red to Coventry, and invited the Duke of York and the Earls
of Salisbury and Warwick to attend the King's person. When they were on
the road, they received intelligence that designs were formed against
their liberties and lives. They immediately separated themselves; Richard
withdrew to his castle of Wigmore; Salisbury to Middleham, in Yorkshire;
and Warwick to his government of Calais, which had been committed to him
after the battle of St. Albans, and which, as it gave him the command of
the only regular military force maintained by England, was of the utmost
importance in the present juncture. Still, men of peaceable dispositions,
and among the rest Bourchier, Archbishop of Canterbury, thought it not
too late to interpose with their good offices in order to prevent that
effusion of blood with which the kingdom was threatened; and the awe in
which each party stood of the other rendered the mediation for some time
successful.

It was agreed that all the great leaders on both sides should meet in
London and be solemnly reconciled. The Duke of York and his partisans
came thither with numerous retinues, and took up their quarters near each
other for mutual security. The leaders of the Lancastrian party used the
same precaution. The mayor, at the head of five thousand men, kept a
strict watch night and day, and was extremely vigilant in maintaining
peace between them. Terms were adjusted, which removed not the ground of
difference. An outward reconciliation only was procured; and in order to
notify this accord to the whole people, a solemn procession to St. Paul's
was appointed, where the Duke of York led Queen Margaret, and a leader of
one party marched hand in hand with a leader of the opposite. The less
real cordiality prevailed, the more were the exterior demonstrations of
amity redoubled. But it was evident that a contest for a crown could
not thus be peaceably accommodated, that each party watched only for an
opportunity of subverting the other, and that much blood must yet be
spilt ere the nation could be restored to perfect tranquillity or enjoy a
settled and established government.

Even the smallest accident, without any formed design, was sufficient, in
the present disposition of men's minds, to dissolve the seeming harmony
between the parties; and, had the intentions of the leaders been ever so
amicable, they would have found it difficult to restrain the animosity of
their followers. One of the King's retinue i