Here is to be remembered, that aswell the king on his part, as the earle of Warwike on his, vsed manie comfortable words to incourage their people, not forgetting to set foorth their quarels as iust and lawfull; the king naming his aduersaries traitors and rebels, & the earle accounting him a tyrant, & an iniurious vsurper. But when the time came that they once got sight either of other, the battell began verie sharpe and cruell, first with shot, and after by ioining at hand blowes. Yet at the first they ioined not front to front, as they should haue doone, by reason of the mist that tooke awaie the sight of either armie, and suffered the one not to discerne perfectlie the order of the other; insomuch that the one end of the earle of Warwikes armie ouer-raught the contrarie end of the kings battell which stood westward, and by reason thereof (through the valiancie of the earle of Oxford that led the earles voward) the kings people on that part were ouermatched, so that manie of them fled towards Barnet, and so to London, bringing newes that the erle of Warwike had woone the field. [Sidenote: _Abr. Fl. ex I. S. pag. 727._] [Which report happilie might haue béene iustified and fallen out to be true, had not preposterous fortune happened to the earle of Oxford and his men, who had a starre with streames on their liueries; as king Edwards men had the sunne with streames on their liueries: wherevpon the earle of Warwiks men, by reason of the mist not well discerning the badges so like, shot at the earle of Oxfords men that were on their owne part, and then the earle of Oxford and his men cried treason, and fled with eight hundred men.] But touching the kings people which were pursued in the chase as they fled, and were put to the worst, manie were wounded, and manie slaine outright. But the residue of those that fought in other parts could not perceiue this distresse of the kings people, bicause the thicke mist would not suffer them to sée anie space farre off, but onelie at hand: and so the kings battell that saw not anie thing what was doone beside them, was nothing discouraged. For (a few excepted that stood next to that part) there was not anie one that wist of that discomfiture; and the other of the earle of Warwikes men, that fought in other places somewhat distant from them, were nothing the more incouraged by this prosperous successe of their fellowes, for they perceiued it not. And in like case as at the west end the earles battell ouer-reached the kings, so at the east end the kings ouer-reached the earls, and with like successe put the earls people in that place to the worse. [Sidenote: The manfull courage of the earle of Warwike.]