vantage, feconded by an impetuous onfet, decided the victory in their favour. Edward iffued orders to give no quarters; and a bloody flaughter enfued, in which near forty thoufand of the Lancaftrians were flain.

The weak unfortunate Henry, always imprudent, and always unfuccefsful, was taken prifoner, carried to London with ignominy, and confined in the Tower. Margaret was rather more fortunate; the contrived to escape out of the kingdom, and took refuge with her father in Flanders.

Edward being now, by means of the earl of Warwick, fixed upon the throne, reigned in peace and fecurity, while his title was recognized by parliament, and univerfally fubmitted to by the people. He be- A. D. gan, therefore, to give a loofe to his favourite 1464. paffions, and a fpirit of gallantry, mixed with cru. elty, was feen to prevail in his court. In the very fame palace, which one day exhibited a fpectacle of horror, was to be feen the day following a mask or a pageant; and the king would at once gallant a miftrefs, and infpect an execution. In order to turn him from these purfuits, which were calculated to render him unpopular, the earl of Warwick advised him to marry; and with his confent went over to France to procure Bona of Savoy as queen, and the match was accordingly concluded. But whilft the earl was haftening the negotiation in France, the king himfelf rendered it abortive at home, by marrying EliZabeth Woodville, with whom he had fallen in love, and whom he had vainly endeavoured to debauch. Having thus given Warwick real caufe of offence, he was refolved to widen the breach, by driving him from the council. Warwick, whofe prudence was equal to his bravery, foon made ufe of both to affift his revenge; and formed fuch a combination againft Edward, that he was, in turn, obliged to fly the kingdom..

Thus, once more, the poor paffive king Henry was releafed from prifon, to be placed upon a dangerous throne. A parliament was called, which confirmed Henry's title with great folemnity; and Warwick was himself received among the people under the title of the King-maker. F 6

But

But Edward's party, though repreffed, was not de ftroyed. Though an exile in Holland, he had many par tizans at home; and after an abfence of nine months, being feconded by a fmall body of forces, granted him by the duke of Burgundy, he made a defcent at Ravenfpur in Yorkshire. Though, at firft, he was coolly received by the English, yet his army increafed upon his march, while his moderation and feigned humility still added to the number of his partizans. London, at that time, ever ready to admit the most powerful, opened her gates to him; and the wretched Henry was once more plucked from his throne, to be fent back to his former manfion.

Nothing now, therefore, remained to Warwick, but to cut fhort a state of anxious fufpenfe, by hazarding a battle. Edward's fortune prevailed. They met at St. Alban's, and the Lancaftrians were defeated; while Warwick himself, leading a chofen body of troops into the thickest of the flaughter, fell in the midft of his enemies, covered with wounds.

Margaret, receiving the fatal news of the death of the brave Warwick, and the total deftruction of her party, gave way to her grief, for the first time, in a torrent of tears; and yielding to her unhappy fate, took fanctuary in the abbey of Beaulieu, in Hampthire,

She had not been long in this malancholy abode before fhe found fome few friends ftill waiting to affift her fallen fortunes. Tudor, earl of Pembroke, Courtney, earl of Devonshire, the lords Wenlock and St. John, with other men of rank, exhorted her ftill to hope for fuccefs, and offered to affift her to the laft. She had now fought battles in almost every province in England; Tewkesburypark was the laft fcene that terminated her attempts. The duke of Somerfet headed her army; a man who had fhared her dangers, and had ever been steady in her caufe. He was valiant, generous, and polite; but rafh and head. ftrong. When Edward firft attacked him in his intrenchments he repulfed him with fuch vigour, that the enemy retired with precipitation; upon which the duke, fuppofing them routed, purfued, and ordered lord Wenlock to fupport his charge. But unfortunately this lord disobey

ed his orders; and Somerfet's forces were foon everpow ered by numbers. In this dreadful exigence, the duke, finding that all was over, became ungovernable in his rage; and beholding Wenlock inactive, and remaining in the very place where he had firft drawn up his men, giving way to his fury, with his heavy battle-axe in both hands, he ran upon the coward, and with one blow dafhed out his brains.

The queen and the prince were taken prisoners after the battle, and brought into the prefence of Edward. The young prince appeared before the conqueror with undaunted majefty; and being afked, in an infulting manner, how he dared to invade England without leave? more mindful of his high birth than of his ruined fortunes, he boldly replied, "I have entered the dominions of my father, to revenge his injuries, and redrefs my own." The barbarous Edward, enraged at his intrepidí ty, ftruck him on the mouth with his gauntlet; and this ferved as a fignal for farther brutality; the dukes of Gloucefter, Clarence, and others, like wild beafts, rufhing on the unarmed youth at once, ftabbed him to the heart with their daggers. To complete the tragedy, Henry himself, who had long been the paffive fpectator of all thefe horrors, was now thought unfit to live. The duke of Gloucefter, afterwards Richard the Third, entering his chamber alone, murdered him in cold blood. Of all thofe that were taken, none were fuffered to furvive but Margaret herfelf. It was perhaps expected that fhe would be ranfomed by the king of France; and in this they were not deceived, as that monarch paid the king of England fifty thousand crowns for her freedom. This extraordinary woman, after having fuftained the caufe of her husband in twelve battles, after having furvived her friends, fortunes, and children, died a few years after in privacy in France, very miferable indeed; but with few other claims to our pity, except her cou rage and her diftreffes.

CHAP.

Eed the punishment to thofe of feffer note; fo that

DWARD being now freed from great enemies, turn

the gibbets were hung with his adverfaries, and their eftates confifcated to his use.

While he was rendering himfelf terrible on the one hand, he was immerfed in abandoned pleafures on the other. Nature, it feems, was not unfavourable to him in that refpect; as he was univerfally allowed to be the most beautiful man of his time. His courtiers alfo feemed wil. ling to encourage thofe debaucheries in which they had a fhare; and the clergy, as they themselves practifed every kind of lewdnefs with impunity, were ever ready to lend abfolution to all his failings. The truth is, enormous vices had been of late fo common, that adultery was held as a very flight offence. Among the number of his miftreffes was the wife of one Shore, a merchant in the city, a woman of exquifite beauty and good fenfe, but who had not virtue enough to refift the temptations of a beautiful man and a monarch.

Among his other cruelties, that to his brother the duke of Clarence is the moft remarkable. The king hunting

one

one day in the park of Thomas Burdet, a creature of the duke's killed a white buck, which was a great favou rite of the owner. Burdet, vexed at the lofs, broke into a paffion, and wifhed the horns of the deer in the belly of the perfon who had advised the king to that infult. For this trifling exclamation Burdet was tried for his life, and publicly executed at Tyburn. The duke of Clarence, upon the death of his friend, vented his grief in renewed reproaches against his brother, and exclaimed against the iniquity of the fentence. The king, highly offended with this liberty, or ufing that as a pretext against him, had him arraigned before the house of peers, and appeared in perfon as his accufer. In thofe times of confufion, every crime alledged by the prevailing party was fatal; the duke was found guilty; and being granted a choice of the manner in which he would die, he was privately drowned in a butt of malmfey in the Tower ; a whimfical choice, and implying that he had an extraordinary paffion for that liquor.

However, if this monarch's reign was tyrannical, it was but fhort; while he was employed in making pre parations for a war with France, he was feized with a diftemper, of which he expired in the forty-fecond year of his age, and (counting from the death of the late king) in the twenty-third of his reign..

CHAP.