_Father_.—“Thou that so stoutly hast resisted me, Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold; For I have bought it with an hundred blows.— But let me see: is this our foeman’s face? Ah, no, no, no, it is mine only son! Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee, Throw up thine eye; see, see, what showers arise, Blown by the windy tempest of my heart, Upon thy wounds, that kill mine eye and heart! O pity, Heav’n, this miserable age! What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly, Erroneous, mutinous, and unnatural, This deadly quarrel daily doth beget!” _King Henry_.—“Sad-hearted men, much overgone with care, Here sits a King more woful than you are.” It may be said, that the portion of the scene in which those circumstances are introduced, is one of imagination, and the offspring of the grand and admirable talents of Shakespeare. Be it so; still the truthful records of history disclose quite enough, to prove that deeds of bloodshed and violence, nearly as repulsive to our feelings, and almost as disgraceful to mankind, as those which that scene represents, were frequently perpetrated during those disastrous times; and we may well feel grateful to the supreme Disposer of events, that we are now preserved from the miseries and calamities which were experienced in this country, during the wars of York and Lancaster. CHAPTER VII. THE FIELD OF THE BATTLE OF TEWKESBURY. {131a} “Then came wandering by A shadow like an angel, with bright hair Dabbled in blood; and he shriek’d out aloud, ‘Clarence is come; false fleeting perjured Clarence, That stabb’d me in the field by Tewkesbury.’” SHAKESPEARE’S _King Richard III._ act i. scene 4. OF the numerous battles which have been fought in England in the middle ages, few have been more decisive, or have excited more interest, than that of Tewkesbury. {131b} In order that the positions of the hostile armies, and the reason why the battle happened to be fought close to the town of Tewkesbury, may be correctly understood, it is necessary, in giving a description of the field of battle, to notice concisely, some of the events which immediately preceded it. {131c} On the 18th or 14th of April, 1471, {132a} Margaret, {132b} the Queen of Henry VI., and their son, Edward Prince of Wales, {132c} accompanied by John Longstrother, Prior of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, {132d} and several persons of consideration, arrived from France, and landed at the port of Weymouth, in Dorsetshire, with a small body of French and other troops; and she proceeded from thence to the Abbey of Cerne, {132e} not far from that port. The Countess of Warwick had accompanied her from France, but in a different ship, which outsailed that of the Queen. {133a}