There is much that is tedious in the accounts of the Wars of the Roses. One battle is gained by the Lancastrians, and the next by the Yorkists, this continuing for years in a see-saw fashion. At first the war was not marked by much bloodthirstiness, but after the Battle of Towton no quarter was given on either side, the prisoners being murdered in cold blood, the most conspicuous amongst them being beheaded. This summary method of disposing of the captives accounts for the small number of State prisoners in the Tower during the twenty years of internecine warfare which almost annihilated the peerage. Here are a few of the principal battles fought throughout the length and breadth of England between 1455 and 1461. In 1458 was fought the battle of St Albans, in which Somerset was defeated and slain. In 1459 Lord Audley was slain by Salisbury, who gained the Battle of Blore Heath; in 1460 the Yorkists, led by Salisbury, Warwick, and March (afterwards Edward IV.), defeated the King at Northampton and took him prisoner; in the same year Margaret’s army routed the Yorkists at Wakefield, where the Duke of York was killed, and Salisbury was beheaded at Pontefract. In 1461 the Lancastrians were defeated at the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross by Edward, the son of the Duke of York, and the future King; and in that same year the decisive Battle of Towton was also gained by him, the Lancastrian cause receiving its death-blow. Three months later, Edward was crowned by the style of Edward the Fourth, and his brothers George and Richard were made Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester respectively, whilst poor, harmless, half-witted Henry was proclaimed a traitor. When Henry was told that he had no right to the style of King, he replied: “My father was King; his father also was King; I myself have worn the crown forty years from my cradle; you have all sworn fealty to me as your sovereign, and your fathers have done the like to mine. How, then, can my right be disputed?” “By force,” they might have replied.