[5] The weight of authority is decisively against the Duke of York having been taken prisoner, and in favour of his having been killed in the battle. William of Worcester says: '_Ubi occubuerunt in campo Dux Eborum, Thomas Nevill_,' &c. The Croyland chronicler, Fabyan, Polydore Virgil, Hall, and Stow concur. Hall says, '_He, manfully fighting, within half an hour was slain and dead_.' But Whethamstede states that the Duke was taken prisoner and grossly insulted: that he was set upon an ant-hill, a crown of woven grass was put on his head, and that the soldiers bowed their heads before him, saying in derision: 'Hail, King without a kingdom!' Whethamstede adds, '_non aliter quam Judæi coram Domino_.' But this John Bostock of Whethamstede was Abbot of St. Albans, and violently prejudiced against the Lancastrians for their marauding and pillaging in his neighbourhood. It is generally stated that Queen Margaret took part in the barbarities of her adherents. Stow, for instance, says that Lord Clifford cut off the Duke's head, put a paper crown on it, stuck it on a pole, and presented it to the Queen, who 'was not lying far from the field.' But there is clear proof that the Queen was actually in Scotland when the battle of Wakefield was fought. William of Worcester says: '_Dicto bello finito Regina Margareta venit ab Scotia Eboraco_.' This is confirmed by the Croyland chronicler, who says, '_Inpartibus borealibus morabatur_.' Margaret had nothing to do with the Lancastrian barbarities, except that she allowed the heads to remain on the gates of York. She was forced to tolerate the deeds of her savage adherents. [6] See _The Chapel of Edward III. on Wakefield Bridge_, by N. Scatcherd (1843). {20} CHAPTER III THE CROWNING VICTORY OF TOWTON When the Lancastrians, after their success at St. Albans, had failed before London, they retreated northwards with the person of Henry VI., and proceeded to collect forces in Yorkshire for one more great effort, making their headquarters in the city of York. Meanwhile the young Earl of March, after his victory at Mortimer's Cross on February 2, 1461, advanced to London with his Welsh and border tenantry. He was joined on the road by the Earl of Warwick, whose incapacity as a military commander had been the cause of the disaster at St. Albans on the 17th of the same month. Edward was only in his nineteenth year when he entered London and succeeded to his father's rights, and to the duty of avenging the cowardly insults heaped upon that father's body. He found his mother, the widowed Duchess, with his little sister Margaret, at Baynard's Castle. Edward was tall and eminently handsome, with a fair complexion and flaxen hair, 'the goodliest personage,' says Comines, 'that ever mine eyes beheld.' His capacity for command, his fortitude, and prudence were far beyond his years, and he had already acquired experience in two pitched battles. {21}