Exeter had, in fact, chosen his party without due consideration, and ere long he saw reason to change sides. Indeed, his place in Parliaments and councils must have reminded the young duke that, through his grandmother, he was of the blood of Lancaster; and to a man of his rank flatterers would hardly be wanting to suggest the probability of the course of events bringing the regal sceptre to his hand. On arriving at years of discretion, Exeter changed the pale for the purple rose, and, after the first battle of St. Albans, he was under the necessity of flying to the sanctuary of Westminster. From that place of security he was taken on some pretext, and sent as a prisoner to Pontefract Castle. When the political wind changed, Exeter recovered his liberty; and, as time passed over, he fought for Margaret of Anjou in the battles of Wakefield and Towton. After the rout of the Red Rose army on Palm Sunday, 1461, he fled with Henry into Scotland; but in the autumn of that year he was tempting fortune in Wales, and, in company with Jasper Tudor, stood embattled at Tutehill, near Carnarvon, against King Edward's forces. The Yorkists proving victorious, Exeter and his comrade in arms were fain to make for the mountains, leaving the Welsh Lancastrians no resource but to submit. Exeter's biography now becomes obscure. The unfortunate duke can be traced, however, lurking on the Scottish frontier, fighting at Hexham, flying to a Northumbrian village, finding Margaret of Anjou in the outlaw's cave, accompanying the Lancastrian queen into exile, and wandering as a broken man on the Continent, while his duchess, in no degree inclined to share such fortunes, enjoyed the estate of her banished lord, lived at her brother's court, kept well with Elizabeth Woodville, and ministered to that lady's maternal ambition by pledging the hand of Exeter's heiress to the young Marquis of Dorset. When, however, Warwick chased Edward of York from the kingdom, Exeter appeared once more in England, and figured as one of the Lancastrian leaders at Barnet. The disgrace of abandoning "The Stout Earl" on the field where he was laid low, Exeter did not share. As early as seven in the morning of that Easter Sunday he was struck by an arrow, and left for dead on the field. After remaining for nine hours, he was discovered still alive, and carried to the house of one of his servants named Ruthland. A surgeon having been found to dress the duke's wound, he was in such a degree restored as to be conveyed to the sanctuary of Westminster.