mediately followed this victory
there was little to promise the triumph of the Crown. The king, Edward the
Fourth, was but a boy of nineteen; and decisive as his march upon London
proved, he had as yet given few signs of political ability. His luxurious
temper showed itself in the pomp and gaiety of his court, in feast and
tourney, or in love-passages with city wives and noble ladies. The work of
government, the defence of the new throne against its restless foes, he
left as yet to sterner hands. Among the few great houses who recalled the
might of the older baronage two families of the northern border stood
first in power and repute. The Percies had played the chief part in the
revolution which gave the crown to the House of Lancaster. Their rivals,
the Nevilles, had set the line of York on the throne. Fortune seemed to
delight in adding lands and wealth to the last powerful family. The
heiress of the Montacutes brought the Earldom of Salisbury and the barony
of Monthermer to a second son of their chief, the Earl of Westmoreland;
and Salisbury's son, Richard Neville, won the Earldom of Warwick with the
hand of the heiress of the Beauchamps. The ruin of the Percies, whose
lands and Earldom of Northumberland were granted to Warwick's brother,
Lord Montagu, raised the Nevilles to unrivalled greatness in the land.
Warwick, who on his father's death added the Earldom of Salisbury to his
earlier titles, had like his father warmly espoused the cause of Richard
of York, and it was to his counsels that men ascribed the decisive step by
which his cousin Edward of March assumed the crown. From St. Albans to
Towton he had been the foremost among the assailants of the Lancastrian
line; and the death of his uncle and father, the youth of the king, and
the glory of the great victory which confirmed his throne, placed the Earl
at the head of the Yorkist party.

[Sidenote: Warwick]

Warwick's services were munificently rewarded by a grant of vast estates
from the confiscated lands of the Lancastrian baronage, and by his
elevation to the highest posts in the service of the State. He was Captain
of Calais, Admiral of the fleet in the Channel, and Warden of the Western
Marches. The command of the northern border lay in the hands of his
brother, Lord Montagu. A younger brother, George Neville, already raised
to the post of Lord Chancellor, was soon to receive the See of York.
Lesser rewards fell to Warwick's uncles, the minor chiefs of t