The Wars of the Roses; or, Stories of the Struggle of York and LancasterEdgar, John G. (John George)
History
The Wars of the Roses; or, Stories of the Struggle of York and Lancaster
Edgar, John G. (John George)
Great Britain -- History -- Wars of the Roses, 1455-1485
and mounted to strike for King Henry; not, perhaps, without some
presentiment of filling a warrior's grave. But death by a mean hand
the lordly warrior would not contemplate; and with a spirit as high as
his progenitor, who fought at Acre with Richard _Coeur de Lion_, he
could hardly dream of falling by a weapon less renowned than Warwick's
axe, or Edward's lance, or the sword of William Hastings, who, in the
young king's track, slaughtering as he rode, was winning golden spurs
and broad baronies. No death so distinguished, however, awaited Lord
Dacre of the North. While in a large field, known as the North Acre,
and still in rustic tradition and rhyme associated with his name, the
haughty Borderer, probably making a last effort to rally the beaten and
retreating Lancastrians, was mortally wounded with an arrow shot by a
boy out of an auberry-tree, and prostrated among dead and dying on the
miry ground.
"All is lost," groaned Exeter and Somerset, in bitter mood, as together
they spurred over mounds of slain, and galloped toward York, to warn
the queen that her foes were conquerors. And well, indeed, might the
Lancastrian dukes express themselves in accents of despair, for never
before had an English army been in a more hapless plight than that
which they were now leaving to its fate. At first, the retreat of
the Lancastrians was conducted with some degree of order; but, ere
long, their ranks were broken by the pursuing foe, and every thing
was confusion as they fled in a mass toward Tadcaster. No leader of
mark remained to direct or control the ill-fated army in the hour
of disaster. John Heron, and Leo, Lord Welles, were slain. Andrew
Trollope, after having "done marvelous deeds of valor," lay cold on
the ground; Northumberland stooped his lofty crest as low as death;
Devon and Wiltshire were heading the flight, and in vain endeavoring
to place themselves beyond the vengeance of the victors. Resistance
was hopeless; quarter was neither asked nor given; the carnage was so
frightful that the road to York was literally red with the blood and
strewn with the bodies of the slain; and the pursuit was so hot and
eager that multitudes were drowned in attempting to cross the rivulet
of Cock, while the corpses formed a bridge over which the pursuers
passed. The brook ran purple with blood, and crimsoned, as it formed a
junction with, the waters of the Wharfe.
Evening closed, at length, over the field of Towton, but without
putting an end to the work of destruction. Till the noon of Monday
the pursuit was keenly urged, and a running fight, kept up beyond
the Tyne, caused much bloodshed.[7] The Chief Justice of England and
the Parson of Blokesworth escaped. But Devon and Wiltshire were less
fortunate. One was taken near York, the other seized near Cockermouth
by an esquire named Richard Salkeld; and both were executed by martial
law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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