While the nation was thus heating its blood in these disputes, the heads of the different factions were busy preparing to meet each other in the field. The three lords spent the winter in arousing their partisans. Warwick called around him at Calais the veterans who had fought in Normandy and Guienne. On the other hand, the court distributed in profusion collars of white swans, the badge of the young prince; and the friends of the king were invited by letters, under the privy seal, to meet him in arms at Leicester. The spring and summer had come and gone, however, before the rival parties proceeded to actual extremities. The finances of the court impeded its proceedings; and the Yorkist party still averred that it had no object but its own defence and the rescue of the Government from traitors. At length, on the 23rd of September, 1459, the Earl of Salisbury marched forth from his castle of Middleham, in Yorkshire, to form a junction with York on the borders of Wales. Lord Audley, with a force of 10,000 men, far exceeding that of Salisbury, sought to intercept his progress at Blore Heath in Staffordshire; but the veteran Salisbury was too subtle for his antagonist. He pretended to fly at the sight of such unequal numbers; and having thus seduced Audley to pass a deep glen and torrent, he fell upon his troops when part only were over, and, throwing them into confusion, made a dreadful slaughter of them. Some writers contend that Salisbury had only 500 men with him; but this appears incredible, for they left Lord Audley with 2,000 of his men dead on the field, and took prisoner Lord Dudley, with many knights and esquires. The earl pursued his way unmolested to Ludlow, where York lay, and where they were joined in a few days by Warwick with his large reinforcement of veterans under Sir John Blount and Sir Andrew Trollop.