after Towton Field, on Palm Sunday, March
29, 1461, the most sanguinary battle ever fought in England, one hundred
thousand men being engaged, the news of their defeat was brought to the
Lancastrian king Henry and Queen Margaret at York, and they soon became
fugitives, and their youthful adversary, the Duke of York, was crowned
Edward IV. in York Minster. In the Civil War it was in York that Charles
I. took refuge, and from that city issued his first declaration of war
against the Parliament. For two years York was loyal to the king, and
then the fierce siege took place in which the Parliamentary forces
ruined St. Mary's Abbey by undermining and destroying its tower. Prince
Rupert raised this siege, but the respite was not long. Marston Moor saw
the king defeated, Rupert's troopers being, as the historian tells us,
made as "stubble to the swords of Cromwell's Ironsides." The king's
shattered army retreated to York, was pursued, and in a fortnight York
surrendered to the Parliamentary forces. The city languished afterwards,
losing its trade, and developing vast pride, but equal poverty. Since
the days of railways, however, it has become a very important junction,
and has thus somewhat revived its activity.

[Illustration: MICKLEGATE BAR--THE RED TOWER]

[Illustration: YORK MINSTER.]

The walls of York are almost as complete as those of Chester, while its
ancient gateways are in much better preservation. The gateways, called
"bars," are among the marked features of the city, and the streets
leading to them are called "gates." The chief of these is Micklegate,
the highroad leading to the south, the most important street in York,
and Micklegate Bar is the most graceful in design of all, coming down
from Tudor days, with turrets and battlements pierced with cross-shaped
loopholes and surmounted by small stone figures of warriors. It was on
this bar that the head of the Duke of York was exposed, and the ghastly
spectacle greeted his son, Edward IV., as he rode into the town after
Towton Field. It did not take long to strike off the heads of several
distinguished prisoners and put them in his place as an expiatory
offering. Here also whitened the heads of traitors down to as late as
the last Jacobite rebellion. One of the buttresses of the walls of York
is the Red Tower, so called from the red brick of which it is built.
These walls and gates are full of interesting relics of the olden time,
and they are still preserved to