The morrow (May 4, 1471) was to be the darkest in all the chequered career of Margaret of Anjou and England. Sweet Pentecost though it was, the spirit of comfort belied, failed the fated Queen once more. With early dawn fell aslant the springtide sunbeams a rain of feathered hail. Battle was joined, each man at his post--save one, the perjured Lord Wenlock. His command, in the centre of Queen Margaret’s forces, lacked its leader, and Somerset rode off to find him. At a low brothel he discovered the miscreant drinking with and fondling loose wenches. “Traitor!” cried the Duke; “die, thou scoundrel!” And he clove his head in two. This defection caused irretrievable disaster; still, the Prince of Wales did prodigies of valour, and so did many more; but he was felled from his horse, and the “Hope of England” was lead captive to victorious Edward’s tent. Received with every mark of discourtesy, the heart of the chivalrous young Prince must have quailed as he stood before the arch-enemy of his house, but he had very little time for reflection. “How durst thou, changeling, presumptuously enter my dominions with banners displayed against me?” demanded Edward. “To recover my father’s crown, the heritage of my ancestors,” bravely replied the Prince. “Speakest thou thus to me, thou upstart! See, I smite thee on thy bastard mouth!” roughly exclaimed the conqueror, and with that he demeaned himself and the crown he fought for by cowardly and savagely striking with his mailed fist the unsuspecting and unarmed Prince. This treacherous blow was the signal to the titled scoundrels standing by for a murderous attack upon the Prince of Wales. He fell crying fearlessly: “A Henry! A Henry!” pierced by many daggers. It was a dark deed and dastardly; its stain no course of years will ever cleanse, and Edward IV. is for all time “Bloody Edward.” Queen Margaret, seeing the hopelessness of the conflict, and fearing the worst had happened to the Prince,--for he never came to cheer her,--took the Princess and fled to a convent hard by the battlefield, and there lay concealed. Edward, yielding to the base instincts of a cruel nature, very soon got news of Margaret’s hiding-place, and with a demoniacal scowl, “Ah, ah!” he cried out, “we’ve settled the cub; now for the she-wolf!” The Queen was dragged from her hiding-place, and borne to Edward’s quarters, where, like the brute he was, he reviled and insulted her. “Slay me, thou bloodthirsty wretch, if thou wilt! I care not for death at thy desecrating hands! May God strike thee, as He will!” she exclaimed.