ERECTED BY SUBSCRIPTION IN THE YEAR 1799. CHAPTER VI. THE FIELD OF THE BATTLE OF TOWTON. {81a} _Edward_.—“Now breathe we, Lords; good fortune bids us pause, And smooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks. Some troops pursue the bloody-minded Queen; That led calm Henry, though he were a King, As doth a sail, fill’d with a fretting gust, Command an argosy to stem the waves.” SHAKESPEARE’S _Henry VI._ part 3, act ii. scene 6. (_A Field of Battle_, _between Towton and Saxton_.) THE most sanguinary and important battle that ever took place in the civil wars of England, was that of Towton, in Yorkshire; and from the interest which it has excited, and the historical events which have resulted from it, I have been induced to pay several visits to that memorable field of battle. {81b} Queen Margaret {82a} and the Lancastrians, exulting in the victory obtained at Wakefield, were encouraged by it to proceed towards London, in hopes of being admitted into the city; but on their arrival at St. Alban’s, they encountered the Earl of Warwick {82b} and an army of Yorkists; and for the second time, within less than six years, a battle was fought there. {82c} It terminated in the defeat of the Yorkists, and was of great importance to the Lancastrians, because they regained the advantage of the use of the name of King Henry VI. {82d} in their proceedings, as the battle delivered him out of the custody of the Yorkists. Margaret’s victory was, however, disgraced by an act of great barbarity: she, or some of the Lancastrian leaders with her sanction, put to death in cold blood, after the battle, Lord Bonvile, {83a} and Sir Thomas Kiriel {83b} of Kent, to whose custody King Henry had been confided before the battle, and notwithstanding they had remained with him on his express assurance of their safety. Margaret, however, was very far from deriving the advantages which she had hoped for, from the victory. The citizens of London were, for the most part, favourable to the House of York; besides which, they were alarmed at the outrages, rapine, and violence, perpetrated by Margaret’s lawless forces, on their march towards London, and, consequently, its gates were shut against her. Margaret found that she could not obtain admission into the city, and received intelligence that the Earl of Warwick had effected a junction with Edward Earl of March, {83c} at Chipping Norton, near Cotswold, and that they were marching with all the forces that they could collect, upon London; she, therefore, found it expedient to retire with her army, and to proceed to the north of England, in order to raise more forces; and then she hoped to have in the field an army sufficiently strong to crush her antagonists effectually.