3. Thus the castle halls were crowded, but the fields were left without sufficient laborers to plough and sow them, consequently the crops were generally bad, and bread was at times, so dear, that many poor families could get none at all, but were obliged to eat herbs and berries that they found in the woods, which did not nourish them, so that numbers died of want. 4. Many battles were fought in different parts of England, and the queen was present at some of them, for it was she who conducted the war, as the king was incapable of so much exertion, and Margaret could not bear to see her young son Edward deprived of his birthright. 5. Three victories had been gained by the Duke of York, when he was killed at the battle of Wakefield; but this event did not put an end to the contest, for his son Edward, who succeeded to his title, continued the war and, in the end, became king of England, while poor king Henry was kept a prisoner in the Tower, where he died in 1471. 6. Edward owed his success chiefly to the Earl of Warwick, the richest and most powerful nobleman in England, and considered as the last of the great feudal Barons, for it is said that he maintained no less than thirty thousand people at his own expense, who were ready to devote their lives to his service. 7. He had a great many castles in different parts of England, and a noble mansion in Warwick lane, London, which still bears that name, although it presents a very different appearance from what it did when this mighty Earl lived there like a sovereign prince, and the place was crowded with his armed retainers. 8. Edward had been very well received by the citizens of London, and crowned, with their consent, long before the death of king Henry. 9. Two battles were fought soon after his accession to the throne, one at Towton the other at Hexham; and it was after the latter, that a story is told how queen Margaret wandered about in a forest with her little boy, till they were both half dead with hunger and fatigue, when she met with a robber, and instead of trying to avoid him, told him who she was, and begged he would protect her child. 10. The man took them to a cave, and gave them food and shelter, until he found an opportunity of getting them on board a vessel that was going to Scotland. 11. People were now in hopes there would be peace; but the new sovereign was so unwise as to quarrel with the Earl of Warwick, who became his enemy, and resolved to deprive him of the crown he had helped him to win. 12. Then the war was begun again, and went on for several years longer, till Warwick was killed at the battle of Barnet, on Easter Sunday, 1471, just ten years after the battle of Towton.