Lancaster
and the Church.

302. The First Battles (1455-1460).

We have already seen (S301) that the first blood was shed at
St. Albans (1455), where the Yorkists, after half an hour's fighting,
gained a complete victory. A similar result followed at Bloreheath,
Staffordshire (1459). In a third battle, at Northampton, the Yorkists
were again successful (1460). Henry was taken prisoner, and Queen
Margaret fled with the young Prince Edward to Scotland. Richard now
demanded the crown. (See map facing p. 172.)

Henry answered with unexpected spirit: "My father was King, his father
also was King. I have worn the crown forty years from my cradle; you
have all sworn fealty to me as your sovereign, and your fathers did
the like to my fathers. How, then, can my claim be disputed?" After
a long controversy, a compromise was effected. Henry agreed that if
he were left in peaceable possession of the throne during his life,
Richard or his heirs should succeed him.

303. Battles of Wakefield and Towton (1460-1461).

But Queen Margaret refused to see her son, Prince Edward, thus tamely
set aside. She raised an army and attacked the Yorkists. Richard,
Duke of York, whose forces were inferior to hers, had entrenched
himself in Sandal Castle near Wakefield, Yorkshire. Day after day
Margaret went up under the walls and dared him to come out.

At length, stung by her taunts, the Duke sallied from his strongold,
and the battle of Wakefield was fought (1460). Margaret was
victorious. Richard was slain, and the Queen, in mockery of his
claims to sovereignty, cut off his head, decked it with a paper crown,
and set it up over the chief gate of the city of York. Fortune now
changed. The next year (1461) the Lacastrians were defeated with
great slaughter at Towton, Yorkshire. The light spring snow was
crimsoned with the blood of thirty thousand slain, and the way strewn
with corpses for ten miles up to the walls of York.

The Earl of Warwick (S296), henceforth popularly known as "King
Maker," now place Edward, eldest son of the late Duke of York, on the
throne, with the title of Edward IV (S300, table). Henry and Margaret
fled to Scotland. The new government summoned them to appear, and as
they failed to answer, proclaimed them traitors.

Four years later Henry was taken prisoner and sent to the Tower of
London (S305). He may have been happier there than battling for his
throne. He was not born to reign, but rather,