The Battle of Northampton, on July 10, 1460, was lost by the treachery of Lord Grey de Ruthen. The Queen and Prince were posted upon an eminence to view the fight, and her military instinct detected the base defection whereby Warwick was enabled to take the King’s army in the rear. Henry was captured before her eyes, and Margaret, powerless to retrieve the disaster, fled with her boy at once to the North. By a circuitous route they reached the impregnable walls of Harlech Castle. Henry was led in mock triumph to the Tower, whence Warwick had the effrontery to demand the custody of the persons of the Queen and Prince. Margaret expressed her indignation at the insult emphatically, but, waiting not to bandy useless words, she hurried off to Scotland to seek sympathy and assistance. Meanwhile the Duke of York formally claimed the crown. Margaret’s response was impressive. Without difficulty she roused Scottish enthusiasm,--generally so slow to move,--and, sweeping across the border, she gathered in her train an army of 60,000 men, and appeared before the gates of York. There she called a plenary council of lords, to whom she expressed her determination “to rest not till I have entered London and set free the King.” York, taken by surprise, hastened to meet the valiant Queen, and found her encamped at Wakefield. Warned of his approach, she sent heralds to his quarters, who in her name defied the Duke “to meet her in honest, open fight.” He held back, and then she poured the vials of her scorn upon his head: “Doth want of courage,” she exclaimed, “allow thee to be browbeaten by a woman--fie on thee, thou traitor!” The battle was joined on December 30, and gained in less than half an hour. A troop of horse, headed by young Lord Clifford,--and followed immediately by the Queen, mounted and armed,--made an impetuous dash to where the Duke’s standard hung heavy in the still, damp air. It they captured, and forthwith threw it over Margaret’s knees, and with his sword Clifford struck the rebel leader down from his horse, and slew him as he lay at Margaret’s feet. In a trice he had severed the head of her mortal enemy, and upon his knee he offered the ghastly trophy to his Queen. “Madam,” he said, “the war is over; here is the King’s ransom!” The Queen turned sick at the terrible sight, and hysterically sobbed and laughed alternately, and she screamed aloud when soldiers stuffed the blood-dripping head into a common chaff-sack. Lord Clifford she knighted on the spot, using his own gory sword; then she ordered York’s head to be carried off to York, and placed on the city’s southern gateway.