d Earl at once crossed the
Channel. Gathering troops as they moved, they joined Edward near Oxford,
and the end of their plot was at last revealed. No sooner had the armies
united than Edward found himself virtually a prisoner in Warwick's hands.
But the bold scheme broke down. The Yorkist nobles demanded the king's
liberation. London called for it. The Duke of Burgundy "practised
secretly," says Commines, "that King Edward might escape," and threatened
to break off all trade with Flanders if he were not freed. Warwick could
look for support only to the Lancastrians, but the Lancastrians demanded
Henry's restoration as the price of their aid. Such a demand was fatal to
the plan for placing Clarence on the throne, and Warwick was thrown back
on a formal reconciliation with the king. Edward was freed, and Duke and
Earl withdrew to their estates for the winter. But the impulse which
Warwick had given to his adherents brought about a new rising in the
spring of 1470. A force gathered in Lincolnshire under Sir Robert Welles
with the avowed purpose of setting Clarence on the throne; and Warwick and
the Duke, though summoned to Edward's camp on pain of being held for
traitors, remained sullenly aloof. The king however was now ready for the
strife. A rapid march to the north ended in the rout of the insurgents,
and Edward turned on the instigators of the rising. But Clarence and the
Earl could gather no force to meet him. Yorkist and Lancastrian alike held
aloof, and they were driven to flight. Calais, though held by Warwick's
deputy, repulsed them from its walls, and the Earl's fleet was forced to
take refuge in the harbours of France.

[Sidenote: Warwick in France]

The long struggle seemed at last over. In subtlety as in warlike daring
the young king had proved himself more than a match for the "subtlest man
of men now living." He had driven him to throw himself on "our adversary
of France." Warwick's hold over the Yorkists was all but gone. His own
brothers, the Earl of Northumberland and the Archbishop of York, held with
the king, and Edward counted on the first as a firm friend. Warwick had
lost Calais. Though he still retained his fleet he was forced to support
it by making prizes of Flemish ships, and this involved him in fresh
difficulties. The Duke of Burgundy made the reception of these ships in
French harbours the pretext for a new strife with Lewis; he seized the
goods of French merchants at Bruges and demanded r