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]