Henry the Sixth escaped to Northumberland with his Queen, but Warwick pursued them. Twenty-eight thousand men were counted dead on the field.Īt last, the Lancastrians began to flee. On the battlefield, it snowed and soon the snow was red with the blood of the slain and, as it melted, it ran down the furrows in crimson streams. Here, young and amiable though he was, Edward showed that he had no mercy in his heart, for he ordered his men to take no prisoners but to kill every one. The two armies came face to face at Towton, near York. Edward of March was as good as crowned Edward the Fourth.įirst, though, there were many Lancastrians to be crushed in the field, and Warwick and Edward boldly led the Yorkists out to meet them.
“Yea, yea, King Edward!” they shouted back, and the ambitious Warwick smiled to himself. In London, a great meeting of the people was held at which they were asked if they would have Edward for king. He decided that if he could make Edward king, he would be able to rule the kingdom himself and have everything his own way. Looking first upon the pious King Henry, then the frivolous Edward of March, the Earl of Warwick devised a scheme. The future Edward the Fourth, York’s eldest son, was then 19, and known as Edward of March. It was she who had triumphed at Wakefield she who crowned the beheaded Duke of York with a paper crown and set it upon the walls of York. The studious Henry had his aggressive wife, Margaret of Anjou, to thank for this. He was the greatest baron in England, and men called him the Kingmaker.Īfter the Lancastrians’ bloody victory over the Yorkists at Wakefield, near York, where Edward’s father, the Duke of York, was killed, the position of Henry the Sixth of Lancaster on the throne seemed secure for a time. He liked to think that both were like putty in his hands, to be turned and twisted, throned and dethroned at his will. Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, knew both kings well. Henry was shy, bookish, pious and gaunt-faced. Edward was gay, handsome, fond only of pleasure and amusement. Two more different men no one could imagine. They were Edward the Fourth of York and Henry the Sixth of Lancaster. The Earl of Warwick is cornered at the Battle of Barnetĭuring that tangled web of history known as the Wars of the Roses, England boasted two kings at the same time.
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