a dismal
dungeon.

[Illustration: STREET LEADING TO THE TOWER.]

On the very day of the battle of Barnet, Queen Margaret, who had
hastened her return to England on hearing of Edward's invasion, landed
at Plymouth, in the southwestern part of England. The young Prince of
Wales, her son, was with her. When she heard the terrible tidings of
the loss of the battle of Barnet and the death of Warwick, she was
struck with consternation, and immediately fled to an abbey in the
neighborhood of the place where she had landed, and took sanctuary
there. She soon, however, recovered from this panic, and came forth
again. She put herself, with her son, at the head of the French troops
which she had brought with her, and collected also as many more as
she could induce to join her, and then, marching slowly toward the
northward, finally took a strong position on the River Severn, near
the town of Tewkesbury. Tewkesbury is in the western part of England,
near the frontiers of Wales.

Edward, having received intelligence of her movements, collected his
forces also, and, accompanied by Clarence and Gloucester, went forth
to meet her. The two armies met about three weeks after the battle of
Barnet, in which Warwick was killed. All the flower of the English
nobility were there, on one side or on the other.

Queen Margaret's son, the Prince of Wales, was now about eighteen
years of age, and his mother placed him in command--nominally at the
head of the army. Edward, on his side, assigned the same position to
Richard, who was almost precisely of the same age with the Prince of
Wales. Thus the great and terrible battle which ensued was fought, as
it were, by two boys, cousins to each other, and neither of them out
of their teens.

The operations were, however, really directed by older and more
experienced men. The chief counselor on Margaret's side was the Duke
of Somerset. Edward's army attempted, by means of certain evolutions,
to entice the queen's army out of their camp. Somerset wished to go,
and he commanded the men to follow. Some followed, but others remained
behind. Among those that remained behind was a body of men under the
command of a certain Lord Wenlock. Somerset was angry because they did
not follow him, and he suspected, moreover, that Lord Wenlock was
intending to betray the queen and go over to the other side; so he
turned back in a rage, and, coming up to Lord Wenlock, struck him a
dreadful blow upon his helmet with