrel by the sword.The battle began at four o'clock in the morning and lasted until ten,and during the greater part of the time it was fought in a thick mist-absurdly supposed to be raised by a magician.The loss of life was very great,for the hatred was strong on both sides.The King-Maker was defeated,and the King triumphed.Both the Earl of Warwick and his brother were slain,and their bodies lay in St.Paul's,for some days,as a spectacle to the people.
Margaret's spirit was not broken even by this great blow.Within five days she was in arms again,and raised her standard in Bath,whence she set off with her army,to try and join Lord Pembroke,who had a force in Wales.But,the King,coming up with her outside the town of Tewkesbury,and ordering his brother,the DUKE OF GLOUCESTER,who was a brave soldier,to attack her men,she sustained an entire defeat,and was taken prisoner,together with her son,now only eighteen years of age.The conduct of the King to this poor youth was worthy of his cruel character.He ordered him to be led into his tent.'And what,'said he,'brought YOU to England?''I came to England,'replied the prisoner,with a spirit which a man of spirit might have admired in a captive,'to recover my father's kingdom,which descended to him as his right,and from him descends to me,as mine.'The King,drawing off his iron gauntlet,struck him with it in the face;and the Duke of Clarence and some other lords,who were there,drew their noble swords,and killed him.
His mother survived him,a prisoner,for five years;after her ransom by the King of France,she survived for six years more.
Within three weeks of this murder,Henry died one of those convenient sudden deaths which were so common in the Tower;in plainer words,he was murdered by the King's order.
Having no particular excitement on his hands after this great defeat of the Lancaster party,and being perhaps desirous to get rid of some of his fat (for he was now getting too corpulent to be handsome),the King thought of making war on France.As he wanted more money for this purpose than the Parliament could give him,though they were usually ready enough for war,he invented a new way of raising it,by sending for the principal citizens of London,and telling them,with a grave face,that he was very much in want of cash,and would take it very kind in them if they would lend him some.It being impossible for them safely to refuse,they complied,and the moneys thus forced from them were called-no doubt to the great amusement of the King and the Court-as if they were free gifts,'Benevolences.'What with grants from Parliament,and what with Benevolences,the King raised an army and passed over to Calais.As nobody wanted war,however,the French King made proposals of peace,which were accepted,and a truce was concluded for seven long years.The proceedings between the Kings of France and England on this occasion,were very friendly,very splendid,and very distrustful.They finished with a meeting between the two Kings,on a temporary bridge over the river Somme,where they embraced through two holes in a strong wooden grating like a lion's cage,and made several bows and fine speeches to one another.
It was time,now,that the Duke of Clarence should be punished for his treacheries;and Fate had his punishment in store.He was,probably,not trusted by the King-for who could trust him who knew him!-and he had certainly a powerful opponent in his brother Richard,Duke of Gloucester,who,being avaricious and ambitious,wanted to marry that widowed daughter of the Earl of Warwick's who had been espoused to the deceased young Prince,at Calais.
Clarence,who wanted all the family wealth for himself,secreted this lady,whom Richard found disguised as a servant in the City of London,and whom he married;arbitrators appointed by the King,then divided the property between the brothers.This led to ill-will and mistrust between them.Clarence's wife dying,and he wishing to make another marriage,which was obnoxious to the King,his ruin was hurried by that means,too.At first,the Court struck at his retainers and dependents,and accused some of them of magic and witchcraft,and similar nonsense.Successful against this small game,it then mounted to the Duke himself,who was impeached by his brother the King,in person,on a variety of such charges.He was found guilty,and sentenced to be publicly executed.He never was publicly executed,but he met his death somehow,in the Tower,and,no doubt,through some agency of the King or his brother Gloucester,or both.It was supposed at the time that he was told to choose the manner of his death,and that he chose to be drowned in a butt of Malmsey wine.I hope the story may be true,for it would have been a becoming death for such a miserable creature.
The King survived him some five years.He died in the forty-second year of his life,and the twenty-third of his reign.He had a very good capacity and some good points,but he was selfish,careless,sensual,and cruel.He was a favourite with the people for his showy manners;and the people were a good example to him in the constancy of their attachment.He was penitent on his death-bed for his 'benevolences,'and other extortions,and ordered restitution to be made to the people who had suffered from them.
He also called about his bed the enriched members of the Woodville family,and the proud lords whose honours were of older date,and endeavoured to reconcile them,for the sake of the peaceful succession of his son and the tranquillity of England.
