ing-place. Instead of joining her husband and the Nevilles in London
she disembarked from the French fleet at Weymouth, to find the men of the
western counties already flocking to the standards of the Duke of Somerset
and of the Courtenays, the Welsh arming at the call of Jasper Tudor, and
Cheshire and Lancashire only waiting for her presence to rise. A march
upon London with forces such as these would have left Warwick at her mercy
and freed the Lancastrian throne from the supremacy of the Nevilles. The
news of Barnet which followed hard on the queen's landing scattered these
plans to the winds; but the means which had been designed to overawe
Warwick might still be employed against his conqueror. Moving to Exeter to
gather the men of Devonshire and Cornwall, Margaret turned through Taunton
on Bath to hear that Edward was already encamped in her front at
Cirencester. The young king's action showed his genius for war. Barnet was
hardly fought when he was pushing to the west. After a halt at Abingdon to
gain news of Margaret's movements he moved rapidly by Cirencester and
Malmesbury towards the Lancastrians at Bath. But Margaret was as eager to
avoid a battle before her Welsh reinforcements reached her as Edward was
to force one on. Slipping aside to Bristol, and detaching a small body of
troops to amuse the king by a feint upon Sodbury, her army reached
Berkeley by a night-march and hurried forward through the following day to
Tewkesbury. But rapid as their movements had been, they had failed to
outstrip Edward. Marching on an inner line along the open Cotswold country
while his enemy was struggling through the deep and tangled lanes of the
Severn valley, the king was now near enough to bring Margaret to bay; and
the Lancastrian leaders were forced to take their stand on the slopes
south of the town, in a position approachable only through "foul lanes and
deep dykes." Here Edward at once fell on them at daybreak of the fourth of
May. His army, if smaller in numbers, was superior in military quality to
the motley host gathered round the queen, for as at Barnet he had with him
a force of Germans armed with hand-guns, then a new weapon in war, and a
fine train of artillery. It was probably the fire from these that drew
Somerset from the strong position which he held, but his repulse and the
rout of the force he led was followed up with quick decision. A general
advance broke the Lancastrian lines, and all was over. Three thous