ll do tomorrow."

Paul spoke not a word, but returned the look with one infinitely
loving, and together the two rode back to the town.

Chapter 9: The Tragedy Of Tewkesbury

How the battle of Tewkesbury was lost and won is too well known to
need description in detail here. Whether the Lancastrian army could
have held the field before the Yorkist veterans had they been
skilfully generalled will never now be known; but the fiery and
impetuous Duke of Somerset, whose ill-judged ardour had forced the
battle upon his followers, undoubtedly lost the day for them by his
intemperate and reckless disregard of the dictates of common
prudence. After opening the fight by a discharge of ordnance, he
was mad enough to leave his intrenched position on the Home Ground,
and carry his men into the open for a charge upon the opposing
army. Here they were not only confronted by Edward's compact army,
but were taken in the flank and rear by a company of spearmen who
had been told off to guard against a possible ambush in a little
wood; which, however, the hot-headed Somerset had never thought to
place.

Thrown into confusion, the Lancastrians were routed, and confusion
was rendered worse confounded by another impetuous act on the part
of the fiery young duke. As he and his flying soldiers fell back
upon the town of Tewkesbury, and reached the market place, they
found Lord Wenlock and his men sitting idle and motionless there,
as if there was no work for them to do.

The reason for this extraordinary apathy on the part of one of the
leaders will never now be known. It was the curse of the strife of
the Roses that treachery and a change of sides was always
suspected, and too often with good cause, between men who had been
friends and allies heretofore. The Duke of Somerset at once
concluded that Lord Wenlock had turned traitor to the cause, and
riding furiously up to him as he sat, he dashed out his brains with
his battle-axe, without so much as pausing to ask a single
question.

The followers of both leaders who saw the deed were struck with new
terror. With loud cries of "Treason, treason!" they threw down
their arms and fled they knew not whither, and the retreat became a
confused rout, in which the thought of each man was to save his own
life.

Such, in brief, was the deplorable story of the battle of
Tewkesbury. But we are concerned less with the main course of the
fortunes of the day than with the individual adventures