to be possible. However the centre and right united in pushing back this attack, and the two hundred spears above-mentioned, falling unexpectedly on Somerset's flank, completed his defeat. The king was then able to advance, attack in flank the Lancastrian centre, and so rout the whole army, which broke and fled in all directions. The only local name that survives as a memorial of the battle is the "Bloody Meadow" by the Avon below Tewkesbury: this may well mark a place where many fugitives of the right wing, cut off from the only escape into the town, were slaughtered by the victors. Prince Edward, the last heir of Lancaster, was killed in the battle or the pursuit—there seems no foundation for the story which Shakespeare used, that he was taken prisoner and killed in cold blood. Somerset, Devon, nearly all the remaining Lancastrians of note were killed, or were executed after the battle. Except for the Tudor interest in Wales, the Lancastrian party was annihilated. It required the early death of Edward IV., and the murder of his nephews by Richard of Gloucester, before Henry of Richmond could resuscitate it. * * * * * INTERMEDIATE NOTE GUNPOWDER The invention of gunpowder was slower in making itself felt than most of the other great discoveries which have turned the course of history. There is no intrinsic impossibility in the statement of a contemporary Italian writer, that Edward III. had cannon at Crecy, though in the absence of any other testimony it is not generally believed. He had them at the siege of Calais immediately afterwards, though they were of little use. The earliest firearms were of very clumsy make, slow and difficult to load, short in range and allowing no accuracy of aim. From the nature of the case, cannon[47] were made practically useful earlier than hand weapons. As soon as ever gun-carriages of a tolerably movable form were devised, it was possible at least to use them on the battle-field, though a very long time had still to elapse before they became important; in the battles of the English civil war of the seventeenth century artillery plays a very minor part. Naturally they were much more effective in sieges, where mobility was not required, and the slowness of fire less important. By the end of the fifteenth century, if not sooner, it was perceived that gunpowder had effected a revolution in this branch of warfare. In the early middle ages a well-walled town or castle was proof against such modes of battering as were then in use. Unless escalading proved possible, the besiegers could only reduce the place by starvation. With that inevitable reservation the defence was stronger than the attack. Hence a feudal noble, possessed of a well-situated castle, could defy the crown, for a time at least; hence in Italy the cities could make themselves independent. With the introduction of cannon all this was changed. The crown, and as a rule the crown only, could afford to maintain artillery