When the morning of Easter Sunday, April 14, at length dawned there was a dense fog, so that the two armies could barely distinguish each other. At half-past four the King advanced his standards, and sounded his trumpets for battle. There were flights of arrows, and then the opposing forces closed and encountered each other with hand strokes, in the thick mist. For a long time it was impossible for the leaders to know what was taking place in different parts of the field. Oxford found little to oppose him. He charged the {50} followers of Lord Hastings and easily routed them, continuing the chase beyond Barnet. Then he returned to reinforce the main body; but here a fatal mistake occurred. The cognizance of King Edward was the sun in splendour, adopted after seeing the parhelion at Mortimer's Cross. The cognizance of the Veres was a star with rays.[12] When the soldiers of Warwick's centre, under Somerset, saw a fresh body of men approaching under the banner of the star, they mistook it for the King's cognizance and thought they were attacked in flank. A cry of treason ran through their ranks. Up to this time they had stubbornly resisted the onslaughts of King Edward and his men, but now they broke and fled. Somerset and Vere rode away with their men, and made good their escape. Meanwhile the Duke of Gloucester had led his troops to a furious attack on the enemy's left wing which was commanded by Warwick in person. The Duke himself plunged into the thickest of the fight. His two esquires, John Milwater[13] and Thomas Parr, were slain by his side. At the moment when the fate of the battle was still uncertain, and when the King heard that his young brother was hard pressed, the reserves were brought into action, just as Somerset's division began to waver. Victory then ceased to be {51} doubtful, and soon there was complete rout all along the rebel line. The Earl of Warwick and his brother Montagu fell either in the battle or in attempting to escape. The accounts vary. Though enemies and traitors to the royal brothers, they were cousins, and had once been devoted friends. The King sincerely mourned the death of Montagu, and the depth of Richard's sorrow is proved by his subsequent intercession for Montagu's heirs. The bodies, after being laid for two days in St. Paul's Cathedral, were honourably interred in the burial place of their mother's family at Bisham. The losses on the King's side included Lord Saye, who had shared Edward's exile, Humphrey Bourchier Lord Cromwell,[14] another Sir Humphrey Bourchier,[15] son of Lord Berners, and the son and heir of Lord Mountjoy. The losses, on both sides, {52} amounted to about 1,500 men.[16] King Edward and the Duke of Gloucester returned to London the same day, while their army rested for the night on the battlefield. [1] _Rot. Parl._ vol. vi. p. 227. Halsted, i. 432. [2] Sandford, p. 391.