and pretended to pay court to him on their knees,
saying, 'O King, without a kingdom, and Prince without a people, we hope
your gracious Majesty is very well and happy!' They did worse than this;
they cut his head off, and handed it on a pole to the Queen, who laughed
with delight when she saw it (you recollect their walking so religiously
and comfortably to St. Paul's!), and had it fixed, with a paper crown
upon its head, on the walls of York. The Earl of Salisbury lost his
head, too; and the Duke of York's second son, a handsome boy who was
flying with his tutor over Wakefield Bridge, was stabbed in the heart by
a murderous, lord--Lord Clifford by name--whose father had been killed by
the White Roses in the fight at St. Alban's. There was awful sacrifice
of life in this battle, for no quarter was given, and the Queen was wild
for revenge. When men unnaturally fight against their own countrymen,
they are always observed to be more unnaturally cruel and filled with
rage than they are against any other enemy.

But, Lord Clifford had stabbed the second son of the Duke of York--not
the first. The eldest son, Edward Earl of March, was at Gloucester; and,
vowing vengeance for the death of his father, his brother, and their
faithful friends, he began to march against the Queen. He had to turn
and fight a great body of Welsh and Irish first, who worried his advance.
These he defeated in a great fight at Mortimer's Cross, near Hereford,
where he beheaded a number of the Red Roses taken in battle, in
retaliation for the beheading of the White Roses at Wakefield. The Queen
had the next turn of beheading. Having moved towards London, and falling
in, between St. Alban's and Barnet, with the Earl of Warwick and the Duke
of Norfolk, White Roses both, who were there with an army to oppose her,
and had got the King with them; she defeated them with great loss, and
struck off the heads of two prisoners of note, who were in the King's
tent with him, and to whom the King had promised his protection. Her
triumph, however, was very short. She had no treasure, and her army
subsisted by plunder. This caused them to be hated and dreaded by the
people, and particularly by the London people, who were wealthy. As soon
as the Londoners heard that Edward, Earl of March, united with the Earl
of Warwick, was advancing towards the city, they refused to send the
Queen supplies, and made a great rejoicing.

The Queen and her men retreated w