The Yorkist chiefs were satisfied with the result of their experiment in St. John's Fields; and next day a great council was held at Baynard's Castle. After due deliberation, the peers and prelates declared that Henry, in joining the queen's army and breaking faith with Parliament, had forfeited the crown; and the heir of York, after riding in royal state to Westminster, offered at St. Edward's shrine, assumed the Confessor's crown, ascended the throne, explained the nature of his claim, and harangued the people. His spirit and energy inspired the audience with enthusiasm, and he was frequently interrupted with shouts of "Long live King Edward." On the day when the young Plantagenet took possession of the English throne at Westminster, he was proclaimed king in various parts of London. Edward was not, however, so intoxicated with the applause with which the men of the south had greeted his arrival in the metropolis as to delude himself into the idea that his triumph was complete. He knew that the lords of the north would again rise in arms for the Red Rose, and that battles must be won, and fortresses taken, ere the crown of St. Edward could sit easily on his head. Nothing, however, could be gained by delay; and Warwick was well aware of the danger of procrastination at such a crisis. The young king and the king-maker, therefore, resolved upon marching forthwith against the Lancastrians, to achieve, as they hoped, a crowning victory; and, having sent the Duke of Norfolk to recruit in the provinces, they made preparations to go in search of their foes. No time was wasted. Indeed, within three days of entering London, Warwick marched northward with the van of the Yorkist army; and the infantry having meanwhile followed, Edward, on the 12th of March, buckled on his armor, mounted his war-steed, and rode out of Bishopgate to conquer or die. By easy marches the royal warrior reached Pontefract, memorable as the scene of the second Richard's murder; and, having, while resting there, enjoyed the satisfaction of seeing his army swell to the number of forty-nine thousand, he dispatched Lord Fitzwalter, with a band of tall men, to keep the passage over the Aire at Ferrybridge. Nor had Margaret failed to prepare for the inevitable conflict. When, at St. Albans, the Lancastrian queen found that her foes were still unsubdued, she speedily bore back to the northern counties, and commenced recruiting her army on the banks of the Humber, the Trent, and the Tyne. Her spirit, ever highest in the time of trouble, sustained the courage of her adherents; and the men of the north, who now, without entering into the delicate questions of hereditary right and parliamentary settlement, sympathized with the dethroned queen, came from towers by the wayside, and shealings on the moor, till around the Lancastrian banner at York mustered an army of sixty thousand.