Queen Margaret and her son were taken prisoners and brought to the King, who asked the Prince, after an insulting manner, how he dared to invade his dominions. The young Prince, more mindful of his high birth than of his present fortune, replied that he came thither to claim his just inheritance. The ungenerous Edward, insensible to pity, struck him on the face with his gauntlet; and the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, Lord Hastings, and Sir Thomas Gray, taking the blow as a signal for further violence, hurried the Prince into the next apartment and there despatched him with their daggers. Margaret was thrown into the Tower; King Henry expired in that confinement a few days after the battle of Tewkesbury; but whether he died a natural or violent death is uncertain. It is pretended, and was generally believed, that the Duke of Gloucester killed him with his own hands; but the universal odium which that Prince had incurred, perhaps inclined the nation to aggravate his crimes without any sufficient authority. All the hopes of the house of Lancaster seemed now to be utterly extinguished. Every legitimate prince of that family was dead; almost every great leader of the party had perished in battle or on the scaffold; the Earl of Pembroke, who was levying forces in Wales, disbanded his army when he received intelligence of the battle of Tewkesbury, and he fled into Brittany with his nephew, the young Earl of Richmond. The bastard of Falconberg, who had levied some forces, and had advanced to London during Edward's absence, was repulsed; his men deserted him; he was taken prisoner and immediately executed; and peace being now fully restored to the nation, a parliament was summoned, which ratified, as usual, all the acts of the victor, and recognized his legal authority.