Queen Margaret now pushed on towards London, flushed with her recent success, determined to rescue King Henry from the power of the Yorkists. The Earl of Warwick came out from the metropolis, bearing in his train the royal prisoner, and met the forces of Queen Margaret on the old battle-field of St. Albans. The Yorkists held the town, but the royalists penetrated the streets, and a hand-to-hand fight ensued. Warwick’s Londoners were no match for the brave Northmen who fought for Queen Margaret, and the Yorkists were forced to fly, leaving King Henry sitting in his tent. Here he was found by Queen Margaret and Prince Edward, and his brave queen and son embraced him with joy; and King Henry thereupon knighted the young Prince of Wales, and many valiant Lancastrians, for their valor. But Margaret’s triumphs did not long continue. St. Albans was won, but not London. The victorious young warrior, Edward, Earl of March, eldest son of the late Duke of York, who now bore his father’s title, having conquered the Lancastrians in other contests while Margaret routed the Yorkists at St. Albans, now entered London with all the pomp of a triumphant king, and was received by the people with acclamations of delight; for Margaret had injudiciously allowed her Northern men to plunder the English, and had therefore incurred their hatred; so that now she was again forced to seek refuge in the North, while Edward of York was proclaimed king, as Edward IV. In a short time an army of sixty thousand men was raised in behalf of Margaret, and commanded by Henry Beaufort, who was now Duke of Somerset, and another intrepid noble, Lord Clifford, who had killed the youngest son of the Duke of York, and cut off the head from the dead body of the father, in the contest between the Lancastrians and Yorkists, when the Duke of York had been slain. By the advice of these nobles Margaret remained with her husband and son in the city of York; while the army of the Red Rose went forth to battle with the forces of the White Rose, under the banner of the young Edward of York. The Lancastrians were defeated at Ferrybridge and Towton, and Queen Margaret then fled with King Henry and their son to Newcastle, and from thence to Alnwick Castle. As the Yorkists still approached, she retreated to Scotland. At length Margaret and her son went to France to seek aid from King Louis XI. Upon Margaret’s promising to offer Calais as security, King Louis lent her twenty thousand crowns, and permitted Brezé, of Normandy, to follow her with two thousand men. With this little army Margaret returned to Scotland and rallied her Scotch adherents; and bringing King Henry into the field, who had previously been hiding at Harleck Castle, the brave, undaunted queen conquered the strong fortresses of Bamborough, Alnwick, and Dunstanburgh.